Priceless

Our week together in Illinois was so great. Lots of togetherness. Lots of laughter. Lots of good food. Chicago has the best places to eat, in my opinion! :) Highlights include. . .

• Watching my boys interact with Will. Someday they will be known by Will as "those cousins who drive, attend high school, and beyond!" But for now, they simply enjoy playing with Will like he's another brother.
• Shopping with Derek, and only Derek!
• Shopping with Mom--actually, I shopped while she took Kaleb and Aaron on the train at the mall and bought them cookies!
• Finding out our van needed transmission work and being blessed with a quick fix.
• Watching Braylen show his great grandma his iPod touch while teaching her how to use it.
• Beautiful weather, open windows, lots of outside play time.
• Learning a new card game called, "Pass the Ace."
• The fire station of course!
• Reconnecting with an old friend over coffee (for 4.5 hours!)
• Scoring 2 dozen FREE donuts at Dunkin Donuts to share with my family.
• Feeling at home in the home I grew up in.

These times are few and far between, but maybe that's what makes them so special. Thank you, Lord, for a priceless week!

To Illinois We Go

Spring break! A week of sleeping in! Grandparents to entertain and spoil our kids! Meeting our nephew for the first time! Can you tell we're having a good week? Aaron had his turn at the fire station with Grampy, just like his brothers have done in years past. His smile could not have been bigger when he climbed in for his fire engine ride.

Ready to roll!

There he goes!

Today we made our traditional trip to our favorite shoe store here. Our boys are hard on their shoes, and were in desperate need of new ones. Tonight during bedtime prayers they all thanked God for their new shoes. Sweet. :) We're playing outside a lot, and it's warm enough for shorts. Ginger's made herself at home too. Last night Braylen built a fire in the fire pit and we cooked hot dogs and brats for supper. Ginger loved licking the grate clean, after it cooled off of course! We roasted marshmallows for dessert and sat outside on the patio enjoying the pretty night. This feels more like summer break!

Just before dinner, my brother and his family arrived! We all spent some quality time in the front yard getting acquainted with our nephew/cousin. So far this week is could not be better.

Aaron and Will :)

Will looks like he's floating on his daddy's hand!

Maybe I will stick with this type of blogging after all. I guess the best thing for me to do is just type what I know! :)

Thinking About Things

I've been home from San Diego for 2 weeks already. As fun as it is for me to keep a record of our lives as a family, I think I want to go in a new direction with this blog. Instead of keeping track of what we do every day, I'd like to pick a topic and weave our family life into it. Somewhere along the way I lost my ability to tell a story, and turned my blog into newsy, informative posts.

Part of this change comes from some things I have going on in my life right now. I feel like I'm balancing a lot of spinning plates, and if I don't keep everything balanced just right, I'll drop them all. Changing the format of my blog will free me up from documenting every little thing we do throughout the week. I hope my posts will be more meaningful and less busy. My goal is to capture our life together with our three sons, and turn it into a story of lessons learned and memories made.

I have no idea how this will work, but I'd like to try. :) For now, here's a great picture of Kaleb to wrap up this post.

Kaleb and his cousins' new puppy. Her name is Caramel.

Dolphins and Whales

Dawn and I decided we've come a long way from our play date days! :)

On our last day in San Diego, Dawn and I went on a whale watching tour. Thank goodness my aunt gave me motion sickness medicine before boarding the boat, because without it I'm sure I would have been sick. She also gave me ginger chewing gum and motion sickness bands to wear around my wrists. Bless her! Lesson learned: if you are ever on a smallish-type boat, traveling 12 miles out into open ocean, do NOT get up and try to walk around. I was fine until I did that.

We chose to sit on the top, open-air deck. It was chilly, but nice!

On our way out to sea, we saw the sights of the harbor. San Diego has the second largest Naval Air Base in the United States, so I took some pictures for my boys. (The largest is in Norfolk, VA, where Kaleb and I went last fall!) Anyway, we saw lots of helicoptors fly over our boat. We also saw some submarines--two in the water, and one in dry dock. I thought that was so cool.

Can you see the submarine barely sticking out of the water?

San Diego Skyline

 Once we left Point Loma behind, we began looking for whales. We looked and looked, but never saw any on our way out to sea. However, we did see lots of dolphins! Some of them even swam right next to the boat, giving me a great view from above. My dolphin pictures aren't that great, because I captured them from videos I took. But in person, it was an amazing sight!

Once we turned around to head back into the harbor, the swells were behind us and I felt much better. We saw a lot of whales from a distance--we were able to spot them from their blows, and the captain turned the boat in their direction. Or course the whales would dive beneath the surface and make it hard for us to see them up close. They resurfaced after 3-5 minutes, and we chased them again. The captain said in previous tours they were able to get much closer to the whales than we did, but I still thought it was a good tour!

Back at the resort, we said our goodbyes to my aunt and uncle. They really made the trip special for me! My core temperature was so low from our afternoon on the ocean it took me all evening to warm up again. Dawn and I opted for a tv night in our room with the heat cranked up! We packed our things and set our alarm for an early flight home in the morning.

This trip really was everything I'd hoped it would be--better even! I am blessed with a loving, sacrificial husband who worked overtime to pay for it. I do not take that for granted! He also took excellent care of our boys and our home while I was away. When I stepped off the plane and walked into the airport, they were there to welcome me back home. I loved all their hugs--I can never have too many hugs. :)

It's good to be home again. Oh, I almost forgot. Next time I'm tempted to complain about the price of gas, I will look at this picture.

On this date it was $3.59 at home.

It feels good to be all caught up from my trip and back in my routine at home. Before we know it we'll be going on yet another trip--this time all 5 of us will go. Well, 6 including Ginger. :) Yipee!!!