Thoughts on Sarah Palin?

Before I heard her speak I was a little apprehensive about her qualifications, but now I'm sold! I personally think she is the perfect pick as VP. What are your thoughts?

A New School Year Begins!

After a fun-filled summer everyone is ready for school to begin. Austin missed the Kindergarten deadline by a week, so he'll be at home with me for one more year-yahoo!It's only Jake and Taylor again. They both love their teachers (so far) and just walked right into the school the first day without even a backward glance:( I ended up going into each of their classrooms just to say bye again (I know, pathetic).
This week also started the craziness of sports and music: Jake and Taylor take piano...we also have swimming(3x/week), soccer, football(2x/week) and softball. Jake just lost his 2 front teeth...just in time for school!

Taylor and Ariana
Jake and Ryan











Taylor's softball team made it into the pre-season tournament championships. The championship game is tonight, so we'll see what happens. Sean has been pitching at her games, since he's helping coach (ask him where he's sore every time he pitches). Also, Jake got home late from football practice last night and was so excited about this team sign. He got a flashlight and asked for dad's help putting it up in the dark. Here is what it looks like in the light.
















I have to say that I am so proud of Austin. He read his first book yesterday all by himself. The book is called Biscuit. It is Austin and Matthew's favorite book. Life is so fulfilling as a mom (most days)!

Lake Lewisville Revisited

Our great friends the Chesters invited us to go on their boat to the lake. We love the lake and we love them, so it was a "no-brainer". Our boys are pretty much over there every day. Our neighbor Matt also came along for the fun. We swam and went tubing the whole afternoon. It was Matthew's first time on the tube! Austin always wanted to slow down, Jake always wanted to go faster, and Taylor didn't want to get in the water because of Alligators. She would jump from the boat to the tube. Sean and I also had some thrills on the tube.

THANKS MOM

I have an amazing mother who I love unconditionally. She flew in and watched our kids for 5 days while we went to Mexico and that made me love her even more :) The kids had a great time with the "dime system" (great idea). Taylor can now make cookies all by herself and the boys got great time with Gramz. She then stayed for a few extra days and those were spent with "girl stuff" and late...late nights talking. (It was worth every ounce of sleep I lost). It was fun to go to the American Girl Cafe with Gramz and Tay too! It was very hard to watch her go at the airport. I tried to be strong, so she wouldn't have a sad trip home. We miss you so much Gramz!

Playa del Carmen

OK, all I can say is...if anyone wants a georgeous and fun-filled place to go...Playa del Carmen IS the place. We were so glad that we took this trip (despite the work of leaving kids, etc.). It was the greatest time we've had as a couple in a long time and it made it even better to have Geoff and Ange with us! We explored, ate, laughed, snorkeled, played cards, ate, watched crazy Resort shows, snorkeled more, ate, parasailed, swam, kayaked, got attacked by a monkey(oh wait, that was just Geoff)and ATE. I would go back there in a heart beat, in fact Sean and I have already looked at going back next year...we'll see. A famous quote from our tour guide, Ricardo... "Let's do dis amigos, let's go"!

FLORIDA: Part II

Noelle flew in to be with us on Wednesday morning. We took the rest of the day and loved every minute of Disney's Typhoon Lagoon. The highlight was swimming with the sharks in the freezing salt water. My kids also loved the lazy river and slides. Noelle and I got in some great sister time too.




















The next day Jon flew in and we spent the day at Cocoa Beach...yay no jelly fish. We were body boarding, building sand castles and soaking up the sun. By the end of the day a big storm came...again.














The last day with Jon and Noelle we went to Animal Kingdom. Lots of fun, even with 8 people wanting to do different things. Once again, all of my kids went on the biggest and fastest roller coaster there...I had to stay with Matthew :)

After a long day.













With great memories, we said goodbye to Jon and Noelle and drove the long trek home. We stayed in Baton Rouge, LA on the way home. I loved driving through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The true south. We'll miss you Florida, but we will be back soon!

FLORIDA: Part I

Looking for jelly fish.










We've been looking forward to this 11 day trip to Florida for months. We booked our resort awhile ago and it is great timing to break up the summer. We were off for a long drive, but excited the whole time. We stayed in Pensicola the 1st night and then went to a nearby beach there. There were jelly fish everywhere, so we did a lot of digging in the sand. The sand was white and beautiful!

Outside of our room.

These are all made of Legos.














We got to Orlando and went to a ward on Sunday. Nice people. We then checked into our resort. We loved that it had a kitchen and we were ready to do Disney that week. The next night we went to downtown Disney. Jake was in heaven. Austin and Matthew slept the whole time!
















We first went to Magic Kingdom. OK, how did ALL of my kids get to love roller coasters. I detest them. Why would going upside down and in circles in a seat your barely buckled into be fun? Sean and the kids loved the big rides and my excuse was staying with Matthew. I loved seeing them have fun! It rained every day we were there, but we had our little panchos and it worked in our favor. After awhile the parks would start to clear out. We were soaked to the bone sometimes, but it was great!


Arrrgh! Getting stuck on the Pirates of the Carribean ride...in the dark...right before the big drop. Yes, we survived!


Oh, when I was coming off the Peter Pan ride with Jake we saw Kobe Bryant. He was about 2 feet away getting on the ride with his wife and daughters. Man is he tall!