Christmas Vacation

We had a super-fun Christmas break. We took a road trip to Florida for a week of animal adventure!

We left the Thursday before Christmas. Ben got the car all packed, I got food ready, we loaded up the kids, and both kids were crying by the time we reached the mail boxes. I think one wanted a movie and one wanted fruit snacks or something. That day was a long day, but we survived and stayed in a lovely little hotel in Daphne, Alabama. We got in at 11:00, thinking the kids would drift of to sleep peacefully. Instead they both got hyper, jumped on the beds, had a raucous bath time and then Lucas went to sleep. Evan on the other hand, wanted to stay awake until 1:00.

We headed out the next morning by 9:30 for Tampa. We drove and drove, got an oil change and lunch in Tallahassee, had a few fits, and made it to Tampa at 7:00. We met up with my parents, Carrie and Maddie at the Embassy Suites, where we would be spending the next three nights. It was lovely. We had connecting rooms, which was fun.

On Saturday we headed to my favorite amusement park ever, Busch Gardens! Why is Busch Gardens so awesome, you ask? Because not only does it have awesome roller coasters, but awesome animals, too! After getting in, getting the kids tagged (after I wrote Evan's contact info on his back), and finding our bearings, the boys watched the cheetahs and the girls went and rode roller coasters. We finally hooked up around 2:00 for lunch... then I took the kids so Ben could ride coasters with Carrie and Maddie. It was a lot of fun. Also, somewhere in there Lucas asked what the date was and I told him it was Dec 21st...

That night we headed back to the hotel and ate junk at the hotel happy hour. Evan sported a plate on his head the whole time and we nibbled on food before putting our exhausted kids to bed and some of us in the hot tub.

The next day we were up and at it again at Busch Gardens. It was great, once again. Carrie, Maddie, and I got stuck on the sky ride at one point for a few minutes, but had a good plan to jump to a passing safari truck if we didn't start moving. Luckily we didn't have use our backup plan..

The boys spent a long portion of the day in the Sesame Street Forest of Fun. It was AMAZING there. You should go.

My dad left early to go rest his sore hip, and by the end of the day we were exhausted. Ben and I rode the River Rapids and got soaked. Thank goodness Lucas refused to ride or he would have froze. We took our last sky ride across the park and found our shuttle to the airport, where Evan dined with a plate on his head while we enjoyed happy hour goodies and ordered a pizza. It was a good day.

Monday morning we checked out of the hotel and Mom and Dad headed to the farm, while the rest of us took a detour to Clearwater Beach. Lucas and Evan had a great time running and playing on the beach. The water was chilly, but they didn't mind. Then they played at a cool playscape, too.

We ate a yummy lunch and then headed to the farm, a two-hour drive.

When I was little we spent a lot of time at my grandparents' farm each summer. To this day its still one of our favorites places to be. We have such happy memories there. My grandma passed away in November, but we decided to go anyways. It was still nice to be there and make more memories.

At the farm we got to pet lots of cute cows (we were lucky enough to have three new calves born), we ate yummy food, and had a great Christmas, celebrated Carrie's birthday, had a silly string fight, played games, and went on lots of walks. My aunt, Carolyn, even came! It was lots of fun.

One morning Ben and Lucas went on a walk in the pastures and found a brand new calf all alone in the grass. The closest cows were 200 yards away, so they actually went up and got to pet him for about 10 minutes. Then Ben wanted to make sure he was ok, so he helped him stand up. Then the little guy called his mom and she came over. The boys moved out of the way and they got back together. I guess the cows leave their babies alone sometimes thinking they will draw less attention if they're not with the herd. I'm just glad they didn't get trampled by an angry mom. But, seriously, little calves are so stinking cute.

Lucas and Evan were seriously spoiled for Christmas. The Harmans and my mom both went home with new Kindle Fires, which we've enjoyed, and there was lots of other fun stuff too.

We started our drive back to Austin on New Year's Eve. We stopped in Pensacola, FL, to play at another beach. We did this two years ago and Lucas had a blast. He still had a blast this time, but it was colder, foggy, and we were at a different beach in a residential area. Some really nice people let us use their outdoor shower to rinse Lucas off, which was really nice. We had dinner at a fun restaurant on the beach, complete with a playground in the sand.

That night we stopped in Gulfport, Mississippi and stayed at Quality Inn. QUALITY OUT, more like it. It was so disgusting. Our room smelled like smoke, The shower was too short for Ben and he hit his head so many times on the ceiling over the sink, that he was bloody. (Needless to say this wasn't our first hotel choice, but a lot of places were sold out). We survived the night, leaving with sore throats, a smokers cough and maybe a disease or two. We drove pasts the beach on our way out.

We made it into Austin by about 7:30. The kids were great on the way home. I think they had finally accepted the fact that they weren't getting out of the car. The DVD player was the best thing ever, as were yummy car snacks. Ben bought some of that disgusting cheese in a can and we played cheese Pictionary. It was fun.

We had such a great trip and had so much fun with the fam. Thanks Mom, Dad, Carrie and Maddie for the fun time!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Evan!

From this...

to this...

The past two years have just flown by. I'm so thankful for sweet little Evan.
Happy Birthday, buddy.

50 - Day 2

I still don't have pictures for Day 2, but thought I should get this up anyways. I'll add pictures once Christmas is over and Carrie gets back in town to upload them for me...

On with the story...

Saturday afternoon we planned a barbecue at a park that all the grandkids could attend. I pulled up and looked at the pavilion to see someone who looked an awful lot like me. It was LISA! You know, Lisa, who lives in Hawaii now?! She flew in to surprise all of us! We had her go hide in the park with Oscar (the dog) and my nephew until Mom and Dad got there. It was great. We had Mom and Dad standing in between Evan and Elly, who were swinging. We were taking their pictures and had Lisa sneak up behind them. They were so surprised! Mom and I had actually called her earlier that day and she said she was at Costco, which she was, but in Albuquerque!

We had a great time at the park. We ate, we played Three Deep, which is a fun running/tag game. After dinner we headed home and Tina came over for a while. It was fun to stay up late with Lisa and Tina to hear stories from their childhood.

Sunday morning Lisa had to get back on a plane for Hawaii. Poor Lisa. She was in town for less than 24 hours, and had two horrendous travel days, but we were so glad she came! She knew she would have been too sad if she missed out.

Oh, and Sunday my Mom decided to wear the new necklace my dad gave her. She was running out the door to church and remembered she wanted to wear it, so Lisa grabbed it for her and she got in the car and put it in around her neck and my dad was going to fasten it when they got to church. But they were in such a hurry for the primary program, that they forgot. They searched and searched for that necklace but it never got found or turned in. So sad. SOOOO sad. However, watching my parents during the discovery that this necklace had been lost taught me something. Neither one got mad or yelled. Neither blamed the other. They just tried to work together to find it. It was sweet. And so sad.

It was a really great weekend. If it just wouldn't have been for that dang house robbery... and the necklace getting lost in the church parking lot, it would have been perrrrfect.

Congratulations, Mom and Dad, on 50 years together. You guys have made an awesome family and we think you're the best. Thanks for teaching us how to love by your examples.

50 - Day 1

9-9-61 was a special day. It's the day my parents were married. On 9-9-11, they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. For at least a year or two we've been trying to decide what to do for their 50th anniversary. Do we have a party, go on a cruise, go to a cabin, rent Puff Daddy's yacht, dinner at home, charter an airplane? Finally it just got too annoying and expensive sounding and we gave it up. We (the kids) decided that they would love a book full of pictures. (I knew because my mom said she wanted one). We decided to make it awesome by scanning all their old slides and including those pictures in the book instead of just recent family pictures. Ben suggested we write letters to all their old friends and have them write notes for the book, too. It was a lot of work. Carrie stole Mom and Dad's Christmas Card list so I could send out letters to their friends, then Carrie and Maddie scanned 20 reels of slides, and 26 boxes of slides, plus numerous photographs, and put the pics online so we could all go through and choose our favorite shots. Ben designed the book, I collected letters from friends, organized, edited pictures and did whatever Ben told me to do. Ben worked really hard. Including putting in one all-nighter at work the night before the book was due. The book came out awesome!

Wait, wait, wait, I've gotten ahead of myself. Unbeknown to my parents, Evan and I flew in Friday, 9/9, and Carrie came to pick us up at the airport. We ran a few errands and planned to surprise them at lunch, with my brother, Rob. On the way to lunch we ran by Carrie's house to grab something. On the way in the house she grabbed the book so I could see it. As I was opening the cover, she came back into the garage and said, "Suzy, I've been robbed!" I asked if she was sure. Like, could the dog have done this? She assured me that whomever did this had hands. Fair enough. I grabbed a huge wrench from the work bench so I could beat up the robber, and Carrie called 911. We walked in the house just long enough to see the mess of jewelry on her bed before we got the heebie jeebies. Carrie called Robert and told him what happened, he called our parents and told them to go to Carrie's house, too. So, instead of surprising them at the restaurant, I surprised them by jumping out from behind the bushes of the house that had just been robbed. They were very surprised. At first they thought it was a joke and that the house hadn't been robbed. But... it had.

We eventually left poor Carrie there alone to wait for the cops, so we could get Evan home for a nap. The cops finally got there two hours later and dusted for prints (found 1 poor quality print). She discovered that they mostly took her gold things and thank goodness were too dumb to realize the value of pearls. They also hadn't made it through ALL her drawers to find more valuable stuff (they did, however, take her portable hard-drive with all the images she had just scanned for two months), so we think we might have surprised them when we opened the garage door. They could have run out the back door or front door. Oh, the front door was kicked in, by the way. It was a beautiful brand new door, but now it's repaired and kick-proof. Apparently these dorks like to go on foot and grab small things. And you should always answer your door because they will knock pretending to be salesmen and then break in if you don't answer. AND the cop told Carrie that she's lucky she wasn't home, because sometimes they are so desperate they will come in even if you are home. Scum bags. Anyhow, I digress from the details of such a lovely day.

So, no lunch, but there were dinner plans at the Sandia Resort & Casino. By the time Carrie got her door fixed, and ready we were only a little late for our 5:30 reservation. It was nice because the restaurant wasn't busy. We had a great view of the mountain and had yummy food. Although, we all agreed the BEST thing was the Crème brûlée that the waitress gave Mom and Dad for free.

After dinner we went back to Mom and Dad's house. Maddie was on duty there taking care of Evan and awaiting the delivery of a wedding cake. Poor Maddie had to deal with a screaming Evan, who was crying because of the barking dogs, who were barking because of the door bell, which was rung by the cake baker. It was very frustrating for the poor girl, but she managed to give cake set-up instructions, put Evan to bed, and have the house look good by the time we got there. Zach, Aaron, and Brian were there, too, when we got home.

We took some photos, ate some wedding cake (which looked similar to the original wedding cake), and my Dad gave my Mom a beautiful necklace symbolizing their marriage. Then our part of the program started. Remember how Carrie worked a bazillion hours scanning slides? Robert made a slide show out of some of the pictures, so we watched that. Mom and Dad were excited that their pictures were now digital!

(I just told them a potty joke to get them to smile... you can see their surprise:)

Then, we gave them the present: The book. Ben was hoping for some tears, and some tears Ben got. (I'm sad he had to miss being there, since he did so much work). The book turned out beautifully. The hours and hours of work payed off. It was a beautiful tribute to two people who made a wonderful life for a wonderful family. I, for one, really enjoyed working on it because so many of the pictures were from before I was born. I was born when my oldest sister, Tina, was 19, so there was a lot of life I missed out on! I felt like I got to learn a lot about their life back then. I could see their struggles, their fun, their sacrifices, and how their life began. AND I got to see how hot my parents were when they had 3 kids and they were 24 year-old kids, themselves.

I realized that through 50 years of marriage there are a lot of ups and downs. A lot of people give up these days, but I'm so grateful my parents didn't give up. There were times when it was hard, but they stuck it out, and are so grateful that they did. And you know what? If they would have given up, guess who wouldn't be here? ME! Thank you, thank you, thank you Mom and Dad, for not giving up. I like being here. And I am so grateful that I was born into our family.

Day 2 coming up... as soon as Carrie uploads the pictures :)

Bootastic!

Remember a month ago when it was Halloween? Well, it was so good, I wanted to make you wait for it. Friday night we went to a party at Ben's work. Lucas dressed as a pirate and Evan was Cupid. And they were both very cute. Ben's coworker got the only pics from that night. After the party we went to the church trunk or treat and Evan fell flat on his face immediately and got a fat lip. He and Ben went home shortly after. Lucas enjoyed sword fighting with some sort of monster and really enjoyed the candy. He and I stayed until the very end.

Saturday was Fall Fest at Lucas's school. Once again he wore his pirate outfit and played fun games for the afternoon. All the moms were so happy to have Fall Fest over with! It's a lot of work for the parents and is the biggest fund raiser of the year.

Monday, Lucas decided to wear his Storm Trooper costume. Drew was also some sort of Storm Trooper. Neither one is an actual Storm Trooper, but there are so many kinds that I just have to call them Storm Troopers. Oh, and Ben was Mr. T.

Surprisingly, Evan had a great time on Halloween. He rode in the wagon with Miles, but wanted to get out and go inside every house. He made it into one, but luckily they were our neighbors across the street. Evan threw a fit at the end of the night and finally Ben figured out that the poor kid only wanted a sucker. Just a sucker.

We have about 4 pieces of candy left. I threw a couple away yesterday. I think the rest will be gone by the weekend.

nine

Nine years ago this happened. Look how soft and smooth our skin was.

But look how much cooler we are now!

And no, I can't find a single picture of us together from this year. Lame, right?
I think a family photo shoot is in order in a major way. MAJOR!

Happy Anniversary, Baby! I love you