seriously so blessed

Ok, I got introduced to this site a while ago and I'm addicted. Ok, not really, but I do check on it every once in a while just to get some laughs. It's hilarious if you have a moment to spare and feel like laughing check it out www.seriouslysoblessed.blogspot.com .

A fabulous trip and a sick fourth of July

We finally made it home from our trip with the kids feeling better and Dan feeling awful. Whatever it was he got it bad and spent all week sick with some sort of flu. You name it he had it. It was kind-of a miserable week for everyone. The kids were trying to recover from the trip, but things were not back to normal with Dad home and sick so they were cranky, I had the startings of a cold so on top of everything we had a sad week. The fourth was uneventful. We had some plans and cancelled them. Finally in the afternoon I couldn't stand it anymore so we packed up and went and got ice cream. I managed to get two pictures of the kids it their cute fourth attire but they were very cranky and didn't want their pictures taken so these are the best I got. I hope everyone else had a great fourth (most of your blogs say so). We are all better and everything is somewhat back to normal now, so you are all caught up on the Martins for the time being.

Smokey Mountains

The vacation continued...

The next stop was the Calhoun's in North Carolina. My cousin Tisha, her husband Curteis, and their two kids. We left the Day's on Thursday and drove down to their house which is just outside of Raleigh. Stayed the night there and drove with them to the great Smokie Mountains National Park. We love camping, and when we camped as kids it was always with My cousin Tisha's family. It seemed a fitting way to hang out with her. I hadn't seen her in three years and our kids had never met so we were excited to spend some time with them. We left in the afternoon and underestimated the drive time because we arrived in the dark (10pm) with grumpy, feverish, and sleepy kids. Set up in the dark, and went to sleep. Thankfully the kids slept in a little in the morning (Tisha's kids weren't so forgiving -they stuck to their regular schedules and were up at 6) We spent the day exploring the park, went to the visitors center, and drove to the highest point Clingman's Dome. The drive takes you up almost to the top and then it's a very steep 1/2 mile hike to the lookout tower. We made it trailing after the Calhoun's, by this time, Margie and Jakey were both not feeling well and had fevers. Margie rode in the stroller and we took turns pushing her and carrying Jakey. But, we did make it and the view was beautiful. We took another small hike on the AT for a few minutes and made it down just in time to beat the oncoming rainstorm that we had been watching all afternoon. Luckily it was short so we were able to have a great dinner of Hamburgers and hot dogs and of course smores. The kids were feeling a little better by this time and when we finally got them in bed so we could have a little grown-up time, the rain started again. But this time it didn't stop. It rained all night and all morning. We cut our morning short and packed up in the rain. Our tent held out pretty well, Tisha and Curteis' did not. They had puddles. We did not get much quality time with the cousins the last 12 hours or so with them. The rain really did put a damper on the end of the trip but it was well worth it and tons of fun anyway. It's trips like this that don't always go the way we've planned we always remember the most - Did I mention those camping trips when we were kids were at the Oregon Coast, there was plenty of rain there and many days we spent playing card games in the car. We appreciate the Calhoun's for taking their weekend to spend with us, it was so great to spend time together. And it was, despite the rain, a great weekend.
I hope to get a few more photo's from Tisha for the slide show and the last few are on the trip home when we stopped in Memphis and did a 5 minute drive-by of Graceland. I would have signed my name on the wall if I had a pen but I didn't. Now I can at least say that I've been there (sort-of).

vacation at the Day's house

The vacation was fabulous. We drove through 5 states the first day, that's Oklahoma, Missouri, illinois, Indiana, and ended up in Kentucky where we spent the night. The second day was the rest of Kentucky, West Virginia andVirginia to My sister Jenna's house in Herndon (near DC). We spent all day Saturday hanging out and just having fun. It was Margie's Birthday so we had a great party for her and Eleanor (B-day in July). The two cousins hit it off right away and had the best time together! Yeah! Jakey had a great time babyproffing Auntie Jenna's house for her new little one. We spent all week just having fun. Dan and I got a day away from the kids to spend in DC and we saw all we could in a day. The capitol, Indian Heritage, Air and Space museum, Washington Monument, WWII and Vietnam memorials, Lincoln memorial and Natural History museum. (Pretty good for just one day) We also took a day and drove to the Shendoah National Park and got to walk a little of the appalachian trail (one of Dan's requirements for the trip). The rest of the week was spent playing in the pool, helping Uncle Jason set up the new tramoline, (and then of course playing on it) getting pedicures, having birthday parties, going to REI, and whatever else we coult think of. It was wonderful. Thank you Day Family for the awesome trip and accomodations. We had a great time.

Vacation at the Day's house

Catch-up

Ok, so I am officially a slacker. Here's what's been going on....



I turned 30. May 26th memorial day. Since it was a holiday for everyone, we got together with some friends at the spraypark and did a barbeque in the afternoon. I had mixed feelings about turning 30, but now that it's happened I realize it's not that big of a deal.

Here's Margie and I enjoying a slice of watermelon at the park, a few minutes later I was attacked by the sprayer in the spraypark trying to help Jakey and spent the rest of the afternoon soaked. It was fun!

Later that week, one of our fabulous Oklahoma storms blew in and took a huge branch from the top of our tree in the backyard and blew it over our house (hitting the roof, $500 damage) and landed in our front walkway. Here's the photo's to prove it. I guess we're just lucky the whole tree didn't blow over on the house.

This is the view from the front door.

Margie also had a birthday. June 21, she turned three. We were at my sister's house for her actual birthday(more on that in the next post) but we got together with some friends for a little party and had a blast with face painting, dress-up, candy neclaces, and a princess cake.