May 22nd

I am trying to get better about posting on here. And I figured I better do it today or I may not be able to until the middle of June!

I had last Tuesday off because Tracy's dad was having surgery. Dylan and I took Kristian to school, had breakfast at Fuel B's and then came back home. It was a cold and nasty day. Dylan's soccer practice was cancelled that day, thank goodness. Kristian had his band concert that night and did GREAT! Of course he sits way back in the back so he can plug into the amp, so it was hard to see him. We could however see him bouncing his head to the beat!

Wednesday after school Mick was having dinner with some guys that were in town for a meeting, so me and the boys went over to Joann's (Connor's mom). She was having a potluck at work the next day, so I helped her make some appetizers for it. And of course ate some too!

Thursday after school, we had dinner over at Brett and Cat's. They wanted to show us the damage from the fire the week before. It came very close to burning down their house. They ended up loosing the barn that had their camper and lawnmower in it. They got really lucky.

Friday I was exhausted. We had not been home one night all week and I didn't want to go anywhere. So me and the boys just stayed home all day. We even skipped Kristian's last soccer practice.

Saturday we went to the boys last soccer games. Dylan's team won their game. After the game the coach handed out their trophies. He was thrilled! Kristian had a double header. They lost the first one and won the second one. They played a REALLY rough team for the first game. The boys felt really beat down after that game. The refs ignored a lot of it, until our boys started pushing and tripping back. Funny how that works. So needless to say when the second team started it, the boys already knew what to do and they did! One of the parents from the other team yelled at our coach, but... it wasn't like they weren't dishing it out too. I must admit it was nice to win after that!

After the games we went to the zoo. And then we went downtown and had dinner. The guys wanted to sit outside. So we did, but of course I was freezing! It was still a good time though.

Sunday I took the day and went summer shopping. I think I got everyone all ready for summer and for our trips. The boys keep growing out of everything way too fast. I asked Kristian last week why he never wears his jeans I just got him during spring break and he said because they are too short. I made him try them on and yep, he was flooding! The pants that I got him the other day, fit me in the length! Dylan has jeans, but all of them have holes in the knees! Luckily we won't have that problem with shorts!

Monday night we had Kristian's soccer party to go to in town. He got a really nice trophy! After the party we went by Kohls so I could exchange Kristian and Mick's shoes. Mick's were too small and Kristian didn't care for the flip flops I got him. He just wanted water shoes!

Tuesday I was off the first part of the morning so I could go to Kristian's awards assembly. The theme for this one was Pirates of Ellicott. They really do put a lot of work into it! After they presented the awards they had inflatables set up out on the football field. They had a jousting ring, Bungee run and a Velcro wall. The kids had a blast!

Yesterday, me, Michelle (Zach's mom) and Joann took the kids out of school for the day. I had Jacob and Rebecca too. We went and had lunch and then took them all bowling. Rebecca had never bowled before and she bowled a 92! She used the ramp a couple of times, but for the most part just rolled it on her own! Jacob bowled for me a few times and actually got me a strike. He did use the ramp though. After that we went to the park for about an hour and then headed home.

Last night me and the boys watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Mainly it was just me and Kristian watching it. Dylan didn't seem that into it. Kristian is going with Connor and his family tonight to watch the new one. I tried to talk Mick into going, but he isn't much for movies. So... Me and Dylan are going to go to Rebecca's t-ball game instead.

I still haven't began to pack for our trip this weekend. We are going to Denver tomorrow night to spend the night. Me and the boys have to be at the airport at 8:30 Saturday morning. I am looking forward to going home and seeing everyone. Even though I know it is going to be so crazy while we are there.

So, I am not sure when I will have a chance to be back on here. We come back on the 16th from Hawaii, so I wouldn't expect anything before then. I hope everyone has a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend! See you in June!

The pictures are of Zach, Kristian and Sierra (Connor's sister) at the park, Kristian, Zach and Connor at the awards assembly, they moved at the last minute, so it turned out a bit blurry, Kristian and Dylan before Kristian's band concert, them at the zoo and Dylan in his outfit for the wedding! Unlike Kristian he likes to dress up, for now anyway.

May 12th

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day!

Last week me and the little ones made stepping stones. Jacob and Rebecca made one for Tracy and Dylan made one for me. Jacob wasn't too thrilled about making his hand print. I don't think he cared for the way the wet cement felt on his hand. We also made Mother's Day cards. I told Dylan to hide mine and give it to me on Sunday and he actually remembered all by himself yesterday morning. I couldn't believe it!

Friday I had a doctor's appt. (yearly Acid Reflux checkup). After that we met Joann and family at the zoo. We spent 3 1/2 hours there. I couldn't believe it. They have added some new exhibits. They were really neat! We left straight from there and went to Kristian's soccer practice. Mike met up with me around 6 and took the kids. I was having a girl's night here at the house and had to get home to get set up for that. They all came over around 7. We spent most of the time talking and munching on yummy snacks. Then we watched P.S. I love you! Such a good movie! Mike took the boys out to eat and then to watch a movie. They got home around 11:30. I think everyone left around midnight. We had a great time.

Saturday we had soccer games. Both of the boys finally faced teams that were just as good as them. So they were really good games! Kristian's team lost 3-2 and Dylan's team lost 4-3. Dylan scored another goal this week. He is becoming quite aggressive out there!

Also on Saturday there was a huge grass fire in Ellicott. Brett and Cat had a very close call. It burned their out buildings and came close to burning their house. In total almost 9,000 acres burned. And that was just in 5 hours! The wind was horrible on Saturday, so that didn't help. Amazingly only one house burned down and no one was hurt.

Yesterday was Mother's Day. We hung out here at the house for the first part of the day, just relaxing. We were going to go back to the zoo and have a picnic, (we bought a family membership, so we will be going ALOT) but we ended up hitting traffic. We sat in it for about 20 minutes and decided since we weren't that much closer we would just turn around. So... We took the kids to the park for a few hours, went and got Kristian measured for his tux for Matt's wedding and believe me he was thrilled, NOT, ate at Chili's and then went to Seven Falls. Seven different falls come together to make one big one. There they have two seperate flights of stairs. One away from the falls so you can get a great view of the entire thing and then one set right next to them. I managed to do the first set (181 steps) to see the falls from a distance and it was beautiful, but we took the elevator down. I am not a big fan of heights at all! Mike took the boys up the flight of stairs next to the falls. He ended up carrying Dylan back down on his back. Glad I didn't see that. As you can see in the picture they are almost straight up and down! Pretty scary. We got home around 8:30, put the kids to bed and then laid in bed and watched the finale of Survivor! It was a great ending to the day.

And now we are back to Monday... Just 7 more days of school! I can't believe it. Kristian has a band concert tomorrow night. And the kids play their last soccer games on Saturday. That has been a GREAT experience. Everything was perfectly planned from practices to games. That is definitly something we will sign them up for again, if they want.

Well I suppose that is it. Have a great week!

The pictures are of the kid's stepping stones, the grizzly bears at the zoo, me and the boys here at the house and then at Seven Falls.

March of Dimes

Here are a couple of pictures I just got from the walk, so I thought I would post them too. They are of me and Dylan. And then the other is of Joann, Dylan and me. Mind you... we got up around 5:30 that morning, so.... I wasn't exactly caring what I looked like. I was going totally for comfort!

May 4th

I didn't realize it had been a month already... Lets see what I can remember...

I will start with the boys soccer since that seems to be the biggest thing going on the past month. Both of the boys are doing great and have a wonderful time. Kristian is learning more and more each practice and seems to be picking up the rules, plays and positions. Dylan is our natural athelete. He has picked up on everything really quickly! He finally scored his first goal yesterday and ended up scoring 5 goals total in the game. He was so thrilled. I have no regrets signing them up even with the 4 trips to town every week for practice and games. It has been a great experience. We have two more weeks of it and then we are done. I think we are going to sign Dylan up in the fall for soccer so that next spring he can play t-ball. The spring t-ball and soccer seasons overlap each other and it would've been too difficult to do both this year. I will keep Kristian in the spring soccer since he has no desire for baseball.

School gets out in just 3 weeks! I can't believe it. The last day is May 22nd. And then Kristian will be a seventh grader! WOW! On May 24th me and the boys are flying home for my brother's wedding. We are looking forward to getting to visit with everyone and of course see my brother get married! We fly back here on June 1st and then leave June 4th for Hawaii! We are ALL looking forward to it. It will be a great way to celebrate the end of school and summer beginning! We are staying the first four days at Waikiki beach and the rest of the time we will be staying at a house on the north shore. This way we can experience a little of both worlds in Hawaii! We fly back home on June 16th. So we will be there for my "29th" birthday... and for Father's Day!

We haven't had many warm days yet here. Maybe a couple of days it has hit the 70's but other than that it has been in the 40's! Yesterday it was a high of 55 and very windy, which just added to the cold. We were all bundled up on the sidelines watching the boys play soccer. I told Mike this is ridiculous! It is May 3rd!! Hopefully we will get some warmer weather soon!

I took the 3 little ones to Pump it Up one day this month. Don't ask me when because I have no clue. It was a weekday, that's all I remember. When we got there, we were the only ones. They all wanted to go on the slide. So we did. Those who know me, know I am not much for heights, but I thought, this is for kids, so it can't be that bad. I made my way up the long ladder to the top. Mind you this is all inflatable, so you don't feel quite secure on your feet. AND I was holding Jacob too!! Anyway, we made it up to the top and got ready to go down. Rebecca and Dylan went down first and they flew down it. So then it was mine and Jacob's turn. I thought, well I am a bit heavier than they are so it won't be as fast... WRONG! We took off like a flash! I felt like I was on Splash Waterfalls at Six Flags! I know I had a look of horror on my face going down. All I could think was thank goodness no one else was there! So we went and played on the other bounce things, but Jacob's favorite was the slide. And by now there were more people there. So everytime we went down after that I just had to fake a smile, because inside I was screaming!! Rebecca and Dylan's favorite was the slide also. I still can't believe that it is for little kids!!! After that we went to lunch and went to the dollar movies to see Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Kristian's birthday was April 19th, the BIG 12!! Now an adult... not! Anyway, we had 6 kids spend the night on Saturday and then we went skating on Sunday. ROLLER SKATING! That is where he wanted to go. You know how he is with his Heelys. They are his favorite pair of shoes. So it seemed only fitting. We had a couple of more kids that met us there and ended up with 13 people total, including adults. He had a great time. We were there for four hours and we all skated. Mike and I hadn't been on skates probably since jr. high! But luckily we remembered how and managed not to fall. Dylan had a blast too. He skated the entire time. I thought he wouldn't last very long, but he proved me wrong. After the party we had a couple of kids that needed to be dropped off. Since we had two cars in town, Mike asked if I wanted him to take all the kids and I could go ALONE in his car. DUH! Of course I would take him up on that. So I was taking my sweet time, driving with the radio up and just enjoying the quietness. I ran by and picked up some dinner and headed home. As soon as I got home Mike called to tell me that after they left he went by the gas station and one of the kids barfed all in the back of the suburban! I was SO glad that he took them and not me. I don't do well with throw up at all. He cleaned it all out and had Zack sit up front with him the rest of the way. He was lucky enough to be parked by an ambulance getting gas, so they gave him a barf bag and some alchol packets. I guess that it supposed to relief your nausau? Who knew? Mike said Zack made use of the barf bag till he got him home. I felt so bad for both of them. I know Zack had to be embarrassed in front of the other kids. Needless to say when I got off of the phone with Mike I went straight down to the basement with the Lysol and started spraying. I took down the tent, washed all the blankets, pillows, jackets.... Whatever was washable. I didn't want anyone else to get it.

Last Saturday I had my annual March Of Dimes walk. It was only a team of one (me), but that's ok. My friend Joann went and walked with me to keep me going!! We also took Dylan and pushed him in the stroller. Now that was some exercise. It is a 5 mile walk and it is a dirt path. You remember what it is like pushing a stroller on that surface. NOT FUN! But we made it. Dylan did great and didn't complain, except for when we stopped to rest. Afterwards we went and had lunch and then headed to his soccer game where we met up with Mike and Kristian.

Monday night we took Kristian to spend his birthday money at Target. He wanted a Ninetendo DS and a game. He picked it all out and we went to pay for it. Mike told the clerk that Kristian had thought about getting a Wii, but they are never in stock. The guy said, actually we have 14 in the back if you would like one! So we got one of those too. We have been playing it all week. Dylan is very good at the bowling. He beat Mike 220 to 129! He only beat me 184-178! So not as bad. Kristian is good at the tennis. He beat Mike and I pretty good! It is a great game system because you have to get up off of your bum to play it! Which is great!!!

Yesterday we had the boys soccer games and then we went bowling with some friends of ours. (Jen and Geno) They have a little girl, Rylee that is a year younger than Dylan and a little boy Peyton, that is almost 2. After bowling we went back to their house and hung out. We played a game called Sequence that was really neat and Apples to Apples. We left their house around 11 and headed home. We were in Mike's car and came up to a stop sign where there was something in the road. He thought he could straddle it, but... as we drove over it you could feel the car actually raise up off the ground. He got out to look and said it was a big coffee can. He kicked it and said he had something heavy in it, but just left it. We started smelling rubber burning, so we drove to the nearest gas station. It had dented his oil pan and tore off a small part of one of his belts. Luckily... we made it home with no problems. I hope it stays that way.

Kristian also made the A average honor roll last quarter too. Me and Dylan went to his awards breakfast to help him celebrate.

Well that is all I can think of for this past month. I can't promise that the next time I am on here won't be just as long. I will try to make it sooner though. Have a great week!

The pictures are of Kristian and Dylan at the Awards Breakfast. The BIG slide at Pump It Up, if you look closely you can barely make out Dylan sitting at the top. Another bounce thing at Pump it Up. The 3 little ones goofing off. Kristian's birthday party and the decorated B-Day mobile!