Family Update

Archer is home!!!  He spent the past week at scout camp.  I missed him a lot!  The house just doesn't feel right when one of the kids is missing.  The kids and I kept busy during the week with bowling, movies, grandma's house, and a Rapids game.  We had a really good time, but everything felt slightly off.  Picasso had a sleepover in the girls room, they set up the rollaway bed for him and had movie nights every night.  Of course Archer got home two hours early.  I was at a photo shoot and my sweetheart was with the other kids at Picasso's baseball game.  Instead of heading to the baseball game I went home to get my boy.  One of the first things that needed to be  done was get that boy a shower!  He had a fantastic time at camp, but came home smelling a bit rank.  His younger siblings were so excited that he was home!  That evening I took him out on a mother-son date to see Red 2 and dinner at the Alamo Drafthouse.  We had a great time and both laughed a lot during the movie.  I love that he is old enough to be a movie buddy for me!  All the kids love seeing movies, but Archer is old enough to see more grown-up type movies.  Now that he is home he is back to pet sitting, baby sitting, and working on his rank advancement for scouts.

Princess had been saving up her money all year to buy  an American Girl doll.  Let's just say those suckers are pricey!  Angel has one that she got for Christmas a couple years ago.  Santa almost cried that year.  Not really, but Santa was counting pennies to see if he could pay the elves!  A friend of mine was selling a brand new, still in box, American Girl doll for $70.  Thirty dollars off in store price!  My friend agreed to hold onto the doll for a couple weeks so Princess could get enough money together.  Princess didn't quite have enough money, but another friend hired her as a "mommy's helper" to come play with her kids so she could get some things done at home.  She finally had enough money, so the time had come.  She took her money and purchased her doll.  She named her Comet.  I am Comet's grandma or so I've been told.  I'm way too young to be a grandma.  Every night since when Princess gets hugs and kisses for bed, so does Comet.  Comet came to church with us too.  I am glad that she loves her doll so much.  She worked hard to get her!

Picasso has his last baseball game this week.  It has been a fun, but rough season for him.  He has never played before, but I think he has the makings of being a really good player.  We just need to get past the flinching when a pitch is coming.  He'll get there though.  He's worked really hard to be the best that he can be for his first season.  I hope he gives it another go next season!  I'm not sure if he will.  If he chooses not to, that is okay too.  He is a great kid no matter what.  He can keep drawing and being artistic instead if that is what he chooses to do.  As long as he keeps making me laugh, we are all good. 

Angel has been loving her kindle.  That girl is engrossed in it most days.  I worry that she spends too much time listening to her books and not reading them, but I know she does still read.  Her daddy loves his audiobooks, so that obviously has rubbed off.  We are going to be looking into surgery on her eye.  With her amblyopia she still gets a lot of eye turn when she is tired.  The surgery would tighten that up and help a lot with the eye turn and hopefully make it easier on her so she doesn't have to work quite so hard to keep that eye in place.  She amazes me every day with how hard she works at fighting her disability.  I only hope that someday I can be as strong as she is!

So that's us in a nutshell for now.  We are moving along, a day at a time.  Some days are crazy, some are "boring", some are busy, but they are always full of love.

Family Vacation

Family vacation, we had one!  Normally it is just the kids and I traveling together, going on our adventures.  My sweet husband can rarely go with us.  For him to have two full weeks off of work was crazy!  Crazy in a good way.  We started off our vacation with an eleven hour drive to Saint George, UT.  It was a long drive and I get bored easily as the passenger.  At one point I told my husband he needed to let me drive as I couldn't handle the just sitting there doing nothing anymore.  Patience young one, patience!  The kids may have been a tad more patient during that part of the drive than I, probably.  We spent the following day in Saint George with my brother-in-law and his family.  Seriously love those guys a lot!  The kids had a great time hiking the red rocks, sleeping on the trampoline, and just running around with the cousins.  Archer is his young cousins favorite to follow around, cause he's so big.  Good thing he likes the little ones!

On Memorial Day we hit the road for California.  Arizona and Nevada were hot, flat, and dry.  Just as I suspected they would be.  It was supposed to be a quick six hour drive, nothing compared to the eleven the day before.  However we did not take into account the gamblers heading back to California from Las Vegas.  Oh my goodness!  A twenty minute drive turned into TWO HOURS of stop and, every now and then, go traffic.  It was madness.  Made it to my brother's a few hours later than expected and we had a nice birthday dinner with my mom.  Happy birthday mommy!

Turns out that my niece in St George had a tummy bug and unfortunately 3 of my 4 kids caught it.  I woke up the next morning to find that my sweet, amazing niece had cleaned up puke not once, but twice the night before!  Poor girl.  Thankfully the tummy bug only lasted a couple hours and the kids were better for the graduation that night.  My niece woke up to vomit and ended her day a high school graduate.  There's a story for her.

The next day was Disneyland!  My niece, nephew, dad, step-mom, brother, and sister all came with us.  It was so much fun!  Archer especially loved the fact that he got to go off with the teenagers for half the day.  The younger kids stayed with us and their grandparents and had fun exploring the kingdom.  We met the mouse and many others.  Rides were gone on.  Princess was freaked out by It's a Small World (thanks Doctor Who!).   Much laughter and many smiles were had.  As the night drew in it was time for fireworks!  We found a spot to sit and a gentleman that worked at Disneyland hustled over.  No!  You don't want to sit there, come with me I've got the perfect place for you.  And he did!  He set us up in a great spot with a view of the castle and the fireworks.  It truly was magical experiencing it all with my family.

The next day was meant to be day 2 of Disney.  Unfortunately Picasso woke up sick again.  This time it was pure exhaustion.  So Picasso and his dad took a four hour nap.  When he woke up he felt tons better.  So off to the beach we went.  My brother and niece joined us at the Santa Monica Pier.  The kids loved playing in the ocean, building in the sand, and stockpiling seaweed.  We wandered the pier and got our name made up with a drawing of sea related pictures.  The rides were all closed by then, but the lights and the music were beautiful.

Next morning, you guessed it, more vomiting.  Seriously NOT cool!  This time it was Princess early in the morning.  Thankfully after sleeping in she was good to go.  All the traveling and late nights sure was catching up with those kids.  We did another day of Disneyland and then the last day was California Adventure.  Picasso had been desperate to find "the duck".  Turns out Donald Duck spends his time in California Adventure!  We sat in a non-existent line for a good twenty minutes waiting for the duck.  It was completely worth it to see the joy in Picasso's eyes!  Roller coaster, ferris wheels, river rafting, bumper cars, more characters to meet.  Such an amazing time was had!  We could have used another day or two at the parks, but what we had was wonderful.

 

On our last day in California my sister-in-law made me arepas.  Venezuelan heaven in my mouth!  Seriously, I love those things.  I should try and make them myself sometime as it doesn't seem overly hard.  The food was the perfect send off to a wonderful week in California.  We piled back into the van and off we went.  We spent the night in Henderson, NV at the Springhill Suites (nice place, check them out if you need a hotel in the area).  We stopped in Vegas and checked out the M&M store.  The other things we wanted to see were no longer there or you now had to pay for and we didn't have the time.  So off we went.  We stayed our last night in Green River, UT at the River Terrace  (I will not stay again as they treated me awful when I checked in).  One last day of driving, with a stop at the John McConnell Math & Science Center (LOTS of fun).  Man was I glad to get home!  The three youngest were happy to be home in time for the last day of school.

Our vacation was truly fantastic.  All the time spent together, enjoying each others company was just what we needed.  I cannot wait for our next vacation.  Hopefully it won't be too long in coming!