Summer 2013 Part 1

We spent our summer in Lake Charles at my parents house like we've always done the past few years and had a grand ole' time!  Our days were spent playing with cousins and friends, shopping, eating at Chick Fil A, swimming, hanging out at water parks/splash parks and SOOO much more!

Dinner time with 3 kids is always crazy and quite frankly not always fun so we were always looking for ways to manage the chaos.  My parents backyard has a large slope going down towards the golf course that makes for an AWESOME slip n slide.  The kids have a blast sliding down the tarp and are creative with every slide.  Even Brooklyn got in on the action and went as fast as she could!  

I knew that I wanted to take advantage of our time in Lake Charles and found various activities for our kids to do to get new life experiences.  Our first big activity was Vacation Bible School.  All 3 kids were able to go since I volunteered to work VBS.  Gavin was in class with my niece, Neve and they got to spend the week learning about Jesus!  Miles and Brooklyn loved meeting new friends and went to their classes willingly everyday.

After VBS, the boys took swimming lessons.  I was so impressed with how much they learned, how quickly they picked up the concepts, and their eagerness to learn.  IT was precious seeing how proud they were of themselves.  Both the boys were in a group lesson with 1 other kid, but they each got the individual attention they needed.  Gavin was able to swim confidently by himself in the deep end and almost mastered his front stroke.  Miles learned how to hold his breath underwater, blow bubbles, and to let go of the side of the pool and swim out.  He wasn't even scared to try.  I'm sure it helped the boys having access to a swimming pool daily in Saudi, but this was great in teaching strategy and building up their confidence.  

Miles:

Gavin:

Along with swim lessons, I signed the boys up for a sports class- it's kinda like a Little Gym concept, but with older kid activities.  Gavin and Miles took the class together and I did it with them.  For the summer, I hired a girl, Stacey, to help me with the kids so she came along and was the 2nd parent with me.  It was so nice having another pair of eyes around.  The boys loved the class.  They especially loved the blow up tumble track.  Everything in the class was right up their alley- running, jumping, climbing, flipping, chasing, throwing.  The activities were great and kept their attention and when we left, the kids always asked when they could go back!

 

I signed Gavin up for a local golf camp to introduce him to the sport of golf.  He finally was able to use the real golf clubs he got for Christmas last year and was excited to spend the week with his cousin, David, too.  Gavin really liked golf camp and did pretty good from what I was told.  He and David were the two youngest kids by several years but that didn't stop them from learning and trying hard!

Part of our summer was spent away from daddy, which left me doing everything I could to make it by without him.  But kids are kids and they bring lots of joy and laughter regardless of where they are and who they are with.  We made lots of memories and had lots of FUN together- going to birthday parties, Mr. Gatti's, and local parks!  

Miles kept all of us on our toes and graced us with his ever surprising antics and goofy personality!!

So I flew to Borger one weekend to go house hunting with Brooks and my kids stayed with my parents.  They were having so much fun during the days, they decided to take baths outside!  HAHA

Gavin lost his first tooth, which he was NOT excited about.  He was actually scared out of his mind and cried when my mom finally pulled it.  We had been working on it and turning it and wiggling it for days and it just needed to come out!  Once he realized it didn't hurt and he was okay, he eventually calmed down and wanted to know when the next one was going to come out!  CAN'T believe he was 4 years old and lost his first tooth.











Lunch at Chick Fil A.  I'm pretty sure we ate at Chick Fil A once, sometimes twice a week.  It's just easy and manageable with all 3 kids.  They loved it too!

We spent lots of time with our cousins and played together!  The kids played in the rain, ran around outside,  took more baths outside, rode bikes, and just enjoyed being together.

We took advantage of seeing and spending as much time with our friends that we haven't seen often while we were visiting.  It was great to catch up with old friends and see all our kids playing together.  Every once in a while, thanks to my parents, I was able to get some mommy time and slip away for dinner with friends.  It was nice getting to catch up with friends who have been around for years!!  I got to spend time with friends at their kids birthday parties and even had Houston friends and Baton Rouge friends come and visit us!!

Needless to say, we had a VERY, VERY busy beginning to our summer and that wasn't even all of it!  

So my all time favorite picture from the summer might be the one below!  My mom had a friend come over to take her usual "Bench Bunch" picture of all the grandkids so we tried to get a few of siblings together.  This is how my kids felt about taking their pictures!  And no, Miles isn't really sleeping- that was just his response when asked to smile.  

Orange Beach

The day after Bran and Kate's wedding, myself and the kids loaded up in our car, along with my mom who was gracious enough to ride with me, and we headed to Orange Beach, Alabama.  Brooks had to return to Saudi for 4 work days in order to receive our overseas benefits, only to turn around and fly back to the states to start his new job in Borger, TX.  If you ask me.. it was a STUPID, unnecessary trip, but the benefits FAR exceeded the inconvenience it was going to put on Brooks, who had just gotten over jet lag and basically "moved back already" as well as kept us away from him.  But, you do what you have to do even if it's something you don't want to.  

My sister in law, Anna and her two kids decided to come meet us and spent the week in Orange Beach with us.  After driving 8 LONG hours in the car, we finally arrived, after I got pulled over for "speeding".  I was literally going 3-5 miles over, but again, whatever!  My mom talked the officer out of it by telling him a long story of us just moving home from oversees, being in Arkansas, going to Alabama, but from Louisiana, and moving to Texas.  The officer respectfully let us go!  WOo hoo!    My kids were so excited to see their cousins and kept hugging each other the first hour they were together.

We decided to spend the week how ever the kids wanted.  When they wanted to swim, we went swimming.  When they wanted to go to the beach, we went to the beach.  The weather was iffy the whole time we were there, so we did spend some time shopping at the local outlet mall, took the kids to the movies, and ate at a few favorite restaurants!  The kids LOVE playing outside Lulu's restaurant and had a blast playing in the massive sand box!  

One morning we went to a Princess and Pirate Breakfast at another local restaurant.  Brooklyn was so excited to see the Princess walking around and the boys enjoyed dressing up as pirates during their meal.  After they ate, they got to go on a treasure hunt and found "gold".

This restaurant had a massive sand box outside so we let the kids play and hang out until they told us they had had enough.  To our surprise, the kids wanted to jump on the trampolines and even were adventurous in their playtime.

BEACH TIME!!!

Thankfully when the weather got really gloomy and the wind was blowing too hard to stay outside, my parents condo has an indoor pool!  Perfect for keeping the kids entertained and having fun!

I always love going to Orange Beach and getting to relax and watch my kids have fun out in the sun (or inside, too).  Another successful trip to OB with the family!  Next up on our summer trip- Lake Charles.  Finally, no more traveling (at least for a little while)

Arkansas and the WEDDING!!!

Anytime we fly to the USA we always struggle with jet lag.  We knew this was going to be an issue, but also knew we really, really needed to get over it fast since Brooks' brothers wedding was in a few days.  Gavin was the ring bearer, Brooks and I were in the wedding, and there were a lot of wedding festivities going on that we all needed to be alert, awake, functioning, and apart of!  Generally, our kids usually get sick the first week back, too so I prayed for weeks leading up to this time that they wouldn't catch any cold or anything at least for a few weeks!  Praise the Lord no one got sick and we had a great time hanging out at Brooks' moms place!  Mim and Pop came and visited, we played outside and enjoyed the tree house Brooks built, and slept a lot, too.  

Our time at Missie's was fast since we headed up to Solgoahachi where Bran and Kate were getting married and helped in the preparations!

The rehearsal dinner was at a local pizza restaurant that is similar to the TOM's shoes concept only with pizza.  For every pizza that is purchased, the restaurant donates food to a village in another country.  It was really cool and the reason Brandon and Kate wanted to have their rehearsal dinner there!  After dinner, every one went up to the mountain for the rehearsal.  The wedding was outside so Brandon built a stage as the alter and for the wedding attendants to stand on.  It was really, really neat.

Gavin was in the wedding as the ring bearer and during the rehearsal he decided to do a forward roll as he went down the aisle.  He said he was a ninja!  Brooks and I were shocked.  Everyone else just laughed.  We then spent a majority of our conversations there after telling Gavin to keep both of his feet on the ground the whole time when he walked.   After practice, everyone a part of the wedding party, family, and friends gathered together for dessert and enjoyed a sweet time of sharing stories and encouragement to Brandon and Kate.

The morning of the wedding, Kate's mom hosted all Kate's bridesmaids for a breakfast at their home and then all the girls were able to get dressed together.  Mrs. Missie and I were apart of the festivities and enjoyed watching Kate on her wedding day.  

Thanks to my mom and my sister in laws, my boys had precious, matching outfits for the ceremony, and Brooklyn got to wear her first "real" dress up dress!  They were so excited to see Uncle Bran and spend his day with him!  Bran and Kate did a first look reveal together before the ceremony and it was priceless to watch from a distance.  All I kept thinking was, "Thank you Jesus for letting Brandon get to this day in his life!"  The ceremony was beautiful and you could sense the Holy Spirits presence.  Two of the most powerful moments during the ceremony came when Brandon spoke the words In Sickness and in Health.  Those words were filled with meaning and struck every heart of every person sitting in the crowd.  After a moment of worship during the ceremony and Bran and Kate exchanging their vows they became husband and wife!  What a glorious day!

 

 

Flying Home

May 18, 2013: The night we left Saudi our trip started the same way it normally did when we'd fly cross country, except this time, we weren't flying Qatar and we weren't flying directly to Houston.  This meant we didn't have to leave our house at 2am, but instead 10pm.  After the hour and a half drive to the airport, and myself crying uncontrollably the entire drive, we arrived and got checked in.  The boys were tired and pretty much slept, but Brooklyn was interested in seeing what was going on.  This really helped make things easy for Brooks and I especially since I was so emotional from just telling all of our friends goodbye.  We hung out in the Lounge since we were flying Business Class (one of the incentives when moving is the company provides you with a Business Class ticket your first flight over to Saudi and your last flight home-- this was actually something we were so looking forward to).  

   

We ended up flying KLM and our first flight was EASY.  We all slept great for the 6 hour flight to Amsterdam and woke up just before landing.  Business class seats are AWESOME!! We knew we had a layover so we went looking for coffee, breakfast, and the kids playground to let them burn some energy before boarding our next flight.  Brooks and I were still tired and I was still emotional, but we managed to play with the kids and have some fun.  I felt like I was in a daze the whole time.  All I kept thinking was, "was our time in Saudi really over?"  At some point, I remember asking Brooks about what time it was and when were we suppose to board and I just went along with the info he gave me.  After a while we thought it was time to get our bags and head to our gate.  We figured we'd be early and they wouldn't be boarding yet, but at least we'd be near the gate.  When we arrived at the gate we noticed people were boarding.  We were confused, but got in line anyways.  Eventually, we noticed one of the monitors said the flight was going to San Francisco, NOT Atlanta.  We were confused.  We got to the ticket agent and handed them our tickets only to be informed we had missed our flight 45 minutes ago.  We were shocked and stunned and upset and frustrated and had every type of emotion you could think of.  Apparently, when we arrived in Amsterdam we forgot there was a time change and just went off our own watches and ended up missing our flight.  The playground was so far from the gate that we never had a chance of hearing any of the pages they sent for our family over the intercoms.   So, we were rushed to a transfer desk and were put on the next flight to Atlanta, Georgia, which just so happened to be an hour and 15 minutes later.  Thank you Jesus.  We were so grateful that if we had to miss our flight, there was still an international flight for us to make that day!  

The flight to Atlanta was alright.  I say that because there were only enough business seats for 3 of us and 2 seats in economy comfort (they are in coach, but have extra leg room).  Nothing like finally getting your business class gift tickets from the company and not getting to use them!  BIG BUMMER!  Brooks made the decision that Brooklyn, myself, and Gavin would take the business class seats and he and Miles would hang out in coach.  I think Brooks' only saving grace was that Miles had his car seat during the flight, which kept Miles somewhat contained.  The flight attendants all knew our situation and allowed Brooks and Miles to hang out in Business class with us a few times, get snacks from our cabin, and just relax.  At some point, Brooklyn went to the back with Brooks and I kept Miles. All the kids did great flying and were entertained for the most part.  It wasn't our normal 14 hour flight, instead just 9 hours so it felt like a piece of cake!  We eventually landed in Atlanta, only to find out that the President had just flown into the airport, causing the entire airport to shut down, delaying flights for most of the day along with bad weather delays.  We weren't going to miss our Atlanta to Little Rock flight since we already had a long layover scheduled, YAY!  Who am I kidding?  Our flight kept getting delayed and delayed and delayed until I was starting to look for local hotels thinking we weren't going to get to fly out until the morning... we eventually left Atlanta around 9pm after we all took naps laid out on the airport chairs.  That flight was nothing- only about an hour and half (I think) and the kids were all sleeping- Thank you Jesus!  The ordeal in Atlanta was discouraging, but all I could think was we now live in the USA!  If this is what we have to go through to be here now, so be it!  

We finally arrived in Little Rock and were greeted by Uncle Bran, who was getting married in 3 days!!  

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

The day we left Saudi we got to celebrate Jacob Asher's first birthday (even though he still hasn't turned 1 yet).  We were so excited to be apart of this special time in his life and were so grateful Steph was willing to throw his party early and on the same day they arrived back from vacation.  It was a fun time to spend with Jacob and I still can't believe he's almost 1.  We loved watching Jacob with all his friends at the party and our kids had a blast partying with the birthday boy.  He was so big crawling around to everyone and knew it was his party!  I couldn't imagine not making Jake's first birthday cake, but his party was the same day we were flying home.  I don't remember whether I begged Steph to let me make his cake or if she asked, but either way, I kept some of my cake decorating supplies and worked on making his cake the day before.  It was a fun cake to make and I'm glad it worked out!!  Happy Birthday sweet boy.  We love you so much and have loved watching you grow up this past year.  We're going to miss seeing you everyday.