June Travels: Part 3

I started this post nearly a month ago and as usual, stuff happened. I burned our pictures from the trip that were on Kevin's computer onto a CD. I did this so I could use my dinosaur (also known as my desktop computer) and make the post. One Saturday I sat down to load the pictures and finish the post and see that one of my sweet precious children (and I have an idea as to which one it was) had completely deleted my CD drive off my computer. So I gave up.

Since I have a bad case of heartburn tonight, I thought I would pull Kevin's laptop out and try to catch up on some blogging instead of going to bed. Honestly, I would rather go to bed but I know I wouldn't be able to sleep with this raging heartburn. So with no further ado, Part 3 of our June travels!

Our final trip in June was one we look forward to for the past few summers. For the past three years, we have participated in our church's Family Mission Trips. This year the Family Mission Trip was ministering to the beautiful town and people of Creede, Colorado. This was our family's second trip to Creede. The very first family mission trip that our church sponsored in 2007 was to Creede. Creede is an old mining town with only 400 residents during most of the year. But from May until September it expands to about 3000 due to retirees summering there. Tourism is there big industry now since the mines closed back in the 1980s. Most residents have two or three jobs during the summer to try and make ends met the rest of the year.

I believe we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 140 people from our church go on this mission trip. We had several different projects that people worked on. Some went up on the mountains and cut firewood for the church we work with to give out to those who need it during the bitter cold winter months. I believe with what we took up there on two 18 wheelers and what they cut during the week, the church ended up with over 60 cords of wood. We had a couple of construction crews that worked on individual houses and one that reconstructed a day care facility. There were paint crews. The log cabin school was stained and a National Forrest Service Campsite outhouses and cabins/pavilions were painted. There was a yard crew that did yard work at various places. The children also had several projects that they did during the week. They hosted a free car wash that was a huge success, planted flowers at some the houses that the construction crews worked on, sponsored a 4th of July craft day in the park, and they also washed windows and cleaned the sidewalks. And last but not least, we had a crew of people that worked in the kitchen all week feeding us three meals a day.

I worked with the children's projects and Kevin ended up on the paint crew that painted outhouses at the NFS campgrounds. One day, Kevin took Eli with him to paint. Eli really enjoyed getting to go paint.

Rio Grande River at the campsite Kevin helped paint.

The outhouse painting crew.

The head waters of the Rio Grande!

The sun was too bright for Eli!

Mr. Sid and Eli. Mr.Sid oversaw the campgrounds. Kevin got to witness to him throughout the week.

Luke in Kevin's work clothes acting like a clown! What else is new?!?

Eli FINALLY getting to climb the mountain, as he called it, behind the church. He begged to climb it everyday that we were there.

Kevin helping Luke along. Luke was a little scared.

Kevin, Eli, and Luke at the top of the hill behind the church.

Spring Creek Pass Continental Divide.

The family at the Spring Creek Falls.

Kevin and Eli decide to climb down the the bottom of the ravine.

The made it safely down to the bottom!

The view of the falls from the top.

We really had a great week. The two older boys loved it! They loved climbing all the mountains and finding lots of rocks. And they both worked hard. Looking forward to next summer's mission trip!

June Travel: Part 2

The weekend of Father's day, found us in hill country of Texas and in the Austin area. Kevin had the honor of being a groomsman in the wedding of John and Elise Mason. We decided to go down on Thursday evening so we could spend Friday doing something fun. We ended up going to the Longhorn Cavern State Park outside of Burnett. It was a really neat cave. The boys seemed to enjoy it.

Waiting for the cave tour to start.

The cave's watch dog. Several Geologists have examined this rock formation and have determined that no tools were used to make this rock formation, thus meaning the rock was formed this way strictly by the river water that formed the cave.

They told us we would see a bear in the cave! If you look closely, you can see that this rock looks like a bear. People are allowed to rub his nose for good luck.

Seth had so much fun in the cave, he passed out!

Friday night and Saturday were spent with wedding festivities. The rehearsal dinner was held in a small community named, Oatmeal! I may never been to New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, or Miami, but I would imagine not many people can say that they have been to Oatmeal, Texas!

The oatmeal can welcoming you to Oatmeal, TX!

Since I was pretty much a single parent of three kids at the wedding, with Kevin being preoccupied with wedding stuff, I did not get to take any pictures of the beautiful wedding or the lovely bride and groom. :(

Saturday night after the wedding, we drove to Austin to spend the night. We got there in time to check out the bats at the Central Ave. bridge. An estimated one and a half million mexican free-tail bats make their home under the Congress Ave. bridge. Every night between mid-March through early November the bats emerge from under the bridge and literally blanket the sky. I really thought there would be only a handful of people on the bridge to watch the bats come out for the night. But I was wrong. As you see from the pictures, it is a quite popular attraction in Austin.

People bat watching from the ground.

The line of people on the bridge to our left.

To our right facing downtown Austin.This is the best still photo we got of the bats.

Just to give you an idea of just of how many bats there were, here is a video of some of the bats flying out from under the bridge.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

On Father's day we went to McKinney Falls State Park, which is actually inside Austin city limits. You would never know you were only a few miles from downtown Austin. Kevin and the older boys played in the creek while Seth and I relaxed in the shade. Before we left for the day, the boys gave Kevin his father's day present that they picked out. What does a 6 year old and 3 year old want to give their father for Father's day you ask?

GI Joe action figures of course!!! Every dad needs GI Joe toys to play with at work don't they?

It was really fun weekend. The boys still talk about the bats and the cave.

June Travels: Part 1

June was a whirlwind of a month for us so I thought I would divided it up into small portions. Instead of one huge post. (Thanks Ashley for the idea!!!)

It started out with VBS June 7-10. Our theme this year was Studio Go Game Show. It was a fun week for the kids and the volunteers. I was co-director of VBS this year. I believe that there were two or three children who accepted Christ as their Savior during VBS! That made all the running around, hounding, I mean, calling people worth it!

Bible School was Sunday through Wednesday. That Friday after VBS was over, we went to Ashley and Chuck's for the weekend. It was the weekend of the Texas Blueberry Festival in Nacogdoches, where they live. We woke up early Saturday morning, to stand in line for 45 minutes in the Texas heat, to eat some yummy blueberry pancakes for breakfast. They give you three pancakes on a Styrofoam plate and the pancakes are as big as the plate itself! We bought four plates. The lady thought we were crazy but out of all four plates that we bought, there was only a few bites left over. We have some pancake eating fools at our house! We also got to enjoy some refreshing and yummy blueberry lemonade inside one the banks downtown. And we took in the Cowboy Max show at another bank downtown. We tried to find all the indoor stuff we could because it was super hot that day. Eli got to be Cowboy Max's deputy during the show! If you want to see pictures from the weekend, check out my sister, Ashley's blog. She actually took pictures and I didn't! I am not even sure if I took a camera at all!

We enjoyed our weekend at the Flurrys. This was our first time to spend the weekend with them. I am sure it want be the last. Eli will make sure we attend the Blueberry festival again since he is a HUGE fan of blueberries!

Entering Week 28 - Pregnancy Update

Tomorrow I will be in my 28th week of pregnancy! Only 12 more weeks to go!!! The pregnancy to going well. Only minor things to complain about like a little heartburn here and there and sciatic nerve pain.

I went to my doctor last week and he ran several tests. I had my glucose tolerance test, blood work to check my thyroid, and an ultrasound to check the baby's growth and development. I had gestational diabetes with Seth, so I am at a higher risk for having it again. An ultrasound was what caught the low amniotic fluid problem that I had while carrying Seth. As you can imagine, I really wanted to know the results of the these two tests.

My blood sugar was 126 after having to drink that awful sugary orange flavored drink they give you. That is within normal limits so I do not have gestational diabetes this time. Praise the Lord! After having numerous ultrasounds with Seth, I know what to look for when they are calculating the amount of amniotic fluid. So I didn't have to wait to hear from the doctor's office for this part of the report. My fluid level was at 19.2 cm, which is great! I was so relieved. I prayed the whole time during the ultrasound that it wouldn't be a problem. And the Lord answered my prayer! With Seth, my amniotic fluid was half that when they found the problem. The baby is growing great. The baby weighs approximately 2 lbs and 10 oz., if I remember correctly. I don't think Dr. Mason is planning on anymore ultrasounds since all is well.

My thyroid test did however present a problem. My thyroid level is under 1.0. Dr. M wanted to lower my dosage of thyroid medicine. Once he found out exactly how little I take, he decided to take my off the thyroid medicine all together for the next month. In a month, he will retest my thyroid to see what the level is after being off the medicine for a month.

We resisted temptation again and didn't find out the gender of the baby. Kevin and I think it is fun not knowing but the grandparents and the baby's aunts don't appreciate the element of surprise like we do!

We don't have any names picked out either. Kevin has always made naming a baby hard but this time he is making it extremely hard. Here are his request/guidelines

1. The first name has to be a Biblical name and the middle name a Family name. I tried to talk him into a Family Bible combo name and I got a speech on how God comes first then Family.
   
2. The name has to have a good meaning. Remember the post where I talked about him praying the meaning of the boys names.
3. He wants the family name to come from his Dad's side of the family. Eli is named after my dad's grandfather, Luke after Kevin's mother's dad, and Seth is after my mom's grandfather. So you see that Kevin's dad is the only side we haven't used. My argument is his sister's son, William Joseph, is using two names from his Dad's side. And two of the best names from that side I might add.
   
4. He thinks the Biblical name should be a New Testament name. Eli - Old, Luke - New, Seth - Old, Baby #4 - get the picture.

Now you can see why there isn't any names picked out. So we are likely to have the baby and still not know what we are going to name him or her. I think we should just name him or her Eli Luke Seth, because I call the roll as it is when I am trying to call one of them.

I have tried four times to scan my favorite 3D ultrasound of the baby. My scanner keeps locking up. I will keep working on it and try to post it later so you can see the little sweetie!

Surprise!

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! --- I am making a post!!!

Since it has been ages since I have posted, I thought I would back track a little and bring you up to date on things I have wanted to post about. Then I will post about more recent things!

April 2009

Easter

We spent Easter at home this year. For Easter lunch, our friends, Josh and Becky Tanner, invited us and another couple over to their house. We enjoyed getting to sit and visit with our close friends for the afternoon. Becky is the hostess with the mostest! She makes Martha Stewart look shabby!

Beck took our family picture before we left. It is next to impossible to a picture of all of us without someone having a goofy face!

I included this picture just because it was a sweet picture of Seth. When we picked Seth up from the nursery after church, he had on different clothes due to a exploding diaper. Beck was kind enough to to wash his outfit for me. See I told you she was the hostess with the mostest!

Sharing the News

In April, we made it public that we were expecting our 4th child! I know everyone has heard by now, but I had to included it the happenings of April. Baby #4 is due November 18. Right now I am 22 weeks pregnant. Everything is going well with the pregnancy. To answer your questions, no we don't know yet if it is a boy and girl and we want know until the baby is born. Seth has been the only baby that we found out the gender with. I actually like the suspense, even though it drives our families crazy. And no we aren't necessarily trying for a girl. A baby girl would be great but another boy would be wonderful as well. I actually think Kevin is hoping for a girl more so than I am.


May 2009

Mother's Day

This past mother's day, Kevin tried to surprise me with a special gift of pictures of him and the boys. But he found quickly found out that getting three boys ready, out the door with all needed props for pictures, going shopping for coordinating outfits, and having the pictures taken all in a mornings time, is not for the faint of heart. I found out about the pictures because Kevin had to call me to come pick up the boys at the state park where they had the pictures taken because he was running late for work. When I got out of van to get the boys, Eli yelled "Happy Mother's day!" So the cat was out of the bag!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures.




Travels

The first weekend in May we went to Arlington, TX for a Vet Conference. We got to go to a Ranger's game. We left the game early because a bad storm was on the way. Kevin got most of his CE hours in that weekend and the boys and I got to go shopping.

All three boys sported a different Texas Ranger hat. Luke - a batting helmet, Eli - huge foam cowboy hat, Seth - a baseball cap.

Isn't he cute with his pacifer and bball cap!

The next weekend, Kevin and I went back to Arlington for a Homeschool Bookfair. Kevin's parents were supposed to keep the boys at our house for us but Kevin's mom had been put in the hospital earlier that week with food poisoning. So at the last minute, we got my parents to keep them for the weekend.

The bookfair was a two day event but we only made it for one of the days. We found out why it is a two day event...it is HUGE! There were information sessions given throughout the day on different topics. There were a few that I would have like to have gone to but we simply didn't have enough time with only being there one day. We really thought we would be there for three or four hours tops but we ended up staying ALL day just browsing through curriculums and deciding that what would work best for us.

That about sums up the end of spring for us. We have had a extremely busy Summer so far and hope to post on those events soon (which means within three months!).

Potty Talk

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS TALK THAT IS ONLY MEANT FOR THE BATHROOM.

Since Luke is potty trained now, he enjoys calling us to his room after he has been in bed for 10 minutes or so to tell us that he needs to go potty. Eli does this as well. We are trying to stop the habit. They like to go to the bathroom together and look at magazines and talk - Eli on the big potty and Luke on the little training potty. It is pretty cute but night after night, it gets old.

Last night they both used the bathroom right as they got out of the bathtub, or so I thought. When we put them to bed, I felt sure that we wouldn't be called back in for a potty break. Well just as Kevin and I settle in and try to relax, we get the call.

Kevin walks back to the boys' room and I hear him tell Luke "Mommy said that you used the bathroom before you brushed your teeth."

Then I hear "Luke, I better see some tee tee in that toilet or you are going to get a spanking."

Kevin stays in the bathroom to monitor the situation. He will not let Luke have a magazine or any of the bath toys to play with. So our little clown, starts making funny faces. Kevin just stares at him. Then Luke's face starts to show signs of the "poo poo face". As Luke is straining, he looks up at Kevin and with all seriousness says "I think an egg is coming out."

Kevin bites his bottom lip and has to turn around and walk out of the bathroom to keep his composure. Sure enough, Luke did have to go to the bathroom!

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Episode 6: Eli's Birthday

IN A GALAXY NOT SO FAR AWAY, ON THE DAY OF APRIL 16, IN THE YEAR 2003, A BABY BOY WAS BORN. FROM THE BEGINNING HIS ENERGY DREW THE ATTENTION OF THE JEDI COUNCIL, WHO NAMED HIM ELI. THEY KNEW HE WAS THE ONE. IN THE 6 YEARS THAT FOLLOWED HIS BIRTH, YOUNG ELI HAS BEEN LEARNING THE POWERS OF THE FORCE.

RECENTLY THOUGH, THE JEDI KNIGHTS HAVE FELT A STRONG DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE. A DISTURBANCE GENERATED BY THE DARKSIDE. MANY JEDI KNIGHTS HAVE BEEN LOST. THE VERY FUTURE OF THE JEDI ORDER IS NOW IN JEOPARDY.

THE JEDI COUNCIL HAS CALLED UPON YOUNG PADAWAN ELI TO SEEK OUT FUTURE JEDI. PADAWAN ELI AND SEVERAL OTHER YOUNG PADAWANS WERE PRESENT ON SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 2009 TO ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE OF JEDI TRAINING.
MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU.

Young Padawan Eli waiting on his Jedi Training.
For those who aren't up on their Star Wars lingo, a padawan is a Jedi in training.

The Padawans that accepted the Jedi Training challenge.

Obi-Wan Kenobi instructs the Padawans.

Darth Vader showed up to spoil the Jedi Training.

Obi-Wan and Darth Vader in a lightsaber duel.

The Padawans pose for a picture with Obi-Wan and Darth Vader.

I had several mishaps with this cake. It isn't anywhere near what I had wanted it to look like. All Eli really wanted on the cake was the action figures on top. He really wanted a LOT more action figures (like 12) on the cake but that idea was vetoed. But I guess the looks of the cake didn't affect the taste because there wasn't any cake left.