It's Hot!

Asa has been wearing his BK crown lately. It was the first thing he wanted when he woke up this morning.

I told James last night that I was glad I wasn't 9 months pregnant like I was this time last year. I know that it isn't as hot here as it is other places, but it is really hot and humid. Luckily our air conditioner is kind of working. I know people whose AC is completely broken. Ours is having some trouble keeping up with the heat. I am trying not to use the oven to make dinner. It's difficult since our grill is also out of gas and we're not grilling either. We made a trip to Wal-Mart last night. I asked Asa if he was ready to go in and he said, "No. It too hot." That about sums it up. While at Wal-Mart, we discussed getting a pool. I think we might do that soon.

Just In Case

If you didn't look, there are new pictures to the right. Enjoy!

Judah has learned how to stand up right in front of the TV so he can really watch his favorite show. Baby Einstein holds his attention. That's what he is doing now, at 6:50 AM.

Weekend Trip

Wednesday was filled with cleaning and preparing to go to Iowa for the weekend. My friend Mariah drove up from Tulsa and spent the night. This meant that I had to make the basement presentable. It really wasn't a huge disaster as it often is. I'm really not going to share all the details of the terribly busy day, but I didn't even pack for the weekend until Thursday morning when I was also busy making breakfast and getting last minute things ready for the trip. I felt really bad because Mariah was just waiting on me to get ready.
We left Thursday morning just in time to make it to my mom's house in Oskaloosa before another friend from high school got there. It was so good to sit and talk with Lois and see her cute little daughter!
Other high-lights of the trip include a trip to Tasos' Steakhouse, a visit with a couple other friends from high school, attending a cowboy-themed birthday party, sorting through some of my grandparents' things at Mom's house, watching my boys play with their big cousins, talking with my brother and sisters, going to church and enjoying ice cream from the Frosty Udder.
We got back to Lee's Summit Sunday evening just in time to go to our small group. Mariah and her kids left Monday morning.

Our potential house was inspected yesterday. I was there for a portion of the three (3) hours Woody was inspecting. I can't believe that it took so long! I am very glad, however, that he did a thorough job. The biggest problem is that the furnace doesn't work. We have to get that looked at before we go ahead with the house. Now we just have to get all of the financial things in line so we can close at the beginning of July. Where do I begin packing?

Pictures Are Coming, Next Week

It's been a busy week full of cleaning and unpacking. Monday I made a banana cream pie to share with some friends after dinner that evening. Tuesday I went strawberry picking with some friends. Which meant that Wednesday I had to clean strawberries and make jam. My friend Mariah (who is my best friend from high school) drove up last night from Tulsa. This morning we're heading to Iowa to visit our families and our friend Lois. I am super excited for the trip.
Also in the last 5 days we've looked at a house to buy that's 6 houses down from us. We put in an offer and it was accepted yesterday. Now we're having to get things figured out to make the purchase. James is turning on utilities and scheduling the inspection today. (I think.) If all goes as planned, we'll close on July 7. I am finally excited. We have made offers on several other houses and I haven't been excited. I don't want to be disappointed and I would have been really let down with all the other houses since we didn't get them. But now I think that I can be happy!
I have a lot of pictures from our trip last week that I will put on flickr. But it won't happen until next week.

The Rest of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

As we were loading up the van at Slide Rock Asa was running around the van and wiped out. He hit his face on the curb thing at the front of the van. He was bleeding from his upper lip and mouth pretty badly. It was so sad because there wasn’t much we could do for him. We cleaned him up as best we could and put some neosporin above his lip. After just an hour his lip was pretty fat. I was also sad that most of our pictures of Asa from vacation would have this awful scrape on his face.
We drove down to Phoenix and over to James' grandparent's house. They are in somewhat of an assisted living house so we were able to stay at their house and make a big mess with all of our stuff. Wednesday morning we went to pick up Grandma and Grandpa and took them to their house. I made lunch and we just sat and talked with them. They were very glad to be in their house again. The boys really liked their great grandparents! Asa crawled up and down on their laps. I hope they didn't mind much! Grandma was reading books and singing songs while Grandpa took care of the tickling! It was sweet to see the boys playing with them.
Later that afternoon we took them back to their other house and headed to the other side of Phoenix to our favorite restaurant ever: Z Tejas! We met one of James' friends from college there for dinner. It was amazing. We ordered our usual: chorizo stuffed pork tenderloin for me and diablo chicken pasta for James. Great food and great conversation. It was a perfect night!
On our way home, we stopped by Sonic for free root beer floats. They were a hopping place! I started packing a bit when we got back to the house but I really was exhausted!

Thursday morning Judah woke up early again. I guess he was having trouble sleeping late because of the bright sun coming through the windows. We all were up by 7:00 and started gathering up our things. It's amazing how many things can be scattered around in such a short amount of time. While I was getting our things together, James took the boys outside for a walk and photo shoot by a cactus and palm tree. As he was out, some of his grandparent's neighbors asked if he wanted some pie. Someone had given them two pies and they had a piece of each of them. We *reluctantly* took the pies and hauled them clear to Winslow to share with the rest of the family.
Anyhow, we packed up and went to the other house for another visit with Grandma and Grandpa before we left. Again, the boys had a lot of fun! We drove back up to Winslow. We had a delicious lasagna at Janeille's house for dinner. Around 8:00 we took the boys to James' parent's house and put them to bed. Sandy stayed there and we went back to Janeille's to talk the night away. We left around midnight and I was exhausted. But how often to we do that? Practically never!

Friday we went to James' other grandparent's house to look through some of their things. They have both passed away and James' dad and aunt are trying to sort through their stuff and get the house sold. It was amazing looking at pictures, letters, tax returns, books, blankets, dishes, news papers, furniture, their whole lives. You just look through things and imagine living their lives. How different from what we experience today!
We had to finish our walk through the years quickly in order to get to a retirement party for our friend Larry who actually lives in the Kansas City area. Now that he's retired he travels all the time and they were in Winslow so they threw a party! We ate at a restaurant and had an awesome "Janeille cake." Then we stayed up late at the Light's house talking. It was great!

Then Saturday morning came and we had to pack everything up in our van. Sad times. Our vacation was almost over.

Other state license plates we’ve seen:
Alabama
Vermont
Ohio
Virginia
Florida
Wyoming
Hawaii
Utah
Washington
Indiana
Montana

Home, Sweet Home

We got home this morning at 9:30. We quickly took showers and went to church. It was so great to see our friends again! To think, it had just been a week!
We're beat and I'm going to bed. I'll have notes about the rest of the trip and pictures up in a couple days.

The Drive Home

It’s 2:30 on Saturday afternoon and we just stopped to get gas by Joseph City. We would have filled up in Winslow but the Flying J was really busy and people were leaving their vehicles at the pump while they went inside. So we drove on to the next town.
This morning we went to the Buckley’s house for Dawson’s birthday breakfast of banana & chocolate chip pancakes. Janeille instructed me on how to make a cream pie. I’m looking forward to trying it for myself when I get home. We finished loading up all of our stuff in time to see Dawson’s baseball game. Those little ones were pretty cute! After the short game we said our good-byes and were on our way.

It’s 7:00 PM in the Mountain Time Zone, 6:00 in Arizona. We’re just pulling out of Flying J in Albuquerque. Four hours down, fourteen to go!

It is 10:19 in Arizona. We’re at the Jesus Christ is Lord Travel Center in the Amarillo area. They have free wi-fi! Thus the update.

Tuesday

Tuesday morning after breakfast all the boys ages two and up went fishing. Asa wore his swimming clothes so that he could get wet. I'm told that they had a lot of fun but didn't catch anything for lunch. While they were away from the camp, Judah took a nap and I had some time to enjoy God's creation and read a little bit. It was so relaxing!
After lunch we packed up camp and headed for Slide Rock. There is a place where the water has run over the rocks and cut little water slides. Asa loved playing in the water once he got used to it. Judah even liked the water after a little bit. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of our boys in the water. By the time we got out the camera the sun had gone behind a cloud and the boys were shivering.
James' Nephews:


Our family sitting on the rock:


More pictures to come....

Sunday & Monday

Sunday we went to church as normal. We saw a few people that we wanted to catch up with a little bit. Afterwards we ate lunch and watched Janeille’s boys while they went to the quarterly church meeting.

Monday morning we headed out for Oak Creek Canyon for some camping fun. We stopped at the top of the canyon to take in the view. It was pretty spectacular. Asa would point over into the canyon and say, “Look, I see it. Canyon.”


We drove down to our camp site in the canyon, by the creek and started setting up tents. Asa had fun running around picking up rocks and sticks. I got out a pack & play for Judah to play in. He was pretty content in there for quite a while. Especially when Asa would stand there playing with him. At some point Janeille realized that we forgot to buy hotdogs when we were at Sam’s Club. That was totally my fault. I had the list and confirmed that we bought everything on it. Oh, I’m so dumb! After much discussion about where to drive to get hotdogs and who would go, Ken and Sandy drove into Sedona to get them. Anyhow, we had hotdogs and later smores over our camp fire. Asa loved playing in our tent. It took a while to get him calmed down to go to sleep. Every time he got in the tent he would giggle and crawl around, running into the sides of the tent. Our boys actually slept pretty well in the tent. The only problem was that Judah woke up early. Janeille’s youngest, Dylan, did not sleep well. His new nick-name is Tazmanian Devil!