Sigh

This is a really hard job, girls. I'm so tired.

Home At Last!

After seven days of driving we are here! Had a couple of complications upon arriving but all is well now! Yeah! We are home!!!

Bathing Suit Shopping

I'm guessing most of you cringed just reading the Title of this blog. Nikki and I went together last night and let me tell you if you have to buy a bathing suit going with a friend is the way to do it! I have not laughed that hard in a long time. Our first stop was Old Navy, we were guessing it was a long shot but thought we'd try anyways. We both grabbed "sexy" one pieces, the kind with seriously plunging fronts. Well lets just say I don't think "the girls" are supposed to be hanging to your stomach in those suits, Nikki and I pretty much fell over laughing at the sight of our post nursing breasts in those suits. So after attempting again at Marshals for a suit Nikki had the great idea to go somewhere that catered to woman not teens. We headed to Nordstroms where yes the price tags were much higher but so were "the girls"! Thank the Lord for underwire! We found some really cute suits that we felt pretty good in and will look pretty good poolside in Vegas!

This is my Life

"Hi there, what did you do today?"

"I Cleaned my kitchen."

"What else did you do?"

"I cleaned my Kitchen. I Cleaned my Kitchen. I Cleaned My Kitchen!"

Road Trip (Catch Up)!

I have not had internet the past three nights so I will provide a slide show of sorts to catch you up! These three days and nights were as follows: San Antonio, Tx to El Paso, Tx then El Paso, Tx to Tucson, Az then Tucson to Lake Havasu City, Az and today we went LHC to Bakersfield, Ca.

Gotta Love TEXAS!!!

Not a good idea to hand a toddler a Kleenex and leave her unattended for a few moments. We had to pull over and fish this out of her nose. Hopefully she learned!

Sweet (toothy) Smiles!

Couldn't resist capturing these adorable little buns!

Fun in the El Paso sun!!!

Now in Tucson! The cacti are so cool to see, out of the ordinary for us!

The sign Andy has been waiting for! We ate at In-N-Out in Phoenix!

This is the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, Az. I learned that this is the original London Bridge from England. In the 1960's it was taken apart piece by piece and shipped to Az.
Here we are having dinner at a brewery. This is where I took the above pic, great dinner view!
Here is a park on the lake, it is beautiful! It was hotter 'n hadies - 106 degrees. Yuck!!!
We decided to endure the unbearable heat long enough to document ourselves! :)
Yeah!!! California Dreamin'!!!
A Joshua Tree in Southern California!

We are in Bakersfield tonight and will leave early in the morning for our last day of driving!!! Tomorrow we will arrive at Travis AFB! This is very exciting to us - the moment we have been waiting for for over a year and a half!

Wordless Wednesday

Things That Are Happening When The House Is Quiet

Guilty Pleasure

In our house the worst shows, after soap operas, are "Reality Shows" J man can't stand them with quite a passion, too staged, too preying on emotions and too reminiscent to the Romans and the Coliseum. That said, my new guilty pleasure that I have fallen for is the reality show starring Tori & Dean. Previously known as "Inn Love" now "Home Sweet Hollywood". What sucked me in was the fact that she has an almost 1 year old and is 6 months pregnant with the second! I love baby drama, it makes my life seem easy! Then after watching it I thought they were so sweet to each other and it was cute and well I got hooked in and even watched the Marathon of it the other night. What a way to waste 3 hours!

What's your guilty pleasure?

Mom, I'm so itchy!

He's playing it up for the camera, but he is so miserable!

Rabbit Hunting and Scarlet Fever: It's like I'm in Western

Weird couple of days. Let me go back a couple of years first though, to add to the weirdness. Noah used to be obsessed with making spider webs out of thread. One day (about 2 years ago) he made one in a bush. That evening he ran in upset saying that there was a dead rabbit outside. Well, when we went to look, yep you guessed it - It was all tangled up in Noah's "web". I think it had had a heart attack. Skip forward a couple of years to yesterday. I went outside to check on Noah and found him very upset. "Mom", he said, " I threw a rock at a squirrel and it turns out it was a rabbit. I think it's dead!" Sure enough, girls. At age 7 my son has accidentally killed two rabbits. I'm pretty sure people starving in the wild have been unable to throw a rock at a rabbit and kill it, or snare one in a hand-made trap for that matter! Noah also has had a sore throat for a couple of days and broke out in a HUGE rash that has spread all over his body. I suspected scarlet fever and I was right. We just got back from the doctor. Brant is out of town leaving me to care for the homestead and my eldest son has scarlet fever, but at least I know we won't starve! Rabbit stew anyone?

Visitors

Alright Family, Friends, and Strangers, since installing our hit counter a few days ago we now know what we've long suspected...you are out there! Please everyone feel free to leave comments if you want.....as long as they are nice that is :) Don't feel your eavesdropping or uninvited however you've found us we would love to hear from you!

First Zoo Trip

Yesterday was our first family outing to the zoo and it ended up being a
pretty perfect day. Warm but not hot, relatively rested kids and not ridiculously crowded. The girls loved seeing all the animals and everything was either a "Woo-Woo" (which is their word for Dog) a "Ki-Ki" (Cat) or a "Bir" (Bird). Their little fingers were constantly pointing at things and they couldn't take it all in fast enough. J and I had fun too and it was one of those days where everything is lovely and you love being a family.



Kaelyn and I monkying around (haha)







Elyse wondering "Is this thing real?!!" Kaelyn wondering "Whats up there?"





This is us falling into the pull of the zoo store
or should I say me...I insisted we get them
something for their first official zoo trip. I promise
it won't happen next time and look how happy
they are!! They didn't let those things go the rest
of the day, slept with them last night and are
presently carrying them around!! (I know I'm a
sucker)


Last interesting tidbit about our trip happened while the girls were
eating lunch. They were sitting in their wagon and J and I were sitting on
a bench. I was watching the people walk by who were watching the girls, they were getting lots of "ohh how cute" and waves and were waving back.
One couple walked by and the girls waved at her she smiled, waved at them and nudged her husband to look at them. He smiled, she waved bye and they went on. As they were moving on I noticed her cute leather bag. As they walked away a guy walked up to us and said, "That was Conan O'Brien!" then some teenagers went chasing off after them and a few minutes later came back in our direction. J asked them if they talked to him and they said they just said "Hi" but he wasn't doing pics or autographs and obviously trying to not draw a crowd. Anyway that was our little celebrity moment. His wife is from Seattle...I wondered if their kids were somewhere in the zoo with someone else and if they had to take off because they had been recognized, kind of sucks being "famous" sometimes, not sure it's a price I'd want to pay.

So there is our zoo adventure! We can't wait to go again!

One Year!

Look at the difference one year can make! The one pic was taken this time last year and the recent one was just this past weekend. Amazing!

Road Trip Day #1 - San Antonio, Texas

Here is the family and how each of them pass their time in the car!




All right. We have come to some very note-worthy conclusions for those of you who may take extended trips as young families. Conclusion #1: If you chose to pump your self and your children full of fast food crap for the duration of your road trip, tac an extra TWO hours onto your travel time. We drove a supposed 7 hour trip today that took us 9 hours. Three stops to the tune of 2.25 hours. Discouraging!
Conclusion #2: Yoga is possible while driving in the car, scratch that, van 70 mph down the freeway. Let me explain. Unbuckle your seat belt, turn around and face the wee-ones in the backseat, straddle the center console and place one foot on your seat and one foot under your husbands leg on the drivers seat, stand up and bend over while leaning all the way back to reach the pacifier that has been thrown to the floor on the far back side near the sliding door. This is down-face dog - road trip style!

What?! Not again!

I was in a funky part of town full of funky people (of course) and I saw a funky cool guy (I say this so you know he was definately not a nerd) anyway HIS PANTS WERE TIGHT ROLLED! Is this coming back? You know what I'm talking about, right? The fold over and roll up method we so meticulously used in elementary school? I guess it was inevitable. I said I would never wear bell bottoms, and most of my pants are flare (which is just a modern bell bottom). I said then that I would never wear tapered jeans and I love my urban outfitter skinny jeans (which are just the modern taper). Am I doomed to return to the tight roll? Whether or not it is returning, I have just confirmed the fact that I'm getting old by acknowledging my own mortification at a fashion trend from my younger years resurfacing.

Triathlon Training

So I don't know how updated I've kept you all with my triathlon training but so far swimming has been by far the hardest thing for me. (Granted our first bike ride isn't until this Saturday...) The first three times we went I felt I was drowning with the amount of water I seemed to suck in and I swear I don't know how I was doing it but somehow I managed to feel like I was tripping in the water. I'd be swimming along fine (well at least moving forward) then all of a sudden my arms, body, and legs seemed to tangle with the water. Sounds weird but that is how uncoordinated I sometimes felt. Then last Thursday it all kind of seemed to click together and I was finally doing it, I was swimming! It felt great! Then the busy Father's Day weekend hit and then PMS and then a case of Blizzardites (that's the absolute need to eat a Snickers Blizzard and life can not go on until you do) and we didn't get back into the pool until this past Wednesday thankfully I think I've hit the point where I now "have it" and though there may be times I "lose it" I can seem to get back in the swing of things...or should I say the swim of things (haha). So anyway now for a little bragging, Nikki and I swam 1/2 a mile both Wednesday and Thursday and then promptly ran 2 miles! Go us! I'm loving feeling like I'm training for something as opposed to just exercising. It makes it about strength not weight. Just for an FYI our triathlon is on August 17th, the day after I turn 30! WooHoo! Anyway this is such a big part of my time and thoughts right now so just wanted to share how it's going.

The Tatt!

The house is messy in these photos! The tatt's a bit shiney and new, the green will fade a little when it heals, but . . . Here it is! Big, huh?

Oh, summer!

My favorite part of every day:
Brant comes home with Noah pulled behind his bike (He's been taking Noah to Science camp that way every day this week). Noah goes to the playground with his friends. Brant puts Juan on his back and I put Ruby on mine. We head out to the garden with a big bowl and gather spinach, lettuce, dill, and basil and maybe do a little weeding. Then we walk back home, collect Noah sometimes, and go inside to make an amazing fresh salad. We all sit down to dinner together and then most nights go back outside to play for a while. In the middle of winter when it was below zero outside, I dreamed of days like these. I am going to enjoy every minute of it!

Wordless Wednesday

They love playing with their silk scarves, it's hilarious because they can see through them and they run all over with them on their heads.

This is Elyse's idea of getting dressed.

Online for Now

Well here I am. As you know, my internet has been down for two weeks! ANNOYING!!! I am going to catch up and post a bunch of stuff I have been saving up. Also, we are moving out of our apartment on thursday and leaving for our roadtrip on friday! Wish us luck! I'll be in touch! :)

Climber!

Pretty resourceful for an 8 month old! I couldn't believe when I found him like this!!!