Vaca

We went on vacation to Kansas City over Memorial Weekend. We were celebrating the end of the school year and 13 WONDERFUL years of marriage! We knew Daddy was getting ready to get so busy at work that he wouldn’t be able to take off to do anything fun, so we decided to go ahead and go over the long holiday weekend.

We were there for 4 nights and we had so much fun, we wanted to stay 4 more!

We stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge. We loved it and can’t wait to go back! We spent quite a bit of time at the water park each day, and we did some other fun stuff too.

One day, we planned to go to the new Legoland and Sealife aquarium. When we got there, we learned that there was a 2 1/2 hour wait to even get tickets and get in the door. NO THANKS! We had a very limited time for a vacation, and we weren’t going to waste it by standing in line. So, we went back inside the mall and checked out a dinosaur exhibit.

Before heading back to the resort, we ate lunch at Fritz’s. It was our first time to eat there and we loved it! We plan to go back next time we’re in town!

We placed our order by calling in to the kitchen from the black phone at the table. A few minutes later, a train carried our box of food to our table and dropped it on our tray.

Back at the resort, here’s Gracie coloring a t-shirt.

Here she is wearing her t-shirt and showing off her new stuffed friend.

 

Maybe the highlight of our trip, was the Sporting KC game. You all know that we are a soccer family, and we enjoy going to professional sports games, but this was our first time to a professional soccer game. As we enjoyed the day, we wondered what had taken us so long and couldn’t wait to get tickets to our next game!

KC WON!!!

After the game, we walked to the T-Rex Cafe. A trip to KC just isn’t complete without a meal there!

No, we don’t make a habit of letting our kids act like wild beasts at restaurants, but we made a bit of an exception for this picture :) We had a private table behind the volcano, so no one saw this outburst :)

Livestrong Sporting Park is a beautiful facility.

We enjoyed time in the indoor water park as well as in the outside pool.

Flying high!

We almost made a spontaneous decision to go to the soccer game a couple days later and stay another night. But, alas, we thought better of it and came home after 4 days as scheduled.

We had such a wonderful time!

Return to camping

Remember how much we used to go camping? Seems like we spent more weekends out in our camper than we did at home there for a while. Well, the older our kids get the harder it's getting to go out very often. Soccer dominates our Spring and Fall weekends and Summer and Winter weather doesn't really provide the best camping experiences.
Well, we haven't had the camper out since last August, so we scheduled it and went!
Grandma & Grandpa and Aunt Cathy & Uncle Guy were there too!

The first night, Rhett got this nice boo boo. He had stolen his brother's bike and was trying to ride away from him quickly...said big brother chased him down and pushed him off of his bike. Oh brother...


Making s'mores over the grill. There was a burn ban and this was the only kind of fire allowed.


It was HOT. We beat the heat by staying inside in the AC and by getting in the pool!





A little underwater air guitar :)


On Sunday afternoon, we went up to the visitor's center to watch the snakes being fed. It was so cool! We'd never seen anything like that before.


We didn't want to leave our little no-cell-service, no tv love nest, but we had to return to the real world after 2 short days. We are hoping to be able to go camping again soon!

Misc

B and his soccer ball spend a lot of time together. They are like BFFFF's. I just had to post this little blooper video :)

Lest he be eternally mortified, here's a little better video. 32 is the most I've ever captured on video for him :)

Because the chillens, they begged. They begged and begged for years on end. We sure don't have room for it in our tiny pathetic excuse for a yard....but, we aim to please :)

This awesome pic of the R Man was taken with my hubby's iPhone. And his phone is ok!
 Cool, huh??!!

B is back to soccer 3 nights a week. I don't understand how he doesn't get tired and be in need of longer breaks. As soon as a training session is over, and he is literally dripping sweat, all he can say is how he can't wait until the season starts! He says he's investing in his college fund:) Gotta admire that determination!

Here he is at goal keeper training.

I texted this to my husband today and got a big grin out of him :)

Summertime rocks. Except for the heat and lack of rain, that is. But the part about having a more laid schedule with time for fun... That part ROCKS!

Kindergarten Grad!

Our baby girl graduated from Kindergarten! Wow! This year has flown by! She has enjoyed school so much and can’t wait for next school year already!

The graduation celebration was so wonderful. Gracie did a great job. She LOVES to be on stage, and it was fun to watch her up there getting in to it and doing her thing.

We are so, so proud of her!

I made a little movie of some of the performance highlights. It’s pretty long—but I know the grandparents and aunts and uncles will get a kick out of it :)

(If the full screen mode isn’t available, just click the youtube button at the bottom of the video and you can watch it on  a bigger screen.)

 

 

 

Here’s Gracie with her sweet teacher and principal looking on.

We just had to snap this picture. Her Daddy and I were laughing and laughing. We even reminded her to watch her manners and that she was wearing a dress up on stage :) She did really good until the very end! :)

Back at school and in the classroom, her teacher gave out the Math and Reading awards.

Congratulations Gracie! We are SOOO proud of you! Great job in Kindergarten!! Can’t believe you are already going to FIRST GRADE!!

He makes a pretty girl

Braden had a part in the end of the year Spanish assembly. The 5th grade spanish students performed a short "play" entitled "Los pantelones de Panteleon". Braden played the part of Panteleon's hermana (sister).

His BFF was Panteleon.

No worries, of course I got a video!

My fav part was when his BFF gave him a little smack upside the head.

Those 2 are adorable together. Like 2 peas in a pod :)

We have TALENT!

Braden and Gracie both participated in the school talent show this year.

Gracie decided a couple months ago that she wanted to sing a solo. We went through several  Broadway songs and finally decided on “Tommorrow” from Annie.

She practiced and practiced and practiced! She was constantly singing her song! I never had to ask her to practice. I was really impressed by her desire to work so hard on it and to do a good job.

She was really nervous a the tryouts. She had a little rash show up on her neck and she was fidgeting and she forgot some of the words to her song.

I snapped this picture outside after school that day so I could have a picture of her in her pretty dress :)

Along with several other people, we were praying and praying for her for the big day. Praise the Lord! She wasn’t nervous AT ALL! And she was on stage in front of the ENTIRE school and all of the visitors too. Wow! I was SO proud!

She has been saying for a couple years now that she wants to be an actress when she grows up. She’d really like to be in plays so that she can sing and dance and act too. She’s getting started on stage early. I believe she can do it! :) I still just can’t believe she got up there and sang a solo at 5 years old. I would’ve NEVER done that as a kid! Although, I couldn’t sing as good as her though. :)

Braden and 3 of his friends, once again, did a song and dance routine. This group of sweet boys has performed together each of the last 3 years.

They all worked so hard getting ready for the talent show. This was their last year, and they wanted to make it really special. The moms worked hard too—coordinating practices with busy families with lots of kids involved isn’t easy! :)

They looked SO handsome! Aww! :)

This was so much fun! The crowd really got into it with them too. It was awesome. I teared up a little bit when they were done because I remembered this was their last elementary talent show performance. What fun memories they’ve made together over the past few years!