Palmyra Trip

So this year we decided to drive up and see the Palmyra pageant! We were CHEAP and did it in one day, but it was so amazing! We decided to leave at like 5am and when we finally got up at 9am we decided to leave at 10am! It took about 4 hours to get there and for anyone who knows me, knows I am not a good car rider, but I did pretty good!

The first place we went was to the JS Farm and toured the houses and the Sacred Grove. It was so exciting to be in a place where so much of the restoration of the church occurred. It was amazing. My favorite place was the Sacred Grove. It is beautiful...absolutely beautiful. It looks and feels like stepping into a beautiful picture! When we were just about to exit the Sacred Grove, it started POURING rain! We were soaked and since I was in white shorts...I got pretty dirty very quickly!

After the JS Farm, we headed for the Palmyra Temple. This temple is just absolutely beautiful!!! I would love to go in someday. It is such a small but yet big temple.

After the temple we headed to the Hill of Cumorah, and walked up the Hill to see the monument, and then back down (I thought going down the hill was scarier than up), and then we went over to the visitors center. The kids were tired and cranky so we just decided to park for the pageant and then wait 2 hours for the play to begin. We sat on the grass at the back, but honestly, I don't think there is a bad seat for the play. The pageant was AWESOME and what made it even better was knowing that it is put together in a week and then they start performing for 2 weeks. Only a WEEK to put together that amazing play...well I mean with the actors I am sure there is much preparation before that week, but getting 750+ people ready in a week is no small feat!

The trip home was harder...Brad even let me drive home the last 2 hours because he was so tired. We made it home and zonked out! The trip was fast but oh so worth it!

The kids and I leave for Texas this week and Brad is going to be in another rodeo this coming weekend, so I will have to share pictures from that when I get them!

Pictures Galore

Gymnastics Update...
So while week one was not so great, weeks 2 & 3 have been much better. I could not flip the picture (sorry about that) but Brad had a really good time once he finally got the nerve to participate. What was even better was he totally did everything the instructor asked him to do and he was really trying hard to do everything she said. Gabi on the other hand was so upset that Brad was doing something that she threw a huge fit...so being the great mom I am, I let her play in make-up! She has not really ever done this, but she thought it was great. She even had a little mirror and kept examining how well she was doing putting on her make up! What a cutie! After week 2, I enrolled Gabi in the Tuesday class as well that runs at the same time and was nervous about it, but in week 3 both did pretty good. They wanted to be together, but they each managed a whole 50 minutes without each other!


Youth Conference...


I got to go to the last part of Youth Conference this past weekend and it was amazing. I drove up Friday after Brad got home from work and got to go to the dance and hang out with the youth, who had all worked so hard cleaning up one of the parks in Philly, and they were not complaining or moaning, but so excited to show me their posters and tell me what all they had done that day and the day before! They were so excited and the dance was SO much fun! I loved seeing them talking to the youth from other wards and making friends. It was so awesome!

They were all dancing and with youth from all different wards and hugging and smiling and laughing, which was just absolutely amazing. I stayed the night at the Cross's (thank you so much)! It was my very first time staying away from both my kids overnight. I went to girls camp with Gabi last year and left Brad but had never left both of them. I was gone 23 hours but hey...who is counting. Anyway, the next day, Saturday morning they had a service activity which was making blankets for children who were either sick and in hospitals or had been removed from their homes. This was my favorite part of YC by far. I watched our youth start cutting and working on those blankets and then when they finished...they went around and started helping other tables who had not completed theirs. The idea of service was imbedded in their hearts and I don't even think most of them realized what they were doing. They were just helping because they knew it was the right thing to do! After the activity and a lunch, we had the testimony meeting. I think each time I am surrounded by youth my testimony grows! I watched these amazing youth stand up and bear their testimonies of service and of how it helped them focus on others and help them realize all their blessing. Each youth was so aware of the Savior and the service he gave to each of us and how when they were serving they were following the example of the Savior and being his hands! It was just an absolutely amazing time and I love hearing the youth bear their testimonies, so innocent and sweet! I am so very thankful I got to go to YC this year!

Also, it was Quany's 17th birthday, and everyone sang Happy Birthday! Yeah!!!














After Youth Conference
When I got home, Brad was taking the kids to lunch at Wendy's...they had slept in until like 10:30 and so lunch was much later, here were my two cuties after a day without mom. Totally fine and enjoying their time with daddy! Brad did rat out his dad when he told me that daddy bought him and Gabi ALOT of candy and that they had so much fun eating candy and playing with daddy! Glad to know they are okay without me, but I sure did miss them! After they ate we headed home and shortly after decided we would try a family bowling trip! It was interesting...it wasn't bad by any stretch just interesting. Gabi is still a little young I think and Brad was totally into it...in fact, he fell because he went past the line and the lanes were good and greased up! I kicked butt of course because I did used to bowl in a league you know...(if you played with me at the retirement party...that was just a bad night) :-) !! We played one game as a family and then decided to just let Brad play since he was having so much fun. We kept telling him how good he was and he kept saying, "how come you guys haven't taken me to bowl before, I am so good" we were just like, I don't know but you are GREAT! He was so proud each time he got the ball down the lane at an amazing 3 mph! Thank goodness for bumpers right!






Like Birds of a Feather???

Just a cute picture of the kids at the zoo. They have this love/dislike relationship and so one minute they are hanging out and playing and the next they are trying to take the other down! It is fun and cute when they play and challenging when they fight! I normally yell...which doesn't really help, but it's my normal reaction! I love the moments when they are thick as thieves though...Brad gets Gabi into so much and she thinks he hung the moon. He will get her to run around the kitchen table (which is a no, no) and she just laughs and laughs the whole time and when I tell them to get out of the kitchen, he will say, "come on Gabi" and she just runs right after him. While I don't always feel lucky in that moment, I do love and am so thankful for our two little monkeys. Their personalities are so much fun and while half the time I don't think I have the parenting down even half right...we do love them so very much and are so thankful they are in our home!

DISCLAIMER: Big Brad told me my grammer is horrible in my posts...so let me apologize now. I normally just type and post...but maybe I will try harder in the future of course to work on this to make my posts an easier read! :-)

What's Been going on lately?

Happy Birthday Brad....

Brad is 31 years old now! We are really getting old! For his special day or 'happy day' as Little Brad calls it, he got breakfast in bed and diner at Red Robin! We also went to see Kung Fu panda with the kids, which I was a little worried about since, we normally do not take Gabi because when it is all of us...it just gets a little too much for us and the audience, but to our surprise it went GREAT! Gabi was good and Brad was good and the movie was VERY cute!

Fun in the Sun....

Holly took us to the promenade shoppes somewhere around here and the kids had so much fun. Gabi did not get into the water, but Brad was sitting on the water and putting his face in the water...he was a wild man. Hard to imagine I know. However, once he cut his toe, he was a man down and he sat the rest of time. Thank you Holly for showing us the fun spot...we are going to have to figure out to get there without following you in the future!

BASEBALL...

Quany came and spend the weekend in with us and we had a blast...I don't know about Quany with our loud kids and crazy running around, but we loved having her over! One of the things we did while she was here was see the Iron Pigs play which I believe is the AAA Philly team. It was fun and cheap...a great combo for our family. It was a new stadium and at the end they had a fireworks show which was pretty awesome actually. When we first arrived it was a little much because we were sitting in the sun but after an hour the sun went down and the game was much more enjoyable!

See how happy and how much fun our dear Quany is having! She is loving hanging out with us! Actually this is when we were sitting directly in the sun and she was not a happy camper...which is really not hard to tell at all by this picture.

Swimming Lessons...

Brad is in swimming lessons and he is liking it pretty good. The instructors are amazing...they really work hard to make the kids comfortable and are very positive. To my surprise there are several kids who have a hard time with the lessons and the instructors are very patient. I was very shocked because they are all young and I was not expecting much but it has been a really nice surprise. We have missed everyday this week because Brad was under the weather but tomorrow we are back on until Friday. We might even sign him up for another round of lessons if he wants to do it.

Zoo Time...

When we took Quany home on Satuday we decided to go to the Zoo with the kids. Gabi had not ridden the camel and so she got to do that, we went on the lake, road the train, horses, saw all the animals and just had so much fun! Brad knows where everything is at the zoo and he loves to ride the rides and see the monkeys. I think they are his favorite by far in terms of animals on display, but both my kids love to pet those goats. They grab a brush and get ready. Gabi trys to brush as many as she can, while Brad normally will find one all by itself and go and pet it and try to kiss it and just completely cater to that goat...it is funny because he is such a rough and rowdy kid, but has such a soft side too!

GYMNASTICS...

I enrolled the kids in gymnastics for the summer...the first week was NOT good. Gabi was so excited for her class which runs the same time as Brad's class and ultimately this was a mistake on my part. Brad would not go to his class because he wanted to be with me and Gabi. So we ended up changing their times around and will try it next week.

Change, Change, Change

So it has been a while since I updated our blog and so much has happened since my last post I am not sure where to start.

BRAD IS A DENTIST!

This is pretty exciting to be finished with dental school, but it is also sad to say goodbye to such wonderful friends who have been our family while in Philly. I will miss seeing all the kids we have had in Philly together, but excited to see where life takes all of our families. We are so proud of Brad. He is such a dreamer and has worked very hard to get into dental school and while in dental school (especially the last 3 years of school for those who knew Brad year 1)! :-) Graduation was actually much better than I thought it would be with the kids...Brad even fell asleep which was amazing!

LITTLE BRAD is 4! This is unbelieveable to me! Our baby who was just a mere 6 weeks old when we moved to Philly is now 4! Time flys by so fast! He wanted a choo choo train cake so I happily made one for him, and he gave me the best moment when he saw his cake and he grabbed my leg and say, 'thank you mommy for my choo choo cupcake, I love you'! Made all the effort worth it! He had a great birthday and got loads of presents and spoiled beyond belief!

WE MOVED! I really like our new house...it is like a mansion compared to our apartment in Philly. Plus it is only 5 years old so that is a treat coming for apartments that were 30 years old or more. Brad has already made claim to his room and he will quickly tell you to leave it when he wants to play! It feels like we were just busting at the seams and now we can actually breath! Too bad this move is just for a year...I sure hope we do not have to go much smaller when we move next time. Our move was so much easier than it could have been b/c of all the help we had. We are so blessed in the family department! We are also blessed to have taken bits of our philly family with us in our move, from the Millers we got our table which is just amazing, the Wilkins a very cool hutch all the way from Africa (top that people) and from the Newells a cooler! So we got something from almost everyone before they left...we will have to steal something from the Marsh's and Reeders homes to make ours complete so watch out...if somethings goes missing from your new homes when we come visit, consider this as your warning!

BROADWAY HERE I COME...

Mrs. Harris took me to New York while she was here and to a BROADWAY play...it was AMAZING. We went to see Cry Baby. I saw the movie when I was 13 and it was so cheesy the I fell in love with it...and so we went to see the show which was just...man...all I can say is that the next chance I have to go back I am running. I forgot how much I love the theatre until that night. Not only did we see a play on Broadway, but we ate at Bubba Gumps, got purses for cheap, ate a Greys Papaya hotdog (like from the movie "Fools Rush In"), and we went to Dale and Thomas (popcorn on Oprah's Favorite things...which to me is like meeting Oprah herself)!

PUTT PUTT GOLF

Since we had Brad's 4 year party before family left, we decided to take him to play putt putt golf and eat at McDonalds for fine cuisine! It was so much fun, Gabi just wanted to carry the balls and would scream if you tried to take them from her, and Brad was like lightening around the course, he was halfway done before Brad and I were on the 3rd hole. Brad did get a hole in one (Big Brad not little Brad) and we are never going to hear the end of it...it was impressive though! It was alot of fun and Brad really enjoyed it. His daddy tried to help him with his form, but Little Brad was not interested so it did not last long!

Swimming!!!

Gabi is adorable in her little bikini...she looked so cute I just could not stop smiling at her. Her little swimmer was coming out of the back and it was too cute for words really! She kept trying to jump in like her brother and loved walking in the water. It was hard to keep up with both of them because Big Brad was not swimming but next time he is coming in his swim trunks too to show off his rock hard body! The water was a little cold so we only stayed for an hour!

A LITTLE BIT OF HOME...

Believe it or not, I just know this next year is going to be good for us and partially because we have a little bit of my old home here with us. The East Texas post office is just about a mile from the house and if we get lonely and miss our family we can just go hang out in East Texas, PA! See it just goes to show you no matter where you live, everybody needs some Texas!

So here we are, excited and happy about the future! Can't wait to read about all of you on your blogs...I am not so great at keeping mine up but I promise to try and do better!

Picture Perfect?

So we decided to do a family picture when we did Gabi's 18 month picture. I call and get the appt, we are all coordinated and looking as nice as our family can and we set off for Sears! Two uncooperative kids later, we leave Sears with NO pictures. Brad normally does pretty good for pictures in fact sometimes we can't get him to get out of a picture...Gabi never been a big fan professional pictures (if sears/jcpenny are professional?), but she took it to the next level this trip. She cried for the family picture and would not even consider a picture by herself. I was so bummed because I was hoping to get a good family picture and document Gabi at 18 months, but no go this round. I am going to try to do Gabi again later this month, but I think the family picture will have to wait until the summer!

Around and Around we go

While my kids like the carousel at the mall, my stomach can't take too much of it. I honestly think I am going to hurl if I ride it more than once and closing my eyes only makes it worse! Who knew a kiddy ride could make me so sick. My kids have so much fun on it though and so I try to stick it out at least 2 times, but that is the max! The things we do for our kids!