Whirlwind Vacations

In the last week and a half, I've gone to Jewel, Oregon with my husband and kids and Tucson, Arizona with my mom and brother...*sigh*...talk about a whirlwind of VERY FUN activities!! :o)

Anthony and I took the kids down to Oregon to visit our good friends, Able and Abbe. We were just there for a couple days but it was SO nice to get caught up with them and get to know their sweet, adorable little kids. They have a son that's 4 years old (he's actually only 4 months older than Tirus so they had a blast together) and they have a daughter who's 2 1/2 but talks better than I do! :o) Sadly, their daughter was only 6 months old the last time we got to spend time with them! :o( All the kids got along VERY well which a total blessing! Able and Abbe are amazing parents and it was really nice to see how other people run their house and get fresh ideas of how I could do things better at my own house. The first day we were down there, the 8 of us went for a drive to Seaside Oregon. I thought I'd been there before but I definitely hadn't. I'd highly recommend going there, especially with kids! There's actually swingsets on the beach! Plus the kids all got to go on a beautiful carousel that we found in one of the cool little shopping centers we went to. There were a ton of cool little shops to look in to but with 4 kids 5 years old and younger that'd be just asking for trouble! We did venture into a hat store where the kids got to try on all kinds of crazy hats. :o) Alena's favorite of course was a tall, pointy princess hat where as Ty preferred the crazy one stripped in primary colors with the spinner on top...go figure... :o) The second day we were there we all went to an awesome pumpkin patch! There was a pond in the middle of the farm where they had set up a fun little boat ride. About a 1/3 of the way thru the ride a (metal) shark jumped out of the water and then a little while later 2 (metal) dragons came out of the water. The kids thought it was the coolest! :o) Although poor little Chloe did NOT like the dragons! :o( She screamed and ran to her mom...poor girl! :o( After the boat ride, Alena and Ty got to pick out a pumpkin, as did Chloe and Jack. Then we got to go on a train ride back to the front of the farm by the parking lot where we paid for our pumpkins and checked out the farm animals before leaving and heading to lunch. Above is a picture of Alena and Tirus getting a ride from Daddy in the wheelbarrow. Here's a really cute family picture of us at the pumpkin patch:


I was home for only 2 days before I packed up and flew down to Tucson with my mom and my brother, Danny. We got to go visit my other brother, Scott, and his girlfriend, Kelsie. Scott got a job down there at the national headquarters for MDA (Muscular Dystrophy Association) at the beginning of this year and I hadn't seen him and Kelsie since June when Scott came up to help Kelsie move all her stuff down there. I must admit, I kind of fell in love with Tucson! I know I'd eventually get sick of having pretty much one kind of weather all the time (except during monsoon season in July and August - which I'd LOVE to experience some day!!), but I thoroughly enjoyed visiting! It was about 90 degrees the whole time we were down there and it felt perfect. It's a very different kind of heat than what I'm used to here in Washington - it's a very dry heat - so it's more like if it were 75 degrees here at home. We went to a few places to observe and learn about the plants and animals that are native to the Sonora Desert that Tucson is in. We also went to an active Catholic Mission and that was gorgeous! The architecture was unbelievably ornate. I can't even begin to imagine all the work that went into making that place look as amazing as it does. One of the evenings after we'd all gone to dinner together Danny and Scott went to a college football game while Mom, Kelsie and I went shopping and out to coffee. We ended up hanging out at Barnes and Nobles for quite some time and that was actually a ton of fun! It wasn't part of the original plan for the evening but it turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. It was the first time I'd gotten to spend any one on one time with Kelsie (Mom was off looking at books most of the time) and it was really nice to get to know her. She's really sweet!!

Well, Anthony is anxiously awaiting a chance for me to destroy him in ping pong so I'd better end this here. I'm hoping to get better about adding new posts to this blog on a more regular basis.

Sorry I'm such a slacker!!

I can't believe it's been almost a whole month since my last post! So sorry!!! I can't help but wonder if everyone I told about my blog quit checking it by now...can't say that I'd blame them! :o)

Well, things are going really well here at the Bader household. Anthony has been getting deliveries that have been keeping us afloat. He's surprisingly upbeat for how slow work has been this month. I feel like that's a total answer to prayers for peace and encouragement that I've been praying for him. This rough economy has hit his line of work really hard but he's still got his chin up and a handsome smile on his face. :o)

Alena is LOVING Kindergarten. To give you a very current example of just how much she loves her teacher...today was her last day of class for 9 days (there's no school next week due to parent/teacher conferences) and she came out of school crying...and cried the whole way home I might add...because she's going to miss Mrs. Green SOOOO much. :o) I personally, see that as a good thing! It shows that she's really enjoying Kindergarten and she adores her teacher. What more could a mom ask for out of her child's school experience?! It's amazing to see how well Alena is doing on learning how to read. She loves to look through books and try to read as many words as she can. I'm so incredibly proud of her!!! I've been loving working in her class every Thursday morning. I've greatly enjoyed seeing her succeed and being able to get to know her teacher and classmates has been a real blessing. We actually just finally scheduled our first playdate with one of her classmates! If you ask Alena what her favorite part of Kindergarten is, without having to think it over, she'll immediately answer, "RECESS!" :o) That's my girl! :o) She's gotten to be quite proficient on the monkey bars, hula hoops and jump ropes. I get to go out to recess most of the time when I'm there on Thursday mornings and she gets so excited to show me how talented she is at all these new hobbies of hers.

Tirus is as wonderful as ever. He's okay with Alena going to school every day but his favorite time of the week is Friday and Saturday nights because those are the only nights of the week that Mommy and Daddy let him sleep on the floor under Alena's loft bed in her room. :o) Or if the kids are really good, Daddy will build them a fort in the living room and they get to sleep in that on those non-school-nights. Tirus lives for those such nights. :o) Every night, without fail, he asks, "Mommy, does Nina have school tomorrow?" He gets very sad if the answer is yes but he jumps for joy on the seemingly rare occassions we get to say that no, in fact, she does NOT have school the next morning. :o)

I'm doing pretty good as well. I've been enjoying playing a TON of ping pong with Anthony and I'm incredibly excited about my two upcoming travel opportunities. This Sunday, Anthony, the kids and I are going on a little road trip down to Oregon to visit some old friends, Able and Abbe, we haven't seen in about 2 years. It sounds like we'll even be able to go to a really fun pumpkin patch while we're down there. I'm really looking forward to getting to know Able and Abbe's 2 little kids that are 2 1/2 and 4 years old. The 4 of our kids should have a blast getting to know each other. :o) And of course I'm definitely looking forward to hanging out and catching up with Able and Abbe. They are amazing people and I'm just sad we don't get to see them more often! So, I said I have two upcoming travel opportunities...the very next weekend after we go visit Able and Abbe, I get to fly down to Tucson, Arizona with my mom and brother, Danny, to visit my other brother, Scott. I've never been to Arizona so I'm excited about that new experience but much more importantly I'm excited to see my brother whom I'm haven't seen in about 6 or 8 months! And it'll be great to spend some time with my mom and brothers. We figured out that it's been about 13 or 14 years since just the 4 of us went on vacation together. I'm SO excited!!!!! And I must admit I'm just kinda sorta looking forward to having 3 1/2 days of no responsibility. :o) I'll definitely miss my hubby and kids but it'll be nice to get away and recharge, know what I mean?

Well, I guess that's enough rambling for one day. I hope the Lord is blessing you with good health and lots of time with your loved ones. -Laura