Ohio Trip #1

We drove and drove and drove.  We left on a Thursday after work and made it all the way to Little Rock, Arkansas the first night.  We drove through a crazy rain storm complete with blinding lightening and booming thunder.

We were on the look out for mountains...
Never happened!

We exited the freeway to find a restroom and found this cute little barn and tractor.  We eventually found a restroom in a very OLD country store.



Driving over the Mississippi River

The bridge we drove on from Kentucky to Tennessee over the Mississippi River



During the course of the trip we drove over the Mississippi River, the Kentucky River, the Tennessee River and the Ohio River.  We had so much fun seeing tons of new things. 

No wonder Jack know all the words to all the songs on my Mp3 player

Kayla and Henry watching a movie

Sleeping Princess Brinley -  we lost her skirt along the way when she couldn't wait for the lady in the restroom at the Flying J and she pee'd on the floor right next to the soda machine.  I changed her clothes and we haven't seen the skirt since. (We were only 45 minutes from home!)

Proof that Lars didn't drive the ENTIRE trip!

Summer 2012 PART 2

Carson's cute shirt!

Grandma and Grandpa Flinders House, right across the street from the Kittaka's (my sister and family).  Seriously AWESOME!

We took a loooonnnnnggggg road trip this summer from Houston, TX to Waverly, OH.  It took over 20 hours spread over 2 days to get there but it was sooo worth it!  We had an amazing trip filled with fun, food, cousins, fireworks, waterslides, cook outs, cousins, berry picking, chickens, cousins, canning, shopping, donuts and so much more!  I'm in the process of organizing all the pictures and I will blog about it soon!

Summer Stuff

Mother's Day 2012 - Me and my DARLING kids!



Brinley did have a birthday in June and she did in fact turn 4.  Just goes to show that things that don't make it to this blog DO actually happen anyway! (don't you love the old, too small soccer cleats in the corner?)



We went to an outdoor symphony on July 3rd.  Man, it was sooooo hot!  Those fans were LIFESAVERS!!!  We only stayed 'til "halftime" then headed home to get some shut eye before the parade on the 4th.

Kayla is 11!!

Kayla had a birthday!!!  She turned 11 and I since I was at Girl's Camp and we don't have a single picture from her actual b'day I thought I'd do an end of elementary school/going into middle school post...(YIKES!!)

Kayla got a bunch of awards on the last day of school.  She was in the District Honor Choir this year.



She was on Safety Patrol



She got the President's Education Award.  All A's average and "Commended" on the STARR (Texas State Testing)

For career day she dressed up to be a teacher.  She made her own lanyard and badge.



Honor choir concert



With Mr. Genseal during the 3rd nine week awards.  A lady in our ward said yesterday that she is so busy with all her kids activities, sports and banquets that another mom asked her, "Don't you just wish your kids were dumb and uncorodinated sometimes?"  We'd sure be a lot less busy but I wouldn't trade it for anything!



Kayla is in the Gifted and Talented program at school.  She had to a bunch of very involved projects this year.  One of the projects was doing a college analysis.  She had to fill out a college application and figure out how much it would cost to attend, write her education plan, pick a major, make a brochure, present her project and fill out a job application for her post graduate career.  She wants to go to BYU and be a teacher.  Thanks to her cousin Gillian for the outfit!



Another look at her presentation board

Kayla also did a group project about Joseph Smith for school.  She did an amazing job and stood up and told her whole class about the restoration of the church and the Book of Mormon.  Can you tell that she wants to serve a mission too?  We are pretty proud of her!



Random stuff I want to document

Lars took some pictures of the Hosuton Temple when he picked up Henry's birthday scriptures from the Distribution Center.  Henry had his heart set on a green quad... well we found out they've discontinued green.  I called around Las Vegas, Utah and Houston and found a snap medium size quad!  YAHOO!!  He was thrilled.  Grandma and Grandpa Flinders supplied him with a basketball scripture case and Grandma and Grandpa Larsen got him a personalized green pocket hymn book.  My favorite part of the kids birthdays is when they give gifts to each other.  Henry had been really "in" to reading Dr.Seuss books so Brinley wanted to get him a new one.  Such a thoughtful gift.  Jack used our Disney rewards and got him Cars 2.  Kayla got him a chess/checkers set.  He joined chess club this year at school and has become quite good.  The kids were out of school on Henry's b'day but they all got up EARLY to watch him open his presents before Lars went to work... That's LOVE!!



I took this picture with my NON iphone... kinda blurry but I wanted to document that I had a HUGE crush on Henry's soccer coach this season.  He did such a great job!  He was so encouraging of the kids.  All the parents were asking if he was coaching again next season.  Sadly, no.  The kids are all on swimteam right now... pictures to come!

Catchin' Up (it's a process)

We had Christmas... more to come

Spent a day at the park... The day before Thanksgiving.

I went to Kayla's 5th grade class and helped teach the kids to crochet for Colonial Days.

Had new pictures taken.  I love to look back at how they've grown.

 


We had a baptism!

Jack's 5th Birthday



Because of Jack's asthma we usually get lots of pictures of him blowing out the candles... he has to blow a 4 or 5 times to get enough air to actually extinguish the flame!

This was on the ACTUAL birthday.

We went to China River for Jack's birthday dinner and then off to Build-a-Bear Workshop.

Jack calls him Mr. Bear but at Build-a-Bear he named him George.  He wanted the other blue bear with the Star of David on the paws and the menorah on the tummy... He compromised to the "winter wonderland" bear.

We had a little party with a couple of our favorite families... The Nunnerys and The Sproats!
We played pin the tail on the donkey.

Jack made a paper-mache hot air balloon at the library a few months ago so we filled it with candy.  It was so heavy and unstable that we couldn't hang the pinata so we improvised and played soccer with it.  The kids had a blast with it.

Waiting their turn... Olena, Brinley, Elise and Jack

The loot... AKA leftover and clearance Halloween candy.

The only picture we got of the Batman cake.  It didn't taste very good but Jack LOVED the batman on the bat cycle.