updatish

Friday is finally here!

First- Grandma is doing okay. They eventually got her stabilized after the cardiac arrest following her procedure on Wednesday and got her moved up to the heart hospital in Sioux Falls (helicopter ride!) that evening. She finally woke up the next morning and last I heard (yesterday) was doing well all things considered. Still waiting for the dr.'s call on surgery.

Second- I'm feeling better about our day today. We've had a couple of evenings visiting with friends (the only one family we know here) and it did the kids good to have others to play with and room to spread out a little. Much better for all of us. They're just so not used to being cooped up in this small space of someone else's place with someone else's furniture and things, without any of their friends around, overdosing on just each other, no yard to run and play in, etc.
And I'm not used to having to entertain/mediate non-stop 12+ hours in a row, several days in a row.
We're headed back home today (after some hopefully quick car repairs this morning) and looking forward to the Robertsons meeting us at our house tonight. Yay!

Then into a relaxing weekend of.... decisions. Ugh.

who are these people and why are they calling me mom

Careful, this is not a well thought out or written post... it's pretty much straight brain to keyboard freeflow with no filters, logic or forethought. I might not even publish it. I just needed to talk [type] outloud for a minute.

Because I don't have a clue what I'm doing.
I don't even like my kids right now.
And it breaks my heart because I love them so much.

And also?
Who's fault is it that they're turning into examples of exactly the kind of kids I don't want them to be?

I'm feeling really defeated on the parenting front lately.
I feel like these are the make it or break it years we're in right now and I'm just not making it.
I'm so overwhelmed right now because I don't know why or what this all is or how to go about fixing it.
I don't know how much of it is just because of me and my shortcomings as a mom,
I'm not sure if it's because of the stress of moving, of the unknown,
I don't know if it's because their dad is gone 90% of the time,
I don't know if this is normal, they'd-be-behaving-like-this-anyway stuff but I don't have the energy to deal with it correctly and it's getting worse.
I feel so like I'm missing the mark on shaping these little people. I feel like I'm missing the whole point of all of this and am letting it bring out the worst in all of us instead of using it to make these little people better people.
These are the years that are making up such a part of who they will be and I hate that this whole year is in chaos like this... not only physically as we've been in between cities, but emotionally -as it's turning out is worse.
It's killing me that I'm letting this whole year be in chaos... isn't it my job to even it all out for my kids; to be the consistent in their unsure world right now?
I don't know how to do that job.

My kids can be mean, so mean to each other. They're so ugly to each other sometimes I just can't even believe it. They don't listen to me, they suddenly have no self control, they're impatient, demanding, disrespectful, disobedient, sassy and just plain bratty.
And it makes me want to cry.

The truth of it is, they're probably okay.
Sometimes, all it takes is spending a few intimate days with some other families and certain kids our ages to see that hey, ours are pretty okay.
It's like a sigh of relief when we come away from other families and think, and we thought ours were bad...
Where we leave vowing we will never take our kids for granted and we pat ourselves on the back a little for a job actually very well done.

But then I examine a week -like this week, cooped up in close quarters all together- with my kids... and I see too many things that may fly under the radar when we're with other people. I see that yes, comparatively, our kids are obedient and polite and play well with others... but I fear that we're nearing our expiration date with that. I feel like I'm taking the easy road way too many times as of late. I'm feeling like stuff is simmering here and all these little undesirable behaviors are growing and growing and before we know it it's going to be out of control.
I feel SJ shutting down and becoming more of a stranger to me.
I can see Sawyer becoming angry and resentful.
It's like I can see things happening and I get a feel for how it can all snowball in the exact opposite direction that I want, but I feel like I'm just sitting back watching it all in slow motion and am powerless to do anything about it.

I don't know whether it's depression that has me paralyzed, whether it's just me too focused on my own emotions through all of this transition stuff,, or whether it's just laziness because I don't have the energy to do the tough work real parenting is at this point.
Because I really feel like I don't have that energy.

What I thought would be a few months transition is starting to look like becoming a year.
A year of living in between... telling the kids and preparing them for leaving everything... just to hurry up and wait. Telling them we're not going to return to schools... but then maybe returning. Telling them we only have so much time left for some things... and then sticking around. A year of not really living in our house because we have to be ready to show it all the time. A year of not getting involved in activities because they cost money and we might need to pull out and leave at any time. A year of only seeing their dad on weekends. Of randomly spending time in Nashville but not being able to get plugged in. Not yet. It's just all Not Yet.
We've been in this mindset since January. January.
And we're really no further today than we were then.

Except that daddy works far away.

Sawyer asks all the time if today's the day we're finally moving.
SJ's stressed out about school starting... mostly because she doesn't know where yet.

I don't know how to guide my kids through this anymore.
I don't know how to get us through this positively.

I knew this would be hard, but I envisioned nothing but us all coming out better, stronger, and a closer family in the end.

Turns out that outcome is a lot harder to come by than I imagined.

but it's only wednesday

My kids have been absolutely driving me and each other crazy this week. It's not been pretty around here. We're climbing the walls and on each others' last nerves.

Scratch my Aunt, Uncle and cousins coming for a visit. A thrown out back on their end has wrecked havoc on their vacation plans. Missing 36 hours with us is probably the least of their concerns (they were also fitting other friends and family in on this trip, not to mention a great week at Sunset Beach!!), but I was really sad to have time with them fall through.

I've had a strange serious stomach ache for three days now.

My 11-year-old cousin fell off his bike and needed staples in his head.

And the biggest one... My mom and dad arrived for a trip at my grandma's and found her not in good shape... took her in that afternoon (Monday) and found she'd had a (at least one) heart attack among a myriad of other issues. She's been in the hospital since then, stabilized and okay... but today they did the procedure to investigate her heart/arteries/blockages/etc and have not been able to stabilize her since. That was about an hour and a half ago. Crazy low blood pressure, not responsive, not good. They need to fly her to another hospital for surgery, but they can't get her stabilized.

Prayers please.
For my grandma, for my family and the most trivial; for my sanity.
The week's only half over.
I'm kind of afraid of what's yet to come.

to and fro and all over the place

Back in Nashville this week.
Back and forth and back and forth.

No decision on starting school yet.
I was leaning more towards jumping into Nashville... finding a rental or something temporary in the area we think we want to be in.
[Ryan only has this apartment for about three more weeks and can't renew and it's not an area we would be looking in (read: could never begin to afford) anyway]

Then over the past weekend I was feeling more peace about just staying put in the house we still own and starting her in old school where she knows friends and teachers and the school and routines and just waiting to see what happens. Kind of boiling it down to waiting to see what pans out instead of trying to make things happen. The idea of living apart for who knows how many more months is definitely not appealing, but it might make the most sense.

I just hate feeling like something could happen at any time and things could change and then we'll have to get down there quick anyway.

Now suddenly today (maybe it has to do with actually being here again) I'm back to leaning more towards just finding someplace -anyplace- to live in Nashville in what we would like to think would be the school area we'd like to end up in eventually. Whatever we can make work while we still have a mortgage in STL.
I just don't know.

Regardless, we're here for the week.
It's hot and stormy.
Again.
I was hoping for a week of hanging out at the pool, but the dark clouds are making that tough.

My aunt and uncle are coming through town the middle of this week and staying with us.
Five kids and four adults in 2 bedrooms and 1000 square feet for two nights... wheee!
It'll be worth it for some good Berke hang out time. That happens too rarely.
I'm definitely hoping for some good pool time then, but we'll get out and do some fun Nashville stuff too.

In other news, we had a good weekend. Had a date night of sorts on Friday and that was good. Saturday we had lunch with friends and spent a good amount of time at the pool. That evening we took the kids to see Marmaduke at the dollar theater... really enjoyed the movie-- it was very cute and really funny and cemented my desire for a Great Dane in our family.
Also awesome: the four of us going to an evening movie, hot dogs popcorn drinks and candy all around (they have the best yummiest real tasting popcorn there!) for less $$ than it would cost all four of us for just tickets to a movie in a regular theater. LOVE the dollar theater!

Also had a good drive down yesterday... despite sketchy behavior from our portable dvd player. (my kids are so over this STL/Nashville commute and if we have to do it sans kids' movies, I will be done as well!)
We stopped about halfway in our trek and met up with some friends for ice cream; Erin went to school with Ryan in Greenville and while she and I had never actually met, we've been connected thru blogging for a few years now. So while she's technically a friend of friends, and there's a real world connection there, I certainly wouldn't know her and probably would have never met her in person if it weren't for all this cyberspace blogger facebook stuff we've got going on, so it was extra fun to meet one of my "blogging buddies". And we got to meet her soon-to-be hubby and new daughter which was so fun. We all stopped for a snack and to stretch our legs and had a great chat time and the kids had a blast running around the playground. It was a great addition to our normally monotonous trip!!

We then stopped for a late dinner and a romantic sunset (ha!) at Sonic at some point and I met my new Worst Enemy. Why have I never been warned of the sinful goodness of Sonic French Toast Sticks?? Oh My Heaven. My first thought after trying a bite of SJ's order last night was, where have these been all my lfe?? I thought my random cravings for their Tots were enough... I haven't stopped thinking about these French Toast Sticks ever since.
It's a good thing I don't know where the closest Sonic is this morning.
I'm in trouble.

mini me

Someone takes after her momma. :)

She has apparently noticed I use every opportunity to make myself a list.
And it seems she's on the same path.
This is just one (front and back) of the several I've come across this week...

(click to read full-sized)

Other lists by Savannah this week have included (but are probably not limited to):
To Do List of July 19 2010,
To Do List of July 21 2010
Dinner Ideas for the Week (complete with chart!)
and I believe she started one for Things to Pack for Nashville for Next Week.

I love it!!

organizing

{quick aside}
I spent all of last night organizing photo files dumped willy nilly on my computer over the last year. I spent three hours (!!) sorting pics into folders... and I'm not even done yet. And that's simply sorting... I didn't do any editing or even deleting. I've just been dumping memory cards wherever whenever they're full... ever since the craziness of last summer. And now I'm having to find photos hiding in every nook and cranny of my two computers. Ugh.

I realized, wading through all those pictures, how much the past 12 months have really been full of lots of insanity. Lots of vacations and visitors and new ventures and projects and trips and decisions and stress, all piled up on top of each other. And glancing through the pictures last night I realized exactly how much I didn't get here on my blog. Like I maybe touched on barely any of it. And it makes me really sad, because lots of that was really good stuff. And even if it wasn't, it's our life.
I already miss those memories, and I'm lamenting the fact that it's not recorded.

So with my renewed commitment to keep on top of organizing, backing up and actually using all of our pictures from here on out, I'm feeling a renewed urgency to be keeping on top of organizing, backing up and actually retelling our stories around here from here on out. Blogging. Blogging regularly. About the big things and the seemingly inconsequential other things that make up our life. I hate all the gaps in our story over the past year and I might even do my best to fill those in along the way. At the very least, I'm seriously jumping back on the wagon. For real this time.

{back to the point of the post!}
Anyway, all that to say, it's been a looong time since I've done any WFMW posts, even though I've had a ton -and I mean A TON- of them rolling around in my head.
Since I posted pictures last week of our previous bathroom facelift, I thought it'd be a good time to add a couple of projects I also did way back then that work wonderfully for me in there!

I was stuck for a long while on what to do with my [probably too]rapidly growing jewelry collection. You see, I'm kind of boring when it comes to fashion... I like easy, predictable, solid colors, layers and I don't much go outside the box. But the way I do try to at least seem a little bit with it is to throw a great necklace or an eye-catching pair of earrings in the mix. That way I can get more than one look out of the same t-shirt and jeans. :)
Problem is was, I didn't know what to do with all those big necklaces and where to put all my earrings so I could see what I had. I don't really have any place to put a great jewelry box or anything like that. So I got creative...

For my necklaces, I picked up two of these key hook thingies (similar to this one but in silver) at Target for about $6-7 each:















I simply hung them up behind my bathroom door and wha-la... they're the perfect place to hang all my necklaces so I can see exactly what suits my fancy for the day.















And for earrings, I revamped a shadow box and turned it into a great display for all my "earbobs". (i just love that word!)














I bought a black shadow box at Hobby Lobby (at 50% off) as well a package of plastic canvas for crossstitch/needlework for about $1.50. I also grabbed a few kebob skewers I had, black craft paint and my glue gun and I was ready to go!





















First I painted the skewers black to match my shadowbox.




I took apart the shadowbox and set aside the glass and the backing as I only needed the frame.






Next I cut one of the pieces of plastic canvas to replace the glass, fitting inside the front frame of the shadowbox. Hotglued that in.







Then I cut the skewers to the width of backside of the shadowbox frame and hotglued them in place. These are to hold hooped earrings or pairs that wouldn't work on the canvas.

Here's the backside with the skewers on the back ledge and the canvas glued in the front frame.









Let the glue dry well and ta-da... a place to hang any and all earrings that looks nice and tidy and actually a little fancy in the bathroom!














Put studs and wires right in the teeny holes in the plastic canvas and hang bigger wires or hoops on the dowels in the back layer.















You could prop this slightly open (like a book) standing on a vanity or dresser and be able to see all the earrings and use it as decor.

Or you can do as I did and hang it on the wall... simply open the front door to find your second layer of jewelry!

I love it and it was so easy and cheap to do!
















See what great ideas work for others or share your own at We are That Family, the fabulous faithful host of Works for Me Wednesdays. :)

doubtful faith

exactly what I needed to hear today...
(thank you Sarah for pointing me to it)

This young boy... told me he had doubts about his faith; he was troubled in spirit. By the time he was finished, his voice was shaky and he was on the verge of tears. What a burden for such young shoulders!

I was overcome with admiration, and I told him so. That he was wrestling with these things was no indicator of a lack of faith, but an abundance of it. If he was wondering about things like salvation and faith and the nature of Jesus’ love, he was farther along on his journey than I was at his age.
Anne Lamott said, “The opposite of faith is not doubt, it’s certainty.”
Faith is obedience in the face of doubt, which is to say, faith requires doubt in order to survive. Faith is a courageous act of defiance, not always a happy-go-lucky frolic.

So the problem wasn’t his doubt; the problem was his fear.
“There is no fear in love,“ says 1 John 4:18.
So ask your questions, lie awake wondering, wrestle with angels, even shake your fist at the heavens, but don’t be afraid. Perfect love drives out fear, and Jesus’ love is perfect.
It is strong enough for our doubt, our sin, and even our secret fears.

(emphasis mine)

quiet

I know I've been quiet around here the last week or so (10 days w/out blogging! oh my!!), but believe me- the inside of my head has been anything but quiet.

Time for a brain dump.
Want a peek at the noise I've had going on?.....

Which house should we buy?
Should we stretch our budget and get closer to what we want or stay cheap(er) and just make do?
How badly do I want the community feeling that comes with a neighborhood pool?
How badly do I want the community feeling with a friendly neighborhood and lots of kids around to hopefully help us plug in and get to know people in a place where we know no one?
How badly do we need a guest bedroom?
What do we give up?
Which house fits us best?
This one?
That one?
What about the one with....?
How could we rearrange a house to work for us?
How much money would we have to put in it?
What do we do about our house here?
Should we lower the price again?
Should we put in the new floors we wanted to do instead of lowering the price?
How much money are we going to lose on this house?
Should we change realtors?
(we are most definitely not happy with ours, but is it worth it this late into the game??)
In the meantime, do we move down with Ryan or stay with our friends?
Should we rent? Where we want to eventually be? Where is that??
Will we have a place to live by the time school starts (in 4 weeks!!)?
Do I just start Savannah in school up here?
Do we just skip the start of school and wait until we're moved in?
Do I start her in school somewhere or "homeschool" until who knows when?
Does Sawyer have any chance of finding an empty space in a preschool classroom at the last minute?
Should we take advantage of the preschool system at the public schools?
Should I go ahead and buy clothes (specific dress code in Nashville Public schools) for the school year?
What am I not doing enough of to get our house sold?
Is it not nice enough? Clean enough?
Do I not have enough faith?
Am I not praying enough?
Am I not trusting enough?
Did we make the wrong decision?
Should we stay put and live apart for another school year?
Should Ryan look for another job here? Another job anywhere that can offer full relocation?
Should I get a job?
Family is trying to plan trips to visit... do they come here or there? Where will we be?
Will we still have this house? A new one?
Will we ever get a vacation?
When are we ever going to get to do foster care or get going on an adoption?
Does it bother the kids living inbetween and waiting and in limbo like this as much as it does me?
Why do I feel like crying all the time?
Why have I gained so much weight?
Why can't I do something about it if I feel so crappy about myself?
Why can't stress make me lose a ton of weight like it did when I was 24? Why does stress at 34 do the opposite??
Which house should we buy?
This one?
This one?
The one with...?
The one where we like _____ but don't like ______ and _______?
More house and more yard but an hour commute for Ryan??
Have we still not found "the one" or do we just settle on one that we've seen and not loved?
Why hasn't our house sold by now?
Why does every realtor that comes thru our house love it and compliment us on how nice it is and how well it shows and they're sure it'll sell in no time, but yet not one family has been interested enough to make an offer?
How on earth will this all fall into place in time?
What do we do when it doesn't?
Do we get a new realtor?
Do we just buy a new house anyway?
What is best for the kids?
What is really best for us?

Okay, I'll give you all a break now. But I'd like to point out, I don't get one.
This is just a taste of what's rolling around in my head non-stop, all the time. How do I turn it off??
And that's just the big stuff, the heavy stuff, not the stuff about regular life; keeping the house clean, what's for dinner, what gift do we buy for this birthday party, are my kids watching too much tv while I house hunt online, how on earth do I catch up on organizing pictures on my computer from the last year?!
Regular life goes on and I feel like I'm not doing it very well because I'm so caught up in the stress of this situation.

Not that I'm not trying.
Last weekend we had friends in town to staying with us for a long weekend while they were here for a wedding and I had a pretty great time with my great friend amidst the ups and the downs and the craziness of their weekend plans and having five kids in the house all weekend (and three house showings in the midst of it all!). We even squeezed in a quick last minute family photo shoot with a fabulous blogger friend, also from out of town, on Saturday that was so fun despite being hot and sweaty!! Then last Sunday as we said goodbye to our guests, we hurried to pack ourselves up, have the house ready for not only being gone for a week, but another house showing, and get over to celebrate Caleb's first birthday at a pool party on our way out of town to Nashville. The kids and I spent the week down in Nashville with Ryan and spent a good lot of time with Mr. Cohort and his wife and kids down there (all getting settled nicely in their beautiful new house)(what? no I'm not jealous or bitter at all...) and then we also hit up the Robertsons on our way home for some visit time where the kids played fabulously together and we got some snuggle time with their new baby girl. We got home to STL late Friday, spent the next day just relaxing and hanging out, napping, watching movies and of course some pool time. It was a good day.


Then Sunday, yesterday, suddenly, it all came to a head and I for some reason out of the blue hit a breaking point.
I spent literally the whole day "leaking" as Sawyer calls it. aka, crying.
All. Day.
It was not a good day.
I've never felt so tired, weary and exhausted before in my life.
Not a busy exhausted, as we actually had an pretty laid back and enjoyable week. (well, yes, physically exhausted too... I can't sleep, my brain won't turn off. Even with sleep aids, I'm not sleeping well at all, ever. And my hair is falling out, handfulls, every time I wash it or brush it or run my hands thru it. Ugh.)
But mostly, or combinedly (is that a word??) I'm just emotionally, spiritually and mentaly completely wiped out.

Decisions have to be made, something has to happen... but I don't have the answers.
And I'm realizing I don't have the energy for it anymore. Not having answers or an end in sight is so darkly overwhelming at this point.
I feel like I've done pretty well for the past six months and now it's all catching up to me really fast.

So I'm a little stressed.

I wanted to go back to Nashville with Ryan again... I miss him and I like hanging out with him and I don't want to have to spend all week keeping the house clean after the kids "just in case" and I don't want to parent by myself and I worry about him driving so far alone and I don't want to have to hang out with anyone else and pretend to be good company.
But I stayed because the kids want to spend time with their friends and our stupid frogs should probably be fed and as long as we're still paying for this thorn in my side house (and the pool!) we should probably use it.
But I feel like literally hiding out in my house this week, not even wanting to go to the pool or have lunch dates or even let the kids play outside because I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't want to fake being upbeat and optimistic and okay with everything. I'm tired of talking about all of this stuff, but in actuality it's the only thing on my mind.

Honestly, I'm nothing but frustrated and lost and scared, and it's kind of hard to be friendly and social like that.

And so I've been quiet.

2.5 bath

Okay, so I resolved this week to finally post pictures of all the house stuff we did around here now that we're (hopefully soon) leaving it.
Nevermind that it's already Thursday, it's still this week, right?

We've done some fairly big projects around here and because they were each and every one done in ridiculously poor timing involving vacations, houseguests, or oh say, trying to move, I have sadly, never posted pictures of any of them. Crazy.

So first off I'm going way back to the first bigger change we made, two years ago(!), with some slight updating to our master bathroom.

Before:



















(gotta get a close up of the lovely light fixtures we got with this house!)





and After



























after included painting the cabinets, adding hardware, replacing the light fixture and towel bars/robe hooks/tp holder, repairing and regrouting the shower and repainting a wall:






























These cabinets were definitely one of those easyish things that make such. a. difference. One of the ones where you kick yourself for not doing it earlier.

We had those same fake oak honey colored cabinets in all three of our bathrooms.
Here's the kids' bath/main bath on the second floor:
before


the day we moved in




















and the way we lived with it for 2.5 years
(yes, it was probably usually that messy too)
















and after some white paint and new hardware

































So much better!!






And the half bath on the main floor
before

















after painting the cabinet (matching the kitchen cabinets), the stepstool and a new light fixture























If we were staying put I would have liked to eventually replace countertops, faucets, mirrors and floors. As it is, just the paint was a nice enough change in all three bathrooms!
I will never hesitate to paint a cabinet I don't like ever again!

festivities

Hope you all had a great holiday weekend... as we did!

Most of all, as usual, it was just great having Daddy home for four whole days!!
















After our sun-filled, fun-filled day Friday, we spent Saturday kind of lazing around a bit before heading to our local Heritage & Freedom Fest as we have each year.
We met up with friends for a picnic dinner and then more good friends from church as dusk settled for the fireworks. The kids ran and played and we played some card games and snacked and it was just a great evening.
Love that festival. Love so much free stuff for the kids to do, hate love wasting a few bucks on cheesy chintzy carnival rides for the kids, love hanging out with friends, love the fireworks spectacular, love the family time.













































This is one tradition we're really gonna miss next year!

On the actual 4th of July we went for a dip in our neighborhood pool, tried out the new water slides there, had a lazy afternoon of games and movies and then headed across the street for a neighborhood shindig complete with bbq, an inflatable waterslide, yummy desserts and the boys putting on some fireworks for us.




Hope you enjoyed your
Red, White and Blue Day!!

more flags, more fun

Those of you who live in the STL area, or any area with Six Flags advertisements will recognize that title. The kids have been saying it non-stop this week knowing we were headed that way!

We've had a week full of sun and water and just plain old summertime fun and it's been great.
I've said every summer that I just want to take it easy and focus on fun and it never really happens. Well this year, with having the house for sale and not really being able to be in the middle of any big projects and wanting to be ready to get the heck out of dodge with as short of notice as possible so not being involved in any church commitments or anything of the like, the kids and I have been able to take full advantage of soaking up the summer. Literally.

Also, I've handed off Caleb duties as well, so my responsibilities list is even more diminished.

Basically I make sure the house is clean, my kids are fed and other than that- we are golden. Again- Literally.
Um, can you say tan??
















(and yes, he's always sunscreen protected. the boy was blessed with his daddy's give-me-an-ounce-of-sun-and-I'll-look-like-I'm part-hispanic summertime skin)

We've logged more hours at the pool in the last week than we know what to do with. Honestly; every day, all day, that's all we do.

We did switch it up a little on Wednesday and hit up one of the free summer movies out at The Mills Mall and afterward I took the kids to a new waterpark out that way.
This park has only been around for a couple of summers and I've heard great things about it. It did not disappoint!
















Tons of fountains, waterslides, giant dump buckets, waterfalls a whirlpool and a wave pool for little ones.

































































There's a huge blue bouncy bubble slide thing... that was awesome! There are hand/foot holds all up some sides of this giant bubble and then at the top you can bounce or slide down into the water. The kids loved it!



































































Also a great lazy river -that turns into a crazy wavy river every 15 min or so- that we spent a lot of time in.






































The park also had two big tube waterslides that we skipped (Sawyer is too little) and we didn't even touch the regular competition sized pool. Well, Savannah went over there for a dip real quick and contemplated the diving boards, but chickened out.





























After just two hours of playing there the kids were asking to leave... I think they were just wiped out. Which turned out to be a correct assumption as Sawyer fell asleep on the 30 min drive home. I cannot remember the last time Sawyer fell asleep in the car. Wow.

Thursday we spent the entire day back at our pool and then had friends join us for a pizza dinner down there. That was really fun and we stayed until they closed the pool down for a swim meet at 8pm!!

Friday Ryan was home for the long holiday weekend and we wanted to take advantage of this perfect summer weather we've been having (seriously, I think I'm back in Oregon with the great sunny 85° days... and NO HUMIDITY!!) so we decided to get out and do outdoor stuff it's normally miserable to do in St Louis in July. We headed out to Six Flags for the day. And I mean for the day. We were there from 11am til after 6pm.... and I think that's a lot for a four and a seven year old! We hit up both the waterpark and the amusement park and we had a ton of fun. I was honestly shocked that it wasn't busier... the weather was absolutely perfect; hot enough for the water rides to feel great and refreshing but not so hot that it was torture to stand in the lines. Perfect. And we never waited in line for anything for more than 15 minutes. Lots of rides we just about walked right on to. It was awesome. I actually felt like our day whizzed by because we just did ride after ride after ride without the usual down time of standing in line forever. It was great.

I didn't bring my camera because I knew we were going to spend a lot of time in the water and I thought to myself, "oh, we've gotten pictures at Six Flags before...". But I wish I would have because we had a lot of great memories this time. This was the first year that Sawyer was tall enough for lots of new rides and Savannah was tall enough to ride everything. Not that she rode much new stuff (she's not quite as brave as Sawyer), but she was just glad she could if she wanted to!! The kids did the Wahoo Racer water slide over and over... Savannah loved that one. And of course we spent some time riding the waves in the wave pool. We did the Big Kahuna and spent a lot of time at the Treehouse slides since Sawyer wasn't tall enough for those last year... he was thrilled to be able to do them this year! After we were all watered out we had a snack and headed over to dry out on the regular rides. Not too dry though, as we of course did the favorite Thunder River and the Log Plume. We did Scooby's Scary Swamp, the "Shazam" scrambler and lots of the Looney Tunes rides, and then Sawyer did his first roller coaster!! Ryan took him on the Tony Hawk Big Spin and he loved it! Savannah opted out of that one (we went to wait on the carousel instead :) ) but Sawyer rocked it! Ryan said that Sawyer kept saying, "this is not safe!" as they were spinning around but as soon they were done he said it was Awesome! Sawyer was hilarious... on every thrill ride he just laughed the whole time. I sat with him on the scrambler ride and he was just cracking up, like I thought he was going to hyperventelate!! And as we got off of every single ride the first thing out of his mouth was, "Let's do that one again!!". Loved it.
We're going to try our hardest to head back there again before we move (we have season passes we want to take full advantage of) and I'll for sure bring my camera as I need to try and capture some of the joy on this daredevil boy's face!!

Sawyer fell asleep -again- on the way home last night. Wiped. Out.
And both kids slept until after 8 this morning... which may not seem like much to some of you, but for my kids that's monumental sleeping. Finally. I've had early morning risers (like sometimes 5:30 early) all summer so far, so it's nice that they're finally taking advantage of being able to have later mornings. I'm hoping for a few more of those, as we have a couple of late nights coming up with the 4th of July festivities this weekend!!