Enjoying dinner

Broden enjoys everything about mealtime, especially the time period between when he decides he's done eating until I get him out of the high chair. I try to keep that time short for obvious reasons, but then we have meals like spaghetti. I think he's decided that spaghetti is much to fun to just take it from the bowl straight to your mouth. And mom's decided that it's not worth the laundry. So there are certain foods that instead of messing with a bib we just strip him and take the cloth liner off of the high chair. Someday we'll work on cleanliness while he eats, but for now he's having way too much fun. (don't worry, dinner doesn't look like this every night!) Besides, how can you resist that smile?

We survived!!

Does she look a little too comfortable in our bed?
Check out those toes!

We survived our crazy week! I think it's funny that with as uneventful as our day-to-day life usually is, everything big got planned for one week! Somehow when Dan made plans to go up to Canada for his aunt's wedding we overlooked the fact that it was the same week I was going to Girl's Camp with the girls from our ward at church. Oops. The biggest problem was that neither of us were planning on taking our kids with us. Dan was a great sport and offered to take Broden with him since we don't have to pay for plane tickets yet. Jacey loved her sleepovers with her friends here in Texas. I had a great time at camp, but as I was driving home I just knew that Jacey missed me terribly and was probably watching out the window waiting for me to get home. (Well, not really, but I was picturing a great reunion!) I should have known better, since Jacey LOVES her friends. When I picked her up I walked out to the swimming pool in the Hirschi's backyard to surprise Jacey. When she saw me she said, "No! Not yet!" So much for my warm welcome.



I think she eventually forgave me for taking her away from her friends, since we had girl-only slumber parties 3 nights in a row before the boys came home! It was great fun. We did pedicures, manicures, facials, ate lots of junk, had pillow fights, watched movies, stayed up late, and she even got to sleep in my bed every night. I felt a little better about her reaction to my return when I told her Dan was coming home the next day. She said, "Oh Chicken Smokes! (Her new way of saying "Oh darn".... Don't ask me where it came from.....) Does this mean I can't sleep in your bed anymore? She even came up with the great idea that we turn my room into the girls room and her room into the boys room when they got back. I didn't think sleeping on Jacey's uncomfortable bed every night would go over too well with Dan though.



In the meantime, Dan and Broden were thousands of miles away in Cardston, Alberta for almost a week! Dan was obviously not planning on taking Broden before he got his ticket. The flight he booked was a late-night flight into Seattle. They left the next day to make the 12 hour drive from Seattle to Cardston. Then there was 3 days of running around here and there, weddings, dinners, reuniting with old friends, seeing more extended family than Dan knew existed, etc. Monday they left early in the morning to drive 12 hours once again from Cardston to Seattle where his parents basically just dropped Dan and Broden off at the airport to catch their red-eye (with a 2-hour layover) back to Dallas. That flight ended up being delayed 2 hours, and Dan had to race to catch his connecting flight since he had a practical at 9:00 the next morning. Whew! I'll bet you're wondering how Broden did during all this craziness? According to Dan, he was an angel, aside for a 30-minute crying period just before they got to Cardston. Isn't that amazing? I don't know... maybe he really wasn't and Dan's just saying that to make me feel better. If that's the case, I appreciate the little white lie. Here's the thing that really makes me laugh... When I fly by myself with 2 kids, people generally roll their eyes when I get on the plane. When Dan flys by himself with 1 kid, he's a celebrity! Yes, I know he was on a red-eye, so they were probably just trying to help him out a little. But still.... Dan's seat was in the very back of the plane. The flight attendant was talking to Dan and heard he had a connecting flight that he was going to barely make, so she moved him up to the very front of coach, and gave them a whole row to themselves. Then, she brought him a first-class meal. On top of that, another flight attendant offered him an energy drink for free, which he of course refused. I'm very grateful that he was treated so well, and that it made his trip a little easier. But next time there's a question over who gets to travel with the kids, I think I'll let him do it! :)

Girls Camp

One of our older girls organized an intense game of water balloon capture the flag. Don't we look tough?

How could I not feel loved with a welcome like that?

I got to go to Girls Camp last week! It was my first time without my kids in a very long time. Even though I missed them like crazy, after I got used to not looking around for them every 5 seconds I had a great time! BIG thanks to the Schaacks and Hirschis for letting Jacey spend nights at their house. EXTRA BIG thanks to Dan for making an adventure out of what could have been a very simple trip for him. (That's a whole other post....)

Anyways, back to camp. I'm sure most of you have heard me talk about "camp" before. Summer camping in Texas is unique. More like non-existent. We had air conditioning. We stood around the flag pole every morning and night just long enough to do the flag ceremony, then everyone raced into the air-conditioned pavilion where we did the rest of our daily activities. One of the 13-year-old girls put it perfectly when she said, "It's not really camp. It's more like a spiritual sleepover with some camping activities." Well put. So I won't bore the rest of you with details of something that you really have to be there to truly experience. I love our young women. We had so much FUN, and enjoyed some other experiences that made us feel closer to each other.

Happy Father's Day!

I was sitting at church today thinking about how grateful I am for all of the "fathers" in my life. I feel very lucky to have a patient, easy-going, wonderful dad. I can honestly say that I can't remember him EVER raising his voice at me. I think that is amazing. Yes, I am the baby and also the only girl. And I know I was a good girl, but come on, I wasn't THAT perfect! :) I'm also grateful for a wonderful father-in-law who is doing so much, especially right now having been down the chiropractic school road before, to support and encourage us in everything we do. It's a good thing I like him, because Dan wants to be just like him! I think that's great! I am especially grateful for Dan. It amazes me how a busy student with many other responsibilities can make us feel like he ALWAYS has time for us. I know that many times the greatest sacrifice he can make for our family is just sharing his time with us. I know that he has school stresses that he doesn't bring home with him, and I'm grateful that no matter what he has to think about at school he is able to come home and play. I'm grateful for the support he shows me. I'm glad that he is so supportive of me staying home with our kids. He supports me in my calling, even though it can be time-consuming and mean more work for him while I'm at YWs. I'm grateful that he's willing to take Broden on a trip from TX to Canada to attend a wedding so I can go to Girl's camp this week. I know it won't be a very toddler-friendly trip, with long plane rides (including a red-eye), long layovers, and many hours in a car. If that's not supporting me in my calling, I don't know what is! He gets excited for me when I get to spend time with my girlfriends, and encourages me to spoil myself once in awhile. I love you Dan!

Our "VACATION!"

So, I've been a little bit absent from the blogging world as of late. We just got home yesterday after being gone for 9 days. Where did we spend this nice, long, exciting vacation you ask? Let's see.... 2 nights in Addison, 2 nights in downtown Dallas (not our favorite part of downtown either), and the last 4 right here in Lewisville. Basically wherever I could scrounge up an available cheap rate through my friends that I used to work at Marriott with during my college days. (Thanks Jessica and Melanie! I'm sure you got sick of me calling asking for MORE authorization forms) It turns out that maybe Dan and I do know a thing or two. Damp, dark areas DO grow yucky stuff! We reported a leak from our sprinkler about 2 months ago. When they came (a week later) to fix that, they also discovered a leak from our tub. Our laminate wood floors were warped, our baseboards were warped, the wall had a HUGE water stain on it. After a few conversations of what we thought appropriate measures to fix the situation would be (and they did not include painting over the water stain like they tried to the first time!), Dan decided to take matters into his own hands. He went to Home Depot and bought a couple of mold test kits. He looked quite official, with his petrie dishes and such. Sure enough, we had definate positive results. Dan took them down to the office, and it resulted in a sugar-sweet phone call the next day from the office offering to replace ALL of our floors in our apartment, our walls on the area where the leak was, and they even threw in an accent wall with the deal. (Mostly because they ran out of the right color of paint:) So we got to pack up all of our stuff, hop around from hotel to hotel, and spend yesterday moving back in to the same apartment. But, it is worth it to have a clean apartment with safe air to breathe! Too bad the timing didn't fall over Dan's break so we could have gone somewhere a little more exciting on the apartment complexes dime! :)