Ludwig Family Reunion 2013, part 1

In late September we went to Las Vegas for a Ludwig family reunion. 

It was so nice to get away and so fun to be with our family!

We visited this old town called Bonnie Springs.

We went to the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay. Super cool!

Myles was excited that he just touched a real sting ray. :)

 Myles and the jellies. 

Myles and Wyn really love the movie 'Finding Nemo.'

So any underwater stuff they also love!

We had to go see the race cars of course!

A guy that worked there saw us taking a picture and let the kids hold some trophies for the second picture. 

At this place you can drive a race car for a lot of money or you can be driven by this professional driver for two laps doing drifting. That is Myles and Wyn's favorite car to watch. Here's Myles giving him a high-five! 

More reunion pics to come...

Garden

Our garden was so fun this year. 

It was small, but a little bit of everything came up.

We planted mini pumpkins, watermelon (only the plants came up, no fruit), cucumber, sugar snap peas, and tomatoes.  The tomatoes were in their own separate pot that is not pictured below. 

Anyway, here are some pics of our little garden.

And some of Myles playing outside. 

Love this boy!

Random pic of Pierce playing inside.

Our pumpkins did best.

Myles is holding one of them.

Myles wanted to take a picture of me with one of our pumpkins.

Wyn loved our cucumbers!

I made these little trees just for decoration and the kids went and picked pumpkins and dressed up the trees! 

Love these sillies! 

Without change there would be no butterflies...

This is the magical tale of the day after my birthday.

Myles and I were watering the garden while Wyn and Pierce were napping when the best thing happened...we found a caterpillar! Myles said, "I've always wanted to find one. This is the luckiest day."

Myles had his dump truck with him so he made him a little home in the truck bed.

He was one excited boy. 

I can't lie, I was pretty exited too.

Although the truck bed was a great start it just wasn't big enough for our friend Zoomer.

 Here is Zoomer's second home.

After a day we decided to make him a new home in a tiny fish tank we had.

And two days after that we found the caterpillar had crawled to the top and wasn't moving anymore. 

We got to see him turn into a beautiful green chrysalis. 

It was really awesome!!

Just eleven days later the chrysalis became see-through and we knew the butterfly was about to come out.

Our butterfly. 

We put the butterfly on  the deck to warm up his wings so he could fly off.

It's cheesy, but it was such a magical thing. 

I loved this experience with the kids.

Somethings we learned about caterpillars:

*Their poop is called frass! We like that word now. :)

*They frass a lot!

31 years young!

At the beginning of September, I turned 31! Yikes! How am I that old already? I don't really feel like 30's are old, but it's weird to be that old. Does that make sense?

Anyway, here are some pictures of my big day. 

Kenny got some books for me and the kids got me a wall clock and another cute picture.

It was a great day including fruit pizza! 

31!

A beautiful drawing

So July was a month packed with pictures.

August, not so much. This is the one and only I took in August.

Myles and I were drawing.

I drew a picture of him and he drew a picture of me. 

Can u tell who is who? :)

Friends and Family

At the end of July we took a trip to Salt Lake City to go to the temple and see some dear family and friends that we hadn't seen in a long time.

It was so nice to see these wonderful people!!

Here are my dear friends, Hannah and Lura, from our Molalla days.

I was blessed to work with Lura in the young womens program and Hannah was one of our young women (and Lura's daughter :)).  I just love these two so much!! I have missed them over the years and it was so nice to catch up with them. On that visit Hannah told me she's expecting her first baby!! So exciting! Love you guys!!

Next I got to see my sweet friend Aubrey.  It had been about 10 years since we'd seen each other! Way too long!! It was so fun to see her and meet her three beautiful girls!! 

Then we took the kids to Temple Square not only for the sights, but also to meet up with my older brother and his wonderful family.

My sister-in-law, Elida. I love her! She was so great with the kids.

Here is my brother Adam! 

We are so blessed to now live so close to them! 

Details to come in a future post. :)

Thank you everyone for seeing us back in July!!

Fun Stuff

We made some oobleck! Myles and Wyn loved it!

Siblings!

P Diddy!

Myles and Wyn were so excited that they made "sand cupcakes." 

Doesn't he look like he wants to say something?

Pretending to ride horses.

Super Baby!