One more birthday party

We spent a nice, quiet weekend at the lake with Grandpa Doug and Grandma Connie this past weekend.  Our main reasoning for the visit was to celebrate Ryan's 6th birthday again.  It seems like Ryan, more than the girls, always has multiple celebrations for his birthday - lucky kid!  Anyway, the visit was great.  The kids had a blast playing with their "lake" friends and showing me all their tricks on the new trampoline Grandpa Doug bought for them.  A quick summary . . . presents, sparklers, and bouncing - what a great way to spend the weekend!  Here is the "quick summary" in pictures . . .

World travelers??

The kids now consider themselves "world travelers" which is justified if you are 6 and 3 and visited Duluth (Daloof in their words), Wisconsin (Osconsin to them - their teacher from the Y just moved to Ohio so I'm pretty sure they are just combining the states), and South Dakota (this one they actually say correctly) in a matter of a week.  Duluth was a trip with Grandpa Jim and Grandma Donna, Wisconsin was a few steps into the state while on the Duluth trip, and the South Dakota trip was with me.  On our way out to South Dakota the kids were talking about all the places they had been lately when Ryan casually says to me, "Mom, I think we should drive to Texas next, I'd like to see all the cowboys there and ride some horses."  Once Lauren heard, "ride the horses", she was in, too bad it wasn't that easy to convince me.  When I told them that Texas was too long to drive, they just said, "it's okay, we can do it."  So I guess we're off to Texas next! Until then, here are some pictures from their adventures . . .

Children's Museum of South Dakota pictures - really cool, hard to believe it is in Brookings, SD!  We could have spent an entire day there.

This is a picture of Lauren and I going to get our nails done before our travels started. What can I say, the girl likes to look good when she's got some place to go!

Speaking of traveling, my blogging has been lacking lately because I'm spending all my free time trying to put together the perfect "10 year anniversary" trip for Trav and I.  10 years!  Man, this trip is really going to have to be a good one!

Happy 6th Birthday Ryan!!

Our little boy is 6!!!  How crazy it that?  What happens when you turn six?  Well, according to Ryan, you grow taller and get a lot faster - amazing how that can happen overnight.  But, if you need proof, just ask him.  He'll show you just how much faster he really is, and even point out that some of his old clothes no longer fit him (that actually is true, but unfortunately that has happened over the past few months, not overnight).  We had a little celebration at our house for him and all was good until I asked him if he had a good birthday and he said, "yeah, I'm just a little sad because I wish some of my friends could have come over."  Jeez, why doesn't he just stick a knife in my heart.  He said all he wanted was a party just like last year with the same friends - sounds easy enough, but it's not.  The party last year was on a Wednesday afternoon and Ash was here to help me keep tabs on the party kids and the girls.  This year, it would have been just me, my three kids, Colton, and five birthday guests - I think that's never going to happen.  Anyway, now that I know how extremely important it is to Ryan to have his "friend party", I will make every effort I can to make sure that always happens for him in the future.  To end the night on a good note though, as I was tucking Ryan into bed, he was telling me that he is indeed the same Ryan he was yesterday, just a new 6 year old version.  Then, as I was walking out of his room, he says, "I love you Mom, thanks for the gift and the best birthday ever" - my heart was officially melting.  God I love that kid!

South Dakota, here we come!

I had a bit of a homecoming this past weekend when we visited the SDSU campus for the first time in a long time. Although, there were two main differences with me this time compared my to college years spent out there, and there names are Ryan and Lauren! That's right, I packed up the kids (just the older two, Ellie isn't "ready" for heavy traveling yet), and headed back to see how much the campus and the facilities have changed in the past ten years (yes, I said 10 years, that means I'm really getting old).  Let's just say, it's changed A LOT! The best part about the trip is that we had our own personal tour guide in AJ, my old basketball coach. He, along with his wife, Laurie, and newborn son, Dylan, showed us just how much the "college world" has changed in the past decade. We started in Frost Arena (which is where all of our basketball games were played) - that place alone was amazing. There were murals, pictures, and paintings of different athletes all over the place - it certainly wasn't the cement walls, and crappy paint jobs I remembered from my days there. And then there were the new basketball rooms . . . a team lounge, a team room (used before and during games instead of running all the way back to the locker room) and the actual locker room itself - they were all amazing. We're talking drop down movie screens (to watch game film), leather chairs (each player has their own chair they use for their entire four years), a lounge with a flat screen, Mac computers, WiFi and a Wii (Ryan of course wanted to sit down and play a few games) - all of this is just for the Women's Basketball team - it's crazy! After the team room and lounge, we headed back to the locker room (which is in a new addition they added onto the building). This locker room was BIG, and it even had individual shower stalls (with water that actually came out of the shower heads). Back in the day, we all used to have to huddle naked around one big shower in the middle of the room and try to get lucky and have a few ice cold drops of water fall on our soapy bodies (trust me guys - if there are any male readers - this might sound like every man's dream . . . 10 female athletes splashing around naked in the shower together, but it wasn't, it was terrible). After the tour of Frost, we hit up the rest of campus. It was hard to even remember what it looked like before because so much has changed, but once AJ would point out something new and then tell me how it used to be, it all came back to me. It's actually amazing that this is even the same campus I remember, that is how different it is. There are coffee shops, a full restaurant, and "dorms" that look more like apartments in the city - definitely not the college life I remember. After the tour, we headed back to Frost where the kids got a chance to run around and shoot some baskets. I must say, it was pretty cool to have my kids playing out on the court when just 10 years ago, I was out there running around like crazy and not thinking about what life would be like now - amazing how much change can happen in what I used to think of as a relatively short period of time. When it was all said and done, I'm still not really sure the kids get the complete idea that this is where I used to live, go to school, and play basketball (nor do they probably really care at this point), but it was still a great trip and hopefully will be a great memory for them for a long time to come.

Thanks again to AJ and family for showing us the new and improved SDSU campus. And to all of the fellow Jackrabbits out there who haven't been back to campus in a while, it's time to pack your bags and head out - you'll certainly be surprised (and very impressed!).

Here all a couple of pictures I snapped while we were out there.  I was clearly too amazed by the things I was seeing to even get my camera out.  It wasn't until we were back at Frost for the second time that I realized I carried my camera with the entire time, but never actually took a picture - oh well.

Monday, Fun Day

Is it possible that a Monday could be a fun day?  Well, usually not, but in our case, today was.  It was also HOT!  And I'm not just talking a little hot, I'm taking extremely hot and humid (the last reading in my car said 94 degrees).  When it's that hot, there is little to nothing to do outside with two kids and two babies, except maybe hang out at Grandpa and Grandma's pool - yay for having a pool!  So that is just what we did.  I packed up the kids this morning and headed south to spend the day in the pool and help Grandpa Jim celebrate his 40th (I might be stretching a little with that number) birthday today - how perfect.  And in honor of Grandpa's birthday, Grandma Donna managed to get out of work a little early too - apparently she didn't want to miss out on the fun.  Here are a couple of pictures from the day.  As you can tell, my attempt at taking a picture of the four grandkids and the grandparents didn't work out so great . . . Colt is too busy chillin' in his floatie to care about what I'm trying to do, Grandma has her hands full trying to hold both girls, and Ryan is being a typical boy and giving people "bunny ears"  - oh well, at least the Birthday Boy looks good. 

Oh, if ever Monday could be like this! 

In other news, I have lots of catching up to do . . . there was a dance party, a trip to Duluth, and lots of home improvements.  So much to write about, so little time to do it (at least not right now, I'm too tired).

School's out for summer!

Yesterday was Lauren's last day of speech school, and today was Ryan's last day of kindergarten - yay!  Not only does this mean Lauren is now almost a preschooler and Ryan is officially a 1st grader, but it also means no more rushing around like a crazy woman in the morning trying to get kids up, dressed, fed, and out the door by a certain time all while trying to keep Ellie and Colton happy - breathing a huge sigh of relief!  Of course this down time will be short lived because soccer and t-ball start in a little over a week, but I'll enjoy while I have it.  I regrettably forgot to get a picture of Lauren yesterday (just chalk it up as another "bad" mom moment), so I made sure I got the camera out today for Ryan's picture (although, if I am being completely honest, I have to admit that I did forget to take the picture before school so I had to take it after - oops!).  Here is the boy today and in September at the start of the year.  He grew a little taller, lost his tan, and cut his hair, but the one thing that didn't change was his skinny little legs!

Ryan's graduation

It was finally time for Ryan's big day today  . . . kindergarten graduation!  With the boy looking good (we picked out an outfit last night), breakfast done, and teeth brushed, Ryan was off to school.  After that, we (Trav, myself, Lauren, Ellie, Grandma Connie, and Grandpa Jim) headed out to the school for the big event.  The parking lot was packed and so was the gym - good thing we're tall so standing in the back works just fine for us.  The program consisted of some songs, an introduction of each child, and a crazy recessional to the tune of, "It's a Celebration" (pretty cute).  After the program and some class pictures, we headed to the lunch area for juice and cookies.  There we mingled with friends and chatted with Ryan's teacher before we ventured down to his classroom one last time - crazy how fast it all went.  Even more crazy . . . at one point during the ceremony, the teacher said, "Let's here it once again for the future class of 2023" - it seems so far off, but with things going as fast as they have been, that date will be here before we know it, and sadly, I'll be a real old lady!  Here are a couple of short videos and some quick pictures from the day.  Congrats again to our little graduate, we are so proud!!

Ryan and his buddy, Gavin