Long time no visit

Well its been so long since i have been on this and updated anything. SO much has happened in a year. We moved from College Station,TX to Fort Huachuca, AZ. We have been on lots of trips and the kids have grown a lot! The kids are going to be starting a new school year on August 12th. Katelyn is going to be in 4th grade and Timothy in Kindergarten. They have been in soccer and they both love it. Katelyn is a very good goalie and Timothy is a very fast runner. Sometimes he forgets about the ball and just runs across the field. Lets see our most recent travels include going up to Idaho to see my Mom and sister Amy and their families. My oldest sister Jennifer drove up from CA with her crew of 4 crazy kids and we all drove over to WA to visit my brother Adrian and his family. It was such a fun trip and the first time we have all been together since about grandchild number 8 i think. Now there are 12 and i'm sure its going to get bigger. We dug up these things called "Gooey Duck" and cooked them up and ate them. I didn't like them much but the kids and everyone else loved them. The picture to the left is them in the bucket. They don't look all that great. I was all for digging them up but not so into eating them. The next trip we went on we just got back from. We did our yearly trip to DC and down to NC to stay at the lovely beach house. This year we also went up to Hershey Park in Hershey, PA. The kids had a blast and i decided that it is so much better for younger kids then Disneyland is. We also went over to Amish Country and saw so many Amish people and learned all about them. It was very interesting. I think it was almost like we were in a movie because it just didn't seem real that they live like they do. I don't have any of the pictures yet but when i get them i will post some. Oh one thing i forgot to mention... and i don't know how i forgot it...While Brett was in Iraq we had a German Exchange Student. It was such a great experence. We got along with her pretty well for the most part. Funny thing is i can't find a picture with all 4 of us in it. Anyways, we had her at our house for the whole school year. The kids learned a tiny bit of German. We did learn that the next place we will be stationed will be England...we just don't know when we are going yet...but we will be visiting Germany and we have a free tour guide...hehe. Well i am just ratteling on and on. I will try to remember to update more often.

Halloween

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. Katelyn was the cutest black cat and Timmy was Tim Bot 2. They both looked so cute. Sid, my mother in law, and i made Timmy's costume. We had a lot of fun with it. We went to the church trunk or treat and then we went to the sorority houses.

North Carolina Trip

After we went to DC we went down to North Carolina to the Outer Banks. We go out there and rent a house with all of Brett's family every year. It is so much fun. The last 2 years we have stayed in the same house. The house is called the Sea Gypsy. I think it has to be one of the prettiest houses. It has 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms and it is 3 levels. The kitchen and living room and the master bedroom are on the top level. The second level is were the bedrooms are and on the bottom level is where one more bedroom is and a game area. Each house has a hot tub and a pool. The back of the house is up against a sand dune and on the other side of it is the beach. The water is great. Not too cold and the beach is not too hot so it is perfect. The kids all have their birthdays there and they think its the best. Timmy this year thought that because we were celebrating his birthday that maybe he had turned 5 now. I had to explain to him that he wasn't older yet and that we were just having a little birthday party for them. There is always so many people there but we have so much fun. We pretty much sit out on the beach everyday and sometime we do other things. Every morning we ride bikes and some of the people go and play a little tennis. This year we took the Wii with us so the boys of course had to play a little. It was kinda funny to watch them play. We had really good weather the whole time except the last day it almost rained for about 30 mins. The kids learned how to body surf and to boogy board. It was pretty funny watching Timmy because he is so little and the waves knock him over easy and so just about every wave he was on his hands and knees. He was pretty smart because he knew that he couldn't go in very far so he stayed where in could get back up if he fell and so he wouldn't get pulled out. The last day we were there we all had to get into the shirts that Sid gave us for pictures and we all went out to the porch, like in the first picture and we all went to the dune and there is a little walk way to get over it and we took pictures there with the beach in the background. The all tured out so pretty. This is our Family picture for this year. I think it is one of the best pictures that we have taken.

Washington DC Trip

Well we go out to Washington DC a lot because my mother in law lives there but this time was one of the best times. We were able to meet up with Brett there for his R&R, for those of you that don't know what R&R means its the 2 week break they get and they can come home and rest and relax, anyways We arrived the day before Brett did. We were not sure what day he was going to be there because the time differents really made things a little confusing but never the less it wasn't long till he was there. The next day we went on a tour of the White house, i don't have any pictures of because they are weird about you taking a camera in with you but you can take a phone so yeah doesn't make much sense. The same day we went on a tour of the capitol dome. It was really cool. Not too many people are allowed to go on the tour. You have to know someone that works there. So because Sid, Brett's mom, works in DC and knows people we were able to go. It was so high but once we got up what felt like a steep 1000 stairs, i don't rememer how many there really was, it was so cool. we went up to the very top and saw that painting that is on the celing. It was so pretty. This is only a part of the painting. To show you how high we were, this is a picture that brett took from one of the spots we were. It was so high up and i was having a hard time being up that high but at the same time it was fun. When we were all the way at the top you could walk around to the other side and talk in a low voice and still be heard through out the whole area. Timmy was a great sport and had a blast being carried up all the way but Katelyn had to have some convinced but then she decided that it would be such a great thing to tell people when she got to school so she had to do it. After we saw all the stuff inside we went up even more and went out and could see all of DC and a lot of Alexandria, VA where the Pentagon is located. It was a beautiful day and so of course we had to take a few pictures. Here you can see in the background is some of the museums. When Katelyn got up there we all took a picture together. She was so proud of herself for getting up to the top and faceing her fears. It was kinda funny because Timmy had just said i wish Katelyn was up here and we turned around and there she was.So all in all it was a great day and such a fun experience. I don't think we will ever be able to do it again but it was cool to be able to say we did it.

Taking pictures

So today i decided after church i would try my hand at taking pictures of my kids. I think some of them turned out good and others not so good. I got out a sheet and tacked it to the wall and had the kids pose how ever they wanted to. It was a lot of fun and now i really want to get a really good camera for it. I think tomorrow i am going to take the kids down to the park to take some pictures of them in nature. I hope you like the slide show i put on here of all the pictures i took. I know i am no professional but i am pretty proud of them. Let me know what you think.

Disney World Trip

I know i haven't been on here in a long time so i thought i should update you all on some things that we have been doing. At the end of May we went to Disney World and were there for about 5 days. We had so much fun. Timmy got to see his Donald Duck and Katelyn was able to go on any ride that she wanted to. Timmy on the other had was still a hair to short to go on most of the rides but he had a good time. We went with Brett's Mom, step dad, cousin Jill and her son William. Brett wasn't able to be there but maybe next time. So we stayed in this really nice condo and just had a blast. We had a 4 day park hopper. We went to The Magic Kingdom the first and last day. The second day we went to EPCOT Center, and the third day we went to The Animal Kingdom. The kids were able to meet lots of the Characters.Katelyn's most favorite ride was space mountain and Timmy's was Buzz Lightyear. I really liked the river raft ride. It was a lot of fun watching the other people in the raft get soaked. I also celebrated my birthday while we were there and we ate at the Rain forest Cafe. It was fun until the people came out to sing to me...thats always pretty embarrassing. The kids thought it was really funny. The kids were able to get their faces painted...they didn't keep the paint on for very long but they looked cute. Katelyn was a cat and Timmy and William were Dragons. So that was our trip to Disney World.

Kansas City Trip

I am kinda posting this a little late but better late then never right? So on March 14th we, the kids and I, went up to Kansas City to see Brett before he left for Iraq. We had so much fun. Brett's mom came out there and so did his aunt and uncle. We were there for about 5 days so we had to pack in as much as we could safely do so now you are going to have to hear about a few of the fun and exciting things we did while we were there. In Kansas City, KS there is this huge mall and in it there was a Build a bear type place but it was Dino's. Both kids got one. Timmy has Tuffy and Katelyn has Amy.

The dinos are so soft and just plain cute. They play with the dino's all the time. I think it was a great buy. After that we saw Horton Hears a Hoo. It was a pretty good movie but very different then i would have expected. Another day we went to the Union Station in Kansas City, MO. They have this whole huge place set up for kids to play at. It kinda reminded me of a Childrens Museum but was a lot bigger and had a ton more stuff to do. There were different areas like in a city. There was a Police Station where you had to figure out who did it, there was a really cool area that had optical illusions, there was a whole huge place full of trains and model trains and the little remote trains. It was cool. While we were at the Union Station we saw a 3D movie about dinosaurs and how they lived in the ocean that went through the middle of the country. So we all put on our glasses and got ready to watch the movie. Beacuse it was a 3D the kids kept trying to touch all the stuff that was comming out at them and hid when the big swimming dinosaurs came close. I was laughing i think through out the whole movie.

Boy don't we look ever so cute in the glasses! Anyways it was a really fun day. We also went bowling, and swimming and who knows what else. We always seem to do a lot when we go places. Not much time to just relax in the hotel room. Oh yeah i forgot to say that the day we left Texas it was 85 degrees and the next day in Kansas it snowed. I was so sad that it was so cold there while it was so hot back home :-( but i lived. I thought i brought warm enough clothes but i really didin't i was freezing the whole time we were there. I think the last day we were there it was in the mid 60's, of course, and we didn't have time to enjoy it because we had to drive Brett to Fort Riley which let me tell you i am so glad i was not up there with him. It is this tiny nothing of a base and it was really gloomy. When we got there we didn't stay long because we had a very long drive back to texas that Sid helped me with. So pretty much all we had time for was to take a few pictures of us as a family by a hummer and give loves and leave. I really didn't want to leave him there but i had no choice. And like always i didn't cry because i don't want to make it worse by crying but at the same time i feel bad that i don't cry and maybe that is worse. Who knows! So here is the picture of us by the hummer looking all sad and somewhat ready for the drive back home. And that's the end of my exciting story about our trip to Kansas City.