County Fair

Ryan spent some time with Grandma and Grandpa Quast on Thursday and Friday. Thursday night was spent at the county fair checking out the animals and catching a few rides. This was the first time Ryan has been on any fair rides and they said he had a blast. The roller coaster was by far his favorite ride - so much so that he had to go on it 3 times! Here are some pictures from the fair.
After a busy night on Thursday, the fun started up again on Friday with a trip to the pool. Apparently Ryan liked it as he was not ready to leave when I got there to pick him up - no surprise though, I wouldn't want to leave all the fun to drive in a car either. It was the beginning of another busy weekend for Ryan as he went straight from Grandma and Grandpa Quast's house to Grandma and Grandpd Loken's house - the kid is in high demand. I wish everyone wanted to see me that much!

This kid can dance!

One of Ryan's favorite things to do is dance. He absolutely loves going to weddings, not for the wedding itself (he could care less about that) but for the dancing. He can hardly wait to get the food eaten and the first couple of dances done so he can take over the floor. Well, it seems he still has a little dance fever in him from the wedding he went to this past weekend. While I was making lunch the other day, I was playing some music and Ryan started busting out in dance. So I of course had to stop making lunch and catch some of his moves on video. Here it is - he seems to have added some new signature moves lately as I haven't even seen some of these before - enjoy!

PS turn off the ipod music to hear the video

Let's go outside

Finally, a day without so much humidity (well at least by the standards that have been set the previous days). We decided to take advantage of the nice weather today by heading out early to the park to get dirty and run around. I packed up the girls in the stroller and Ryan jumped on his trike and we were out the door by 9:00am headed to our favorite neighborhood park. We are usually the first people there, and today was no exception. The kids ran around, did some swinging, and about 15 minutes after we arrived, Ryan's new "friend" showed up. Today his "friend" was a girl about his age. The minute she stepped onto the playground, he said, "hi friend." I should tell you know that he had no idea who this person was, but he has become such a little social butterfly lately that he just walks right up to other kids starts talking. Ryan and his new friend played together for the next half hour while the girls did some more swinging. When it was time for his friend to leave, he said "bye friend" and gave a little wave - it was pretty cute. Both of us (me and the other mom) had to laugh at how quickly the two kids got to know each other and became such good friends - too bad it doesn't work that way for adults. Could you imagine people just walking up to each other and saying "hi friend" and going from there? After the park, we headed home. Lauren has been having issues with wearing hats lately, so it shouldn't have been a surprise to me that sometime during the walk home, she took off her hat and dropped it out of the stroller. By the time I realized it was gone, we were at the end of our street and the girls were getting cranky. Luckily our neighbor, Ashley, was headed off on her bike to basketball practice (which is in the same direction we just came from) so I asked her to look for the hat, and she found it and returned it to us later in the day - yeah! After the park the kids were ready for a little downtime. The girls headed to bed and Ryan got to watch Bob the Builder while the girls slept. After a busy afternoon of playing, we decided to top the day off with a trip to the pool to cool off as it was getting pretty muggy again.
After the pool we headed home for a quick meal, and then it was off to bed. It is amazing how quickly, an easily the kids go to bed after a pool visit - they are just wiped out. It was great to e back outside again, especially because it looks like it will be super hot the rest of the week.

Too much heat!

Because it has been so hot and humid these past couple of days, we have not gotten outside too much lately. So, as an alternative to going to the park, we went to the mall and Ryan ran around and played in the kid area - our indoor park. We spent the entire morning at the mall walking, running, and playing - no shopping - go figure. Anyway, Ryan had fun as usual. Lately he seems to be finding a "new friend" wherever we go and usually ends up spending most of his time with that "new friend" which keeps him busy. When the playing is over, I always ask what he new friend's name is and he always says "boy" if it is a boy, and "grill" if it is a girl (still working on getting him to say that right). We always finish up our mall trip by letting Ryan pick out one of the cars/trucks to ride. He usually has to sit on a couple and try them out before he decides which will be the lucky one for the day. Here he is trying some of the rides out.

He finally decided on the fire truck because it had a couple of buttons he could push to sound the siren and horn - what a deal! Lauren even got in on some of the action today as we were sitting next to another baby her age - the two of them "played" together while I talked with the mom - looks like we all made new friends today. It sounds like the weather will cool of a little tomorrow so hopefully we can get back outside.

High school reunion (sort of)

I had a true girl's weekend this past weekend, and although I love my children and husband dearly, it was a blast to leave them all behind for a few days of fun with the girls! Six friends from high school in a cabin for two days - here are my thoughts on the weekend . . .

* never leave at 5pm on a Friday to head north - traffic is horrible. But, if you do have to do it, make sure your car is full of good friends to point out the fact that the traffic isn't too bad, it is "smooth sailing"
* Huckelbucks is a great place for a bathroom break and while you are there, you might as well enjoy some drinks and appetizers to get the weekend started early.
* 10:00pm is not too late to start eating food, lots and lots of good, but bad for you food
* waking up on vacation is much easier than waking up at home
* breakfast during girl's weekend can pretty much fill you up for the entire day
* a deep conversation filled with tears is quickly followed up by laughter and screams of joy while splashing around in the lake
* 6 hours on a pontoon with snacks and drinks makes you very, very tired
* 12:30am is late for a bunch of 30 year old "girls"
* writing a haiku (Japanese poem) is much more difficult than it seems
* snuggling up with a good friend makes for some great sleeping conditions
* you can still learn something new about someone you have known for over half of your life
* talking about old times never gets old, in fact, I think the stories get better every time you hear them
* spending quality time with your gal pals needs to be an annual thing - it reminds us of who we were, who we are now, and helps us develop into who we will be in the future.

Thanks for the memories girls!!!

Pictures will be posted when one of my dear friends sends me some. Look for them in a future post.

6 blistful years

So Trav and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary last Sunday (July 20th) - yes, I said 6 years! We were thinking things were getting kind of routine, and that we maybe needed to spice it up a bit. So, instead of exchanging gifts (not that we really do that anymore), we decided to do something different - we decided to get some dance lessons! Talk about fun. We haven't told anyone, not even our families as we wanted it to be a surprise to everyone. Going into this, we thought it would just be a fun thing to do together, we never imagined the full body workout it would be. My legs, butt, and especially my chest, really got some major improvements - check out the video below and see what you think of our first dance routine. Let us know if you want us to perform at any upcoming events!

PS turn off the ipod music to hear the video

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Stories, paints, and sprinklers!!

We had a very busy day today. It all started this morning with story time at the library. Usually we don't go to story time because Marley is over on Wednesdays, but today, Marley was getting a haircut and wouldn't be over until lunchtime. So, the kids got up, ate breakfast, took a nap (Lauren) and got dressed and ready to go. We got to the library just as the stories were beginning and found out the place was packed. We managed to squeeze in between a couple of kids and listened away. These story times are usually pretty loud and all the moms understand that, but today, there was a guest reader - the principal of one of the elementary schools - and he seemed a little overwhelmed with all the commotion, crying, and just plain noise. Once he realized that the kids weren't going to just sit there all silent and listen like perfect little angels, he did a good job although I doubt he'll come back anytime soon. After the library, we headed home and played outside until lunchtime. After lunch, Marley was dropped off and within 10 minutes of being at the house, all the kids were in bed for afternoon naps - my favorite time of the day! With naps over, and the weather nice outside, we headed outdoors for some finger/foot painting. The kids painted on one of our bed sheets that had worn out and had a big hole in it. Funny thing about this sheet, it was probably the most expensive sheet I've ever had (one of those sets that is like a 2000 thread count or something). My mom gave them to us as a Christmas gift a couple of years ago. So it was no surprise to me when I told her about the sheet and she said, just turn it around so the hole is at the bottom of the bed - always a thrifty lady - heck, the sheets probably have another good year in them! When I told Auntie about the sheet (and she actually saw it), she suggested that I use it as a paint canvas for the kids - not as thrifty as mom's suggestion, but still better than my idea of just throwing it away so that's what we did. Check out the fun . . .After the painting, we needed a way to get the kids cleaned up without dragging them into the house - solution . . . sprinkler. It worked out perfect as the sun was shining, and it was a little warm so the kids were eager to get wet.
The kids had a blast and it made the afternoon fly by. Lauren, as usual sat nicely on the sidelines and watched everyone else have fun - poor kid.She'll get in on the action tomorrow when we sit in the pool - much easier to do with a baby then running through a sprinkler.