Chicago trip

The town of Sturgis was CRAZY with motorcycles!! They were everywhere. If I was into motorcycles it would have been really cool. We didn't really walk around much. It was a little intimidating and we would have felt really conspicuous walking around with a baby. It just felt wrong. I did get out of the car on a side street and walked a few blocks. I was greeted with an eyeful of old women dressed like teenagers. A particularly memorable one was a 60ish woman wearing a thong bikini, chaps and tatoos. She was in shape (luckily) but it was still 60 year old skin and it wasn't pretty.
We took this picture of Logan on a Harley in a Burger King parking lot. As we were driving through town earlier, Krista joked that if someone commented on the baby, as people tend to do, we should say, "Thanks, can we get a picture of him on your bike?" Not thinking that would ever happen we just laughed about it.
So I was sitting in the car in the parking lot while Krista ran inside for a drink and I had the door open with my legs out because of the heat with Logan on my lap. A group of bikers drive up and park nearby and the biker chick says." Oh a baby, can I come see him?" I think PERFECT. "Sure," I say," can I get a picture of him on your bike?" So she went and asked her husband and they were really nice and he took his shirt off and put it down on the hot part of the motorcycle so Logan wouldn't get burned. I had my huge zoom lens on my camera but I wasn't about to miss the opportunity by stopping to change it so I had to back up really far to get a picture. Logan wasn't looking at me so I am calling his name and the biker guy comes back by me and is trying to get his attention too. I really wish I had the situation on video cause it was really funny seeing the shirtless tattoed biker waving at the baby. So I took a few pictures and wished the bikers a fun time at the rally and then surprised Krista with the pictures when she got back to the car.



So after Sturgis we went to Mt Rushmore about 40 miles away which was also swarming with bikers. It was pretty neat but didn't take much time to go through the museum and take a few pictures of the rock. You could hike up to the faces but I was NOT interested in doing that with a baby on my back.

We stopped a few more places before we got to Chicago but this was our major excitement for the trip.

In Chicago we walked down the Miracle Mile - just a street with a lot of stores- and down to Navy Pier. We h ad lunch at Giordano's pizza which was AWESOME!!! The American Girls store was crazy with so much stuff to buy all for a DOLL!! I'm sure we will buy a few things for Noelle at some point but some of it was ridiculous. I guess all the rich people need something to spend their money on to make up for not spending time with their kids! (Just kidding)
I really enjoyed the city of Chicago. It was neat seeing the huge skyscrapers that are much taller than the ones here. The part we were in seemed nice and normal. I was waiting to run into all the freaks we usually have around our city but I only saw 1 or 2. There were lots of families and regular looking people wearing clothes from JCPenney.

I am running out of time to write due to a crying baby so I will wrap up by saying we had a GREAT time and Logan behaved AMAZINGLY well. I figured he would be good but he was beyond good. So thanks for your prayers.
Krista is now safely settled in a house in Wheaton with 4 other girls and enjoying her job and the humidity (crazy but she likes it).

Music to a mother's ears.

I heard some of the best things a mother can hear out of the mouth of my two children today.

Noelle - You were right, Mommy!!! This was said after her dentist appt to get a cavity filled and I had told her the gas would make it not hurt. She was actually laughing while they were drilling because the vibrations tickled. I'm sure the laughing gas helped some.

Wyatt - I will share some of my money with you, Sissy! Sweet boy. We had recently rediscovered a stash of money in his piggy bank and Noelle's was pretty much empty. At Walmart they had a bunch of clearance toys that we were looking at and Noelle was asking for toys that I didn't want to spend money on and I told her that she couldn't get anything because she didn't really have any money in her piggy bank. Wyatt piped up from the cart that he would share his money with her. All on his own with no prompting. What a great heart!

I have lots more posts to do but have not had the time recently. After getting back from our trip to Chicago, we immediately went camping and then rode out the heat wave at my parent's house with their air conditioning. So I am just now back home and have to clean up the messes from the last two weeks so we can have company over tomorrow. So I will try to get to those posts soon. i have some cute pics to share.

On the road again...

Well our trip so far has been great!  Logan is doing very well with only a few meltdowns. We are currently 160 miles west of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Some highlights of the trip were scoring a huge jacuzzi suite for the price of a single room on our first night. After that it has been the Super 8 and a lousy Best Western. Day 2 we went through Butte, Montana where we enjoyed their farmer's market. We stopped in Billings at a restaurant Krista had found on the internet that had great cinnamon rolls. And today we enjoyed the 2008 Motorcycle Rally in Sturgis, ND.  Logan had his picture taken on a Harley, I got an eyeful of several scantily dressed old women and we managed not to piss off any old bikers. We then journeyed to Wall Drug which is a very cool, huge variety of stores, food and random touristy things. We finally made it to our hotel at 8:45 pm after crossing over into Central time. I hate losing a whole hour in 2 seconds.  Well I am off to bed as soon as I can get Logan to sleep. He still thinks it is 2 hours earlier than it is. Wish me luck!

Things I love

I was prompted to do this post by my friend Kate and so here it is. I don't usually do these kind of "share about myself" type posts and tell you all my thoughts and feelings. However, I love the fact that other people do, I am just not very good at putting my thoughts and feelings into coherent sentences. But here it goes.

#1 - Shopping - I love to shop! And luckily for my husband, I love to window shop. Although the fact that I don't buy things has more to do with my inability to make a decision than the money. I could stroll up and down all the aisles of every store I go into. I do not get to do this very often since my children are usually with me. They of course, minimize the shopping fun. And since I love shopping so much, I frequently push my luck too far and try to go down just one more aisle when I should have been heading home for a nap, or lunch or the bathroom. It is almost like I am physically unable to not look at one more thing. I was recently shopping with my MIL who is a get in, get what you need and get out kind of shopper, and I think she was silently cursing me as we walked down yet another aisle where there was nothing we needed.

#2 - Sleeping - I love going to sleep. Snuggling down in the covers, thinking about the wonderful dreams to come, giving a big sigh and sinking down further into the pillow. As with my previous love, children have greatly diminished my enjoyment of this pasttime. My husband is very gracious and usually lets me sleep in on the weekends as long as I don't have to nurse a baby. Another aspect of sleeping I love is camping naps. Taking a nap in a warm tent is heaven. And just a little tidbit, my best nap ever was on the floor of Jim Laxson's (my youth pastor) old maroon suburban type vehicle on the way home from Waterski Camp in highschool. I think the floor was just metal and I was really warm and lulled to sleep by the vibrations and the smell of gasoline. I know it doesn't sound glamorous but I woke up from that nap thinking, "That was the best nap I ever had."

#3 - Candy/Chocolate/Desserts - Love 'em! I can never have too much. I have heard people say "No thanks, I had a candy bar earlier this week so I think I will pass." !!!!! If I haven't had something sweet in the last hour I am up for some more! One of my childhood fantasies was to be an adult and able to buy candy at any point in time. Luckily Ben does not really like desserts or I would be baking stuff all the time.

#4 - Pictures - I really enjoy photography and taking pictures but mostly I like looking at them. When I was younger I would look through my yearbooks several times until I knew the names of almost everyone at my school. I love People magazine not for the Hollywood gossip (although it is entertaining) but to look at all the pictures. I always watch America's next top Model because I enjoy seeing how the models are transformed into these amazing pictures. My taste in art is always more toward the realistic side and I love black and white pictures.

#5 - Reading - Every since I was young I loved to read. I read every Sweet Valley High and Babysitter's Club book out there. I am a really fast reader and have been know to read a book in a day. I have read so many books that I often check out the same book twice at the library because they changed the cover design or I just plain forgot I read it. Since I could sit on the couch and read my days away, I try to limit the amount of books I get now. And since I pretty much just read Christian fiction, almost no non-fiction, I can't justify it as a learning experience. (Although I have learned that if you start dating a non-Christian, they will always become one by the end of the book so you can get married.)

#6 - Roller coasters/Amusement park rides - This one is newly discovered when we went to Disneyland and I had the chance to actually go on one.

#7 - Wyatt and his 3 year old verbal skills. I love listening to him talk because is so so gosh darned cute!! He says four like "por" as in "por favor" and off with "ss" instead of "ff". "I turned the light osss." How cute! There are lots more and I need to write them all down before he learns how to speak correctly.

#8 - Logan and the proud look he gets on his face when his pulls himself up on something. Even if I help him, he still lights up when he is standing on his feet.

#9 - Noelle and her exact mimicking of my tone of voice and word choices when she interacts with her brothers. "Oh, Wyatt, did you fall down? Here, let me help you up. There now are you okay?" and other such things. Love it. Although the flip side is hearing the bad things come out just as perfectly mimicked. Also I love that the other day she said to Wyatt when he called her Noelle "I wish you wouldn't call me Noelle, I like Sissy better."

#10 - I love the fact that I am finally done with this list. I already had to save a draft and come back later to work on it a few times. SHeesh!! All this personal blogging just isn't' worth it.

But hope you all enjoyed it.

By the way, for those of you that don't know, Logan and I are driving my sister out to her new job in Chicago this Friday. So send up many prayers for us along the way for safe driving, finding hotels easily, a happy baby (who happens to have a cold right now) and good relationship for the sisters. Five days in a car together could be dangerous!

I'll post pictures of the trip when we get back.

Kindred Spirit

So it is midnight and I am still sitting here on the computer looking at blogs and YouTube. Shame on me!!!
But I did find this great post on someone's blog. It perfectly describes my feelings which I can never seem to do very well. Maybe I should just start reading other people's blogs and then repost their words onto my blog, changing names when necessary.
Well I guess I will force myself out of the chair and off to bed. So if I seem sleepy at church tomorrow, you all know why!

Que pasa?

The other day Noelle and I were looking at her autograph book from Disneyland and she noticed that I had written her name, address and phone number in the front of the book. She asked why I did that and I said "So if we lose it, the person who finds it can call us and give it back." "Okay," she said. and then, looking concerned "but what if they speak Spanish?"

California Trip - Day 5-8

Thursday we went to a water park then drove down to Escondido to stay with Ben's uncle. Friday we went to Seaworld which was pretty much what I remembered from last time we were there 7 years ago. We actually got to sleep in on Saturday and just went to a wildlife park a few minutes from where we were and spent a few hours there. It was miserably hot again and there was tons of walking. I was so worn out from all the activity and heat that I literally melted down. I was so glad to get back to the house where we had a BBQ with Ben's cousins and their kids. Sunday we loaded up and made one last stop at In-n-Out Burgers (YUMMY!) and then drove to the airport in San Diego. When we got to our gate we discovered our flight was overbooked and I persuaded Ben to go for the free tickets and fly home later. (My parents had dropped our car off at the airport earlier in the day so no one was waiting to pick us up.)We spent a few hours in the airport and then got a flight home and 4 free tickets anywhere Alaska flies. Hawaii here we come!!!
So our vacation was a success. Noelle will have memories to last a lifetime. Wyatt may have a few vague memories and Logan will have some pictures to look at. We can't wait to go back in 5 years and do it again!

Here is the album for the rest of the pictures.

Like father like son

My mother in law took this picture at her house. Wyatt is watching a movie on the portable DVD player and Ben is doing whatever on his laptop. Wyatt loves the DVD player and can put in a DVD and start it by himself.

Vacation Update

I was trying to get the kids to sit still for a picture. This actually turned out okay but it was a fluke. they would not sit still and Ben hates helping me take portraits of the kids. This is why we go to JCPenney's and pay the big bucks. The kids listen to the photographer and sit where they are told and smile nice. (most of the time) Whenever I try to get them to pose for pictures, it doesn't work. And actually I am just referring to Wyatt of course. Noelle will smile and pose for any picture anywhere.
















I have updated my vacation posts. It didn't post on top, so to speak, so it is after the one of Noelle and the princesses. So don't forget to go back and look at it.

Just like Daddy

I forgot to post these pictures a couple months ago. Wyatt wanted to help daddy mow the lawn so he got his boots and his earplugs and his lawn mower. I think this is so cute because I have memories of my little brother following my dad around with his toy mower while he was mowing the lawn too.