80th Birthday

The next weekend we traveled

 for my maternal grandmother's 80th birthday!

Here's a shot of my grandmother and her 4 children.  My mom is on the left.

My mom organized an amazing dinner for the whole family complete with an amazing slide show down memory lane courtesy of my father.  Here is a shot of the whole family.  Other than a handful of people, it's cool to think that I am related to everyone in this picture.  I love my big family!

Here's my grandmother (standing) with her sister on the right and her aunt on the left.  They flew in from Alabama as special birthday surprises.  They had a good visit with each other.  This was the first time Aunt Sara had ever been on a plane.

There was lots of wrestling, football playing, and game playing.  I have fond memories of doing the same when I was a child with my cousins.  Now it's fun to see my kids getting to have the same fun memories.

Lots of cousins up a tree!

We had a great weekend celebrating with Granny Jean!  We look forward to many more years!  

Happy Birthday!

My dear friend

My first weekend away in November was to visit a dear friend that used to live in my town.  She has now moved to Northern Arizona and I was desperate for a visit.  Here's a shot of her beautiful family!

It was just gorgeous where she lives.  It reminded me of parts of Northern NM.  The smells were wonderful, the mountains were majestic, the food was great, and the fellowship was tremendous.

We spent a day hiking in a near by town.  It was chilly on our hike.  It was great to escape the heat for awhile.

It was wonderful seeing her family.  In some ways, things had changed (the kids were bigger and new house), but many other things were not.  Our friendship just picked up where it left off.  I hope our paths cross again soon.  She is such a blessing to my life!

Catch up

I am going to stop apologizing for neglecting the blog, because I am pregnant, married, and have 3 busy children.  Life just keeps happening.  As it so happens, I have a few non-busy days I am going to get caught up and attempt to stay caught up.

Grandparents Day

Crash's school hosted a Grandparent's Day last week.  We were excited to have my parents and my grandmother be able to join him for the day.  He was just positively giddy about the whole thing.  He has been looking forward to that for days.

I realize I am tall, but pictures like these always catch me off guard.

Here's the grandparents with our beloved teacher, Mrs. C.  We are so thankful to have her this year.

They did crafts together.

The kids performed for the grandparents.

I was the parent coordinator for the day.  I led a story time with the book "That's What Grandparents are for."  I had to be super crafty and creative for that day, which is so not me.  Thank goodness for ideas off the internet.

It was a fun day!  It just made Crash's day!  That was worth it all.  What a blessing to have Grandparents!

Enchanted Rock

We took the boys on our first official hike to Enchanted Rock.  It was about a 2 mile round trip so we thought we could handle that.

Everyone had to carry their own water, which was a huge relief to the backs of the parents.  It was fun sharing our love of the outdoors with the kids.  We talked about trail preservation, how to hike, etiquette, and beef jerky.  They actually enjoyed that after tasting it.

Crash loved this outing!  He is quite the hiker.

Hooray we made it to the top!

In addition, to their water bottles they all decided that had to bring a stuffed animal hiking.  Don't ask.  My chatty children made friends with some women visiting from the east at the summit.  They talked these ladies' ears off telling them about tadpoles, stuffed animals, and dinosaur bones.  Thank you ladies for listening to my children!

The nice ladies took a great family picture at the top!

We finished off the day with lunch in the park and a little birding.  It was a fun day!  We look forward to doing it again.

Homeschool Day at SeaWorld

SeaWorld had a homeschool day that we attended.  It was a significantly reduced rate than the usual admission.  There were no rides, but there was lots to see.

Here we are in a our "school uniforms"- our Lego Star Wars shirts.  

I had each of the boys carry a backpack with their own lunch and water.  Brilliant plan on my part.  I did end up carrying Wingman's by the end, but still a lot lighter than lugging 4 lunches and 4 bottles of water in my backpack.

There's a diver in the water feeding the fish.  They loved watching him.

Every where we go we have to have a map for each boy.  They love maps.

We saw the home for the sea lions.  They were putting on quite the show.  They were barking loudly and swimming all over.

Instead of the usual theatric shows they put on, we saw a more educational version.  They demonstrated how they trained the animals.  They brought out some younger whales and sea lions that are training to be in a show some day.  It was a fun day for all!

When we got home, Wingman had to make his own stadium out of blocks for all his dolphins, whales, and sea lions to have a show.  I forgot to take a picture, but it was great.  Apparently, our collection of animals does not include beluga whales so the manatees had to fill in as beluga whales.  That boy has an imagination!

Thank goodness for big brothers

Most nights the Captain reads to the boys.  We are talking 45min to an hour of reading.  I don't know how he does it (my voice tires after about 25 mins), but the boys look forward to it every night.  

One night just as book time began, the Captain had to deal with something at the front door.  I can't remember what I was doing, but I came in to find the Test Pilot had taken over and was reading to his brothers.

They loved every minute of it.  Sweet boys!