Discovery Launch a Success!

The Discovery space shuttle was launched today at 5:02 PM and we were there to help celebrate the event. It was definitely crowded, but not so much as to not enjoy the experience. We managed to park somewhat close to where we needed to be, so we set up our stuff and played the waiting game. The kids just goofed around the entire time, and it didn't even phase them that all these people were there to see the shuttle launch. I guess they are a bit desensitized to launches now. After all, they have seen their fair share in the last few years.

While I was waiting, I took the opportunity to make sure my equipment was ready to go and just snapped some pictures of other onlookers. Here is a good one I took.

Okay, let's try this again. I'm not sure where that picture came from. Like I said, I took some pictures of some onlookers. There they are, those allusive onlookers.

And here are the pictures of the launch. Hope you enjoy them. If anyone wants any in a larger size, let me know and I will e-mail them to you. I cropped this a bunch, increased the contrast, and darkened it so you could see more detail.

Same with this one, minus the cropping...

These are unaltered, which is why they actually look like I took them in the daytime (which I did).


Notice our kids are the only ones not paying attention. Shame on them!

My personal favorite...

If you look closely, you can see the two boosters that separated.

Look Who's Turning...

10! Happy Birthday Hanzie!

I simply cannot believe that Hanzie is 10. The boys have a whole party planned for him tonight. He refused to walk this morning at 5:30 so I suppose he is already beginning to show his age! Normally he is at the door before Abby. Well, most of you know, I live my life around Hanzie. Chris has made it clear that he is the last dog that will share our bed with us! He is just an amazing dog and has been a vital part of our family. I only wish that I had ten more years to spend with him!

UPDATE: Hanzie seemed to have a good birthday. He went for a nice walk after we got home from school and had his lunch. We spent the afternoon out in the backyard. Hanzie sat in the shade with me on a blanket and chewed away on his bone. After dinner the girls and Finley came over and we had his party.

The cake...

Here we are singing Happy Birthday to him! (Aunt Roey- We've used this banner more times than you can imagine! We even used it recently at the school's big 50th birthday event.)

Birthday kisses from Finley! (He won't let Abby kiss him!)

In true form Hanzie ate his cake in one big bite!

Abby took a bit longer, she did actually take some bites.

Finley could never win an eating contest!

After his single bite, he did go back and lick the icing off his plate.

The kids were spectators from the bench. Since Hanzie was the birthday boy he got his piece first and the kids were served after the dogs.

Party pooper!

Uh, not really sure!

Here is to hoping for many more birthdays to come for Hanzie!

Memorial Day Weekend Part II

Tonight we went to the beach with the boys and the dogs. It was nearing sundown so most of the Memorial Day celebrations were ending. In other words, there weren't a whole lot of people at the beach, which was awesome. Rather than explain with words, I'll just post some pictures that will tell the story. Okay, you got me. Really it is just late and I don't feel like typing anymore. Hope all of our readers had as good a memorial day as we had.

Memorial Day Weekend... The Official Beginning of Summer!

Here is how I spent most of my weekend. (See previous post.)

The boys were completely run ragged by Sunday. We had a little cookout at Mike and Melissa's since I was in too much pain to try to host anything. We had to wake the boys up from their 45 minute nap on the couch and they were not thrilled. Ethan went right out to the trampoline to continue his nap!

Abby and Finley of course still had some energy!

The kids all love this spinning fairy that the girls have.

Today was quite the peaceful end to our 4 day weekend. The kids went for a nice morning swim and afternoon swim. I am currently on my 7th load of laundry for the day since my kids change their clothes 5 times a day and I have not been feeling up to doing laundry all week! Somehow they have in their heads that each time they get in and out of the pool they need a fresh pair of shorts and a new t-shirt! Tomorrow we start the single digit countdown. Only 9 days until summer vacation for the boys!

Oh the Pain!

Saturday was a day of recovery for me. Since returning from my trip to SC, I have been in excruciating pain. I have only had back issues once in the past, but this time was a doozy. I drove Chris' car on the trip and it absolutely did not get along with my back. I went to work on Tuesday, stayed home on Wednesday, and went back to work on Thursday and was in complete agony. I was quite happy on Friday when I realized that I could come home again and spend the day laying on the hard ground on my back! Saturday I tried to venture out and went to the dog park for an hour. I thought since I could sit the entire time that it would be fine. I was wrong! So, back to the hard ground for the rest of the day. Yesterday was slightly better and today for the first time in a week I can stand up straight! I just need to remind myself not to jump into my normal routine of walking quite a few miles a day until I'm completely healed. It is hard to restrain from heading out! Chris has been awesome and has been walking Abby and Hanzie for me each day at least a couple times a day so I'm not in complete pain and guilt! Tonight I'll try for a short walk and I will certainly have to get up tomorrow at 5:30 to walk them. Chris loves me, just not that much!

Will and Noah standing on the tunnel at the dog park.

Hanzie carrying his oh so masculine pink tennis ball!

Abby checking things out at the park. She is nothing like Hanzie and completely forgets that I exist while we are at the dog park. Hanzie, on the other hand, never leaves my side!

Abby is finally becoming a bit more coordinated.

This is where the kids spend the majority of their time!

Abby Going on Vacation?

I believe she is trying to tell me that next time I go on a trip she wants to go!


This week has been fairly uneventful. The one major event was that Noah lost his first tooth! He was very worried that he wouldn't lose one in kindergarten. Will has lost several and he was feeling sort of left out! Then there was today, where I went to school when we had no school! Oops!!!!

Back from South Carolina

I am back from my short trip to South Carolina. I arrived in Lexington just before 1:00 on Saturday afternoon. I had a hard time finding my sister at first. Finally she parked and I used the GPS to locate her and we met up. My mom, sister, and I headed straight off to see Grandma. She was very happy to see us and looked good. She had just had her hair done and looked lovely. I had brought my laptop along and two discs of pictures so Grandma had to endure a slide show of hundreds of pictures. She enjoyed looking at them all and I gave a commentary as we went though them all. She was able to see pictures of just about everything the boys do! After the slide show, we took her for a walk around the center's grounds. She said that she hadn't been outside for quite some time and she really enjoyed the walk. Here is a picture of us on the walk.
Around 4:00 she was visibly tired so we headed off for the night. We went on a whirlwind shopping spree of Lexington. We had dinner at Salsaritas which was good. None of us had ever eaten at one before. It is a chain similar to Moe's or Chipotle's. We headed back to the hotel after dinner and watched Mad Money. Definitely not the greatest movie ever made. We woke up, had breakfast, and headed to Wal*Mart to get a few things for Grandma before our visit. Much to our surprise, the 24 hour Wal*Mart didn't open until 1:30 on Sunday! Yikes. We managed to get the few things Grandma needed and headed over to see Grandma. We attended church services with Grandma. At one point she looked over to Lori and said, "I wish he would just shut up!" Apparently she didn't enjoy the sermon! I thought it was extremely hard to follow but I thought it was just me. Obviously not! After church we wheeled Grandma out to the courtyard so she could eat her lunch outside. She seemed to enjoy that a lot and ate a lot of her lunch. During lunch Sharon stopped by and told us that John, Malina, Katie, Paul, and Sean were in Myrtle Beach and were stopping by for the afternoon. Grandma's friends Pete and Sheila also stopped by to visit Grandma during her lunch. After lunch we took Grandma back to her room for a rest and went to lunch with Pete and Sheila. I can honestly not say enough kind words about Sheila and Pete. They were absolutely wonderful and are so good to Grandma. We had a great time talking with them during lunch and trading our opinions about Grandma's progress or lack of. We followed Pete back to Uncle David's house as he lives across the street. We visited for a short time at Uncle David and Sharon's house and then headed over to see Grandma again. John, Malina, Katie, and the boys followed us to visit as well. We wheeled Grandma out to the courtyard again to eat her dinner. Here Sean goes for a spin on Great Grandma's lap.
This is a picture of my cousin John's 2 year old cutie pie Sean.

John's other son, Paul, was a little bored so I handed my camera over to him so he could have some fun. Great Grandma smiles for the camera!
He got a nice shot of Lori.

And a good shot of my mom.
Here is the photographer himself!
We stayed pretty late. Grandma usually gets in bed around 4:00. Yesterday we kept her up pretty late! We all left around 5:45 or so. Poor Grandma looked exhausted but I know she was enjoying all of the conversation and having four of her grandchildren together at once. We said our goodbyes and left her to get ready for bed. Lori and my mom visited Grandma again this morning before they left. I headed out at 8:00 and Grandma is not yet up for the day then so I missed her this morning. I had an easy drive home and arrived home at 2:00. Of course Hanzie had thrown up in the house! I guess he hadn't eaten all weekend while I was away so they finally made him eat this morning. He doesn't eat when he is upset and he is upset whenever I am away. I guess it wasn't such a good idea for him to eat! Melissa dropped the boys off after school and we left to take the dogs for a walk. It looked like it was going to rain soon but we decided that the dogs needed to go for a walk since they were so hyper and excited. Well, we got drenched! Oops! It started raining just after we turned the corner from our house. The boys LOVED getting drenched and were cracking up the entire time.

We desperately need rain so it was a good thing! It only down poured for a short while and of course the minute we got home the sun popped out again.