A Wonderful Vacation :)

It has been a great week! Our vacation was jam packed with great activities, friends and family. We will be studying Abraham Lincoln this year so we hopped in the car for a day trip to New Salem. The kids had a great time. A love trips that are fun and educational :)

We also took a trip to the St. Louis Zoo. They have an exhibit that allows you to touch and feed sting rays! The kids LOVED getting up close and personal with these awesome animals.

Elliana and I spent some girl time at the hair salon :) She got her very first hair cut (just a trim) and I got a trim too... :) On the days that we were not out of town we headed to Lake Evergreen. We ended up spending three days on the Lake. We rented canoes, a paddle boat and a motor boat (through out the three days). We LOVE being adventurous and getting out into nature. We even saw a bald eagle :)

We ended our week with an overnight trip to the Quad Cities. We were able to visit my mom and Aaron's grandparents. It was so sweet to see the way Elliana talked and acted around her Grandma's. She could tell that these ladies were something special :) I remember being the same way around my grandma's :) During our stay in the Quad Cities I ran the Bix (a 7 mile run up many hills..it was awesome!) and we visited with some wonderful friends that we don't get to see very often. Jared and Beth are amazing people that inspire me to be a better parent. I love visiting with them :) We were so busy having fun we didn't take any pictures of our time up north.

My Dad is AWESOME!

With our recent move we were forced to leave our swing set behind. The kids were getting a little big for it anyway. When they all used it at once it would come close to tipping over. So the search began for a wooden swing set.

We found what appeared to be a great deal. We went to Menards picked everything up and then figured out why it was a great deal- no predrilled holes, no pieces cut to length. We were about to despair when we remembered my dad. :) I asked him to come and be the brains behind our project. He did one better. He came and did it all. I am blessed to have such a giving and hard working father :)

Everyone told us this would be a huge project that will take days to complete. Dad pulled in at 1:30 and left at 8. Six and half hours was the total time it took to put up this awesome swing set! My dad never stopped working. It was great to spend the day talking and joking together. He is very talented and makes the impossible look easy.

Here are some pictures of our day.

Everyone wanted to help!

Joshua looking through the telescope...

The starting point..

Dad cutting all the pieces to length.

Elliana and Asher playing on the slide while we were building.

Joshua helping Grandapa build the tower

The tower- in progress

The finished product- the kids LOVE it!

Grandpa and the kids :)

Update!

We are in crazy mode over here! I will have no time to update the blog for the next week so I thought I would give a brief overview of our crazy life at the moment.

We are moving in 3 days. I have packed about 120 boxes in the last week :) Everything is ready to go, now we just wait.

In the midst of packing I realized that this is the summer for Asher to learn how to ride without training wheels. And we will be leaving our cul-de-sac in just a few days, the perfect place to learn this skill. So you know me and my over achiever craziness..I taught Asher to ride his bike!!! Yeah Asher!!! He learned in 3 days :) When he rides he grins from ear to ear, so cute :)

The next few days I will be cleaning and packing up the last minute essentials. Then we will be off to the next journey God has placed in front of us!

If you think of us, here are some prayer requests-
-safety for everyone helping us move
-moving will run smoothly and some awesome, fun memories will be made
-all the details of the move just fall into place
-we will have great neighbors, we will truly miss the neighbors we have now

The next time I post I should have some great move-in pictures!

Huge Update!

Lots has been going on around here and I have not had the time to blog about any of it. So here is a short version of a few highlights...

Joshua has been spending his spare time playing dominoes, Lego's and pattern blocks.

The space shuttle. It is docked and can be removed. The actual shuttle then separates from the fuel tanks.

He had fun making neat designs.

Two space ships battling.

Asher and Elliana dancing.

I finished the quilting portion of Elaina's quilt. I just need to complete the binding :) I designed and put together her pillow case this afternoon.

She likes her quilt!

Thanksgiving!!

I love my extended family. I have 7 Aunts and Uncles and 15 cousins. Several of my cousins now have children and I also have several sets of grandparents. For many years my mother has hosted Thanksgiving for our entire family :) She does an amazing job of cooking turkeys and making sides and desserts. She is a great cook!

With a house full of family we gather around for prayer and some great food. As much as we love the food that is not the best part of our holidays. The best part of our get togethers occurs over the food and in comfy chairs in the living room. It is wonderful to spend time talking to family. Sharing with people who genuinely care about you and what is going on in your life is refreshing. Our family is musically talented which makes the festivities even more wonderful. Before long guitars and a keyboard are taken out of their cases and we all sing together (although I cannot sing, so I just listen). I LOVE these people. They are so genuine and caring. Simply stated they are "family".

Vacation- Part Two

On Thursday we spent the day visiting family and friends in the Quad Cities. On the way there we saw someone familiar on the truck in front of us.....

At my moms house the kids enjoyed riding the horses and hanging out with Grandma :)

Chicago!!!

Yesterday our family headed to Chicago for a much anticipated vacation. It has been about 4 years since our last stay in a hotel as a family so we were all very excited. We rolled out of town around 7:30 am. Our first stop once we hit the Windy City was Shed Aquarium. The kids loved all the neat fish, especially the sharks. After meandering through all the exhibits we hopped in the van and headed to Sears Tower. Now you all may not know this about me but I am afraid of heights.. actually terrified is a better way to describe the heart palpitations and feelings of EXTREME anxiety. I have not always had this fear. In fact, before we were married I would scare Aaron to death by going out onto cliffs in the Colorado mountains. But in my old age I have acquired this lovely phobia.

Anyway, we headed up to Sears Tower. After going through the metal detector (like that is going to alleviate my fears!) we got on the elevator and headed up to floor 103 (103 people!! That is crazy high!). The kids had a blast looking out over the city. I was doing ok until we noticed an airplane in the sky, very close to where we were. I looked at said plane once and never looked back. I did more looking out than looking down. But ya know they have this new thing you can do on the 103rd floor. It is called the “Sky Deck”. Apparently some genius thought it would be neat to suspend Plexiglas 103 floors in the sky.

Aaron and the kids jumped right in while I held back. You know when you tell your kids your afraid of something like spiders and they do everything they can to find a spider and scare you with it..can you see where I am going with this…they started pushing me out on this transparent piece of plastic…103 floors in the sky! I about had a heart attack. But then I realized that it would be a cool picture to take with my little girl. So I decided to walk out quickly with my eyes shut, sit down and look up at the camera and then get out as quickly as I could… After the Sears Tower we checked in at our hotel. We stayed at the Sheraton on North Water Street. It overlooked the river and the view was amazing! After admiring our room and peaking in at the gym (hey, I couldn’t help it!) we made our way to Lou Malnati's. The pizza was amazing and the company was even better. Once we were stuffed with pizza we trekked back to our hotel and relaxed until bedtime. The view at night was so wonderful. It only took us an hour to get the kids to fall asleep. It was so fun to hear them giggle hysterically when they were supposed to be going to sleep. This morning we hit Michigan Avenue for some more fun! The boys LOVED the Lego store. Elliana and I were very excited to venture into the American Girl Store. When we got to the front door I asked her “Are you ready to see some baby’s?” Her very enthusiastic response was “YEAH!”. We browsed for a very long time. Just admiring all the pretty dolls, clothes and accessories. It was such an awesome mommy-daughter time with my little girl. After a quick lunch, at which the boys realized how tired they were...we headed home….