Vacation

Our family was extremely blessed to be able to take a vacation to Breckenridge, Colorado last week. Before I go off into details let me back up a little bit...

Overlooking Breckenridge

On July 12 Davis headed for South Dakota with Grandpa and Grandma (Salyna's dad & stepmom). He had a fun week of playing in the dirt, fishing, spending some time with his cousin, and just having a little vacation of his own, away from the rest of us!

Davis leaving for his vacation

Then on the 17th the rest of us headed for Alamosa, CO... where Miles' mom & stepdad live. We spent a relaxing night and morning there before heading to Breckenridge on the 18th where we stayed for a whole week! Davis and Grandpa and Grandma joined us the 22nd-25th... then it was Sydni's turn to go to South Dakota!

This is the view we had of Lincoln... he did great traveling!

This is the view we had for most of the trip to CO... not our favorite!

Now this view is a little better... near Alamosa.

Who had more fun, Lincoln or Grandma Cookie?

Andrew riding with Grandpa Don. Another good-bye

This was our first "real" vacation in over 3 yrs... by "real" I mean, not visiting family for a holiday or funeral. We had a lot of time to relax and just enjoy being together. Of course we did some fun stuff too... Sydni & Salyna went horseback riding, we took a couple scenic drives through the mountains, played at the park, walked downtown, enjoyed different restaurants, and did just a little shopping.

Sydni's 1st beer... root beer!

The river through townSydni said, "I've been waiting my whole life to ride a horse!"

Mom said, "Are we done yet? I need the hot tub!"

Beautiful wildflowers are everywhere! An old abandoned mine site/town we found on one of our drives.

The condo where we stayed had a beautiful view with a nice deck and hot tub... which we also enjoyed very much!!!

The most important part was that we were able to refocus on the Lord and the work He has for us. We had lost some of our passion as we got overwhelmed with work and with all the things that have taken place over the last year or so. God is gracious and SO good!

This afternoon we were in the hot tub and it rained on us, after getting out we saw this double rainbow

LOTS of pictures...

Chipmunks everywhere too... this one played hide and seek with the kids

After a long day

Another beautiful drive!This is Sydni's "Old Navy Manequin Pose"

Now this is our idea of vacation!!!

Lots more pics to follow in post Vacation #2

Family, Friends, Frogs, Fireflies, Fellowship, Fireworks = FUN

Our summer continues...

Grandma Cookie and Grandpa Don (Miles' mom and stepdad) came to visit for a few days. This was the first time they met Andrew and Lincoln. And it was the first time that they really got to bond with Syd and Davis.

While Sydni and Grandma had some girly time together, Davis and Grandpa did some boy bonding (that is where the frogs part of the title comes from).
We went to the zoo of course, Lincoln's 3rd time already!
Oh yeah, and after the last blog about Lincoln's sleeping habits he changed... he now sleeps in his crib for naps too!


We spent time playing games, shopping, playing and exploring outside, & catching fireflies. We had a great visit and look forward to more of them since Mom & Don now live only 8 hrs away!!
On July 3rd, after grandma and grandpa left, we didn't slow down. It was the annual WI drive-in night and the celebration of 3 birthdays. We all crashed about 11:30pm and headed home to our beds to rest before another busy day!
4th of July was great fun for the whole family. Our friend Ms. Pat came over for dinner... BBQ!


Then of course came the fireworks. Some friends who are missionaries with WI came to join in the fun, Ryan, Amber, & Ben (who is one month younger than Lincoln), and they brought Amber's sister and mom with them.
Miles and Ryan couldn't wait for it to get dark - they thoroughly enjoyed their "manly" (not to mention loud) fireworks!

Left: Amber's sister holding Amber's baby, Ben-jammin Right:Amber holding Lincoln
Sydni holding Ben! She loves all the babies around WI!


This is a picture taken after Miles lit a firework and said "RUN!"
Some other WI staff joined us but it was already too dark for pictures. What a great time of fun and fellowship!

Little Photographer

Most times my answer is "no" when the question is "mom, can I take pictures with your camera?" So Sydni does have her own camera but it isn't a very good one and the memory card has been full of who knows what. So last week I answered "yes", quite frankly, I don't know if I even heard her question. It has been one of THOSE kind of days and I was in my happy place so to speak... hahaha. When she was done she put my camera back and I nearly forgot about the whole incident until I uploaded pics to the computer.

I deleted numerous (at least 15) pics of the cats and blurry pics...

if you can't get the cat to pose... then you pose with the cat!

I did however save these two! Interesting picture I must say! What inspired it? The mind of an almost 8 yr old???

Maybe as we get older we loose the ability to see more than one perspective...

Lincoln's Post

Okay, I know, I know....
that last post was missing something... Lincoln!

Well, he is a little over 4 months now and weighs 15lbs... YES 15lbs!! He has been healthy and happy baby for the most part. He sleeps all night in his crib but will not take naps there, strange. But we are thankful for the rest we get at night!
This has very rarely happened!

This is more like it! Cuddling with anyone who is willing!

He is sitting up in the Bumbo seat (thanks Amy for letting us borrow it!).

He also enjoys the entertainer for a few minutes before getting tired.

He can roll over from belly to back.
He likes sitting in the stroller while the older kids play outside.
He has been to the zoo 2 times already... I'm not sure he cared one way or another about it.
He has the cutest laugh and an interesting little scream/screetch when he's excited. (pictures do not do him justice... we may have a video solution coming soon!)
He does really good in the car on the mornings mommy goes garage saleing.
So what have I forgotten..... I think that's about it... a day in the life of Lincoln.

And since there was no special post made for Father's Day, I think this shirt says it all -

"My Dad is the Man"

Summertime... Part One

A couple days after school was out the mohawk became reality...

It's now gone! Only a shaved head remains that makes Davis the spitting image of his dad at that age!

We had our first visitors last week, Salyna's friend Jennifer (friends since middle school) and her two girls who are the same ages as Sydni & Davis. The kids wasted no time getting to know each other again and had a wonderful couple of days together except for a few disagreements and a couple of injuries.

We did a lot of playing outside... Jenn tried to convince Rya it was good to learn to ride a bike without training wheels... we went to the zoo... we played at the park... we took a quick, short tour of Wichita... the Moms and older 4 kids went bowling... one word -waterfight... thanks to Miles, the Moms (and Lincoln) had a dinner date... and of course we stayed up late every night!!

We have enjoyed several big thunderstorms with great lightning shows... no pics of the lightning, but here is a pic of a HUGE storm that didn't come our way thankfully but did prompt over an hours worth of tornado warnings!

Finally, Salyna and Sydni got to enjoy an evening out at the Gala in the Garden that our church has every year. It is held at Botanica, a beautiful botanical garden here in Wichita. They had dinner, did a craft, and heard a great speaker!

Salyna's new blog

Well she finally did it...
If you want to follow Salyna on a more personal level please visit her blog at:
www.lifeoutsideofthebubble.blogspot.com

Now to figure out how to change the address of this blog without completely confusing everyone!