We are in Wisconsin!

...okay since August...but it's taken us a while to unpack our things and get our minds back together.

Liberty Jail

We had extra time, so we just made a nice road trip out of the move and stopped in Independence and Adam Ondi Amen along the way. Cade and the kids had never been to Liberty Jail.

Pictures of the valley of Adam Ondi Amen. It was hard to get a decent picture of the valley. THere was so much vegetation and trees!

Visitors' Center in Independence

Liberty Jail

Bye Windsor Pointe #2004

I can't say any of us were incredibly sad to leave Windsor Pointe Apartments. In fact with only a couple hours to go of daylight, we decided to head out of town toward Waco anyway. A wave of calm and peace swept over me as we parted the throng of children playing in the street, drove over the curb-sized speed bumps, and past the buzzing garbage dump (with a hole much too high to swing a full garbage bag into) all for the last time.

We will, however, miss many parts of Texas and most of all the great friends that we made there. We miss you all so much already!

"Unscrewer Girl"

OK, so this is a name that Whitney gave herself when she helps with packing; but it's kind of stuck for a while. It rolls off the tongue "Unscrewer Girl! Please unscrew this small shelf!" "Unscrewer Girl! Please pull out these mounts from the wall." And she flutters in, screwdriver blowing in the wind to save the day. Well this particular time "unscrewer girl" was a little too thorough. Cade asked unscrewer girl to remove the legs from the piano bench. He came back in 10 minutes later to find the bench and all its corresponding parts completely disassembled, scattered in a heap and the removed screws and bolts in a pile. Now "unscrew-er girl" is going to be known as (uh...that name doesn't sound appropriate)...we'll just say that she will be practicing her assembly skills.

Moving....Ug

Before
After...

... and this isn't even the hard part. I'd always rather box things up than figure out where to put them afterwards.

The Sun did Not Shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house...

The remains of the tropical storm swept through here the other day. It was too rainy to do much of anything outside. Gavin and Brynne pulled up some chairs to watch the rain coming down--and it reminded me so much of the beginning to "Cat in the Hat" that I had to snap a picture!

TOP Nails

This is something Whitney Brynne and I will really miss about Texas. Top Nails. We go all the time to get our pedicures done at this little Vietnamese nail shop down the road. They are all over in this area. Blue and Red lettering on the sign and the signs always read "(adjective) Nails" (Super Nails, Best Nails, Top Nails, Great Nails, ...you get the idea). They do a great job and aren't as expensive. Also, they don't speak very good English, so you can just relax without having to make small talk about your kids and life. Seriously...I go to a salon to get some QUIET! If I want chit chat--I'll stay home.

The Last Airbender...who knew it was so good.

Okay, lately we have all been obsessed with the cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender. Yes, even Cade and I will turn it on after the kids go to bed. Not knowing that it was a cartoon before it was an M. Night Shyamalan movie, we ran across it by accident a month or so ago on Netflix (if you get Netflix, you can watch all three seasons online for free by the way). Anyway, it's a very well-written interesting story and the characters are very fun!

Some people learn to make cookies, others...

Last week we took the kids to Gold's Gym and there was a clown there making animal balloons for the kids. Whitney Brynne decided right then that she wanted to learn how to do this unique talent. She used her money to purchase a balloon pump and balloons online. Then she rented a how-to book from the library and spent two days popping, twisting, and tucking the colored rubber into all sorts of barnyard fodder. Her pride and joy was the snail (top). Cade and I have told her that someday the kids she babysits will be very happy that she learned how to do this.

Seaworld

A couple weeks ago we were able to meet up with Courtney's sister Whitney and her parents in Austin. We took a couple days and visited San Antonio. Here are some pictures from our trip!

This is the San Antonio Riverwalk and Courtney's mom with Gavin. It was so beautiful!

Ah, ...the Alamo.

My kids can never visit San Antonio without going to the Rainforest Cafe. With thunder showers every few minutes, animated animals, and gigantic fish tank walls--anyone wonder why?

Whit and Gavin really bonded this trip. We had 5 adults and 5 kids, so Gavin was her kid for the weekend!

We rode the riverboats at night. It was beautiful, but the kids didn't have much time to notice. They were all so exhausted that Taylor, Dawson, and Gavin all were asleep in a couple minutes. It worked so well that we're thinking of buying a riverboat and strip of river just for this purpose...

A beautiful picture of my sis!

Part of the fun reparte that Gavin and Whit kept up for the trip.

It was Dawson's first time in a warm pool. He splashed himself into a standstill--and Courtney to a standstill too.

Strollers this trip were for the tired and grouchy--regardless of age.
Dolphins!

Dawson reached the end of his rope toward the end of the third day. Unfortunately the flying acrobats weren't even enough to distract him from the fact that he was sleep deprived, hungry, and more or less inconsolable. Whitney did Courtney the favor of holding him for awhile while he pondered on his life thus far.
Shamu. We purposely sat in a splash zone, but Shamu didn't even come close to getting us wet. Oh well.


Broc and Brynne's first roller coaster ride. I think they're hooked. Brynne kept begging for more thrilling adventures "that was fun, but not really enough" was a constant phrase. Finally the last one that we took them on was high enough (and one part sent you down backwards) that even our little dare devil turned to me and said "mom, I think I'm going to throw up." She didn't and when it was over she denied saying any such thing. No evidence--no crime.

Good end to a good day.

What a fun trip! Thanks for coming.

Happy Mother's Day!

We want to say Happy Mother's Day to our two Mothers! You are both such wonderful examples of faith and kindness. We love you!

The armor of God

What parent hasn't had an "armor of God" FHE? Okay, so we didn't really think of it either until last week actually. For those of you who haven't yet--it's an easy quick lesson and lots of fun for the kids.

Forts: The next best thing to getting your own place.

Our kids love forts. What kid doesn't? My mom was always such a good sport. I remember she let us leave our forts up for days sometimes. We slept, ate, and otherwise lived in little shanties tacked together with pillowcases and blankets-- tucked into drawers and weighted down by anything else we could find. It wasn't our dream home, but for a kid, it was the next best thing to living on your own. Unfortunately one or two days is all Courtney's patience can hold out for these little architectural marvels. But the kids enjoy them while they last.

Sweet Potato testimonial

Had to snap a picture of one of the boxes of sweet potatoes here in Texas. Leave it to our Texans to stamp some form of gospel proselytization even on boxes of food. I thought the correlation of sweet potatoes to Jesus was pushing it just a little, but it's just so TEXAN.

Elvis Egg

This year while boiling Easter eggs, one of them broke open. What resulted was an interesting little character with quite a hairdo. We lovingly named him Elvis egg.

Easter 2010

Miscellaneous pictures of us on Easter. Sadly, no cute, frilly pictures of everyone in Easter dresses and sweater vests. We did a simple Easter this year--and with General Conference there was no need to dress up! The kids made confetti eggs and cracked them over Cade's head. He didn't even notice. Long days of dissertation analysis...
Ahhh--the annual Easter Egg hunt. Not much of a challenge unfortunately being confined to one room. Whitney got the prize egg this year much to the chagrin of her brothers. I think we will need to re-think the prize egg scenario for next year--something that invokes teamwork I think.