Eight Watermelons Later...

Sunday night was our church's annual 'Baptism on the Green'! They combine a huge baptism event with an end of summer blowout! 

There were free hot dogs, chips, drinks and Raylan's favorite-watermelon! He practically ate a few watermelons all by himself. 

And he was a nice sticky mess afterwards to prove it!

Sawyer invited his buddy, Josh from across the street and the two of them had a ball running around together 

and getting into all sorts of mischief! 

There was this family that ran a ministry called 'Champions for Jesus'-they have ten kids and as a family, they do this whole basketball show and they are A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. The things they did with basketballs were just jaw dropping. 

They also did a whole unicycle routine too and finished by all riding on these huge ten foot tall unicycles! 

These two cuties were the youngest and they came out and did a few laps on their unicycles 

and were like the most adorable things ever!

In the middle of the show, they had a fantastic gospel message that they shared. They have performed in over thirty five countries, with celebrities and most recently were on 'America's Got Talent' (Last Tuesday actually!) Sawyer and Josh sat through the whole thing going, "WOA!!!!!!!!"

There was also a live band, bouncy houses, train rides, trampolines and free ice cream from the Ding-Ding Man!

If anyone needs ideas of what to give Raylan for Christmas, your best bet is a plastic water bottle. He entertained himself for an hour with this thing.....oh the small joys in life......

It was such a special evening to watch over one hundred and fifty people get baptized! (Including a friends from our Journey Group!) They concluded the evening with a fireworks show!

  

First Grade, Here He Comes....

The first day of school kind of crept up on us! So yes, I was that mom at Walmart (yuck) at 5:30 a.m. in my pajama pants getting a pencil box and liquid glue....the two items that Target had run out of last weekend. Out of liquid glue....really Target? Shame. We put together a little gift for Mrs. Pederson for Sawyer to bring on his first day. It said, "I'm doing Flips that you're my teacher!"

Just like last year, we had a big first day of school breakfast! Scrambled eggs, strawberries and cinnamon rolls-Sawyer's favorites! 

Opening his 'Welcome to First Grade' gift.

The three of us......Raylan was being a sleepyhead.

Traditional first day of school photo shoot! (Mind you, all of his buddies were all walking up to their bus stop right as we went out to take pictures....so you can imagine how embarrassing that was for him!)

Can anyone spot the photo bomb??

Drop off for the first day of First Grade is a whole different ball game than the first day of Kindergarten. Last year, I sobbed my way through the school, into the office to pay his lunch bill and all the way out to the car and the entire ride home....but this year, I totally kept my cool! Way to go, me! He was so excited to see his friends and knew his way around the building. 

What a good looking group!

Sneak-a-Peak 2013

Can you believe the summer is almost over? Crazy! The other evening was Sneak-a-Peak Night at school! Just a time for the kiddos to come, see their friends, meet their new teacher and get all pumped up for the new school year to begin. 

Can you tell he's excited to see his friends? 

It's so cute-he has been sitting in bed looking through last year's year book every night for the past week!

The pancake man was there as always-serving up mounds of pancakes!

The proud parents. 

(Don't you just love when you have someone take a picture for you and they focus on the group behind you? Yeah, me too.)

We found our way down to Mrs. Pederson's First Grade class room and he spotted his desk right away!

I guess we have another little scholar who's ready to go! 

(Gessh Raylan, you just can't share the spot light with anyone else can you? lol)

We found his new classroom and it was so cute! Just chalked full of books and posters and all sorts of fun things. 

An environment that just inspires learning and creativity!

As any First Grade teacher is, Mrs. Pederson was vibrant, cheerful and welcoming! She scopped Sawyer up in a huge hug and told him all the wonderful things that his previous teacher had said about him and how excited she was to have him in class! I'm so excited to watch their relationship grown throughout the year!

We just had to sneak back into his Kindergarten class to pay Mrs. Johnson a quick visit. She was the absolute PERFECT first teacher for Sawyer last year. We love her SO much! 

First Grade. Phew....everyone let's just take a deep breath and contemplate this for a minute. My child is going into FIRST GRADE. Where has the time gone and how much cuter could he possibly get?!?

First Grade, here we come!

All Fun & Games Till Someone Pukes...

We loaded up the kids and headed to the Sarpy County Fair last weekend! Aaaahhh the sights and sounds and smells.....oh the smells.....kettle corn, turkey legs, brisket, cotton candy and of course everyone's favorite: Funnel Cake. 

Why is it that every game looks so darn easy until you pay your $10 and then what should be a mindless kid's game feels like an Olympic event? And you loose, like every time. Then your six year old looks up at you with a surprised disappointing look on his face and you feel like the biggest failure ever. Then you try and reason with him that the prizes suck but down deep inside you too are dying to win that god-awful ginormous  panda stuffed animal too.....sigh. 

But nothing brings everyone's spirits up like RIDES! This was the first year that Sawyer has been tall enough to go on the big rides that Bill loves. They went on every twirly, spinning, rotating contraption there was and Bill was looking pretty green at the gills by the end! 

Oh speaking of puke, Raylan and I were enjoying watching Bill and Sawyer whip around on the Hurricane when a sprinkle of puke began to rain down on us....yup, one of the little girls on their ride just couldn't stomach it....and it was gross.....like really gross.

Raylan had his eye on the carousel from the beginning. (Plus it was like the only ride that he was tall enough for.) I took him up and sat him on this horsie and he thought he was HOT STUFF. He smiled soooo big! Every time we would circle around to where Bill and Sawyer were, he would squeal! It was pretty adorable.

The Italian Stallion. 

We ventured through the 4-H barn and got to pet the horses. 

Sawyer loved the horses and Raylan hated them all except for the baby goats. 

Of course our wonderful friends were there too. We claimed a filthy, sticky picnic table and threw our diets to the wind. Foot long corn dogs, nachos, ice cream dots and funnel cakes all around!

What a perfect summer night!

....and maybe next year I won't chicken out and actually ride the mechanical bull.

Breckenridge or Bust!

Our Thursday Night dinner group decided we needed a vacation. So we booked this BEAUTIFUL house in Breckenridge CO, left all our kiddos with the grandparents and headed out for a whole week! It. Was. Glorious. 

I wanted to fit the whole trip in one post, so it's a bit long and mostly pictures :)

Had wondrous plans of getting out of town at the crack of dawn....but the dawn cracked and we were still in Omaha....because Bill & I are chronically late. We spent the morning's drive listening to music, watching movies, doing trivia questions over the walkie talkies. 

Filled up for gas and Bill had a hot dog and Mountain Dew. At 8:30 in the morning. Gross.

Stopped for lunch in a random town.

We arrived!! The house was just beautiful and we had just TONS of room to spread out and enjoy ourselves.....room for 24, hot tub, theater room, game room....the whole deal.

Ventured into town to scout the place out. Tried some local fare from a food truck.

Hit up a pizza place for dinner. Shot some pool.

It was D-lish!

Spent a good part of the next day in town. Window shopping, Farmer's Market and had lunch at a place with a beautiful view.

The golfing.....oh the golfing......only a handful of us had ever golfed before, but what better place to try it out than a breathtaking course in Colorado?!? We had the best time. Like the best time ever. EVER. First time golfers, five golf carts, ten friends, and some booze. What happens on the golf course.....stays on the golf course!

Bright and early the next morning we loaded up for white water rafting!

Me and Billsie! Isn't he handsome?? :)

This was another activity that most of us had never done but totally loved it! It was a class 5 and I'm happy to say that none of us fell out or peed in our wet suits. Success. 

After hours of rafting, we were treated to a chicken fajita lunch!

One of the things our group loves the most is playing games. 'Cards Against Humanity' is one of our faves. 

If you haven't played it, go out and buy it. It's just hilarious.

Nothing better than the guys offering to do dinner! (AND clean up!)

Thanks boys!

Evenings around the campfire.

Random games of chess here and there.

Decided to ride our bikes down Vail Pass.

Looking pretty confident in ourselves.....mind you that Melody and I did get the reprimand of our lives after getting caught going potty behind a tree. The bathrooms were closed for goodness sake! What did they expect us to do?!? It was one of those moments where you get caught with your pants down-literally. It just wouldn't end. The lady just kept scolding us and scolding us.....talk about embarrassing, geesh. 

It looked like rain and everyone made fun of me, but I made a little poncho out of a garbage bag. And who was laughing at the bottom of the mountain when they were all soaking wet? This girl.

As most of your know, cliff diving is one of Bill's favorite things to do. We found a spot and off the side they went! 

I was a chicken and didn't do it. Diving off a 60 ft. cliff? Count me out.

But it sure was a beautiful spot!

Not too far away were the hot springs. There were over 25 different pools ranging in temperature from 85 to 112. It felt sooo good but we all stank to high heaven afterwards. Sulfer.....mmmmmm.

Quick dinner after the springs.....some of the group left early because Liz (she lives with us) had bruised her backside pretty good from cliff diving....

Ouch.

Everyone made fun of me because I love to do puzzles....but by the end of the week, everyone was hooked!

One of the nights we got all dressed up and went to dinner. The food was absolutely aaaaaaaamazing. 

The company wasn't bad either :)

Someone had the brilliant idea of stopping by the Absinthe bar on the way home. It tasted like gasoline and was really expensive.....oh well! You only live once!

 James suggested we all go on a hike. Now when I think 'hike' I imagine through the woods, on a path stopping at beautiful look out spots.....

This was no leisurely hike. Good Lord we all nearly died of cardiac arrest. These shots are about an hour in as we are clearing the tree line. It was a 6 mile hike 14,000 ft up! Now take into account the air is MUCH different up there in Colorado than everywhere else. Towards the top, we were literally taking 30 steps and stopping to catch our breath. It was GRUESOME! 

But we made it! Phew!

The view was magnificent!

We closed out the week with a trivia game that our friend John organized. Prior to the trip we had all filled out a l-o-n-g list of things about ourselves that no one else knew and he turned it into an AWESOME game! We each told one bombshell about ourselves too.....we are all a lot closer now! LOL 

The group (minus two who decided to sleep in).

It was a week to remember. We have been friends for over seven years, see each other every week, were there for each other's weddings, been through thick and thin, added over ten kids to the mix and have grown closer than family. 

We love you guys.