ICE!

Dustin and I went to a party thrown for the managers at Hawk and there wives. The party was held at the Gaylord Texan, this really beautiful resort type hotel in nearby Grapevine. During the winter months they usually have an "Ice" show of sorts which changes it's theme every year. We enjoyed the show so much I decided to bring the children and Grandma back a couple days later to share the experience. We had a blast. The kids went down the ice slides so many times and had so much fun. The resort furnishes these heavy parkas to keep you warm (they keep the inside of the rooms at 9 degrees). I highly recommend any Texans that have not yet been to go in the future. It is amazing!

Logan is 5 years old!!!

My little boy is growing up fast! I can't believe we've had him in our lives for 5 years. Time flies! Logan is a very smart little boy and has energy to spare! I don't think he has ever met a stranger. He can be a bit of a handful with a combination of excess energy and being hard of hearing (or should I say he's got selective hearing). He is one of the most loving children I have ever met. He gives hugs freely, he is such a cuddler, and quick to say "I love you". I am so grateful that this special little boy was sent to me!

My little PreSchooler!

Logan started preschool this September. He is really enjoying it and I am hoping that the preschool will serve it's purpose in readying Logan for Kindergarten, socially. He is getting better at listening to his teachers Miss Paula and Miss Kay. So that is encouraging. Ashlynn is biting at the bit to go to school like Brother. She is loving the one-on-one time with Mom though.

Ballerina Girl

There's no place like home! There's no place like home!

We're back! Dustin and I arrived home in TX really late Saturday evening from Puerto Rico. We had a blast. The waveless beach was beautiful and peaceful. The rain forest was amazing and the coqui were enchanting. I guess there is a lot of coral reefs around the island that we were frequenting, therefore, no waves. I thought it was kind of a bummer at first but it was kind of nice to float gently on the surface of the waveless water. The water was clear and I had a pet fish that was intrigued with me as I was of it. The whole time I was in the water the fish was by my side. It was lots of fun. We saw some crabs and found several nice size conch shells. Dustin and I went wave running one morning and enjoyed that (at least I did as I was captaining the vessel and went at my own, safe, pace.) We went to the rain forest one day and it was just beautiful. We were all set up to go zip lining but that fell through at the last minute so we did our own thing and hiked down to this beautiful waterfall. We had a wonderful time marveling at the amazing flora and fauna. One of the coolest, most memorable, parts of the trip was the coqui. Coqui are these little frogs that are only found in some of the Caribbean islands. They chirp, sounding like a bird. It actually sounds like they are saying "Co Kee." The resort we stayed in had these little frogs all over and their chirps filled the night air. It was really cool. About a day into our trip, Dustin's face started looking very well healed. By the end of the trip, there was almost no trace of a burn left on him. He has healed wonderfully and quickly. We really had a great trip and were so excited to come home and see the kiddoes!

Getting ready for Puerto Rico!

Dustin and I are leaving Tuesday bright and early for Puerto Rico. We'll be staying at the Waldorf Astoria El Conquistador Resort. Here is the link if your interested, http://www.elconresort.com/index.cfm . It is sandwiched between the Rain forest and the Ocean. The Resort owns an island right of the coast that they will boat you to and from. It's shores are beautiful white sand beaches with crystal clear water and lots of reefs to explore (if you like to chance bumping into a shark!) We have been anticipating this trip for quite some time. Well... Dustin had a little accident the other day and received 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree burns to his face and arms. He was very lucky, it could have been worse. He has a couple small 3rd degree burn spots on his face and lots of discoloring. He says he looks like an indian brave about ready to go to war with all the war paint on. I imagine that he will heal well and probably reasonably quick, but not quick enough for our trip! It will be interesting to try to keep his burned skin from burning while spending all our time on the beach. I think we will find him a sombrero or something similar to sport while out in the sun (he's cool enough to pull it off...right?) OH YEAH! There is also a hurricane heading straight for Puerto Rico and should hit while we are there, just in case our lives were not exciting enough. So now, the trip I have been so looking forward to is sounding less and less appealing.

Magic Kingdom

We drove 3 hours round trip to Orlando to go to Disney World. For us it was well worth it. Logan and Ashlynn were soooo excited to be at "Disney World" and were wowed by everything. Ashlynn loved Splash Mountain, Logan loved the Buzz Lightyear ride. The kids were both tall enough to go on everything but Space Mountain so they went on their first roller coaster, Runaway Mountain and loved it. It was later in the day and lots of people had left so we didn't have to wait in line for very long so as soon as we got off the kids wanted an encore so we got back in line and went on it a second time, they wanted to go again but it was getting late and we had to try to get as much in as possible. It was so fun to watch the kids and see their eyes glowing with excitement. There was a light show parade and that was way cool. All the floats and characters were covered in light and it was magnificent. The kids loves this as much as the rides. We made some really great memories there at Disney and the kids are rearing to go again.

Ormond Beach, FL

We had a blast at the beach house and it took very little time for the kids to claim ownership of "the Beach House." Ashlynn would say, "I want to go back to my beach house!" Since we've been back home, the kids would see beach toys or pool toys and want them to take back to their beach house. We had a great time there. The kids swam for a couple hours everyday in the backyard. Ashlynn much preferred staying in the pool to going to the beach. Logan had a blast playing in the endless sands of the beach. He made several sand castles, he helped mom make a sand alligator that didn't last long enough for a picture because the kids tried to ride it. We buried Logan in the sand a couple of times and searched for seashells. Bella and I took to the waves to Boogie board several times and had a blast doing that. One day the waves were amazing and I knew I had caught a great wave when it would rip my pants off, I would have to try to hold on to them with the tip of my toe and then finally give up and grab it with a hand at which point I would lose control of the boogie board and be tossed like a rag doll in the waves. What fun! I saw a couple crabs, jelly fish and 2 starfish. I forget how amazingly beautiful the ocean is. I had so much fun at the beach!

St. Augustine, FL

We had a wonderful vacation in FL. We drove what seemed like forever to get there but had so much fun when we arrived! We stopped in Jacksonville, FL on our way and visited Michael's grave. (Bob, Michael and I were all born in Jacksonville.) This was special as it has been several years since any of us have had the opportunity to visit his grave. When then headed down to Ormond Beach to the beach house we had rented. The house was a short 5 min walk to the beach. We had a pool and hot tub in the back yard which the kids LOVED. Ashlynn much preferred the pool to the beach as she did not like to get dirty! We headed up to St. Augustine one day and a couple of us ventured up an old lighthouse. We then all went and toured an old fort there, I forget the name. It was incredible. It had a moat around it and everything. St. Augustine is truly one of the oldest towns in the US. The Spanish claimed St. Augustine as there own and then the English decided to try to take over. The history of the town was cool. It was fun to see all the old establishments, an old graveyard that had graves from several hundred years ago and an old school house. What fun!

Marathon Man!

Dustin did it! He ran his first marathon, 26.2 miles. He did this in 4 hours and 9 minutes! He was disappointed because he had stopped to walk for a couple of minutes after running the first 20 miles non-stop. He is already talking about doing another in 6 months and that he would like to do an ultra marathon which is like 30 miles or something like that. I personally think he lost a bit of his mind running this last marathon! I am very proud of him for accomplishing this long time goal!

Logan's 1st goal!

Today was Logan's second soccer game. The first was crazy, it was very cold and windy and Logan did not want to play at all. Today was better, the weather was nice enough and the kids have had a little more practice. Logan's team was scoring like crazy and it was fun to watch these boys excitement. Logan had barely missed a goal, just barely and was so disappointed. Then he scored a point for the other team and of course everyone had to cheer him on and the look on his face was priceless, he had the biggest smile on his face and ran up to hug Coach Logan (funny huh). A little later in the quarter he made yet another goal, this time for the right team, such a proud moment for mom. Dustin missed the game because he is in Minnesota for his brother Clint's wedding. So we had to call daddy to tell him about the game and Logan said, "Dad, I made two goals, but you missed it!" I was sorry he missed it because I know he would have loved to see the look on Logan's face!

Skiing!!!

Dustin and I went to Winter Park, CO to attempt skiing for the first time. Truly, I did not feel like getting into a bathing suit and so I tried to think of a good angle to steer Dustin away from our usual annual trip of going to the beach! I worked the "Expand our horizon, try something new" angle VERY hard and got my reluctant husband to agree to it. When we flew into Denver, there was a big snow storm, so we had to drive into the mountain in a snow storm, that was not fun, I was a nervous wreck. The next day we went skiing. We missed the ski lesson by 10 minutes and the next one wasn't for 4 hours so we decided to naively attack the mountain. We went to a smallish hill that had a lift that pulled you up the hill by sticking this thing between your legs, that was fun! It took me forever to get down that little hill. About a third of the way down I fell and could not for the life of me get up. I thought I was going to dislocate my knee or break my ankle trying, I was getting very frustrated and tired from trying to pull myself up and I thought skiing was CRAP. After about 10 minutes I manged to get up. When I finally made it down the hill I asked the lift operator how to get up when you fall and he told me how to do it. Right after that I was heading up the lift again and fell over. I was mortified. This time it took me a few moments to get up. My shins were hurting from the devils invention (aka. ski boots) and I was getting this awful "brain freeze" type headache that would not subside. I could not understand what was alluring about skiing at all. Walking around on skis is a joke, every scoot forward I'd slide two scoots back, not fun! I decided to ditch the boots, the lesson and the husband to go back to the condo and relax in the private sauna and read my book, it was GREAT! Dustin came back a couple of hours later after having a fun time. He said the lesson was kind of a waste, they taught him how to stop and took him down some slopes. The following day we went to Golden, CO and shopped at the CO Mills Mall and watched 3 movies (Valkyrie, 7 Pounds, and Twilight) and ate out. This is stuff we don't normally do at home so we were taking advantage of being kid free. We had a great day together. The following day, we decided to go sledding, as I didn't want to ski ever again, we went to this place to sled and it was a pathetic little hill so we decided to try skiing again. I'm so glad we did. I got a better ski boot this time, so much more comfortable (thanks to my huge feet, I got an upgrade, the basic boot did not go up to size 10). (After my pregnancy my feet went from size 9 to 10!) Dustin and I did the small hill acouple of times and then headed up the real ski lift to tackle some bigger ones. The ski lift was fun, I tried to identify the different animal tracks I saw and argued with Dustin as to what they were. Some of the lifts made me want to vomit as there was nothing holding you in and your dangling far above the ground. So we would ski down the slopes right back to the line going back up the lift so we would not have to walk/scoot along at all. We never had to wait longer than a minute to get back up the lift, which was very nice. We did this several times, and I have to brag a little, I only fell 1 time the whole day. Dustin bit it several times. A couple of times his skis would fly off and people would have to grab them for him and bring it down to him. After this experience, I could totally see the allure of skiing, I can't wait to go back and try it again! We had a great time together and really appreciated mom or taking such great care of the kiddoes!

Christmas time!

We had a great Christmas. The kids were so excited about Santa coming and are at such a fun age. They left cookies and eggnog out for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. First thing Christmas morning they both went to check on the goodies to make sure they were gone. Dustin and I had a wonderful time watching the kid's abundant excitement.

Watch out bunny slopes, here we come!

Dustin and I are finally taking our long awaited annual trip! We have made arrangements to go to Winter Park, Colorado for 5 days in January. This will be both mine and Dustin's first skiing experience. I am really looking forward to it, Dustin not so much. I really had to sale him on trying something new and breaking away from the mundane trips to the beach (not really mundane, but we've done that every year for the past 5+ years). I hope that we can make it through the trip without any broken bones, for this reason I think we will be frequenting the bunny slopes, probably the whole time, we'll see.

Spoiler!

My children and I have been doing a lot of Christmas shopping together. I thought I was safe shopping with them, of course they would never tell Daddy what I got for him, so I thought! A couple days after we had gotten Dustin a certain gift, Logan saw a sign advertising the particular item and said,"Hey Dad, that's what Mom got you for Christmas!" I tried to play it cool but think there will be no surprise there for Dustin on Christmas morning! Thanks to Mr. Mouth!

Public Announcement

I figure if I write this on my blog, I may feel more accountable, therefore maybe I will stick to the plan here. My friend Kristina asked if I would like to join her in running an upcoming 5K. I am not a runner, last time I ran a mile was in high school. Since finding out that I had a defective heart, I have attributed my inability to run to my heart. Now that I am all fixed up, I think I will tackle the beast. I am such a wanna-be runner! I am following a running schedule that is called something to the effect of, The Couch to 5K schedule, so it is pretty easy for now. I've been walking 3 miles several times a week for a couple of years, so I'm hoping this transition will be smooth. Wish me luck!

It's been a while!

I've been shirking the blog lately and have had camera trouble so I don't have many new pictures to share. We had a blast on Halloween riding on a trailer filled with hay pulled by Papa and his truck. The kids would jump off and go with mom and dad to trick-or-treat at friend's doors. Logan learned a really fun Halloween song form the Little Einsteins and would sing that for several people. Both kids seemed to enjoy the evening tons. The following day was our ward's Fall Festival and the kids donned their costumes again and had a blast horse-back riding and jumping in a hay pit. Ashlynn found a friend with whom neither one could be separated from. At one point Dorothy came up to me to ask, "Where is my princess?" It was very funny. We had lots of fun. The children had their joint birthday celebration at McDonald's and had so much fun running around with everyone. Ashlynn's birthday was the following day and I made her a Dora cake that turned out pretty cute, sorry no pictures, this was about when our camera pooped out on us. I've so enjoyed the past couple of weeks where our lives were not so crazy busy. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving, especially to have Dustin home for a couple of days. He'll be home Thursday and Friday. I look forward to a little R&R and some good sales on Friday! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Accomplishments

As mentioned below, we got our sod laid. We've also finished the kid's playset in the back. I got the living room painted, it's been done for a couple months now. We've started the cleaning out of the garage and the organizing of the pump house. We are preparing to finish out the garage into a super cool multi purpose area. I am also about to decorate the master bedroom to my liking (I've never done anything in there really). So, we will always have something to keep us busy since the kids don't seem to keep us busy enough, HA HA!

CRAZINESS!

This past week has been crazy busy. Dustin had our sod being delivered on Wednesday, we kicked it up a day to Tuesday because of rain in the forecast (never came!) So we have been working like slaves to get the ground prepared, picking (as in swinging the dumb pick like a crazy person!), raking, picking up rocks and weeds, bringing in "super grass dirt," that's really what the company called it. Tuesday the missionaries were kind enough to come help us finish spreading the super grass dirt and laying the sod. We got it done... finally. Now I am the watering queen. It has to be watered once a day for a couple of weeks and then I can start tapering down from there. We also had the Parker's Annual Halloween Spooktacular, Saturday. So I had to get everything around here ready including a crazy Amazing Race event that seemed like a good idea at the time. I think people had fun. We had pumpkin carving, ball searching, relay race thing, candy corn counting, ice water toe dipping, puzzle doing and the such. There was lots of fun food and great costumes! I had a lot of fun but am glad it is OVER! I was supposed to make Dustin's costume but stopped at the pinning together point 2 nights before the big event. I went and bought another costume the day before the event to lessen my growing anxiety.
Last weekend, we took the kids to the Shriner's Circus that was going on in town. This was Ashlynn's first. The kids had a blast, we ended up getting in for free because some nice man gave us tickets as we waited in line so we had some extra play money and Grandma. Grandma bought the kids cool light up toys to play with during the show and at intermission Logan went down an enormous inflatable slide and then Logan, Ashlynn and Bella went on an Elephant ride. My camera died just in time for me to miss out the best part of the circus, seeing my kids smiling from era to ear on an elephant. We had such a great time, great memories.

Logan is 4!!!

Logan's birthday was this last Sunday. He has been so excited about his birthday this year which has been fun. Sunday morning Logan woke up so excited so I let him call Grandma so he can tell her it's his birthday. Well, when grandma answered the phone, she and Papa started singing Happy Birthday. Logan is getting a very irritated look on his face and is groaning a bit. When they finish the song Logan says,"Grandma! I'm trying to tell you something! I'm getting my dino mountain playset today!" It was pretty comical. That morning I was taking a trip across the pasture to take Logan's presents to Grandma's house and Logan saw me and started toward me, I told him to go back in the house, I didn't want him to see any of his presents. He yells, "OK, but be careful with my dino mountain playset!" I laughed! Well when it came down to opening presents, it was like pulling teeth to get him to put the new toy down to open the next. I had hid the dino mountain playset in another room because I didn't want to wrap it, it was big. So after he'd opened everything I asked him if he got everything he wanted and he kept insisting that he did. I asked if there was anything else he wanted and he said no. So finally I just went and grabbed the box and brought it out to him, thankfully, he was ultra excite to get it. He had a great birthday.