Wordless Wednesdays - Iowa Time

We headed to Iowa this past weekend for the annual Father/Daughter golf tourney that my dad and I play in. We played pretty well despite it raining on us the entire time! When it was a lighter sprinkle, it was actually quite pleasant...unfortunately it was often raining so hard that it was hard to even see. On number 18, we actually had to move the ball on the green b/c a river had formed from all the water. But we had a good time :) My mom took Dylan to the Des Moines zoo while we played golf. They had a great time.

On Saturday night, JoAnne, Jeremy, Quentin and Sarah came over to hang out. The kiddos had a great time playing together and we had a great time catching up. It was so fun!!

Sunday morning, D and I headed out to the Winter household. It was so nice to get to see Amy, Kelly and their 3 adorable kiddos! Karson and Aubrey seem so old compared to Dylan and getting to hold Libby was great.

Overall, it was a great trip to Des Moines. We plan to head back there in a few weeks for the Iowa State Fair...I'm very excited, I think Dylan will be very into it this year! He loves looking at cows and all sort of animals :)

D and the giraffes

on a "safari"

D "helping" Quentin open his b-day presents and showing him how to use them!

two cuties!!

D showing JoAnne how to play angry birds :)

Future golfer??

Karson, Aubrey and Dylan having a blast!

Scooter time!

Libby is SO cute!!!

D has 3 favorite things to do at my parent's house in DSM. Play with their Nordic Track, play on the piano and the number 1 by a landslide...playing with pool balls. For a kiddo with a 2 minute attention span usually, he'll play with pool balls for hours. He loves rolling them into the pockets, retrieving all of them and then doing it again. It was awfully cute!!

Wordless Wednesdays - Table Rock Lake!!

Dylan, Lars and I headed to Table Rock Lake this weekend to see Erin and the whole VanDeVelde clan!! I have a million great pics that Erin took (aka the paparazzi!), but haven't had a chance to upload them yet. I will do so tonight, but didn't want to keep anybody waiting, so for now here are the few I took on my cell phone. A HUGE thanks to the VDV's for making us feel so welcome and opening their home to us again. It's honestly one of my top highlights every summer and I am so very appreciative!!

Fun in the pool :)

Reliving our New Orleans trips with Hurricanes :) Believe it or not, they still taste good even when made with 9 year old mix :)

Enjoying some boat cheese!!

A tired little pumpkin on the drive home :)

Wordless Wednesdays - Aunt NiNi and Chris are here hooray!!

Aunt NiNi and Chris came to visit us this past weekend. We had a great time hanging out with them, as always!! We spent a few hours at my parent's neighborhood pool on Saturday morning and the grown ups had just as much fun as the kiddos going off of the diving boards! Saturday night, we went to the Royals game to celebrate Uncle Billy's birthday. Sunday, we spent the day hanging out and playing...mostly inside because of the crazy heat we've been having! We had so much fun and absolutely love it when Nicki and Chris come to see us!!

Yes, I know I said Royals, but D insists on wearing his Cubs shirt all the time!! I'm okay with having another die hard Cubs fan on my hands :)

Doing some yard work with Aunt NiNi :)

Checking out the neighbor's puppy with Chris :)

Wordless(ful) Wednesdays - Hanging in the LBC!

updated with a super cute donut picture :)

We spent the 4th of July weekend in Long Beach, California at a family reunion for my mom's side of the family. We had a GREAT time at the pool, the beach and the aquarium. But even more importantly, we had SO much fun hanging out with so many cousins, kiddos, all of my mom's brothers and sisters and my grandfather. The hotel we were at had an awesome fenced in patio to eat on, and the kids had a blast running around it at breakfast and dinner every day. It was great for the parents as well, because we could let the kiddos run around without worrying about them while we got to catch up! Dylan and I shared a 2-story suite with the Morris fam. We were a little worried about sleeping when we found out there weren't any doors, but the kiddos all did great!! We already miss everybody so much...in fact at dinner last night, Dylan was asking for our cousin, Juliana!

So cute on the plane ride out!!

We went to the Long Beach aquarium one morning. The aquarium was great and the kids loved getting to pet the sharks and see all the fish!

Here I am in the lorikeet display. This nice woman let me hold some of her bird food and soon I had a million birds on me. The kiddos (and I) were a little freaked out, but it was fun. It reminded me a lot of Zach Venice when he LOVED letting all the birds land on him!

Not the best pic, but my favorite, the tang fish!

We had a great time at the beach both days!! The kiddos loved the "never-ending sandbox". D liked putting his feet in the water, but got a little overwhelmed if he got too deep in the water and the waves pulled him towards the ocean. My cousins Brian and Laura and their 3 kiddos brought along tons of sand toys, and everybody had a great time playing!!

Maggie's first time in the ocean!!!

She loved the sand!! And even decided to try burying her head in it :)

Saturday night, my mom, brother, and cousins Natalie and Laura went grunion hunting. Grunion are these little sardine like fish that over the summer months mate along the coast of California. The girl fish come up with the high tide and bury their eggs in the sand and then the boy fish come up on the next wave and fertilize them. Nobody really eats the grunion, but they are fun to try to catch and release. We went a few years ago and there were a million grunion and Zach loved catching them. Unfortunately, this year the grunion were not as plentiful! We saw a few from a distance and then one up close. I tried to catch it, but realized at the last second that I had my phone and camera in my pocket and I fell trying to avoid them getting wet. Of course, I pretty much ended up soaked anyway! It was a good time and we enjoyed ourselves, even though it was a bit disappointing.

A picture of the elusive (this time) grunion...

On Sunday morning Papa took Dylan and Ella to Krispy Kreme for donuts! As you can see, they love donuts and had a great special outing with papa!!

Beach Day 2 - My cousins on my dad's side and their kiddos (Mike, Liz, Hannah and Lauren) drove up from San Diego to go to the beach with us on Sunday. It was great adding them to the mix and we had a blast once again. My cousin Laura, a marine biologist, taught us how to find sand crabs and the adults had a great time finding them. (except for my brother, who for some reason could not find one!)

Everybody decided it was a good idea to bury me and turn me into a mermaid :)

Hanging with the San Diego cousins. And a very impressive picture of 5 kiddos all looking at the camera!

D slept on an air mattress at the foot of my bed. He did a great job! On Sunday night when I came home, I had a momentary panic attack because I couldn't see him. (Andrea and Morris were in the room, so I knew it couldn't be anything too bad, but it scared me.) Finally, my eyes adjusted to the light and I saw him completely under the bed except for his head! I had to actually pick up the air mattress to get him out :)

All the great grandkids (that made the trip to CA) on the breakfast patio!

D crashed on the plane ride home! It was extra nice, because I got some sleep as well!

Happy 4th of July!!!