Summer Activities

Here's just a little catch up of the things the kiddos have been doing the last couple of weeks...

We saw how Ray had a campout in the living room with his girls a few weeks ago and David really wanted to copy the idea. He took the girls to Wal-Mart and they bought a tent, brought it home and set it up in the Family Room. The girls LOVED having a campout with Daddy! Sadie went to sleep pretty well. Eliza was up pretty late but had a great time. I opted to sleep in my Tempurpedic bed.


Eliza is making a face at me for disrupting their special camping trip with Daddy by coming in the tent and taking pictures...again.

Aunt Molly invited us to join them at their community pool. The kids loved it, especially Sadie! Nearly every day since she tells me she wants to have a swimming party with Wyatt again.

Our local movie theater offers a free family movie matinee during the summer. (Regal Cinemas offers this at theaters throughout the country. Check to see if its offered in your area). I thought it would be a good idea to take the kids to the movies when I didn't pay for tickets so I am not out much if we have to leave early. I think they had a good time. I don't think the movie was their favorite. We're going to try it again this week and see how it goes. I took these pics before the show started and they were playing a little 10 minute cartoon before starting the opening previews.

We had some friends over for a little while while their Mom went visiting teaching. The kids all played dress up. It was really cute. My favorite is Bumblebee in the Pirate outfit with his "pirate vacuum," as he called it. Eliza especially loved playing with the big girls that day

Bowling

I saw on Gina's blog a video of her little Liam bowling. It was so cute. He looked so delighted. I thought that maybe my kids would like bowling. I called our local bowling alleys. The all charged around $5 a game per person and $4 for shoes. I did find one older alley that offers $1 game and shoe rental nights every Tuesday from 5pm to close. So we decided to try it out. They didn't have the nice stand that I saw in Gina's montage, but they were cheap and therefore quite busy. We had to wait about a half hour or so for a lane to become available. The kids had a really fun time. Eliza was quite upset when we left. I was a little bit sore... I have been wadlling around today. I am not sure if my old six month pregnant body was up for bowling but I did beat David nonetheless. :) I had a few spares, only one or two of which was bumper assisted. :) We told the kiddos that they needed to roll the ball and if they knocked over any pins then they won. It was fun to see their excitment.

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Happy Father's Day!

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My Babies

Earlier this week I had another ultrasound because at my last visit there were a few parts of the baby's anatomy that the ultrasound tech was unable to get a good look at. The first thing the tech said was, "Whoa, yep, thats a boy!" Then she said, "Whoa, this boy moves a lot." He sure does. He moves around so much more than Sadie did. Is this an idication of how active he will be outside the womb? My mother-in-law says David was active in and outside of the womb. My sister, Molly's, firstborn moved a lot in the womb and then he proved to be a very active child. Her second born was not nearly so active in the womb and he is a much more calm child. Well, having energy is good, hopefully he can grow up and put it to good use by being a very hard worker. This time the tech had no problem seeing his heart, spine, nose and mouth. She said he couldn't have been more cooperative. She would capture the view of the needed body part and then he would move and she could capture the next thing.

A couple of days ago Sadie fell asleep on the family room floor. Its the first time she has done that so I snapped a picture. Sadie still loves the blankets Grandma made her and her milk.

Wishes Fullfilled

For a few years now I have dreamed of owning a Toyota Sienna. I really wanted an eight passenger mini van. I just couldn't rationalize the expense. Now that we are expecting baby number three, we have to get a bigger car. Three car seats will not fit in the back seat of my Honda CRV. Since learning of my pregnancy we have been checking out listings on these mini vans. There really isn't a big selection of used 8 passenger Siennas (The 7 passenger is more popular).

Well, over the weekend I found a couple of Siennas on eBay that I was interested in. Our very good friend, Mike, is the manager of a Toyota dealership in California. He has been looking for a Sienna for us. He also offered to negotiate a price for us if we found one locally. Well, David emailed the two listings to Mike on Saturday. Mike told us which one he thought was the better deal. In fact, he told us that he has been looking for us for months and hasn't been able to get one at that good of a price. He said he'd call the salesman and try to negotiate the price down a little but even if they didn't budge $1, it was a great price. He figured that there wasn't much room to move the price but he may be able to get it down $500. Well, Mike called. He got the price lowered $487.

We made a deposit on the van through paypal after talking to the salesman. We booked a flight for David to fly to Ohio Monday morning to close the deal and drive the van home. David shows up at check in and presents his drivers license to the TSA agent. The agent asks, "Did you know your drivers license was expired?" David answers, "uh... no.." They ask him for other ID like a passport or military ID. He has none. They have security check him very carefully. They went through every pocket of his backpack. Fortunately they decided to let him fly. Phew!

The salesman picked David up at the airport and drove him to the dealership. They completed the paperwork. Thankfully everything came together because that van was David's ride home.

I am now the very happy owner of a New Toyota Certified Pre-Owned mini van. :) I love driving a mini-van. I love being up high. My first trip out was to Wal-Mart. When I went to back out of the parking space, I was so excited to find that I could actually see if a car was coming! It was amazing! I find myself reaching for the clutch with my left leg a lot. This is the first time I've owned a car with an automatic transmission so I have to get used to it. I love driving stick shift cars, but I conceded this time because I really wanted a mini van. Its a good trade. :)

The girls were also really excited about the mini van. When we went outside, the sliding door opened and I instructed Eliza to climb in. She gasped, "The door opened by itself... that is so cool!" I showed her how I opened it with the button on my key chain. She climbed in and looked around and kept repeating, "This is so cool." That's not even a phrase she ever uses.

BTW, David went to the DMV on Tuesday and renewed his license. I guess that's something they have those over the hillers do when they turn thirty. :)

OTHER RANDOM STUFF

Another wish of mine has been fulfilled... Sadie had bronchitis last week (um... that's not what I was wishing for). She was given two presciptions. She doesn't fight me to take her medicine! I don't have to feel like a jerk as I force it down her. In fact, all she wants is to be able to administer it to herself. How wonderful!

Here's a photo of Grandpa and my girls enjoying some watermelon together. This was on Monday afternoon when my dad delivered a twin bed to my house. It has a very comfortable generic Tempurpedic mattress. My mom and I traded. We are giving my dad David's old 1994 Toyota Corolla, which just yesterday hit 200,000 miles. Its hard to believe, but its actually a step up from the old two door Toyota Tercel my dad drives. I mean, I know he grew up in the depression and all, but the guy just won't give up on his car. This interesting trade is the only way we can get him to indulge in driving a four door car with all the seats in tact and no holes in the floor. We will all miss seeing blacktop below us when he drives. :)

Our Great Wolf Lodge Family Vacation

Last week we went on a little family vacation to The Great Wolf Lodge. Boy did we need the time away! We had soooo much fun! The highlight of the resort is the indoor waterpark. Unfortunately, thats the area where we don't have any pictures to show how much fun we had. We arrived on Monday and after visiting the park, we decided we really needed pictures. That night I took the girls to show and story time while David went to Wal-Mart in search of a waterproof camera bag. No luck. The next morning we went to the only other store in town we thought might carry one, Ritz Camera Store. The only thing they could offer was a waterproof disposable camera. I asked the clerk if it had a flash and he said yes. I should have looked for myself because as soon as I opened the box back in our room, I noticed there was no flash. Well, we took pictures anyway and just like I suspected, they didn't turn out. (If by any chance you care, you can see lots of pictures of the waterpark here.)

We had such a fantastic time. Sadie mostly wanted to stay in the baby pool where she could go down the baby water slides over and over again. Eliza and David rode down some of the big slides together on a tube. There is a big fort thing that you can climb. At the top they have a couple of big water slides that you don't use tubes to go down. On Wednesday, David climbed that fort with the girls and they both went down those big slides. I waited at the bottom for the girls. I was so nervous David was taking them down those big slides. When Sadie got to the bottom, I picked her up and asked her if it was scary or fun. She responded repeatedly, "I went down big slide all by myself..." I wasn't sure if that was a proud "I went down by myself" or a traumatized one. I found out when Daddy and Eliza went up again without her while I remained holding her. She was so upset. I asked her if she wanted to go with Mommy to the baby pool and go down those slides. She said, "No! I want big slides!" They went down them a few more times. I was glad, at least, that they didn't try those big slides until the last day. I was nervous every time my babies went down those slides. At least I didn't have them begging to go down the whole visit. :)

Its been a week since our trip and Sadie is still asking to go back all the time. We love The Great Wolf Lodge! I play the "this little piggy" game with her toes only I send the piggies to The Great Wolf Lodge, to the wave pool and the baby pool, ect. Sadie wants me to do it over and over again. :)