Welcome to our World

Since I got to take Natalie to California early, Hubby said he got to take Natalie to Nebraska for her softball tournament.  Fair enough but I think I got the better deal because I didn't have to drive three hours from the airport to get to the hotel... and lose an hour with the time change... so check in at 4:30am.  I am amazed she was able to play 3 games that day and that he was able to function as a fan at all. These girls demolished the day one competition, mercy ruling all 3 teams they played.  The next day they had a bye for their first game (since they were #1 seed), won their 2nd game of the day, and came home as tournament runners up.  Always fun to bring home hardware.  I'm just glad they were safe and had fun! While we were in Orlando for spring break a woodpecker decided the front of our house would be a great place to make a new nest and then abandoned his project.  We had the damage repaired in June and it looks amazing.  If you need som...

When we found out our family reunion would begin at the LA port, I offered to take anyone who wanted to come with me to Universal Studios Hollywood. After all our trips to Orlando I couldn’t believe most of us had never been there. Michelle and Hubby had LL & work to stay behind for and Kate and Danny decided they had enough of theme parks for a while after our spring break trip so just Natalie and I went early. I think they missed out. USH is very laid back compared to USO and we easily did everything we wanted to do and more in a day and a half. There were two things N had wanted to do at Epic and couldn’t so our first priority was to ride Mario Kart (riding twice each day) and get a HTTYD Mac and cheese cone. They both live up to the hype!  There are plenty of neat things they have in Hollywood that aren’t in Orlando like the tram tour, stunt show, and Secret Lives of Pets ride.  And in Hollywood you can buy one day and get a second day for only $20 more.  Our seco...

M & N began summer by getting together with friends and creating summer buckets lists.  They are all beautiful and they are both so excited to have plans with friends for when there is no school.  N's hang out also included swimming & a trip to Ziggi’s & pictures sent to me. Danny and his friends have gone camping couple times together and Danny is getting sick of eating hot dogs on the weekend but he is having so much fun.  They also woke up for a morning sunrise and then he came home and went back to sleep.  Summer is good for the soul. With all the camping in May it should be a surprise that our truck now has over 100,000 miles on it.   When it had around 2 miles left we decided to drive to Dairy Queen and hit the milestone as we entered the parking lot and took a video and photo.  Ice cream is such an excellent invention for celebration. M also got to celebrate V's birthday with many of her favorite people and her mom shared this cute photo....

When your oldest child hates the photos you took after her graduation ceremony & you forgot to ask someone to take pictures of the party, the blog post becomes much shorter than planned.  For the record, our family and my parents all got dressed up and went and enjoyed the perfect weather for an outdoor graduation ceremony.  Well, perfect for those of us not wearing a cap and gown.  They could have used a few degrees cooler but most of us were just grateful it wasn't raining for the first time in a week.  We are thankful for the precipitation but so glad the ceremony didn't have to be moved to the gym.  The event was over two hours long and our camping chairs were much more comfortable than bleachers would have been.  Their ceremony was very nice with all the usual things you would expect like a teacher speaking, honors being announced, a student speaker, salute to the armed forces, and everyone getting to walk across that stage, move their tassels, and...