Summer Waterskiing

We had a WONDERFUL Summer! Waterskiing was our main mode of enjoyment. At the end of last Summer we bought an old motorboat, nothing to great to look at, but it works and we sure spent a lot of time on it this Summer. Here's Melissa at the beginning of Summer, just getting confident in getting up and skiing. She turned into a waterskiing diva! She got confident on two skis and started dropping a ski (pictured below), then she got good at slalom skiing and started trying to get up on one ski and has now mastered that as well.

James learned to ski this summer. His enthusiam is biggest when its not his turn. He's a little hesitant to go, but if you can get him in the water he's getting pretty good. Hopefully next Summer he'll build up his confidence and learn to enjoy it.

Melanie improved this summer too, but waterskiing is not her favorite thing. She is still working on dropping a ski but gained some confidence in going in and out of the wake.

I think Eric and I may have had more fun than the kids. It was really fun for us to enjoy skiing so much as well. It's been a long time and we both improved our skills a lot. I learned to slalom and we both can get up on one ski now. Yay us!!

Time in Texas

I had the great priviledge of going to my sisters this summer for a whole two weeks. Unfortunately it was to help her recover from open heart surgery. She was amazing and the Lord truly blessed her to have a successful surgery and a great recovery. He blessed me in making it possible for me to go and help her. My wonderful sister-in-law Kelsey, who had just graduated from HS happened to be coming up here to visit for the summer and was so kind to watch 4 of our 5 kids for 2 weeks so I could go. I hope I was helpful to Angie, but I mostly had a great time with her and her family. I took Rebekah with me because she was too young to leave for that long plus Angie's youngest is just older than Rebekah and I thought it would be fun for them to play. So we found out for sure that even on a cloudy day - and I mean totally overcast, you (or in this case our little girls) can get a sunburn. Poor little lobsters.
Swinging in the backyard. The Texas heat makes it hard to want to go outdoors, but we managed to spend a little time playing in the backyard.
The only one here who actually used a pacifier at the time was Rebekah, but Julie was a big tease and liked to snatch it from her and so we found some extras for fun and then even Anna wanted one. She said "It makes your mouth look pretty". So funny!
Angie was supposed to do some walking everyday as part of her recovery routine so we decided to kill two birds with one stone and do our walking at the outlet mall ;) The girls thought the most fun part was riding in these little toy rides outside - actually we only put money in one and Julie hated it. In Texas it gets HOT so everyday we tried to include somekind of water activity and some Sonic drinks (especially since we don't have Sonic up here in NY and I needed to get my fill, hehe). Just got out of the pool, Rebekah and Julie getting some snacks and getting cheesy with the camera. One of my favorite memories is of a girls night out my mom planned for us. Her and my Dad were able to come down for the weekend and my mom got us tickets to see Wicked. I had no idea what it was about, but heard it was good. I just loved it and recommend it to anyone. It was so fun to have that time with my mom and my sister. Thanks Dad and Kevin for watching the little girls so we could do this!!Grandma with her granddaughters. So fun for her, so fun for them!Angie feeding our "little birds". She looks way to good to have just had open heart surgery, huh?She's amazing! (and okay, modern medicine is amazing too)So cute! What a precious time for Angie and I as sisters and for our little girls as cousins. Hopefully as they get older we'll find ways to get together so they can really get to know each other and be friends! Thanks Angie - we had soooo much fun, and I'm so glad you're okay!

Another School Year Ended

(Yes, I know schools been out for a while now, but I'm catching up, remember?)

With the end of the school year came the end of another season of softball and t-ball. Melanie, Melissa and James each did a great job on their teams and each had a great time. I slacked at taking photos this year because it was all we could do to get all three to the appropriate game at the appropriate time and place - sometimes we had 3 children in 3 different games at one time! What will we do when they're all old enough to play?

James hammed it up for me a little after their last game when they each got a medal and their own ball. He thought that was pretty cool.

Next cam Fun Day where all the Elementary kids get to spend the day outside playing games, doing relay races, and getting yummy treats like snow cones, cotton candy and popcorn. David and Rebekah were pretty glad to get to come and watch and get some treats as well.

Last was Melanie's graduation from Elementary school. Yes, she's now moving up to the Middle School/High School. Oh, my goodness, how'd she get so old! Sadly I wasn't able to be there for that because I was in Texas (details in another post -coming soon - hopefully) but thankfully Aunt Kelsey was able to be there and support Melanie and take this great picture with ever supportive little bro. David. Congrats Melanie!

Vacation to Florida

Okay, so once again Summer has come and I have gotten way behind in my postings. It started with what I call our "Family Event Vacation". We went to Florida for Eric's sister Kelsey's graduation and also had Melissa's baptism so she could have both her grandparents there. Lucky for us Eric's parents live in Florida so it also doubled as a wonderful family vacation in a beautiful place. We got there and left just before the oil arrived so the beaches were beautiful! We drove this time - which seems crazy with 5 children, but then again so does flying. Ha!

It really was a fabulous time for all of us! We spent some great days at the beach, did some intercoastal sailing along with having our annual water balloon war, had a wonderful crawfish boil and altogether had a very fun and very relaxing family vacation. Thanks so much Donna and Rich - once again you totally spoiled us and we loved every minute of it! Thanks Mom and Dad and Angie and Kevin for driving so far to meet us and share this great time with us! - and I can't forget Kelsey and Ryan because you are both so great with our kids - they just love you!!

So here's a couple of slide shows since we -of course- took a million pics and I couldn't just choose a handful to show here.

Spring?

So if April showers bring May flowers . . . what does April snow bring? Okay, okay, so its beautiful and to be fair, we do have some beautiful flowers already in bloom -and the sun was shining today as it snowed (and showered). Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor? I know He was smiling today as he sent this to us.

Comfy?

Kids can sleep in the darndest places. As I was grocery shopping the other day the front of the cart got really quiet, usually meaning some kind of trouble is brewing, right? To my surprise David had somehow gotten comfortable enough leaning on boxes of cereal to fall asleep. How cute - and a big plus for me. Now I could actually shop with some semi-quiet peace (remember I still have Rebekah in front). Actually I was almost finished shopping, but realized if I went to the checkout counter before he had slept long enough he'd be awakened while I was unloading the groceries and of course start into a total meltdown (not fun) so I checked my clock, realized I still had 20 min. before I needed to go to the checkout in order to get home in time for the other kids to get off the bus - yeah! How did this work out so well? Except what do you do in a grocery store for 20 min. when you've gotten everything on your list? Oh, well.

Happy Easter!

We had a great Easter weekend. We were so glad to have my brother and his wife and their children come and visit us. The weather here was more than cooperative and the kids were thrilled to pull out their shorts and t-shirts and flip flops. We were able to take the kids to the park and picnic and play on Friday.Saturday morning Emma and Rebekah headed outside before getting dressed. The cat was gone by the time I took the picture, but I found them outside petting our cat and playing in this little section of dirt and rocks - and yes, that's dirt on Rebekah's mouth, she of course has to taste it all. Yum! (Grandma Diane, I know you're cringing)

Here's the gang settled in to watch General Conference. Listening to the prophet, Pres. Thomas S. Monson, the quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and many of the other General Authorities of the church was, as usual, inspiring and uplifting. There were many messages that touched my heart, but the one that I hope to keep close at hand and use daily is the message from Pres. Deiter F. Uchtdorf about that statue of Christ that was damaged during the war and as they tried to repair it realized that the hands couldn't be repaired and there was a sign put by the statue that we are Christ's hands. I hope I can be Christs hands, that I can do his work and reach out and help lift his children.

Saturday between sessions of conference we went for a short hike to some falls down the street from our house and had a picnic. The falls were pretty (you can barely see them behind the kids), but we couldn't see as much of them as we'd like because the way down to see them was a little too steep for all of us. We had fun anyway and saw a little snake which gave everyone a thrill.

With the great weather we were able to color our easter eggs outside.

These three boys had so much fun together whether it was having light saber duels, flying airplanes, or just digging in the sandbox.

A picture of the whole gang of kids before they went to hunt eggs.

Eggs high and low they found them all, and rather quickly too.

Rebekah wasn't interested in finding any eggs. I was trying to point one out to her, but she just pointed with me and then walked away.

My very favorite thing is when the kids are playing on their own and working together having a great time. Here they were playing 'bubble gum, bubble gum' to figure out who would be it first for their game of tag outside.

I have great memories of fun with my cousins growing up. I'm glad to see my children building some of their own. Families can be forever thanks to our Savior and His gospel.