Myrtle Beach 2014

We have gone to Myrtle Beach in September for at least 4 years in a row and love each trip. We are so thankful to my parents for taking us each year- we love the nice condo, the yummy food, the fun beach. Thank you! This year they drove here Saturday morning to see the boys' soccer games. K's was rained out but we made it to T and C's first game. 

Then we headed to the beach. We had wonderful weather, no crowds, just beautiful days at the beach. We spent most of our time on the beach, at the pool, or playing games in the room.

We're excited about our new blessing- end of March 2015!

We did leave the beach one day for T's birthday lunch- sailing away to Margaritaville. Fun to sit in a boat for lunch. Good food. Fun music. Great day!

We walked around some after lunch. The kids enjoyed feeding the fish and T picked out a lego set for his birthday. We didn't have any Cold Stone but fun pic spot!

We needed to save room for yummy birthday cake!

Most of our days were out on the beach!

or in the pool!

or playing shuffle board, corn hole, bocce ball.

We enjoyed afternoons at the cottage pool.

Sunsets outside the condo window

And ended the week with plates piled high of pancakes.

Fun times! Love our beach trips!

Hubbs Corn maze

We enjoyed going to a few corn maze/ pumpkin patches while in Baltimore and were excited to see that our homeschool group was planning a trip to Hubb's Corn Maze.  When we arrived, I was surprised to see how small Hubbs looked, but... we stayed 3 hours and had a great time.

We loved this cute display- even though I'm not sure where the kids were looking- they were probably looking to see who was coming.

I remember pics of the boys in Kansas and Maryland of how tall- my they've grown!

The hayride was nice. The kids loved all the animals -biggest bunnies I've ever seen! and smallest bull.

I couldn't believe how long the kids enjoyed playing in this giant sandbox.

But not nearly as long as in the corn barn. They might have stayed all day if I hadn't dragged them out!

The bigger boys were climbing ropes when I got these three in the big chair.

The kids had such a good time playing that we didn't do either of the big (2.5 mile) corn mazes. We did the smaller one but no pics. Also didn't get pics of the big bouncy- I was too busy trying to keep Baby C from running off the end. Fun times!

October continued...

I really want to keep up more with blogging after this but at least here are some pictures. Starting with when we got back from Myrtle Beach in September. We had a great "field trip" to PetSmart on our way home. The kids loved seeing all the fun animals.

 We had met friends Mazarick Park for tennis and playtime. Fun times- even if we were a little too loud for tennis.

 Picnic with friends (don't read the label on the bag- we are finished with their especially after I found out the fries have milk in addition to all the other bad things for you.) But the together time was fun!

 beautiful sunsets at soccer practice,

 Fun walks with friends at Clark Park. We went back to Clark Park with Hillegonda and Champ and Baby C kept asking for them.

 Grandma and Pops Leon visit and soccer.

 Baby C and Grandma stayed up to see me when I got home from my night with friends! (I so appreciate Grandma and Pops Leon coming so I could have an evening with friends- thank you!)

 KG and the boys find lots of friends outside- grasshoppers, frogs, ...

 Another pic of the lake we were excited to find from our hike from our backyard.

 Fun with friends. Part of New Mommies group 9+ years later.

 Birthday party fun with the BBs.

 our Spanish Pirate dinner in the garage Muy bien!

 One of the few pics I have from the Coles visit. It was short but good. We are so thankful that despite living very far apart we've seen each other a lot over the years. A short visit is definitely better than no visit. We packed a lot into the couple of days- walk in the woods, lots of food, soccer games, a geocache, lots of hanging out,

 and a trip back to the Airborne Special Ops Museum. I didn't get many pics but we had a good time and I'm looking forward to seeing Janelle's.

 More soccer fun!

 And lots of time for dress up!

So thankful for all our blessings!

Woefully Behind on Blogging

I was just thinking tonight how I started this blog 6 years ago to keep James updated during his deployment. Overall I've done pretty well at keeping it updated. Of course, some spurts of not blogging much, then some catch up time, but I think this last couple months has been my most behind. Thankfully between Facebook, messaging, phone calls, and photo sharing James can still keep up with us. But i still want to catch up on our blog- for James, for me, for family, friends, ... this is my scrapbook too. so many memories I want to remember. So many things I think I'll never forget but the years go by and it's hard to remember. I want to record some of them. Where to start not that I'm almost 4 months behind. I guess no time like the present. So I'l start here and try to catch back up.

So much to be thankful for. We are so blessed to be back in Fayetteville while James is away. We love our church, our neighborhood, our friends (old and new), our new homeschool group, our house...

Just this month we've gone to a fun Manna Servers' family fun event at Festival Park,

 Played lots of soccer. This is the Carolina Panthers. K blogged about his team the Fusion

 Gone hiking with friends. We loved the Methodist University Trails. The kids found some turtles,

 beautiful bridges and waterfalls,

 the ROTC confidence obstacle course,

 and just fun times with friends! (I don't have pics of the friends changing my tire, fixing my lawnmower, watching my kids, fixing us dinner... but definitely thankful for all that too!)

 Fun hikes at Clark Park with the B. Boys,

 first dancing class,

 a fun trip to the fair,

 super cool stunt show at the fair,

 tons of stickers from the fair,

 and family fun in the woods behind our house.

And I'll do another post for the Coles trip, Hubbs Farm trip, and some homeschool fun. So thankful!

10 Today!

How time flies! How did my firstborn get to be 10 already. We had a wonderful celebration today of 10  terrific years. Our day per the birthday boy's request:
-pre-breakfast races and tennis- gotta get going before it gets hot!
-cake icing- made the hamburger before the baby girl woke up- gotta get the cake out of sight before the baby's around!
-yummy oatmeal and frozen fruit for breakfast
-Bible reading and verses and a keys for kids that talked about how important it is to hear God's Word daily
-bowling- used our Kids Bowl Free coupons for 2 games of bowling- we had a great time!
-Aldi's- gotta get some snacks before you swim!
-rest time- gotta get mom and baby some rest!
-swimming- short but fun swim with Hillegonda- terrific friend swims with us even while her grandson is away- gotta get out of the water when it thunders
-grilled burgers- gotta learn to use the grill while James is away- I don't think I can get away with not cooking meat this time
-cake, ice cream, and presents- fun and yum!
-movie time
-bedtime

Super day for our super boy!