Batting Cage and Lagoon in June

Maysen and Stockton left for Youth Conference this morning.  Mike and I walked them over to the church.  We will still in our pajamas.  We get dressed up for things around here!  Maysen is not too excited about going.  Stockton hasn't complained.  He does know that there are platforms where they are going, so that will be fun for him.

We had fun playing in the batting cage this morning.  Blake has such a good swing!  I had no idea that Skye and Larkin bat left.  I didn't expect that.  Kanyon was excellent and it was so much fun to watch Mike!

Blake

 Mike & Blake

Blake was so funny because as soon as he took the batting helmet off he would frantically look for his Dodgers hat.  I tried to get a picture of him, but he kept hiding.  This one was the best I could get. I think it is adorable because Larkin and Blake are making the same face.  Love that!

Larkin & Blake

 Skye

 Larkin

 Kanyon

 Mike

 Hard to see, but Larkin is feeding balls to her Dad

 Jorja's favorite past time

 Mike played baseball with his kids for quite awhile.

Blake

 Larkin

We piled Mike and his three oldest kids in our car and headed to Lagoon.  We had the room since we didn't have Maysen or Stockton with us.  Christen wanted to wait until Parker woke up, and I don't blame her one bit!  We went on Rattlesnake Rapids twice and got soaked to the bone!  It was great!  Especially since I was wearing my swimsuit.  I thought Skye and Larkin looked adorable in their matching My Dad is my BFF shirts.

Larkin & Skye (Blake's back & Jorja's on the fence)

Our pavilion we have had for years is being made into a giant pavilion. I'm guessing it will probably only be used for giant parties.  That is too bad.  It was in a great location.  We've been going to Lagoon as a family since I was little.  I wonder how long that pavilion has been ours?  I think over 25 years, probably more.  The new pavilion was okay, but it was next to the smoking section.  It was only annoying a few times throughout the day.  It also didn't feel as secluded as our old pavilion. It was still a lot of fun!  Grandpa was there.  He's not too happy because his doctor won't let him drive anymore.  He loves driving and has told me on many occasions that it is his favorite past time.  It sure is hard getting old.

Skye went around with Jorja and Preston for most of the days.  She LOVED all the scary rides!  Wicked, Spider, Rocket....she wasn't scared of a thing!  Larkin didn't want to go on any upside down rides, but she LOVED the twisty rides.  Musik Express, Tilt-A-Whirl...things like that. I went on Tilt-A-Whirl with her right before she left.  I told her I could ride it once a day and this was the time. I rode it with Larkin and Blake. We spun so fast!  I couldn't believe it!  I don't think I have ever had that many super fast spins in one ride before.  Larkin loved it!  Blake was terrified.  He was not happy when we got off the ride.  He is completely adorable when he is mad.  He does this growl that is just awesome.

Skye & Jorja

 Skye, Jorja, Preston

Jorja, Skye and Preston went on some rides by themselves.  I let them go before I asked Christen if it was okay.  She said, "Well, it is now!" She had never let Skye go off on her own like that before.  That is the difference between being the oldest child and the youngest.  They had a great time together.  I know they went on the train, the swings and Tidal Wave.  Apparently Preston kept saying, "What's cooking Good Lookin'?" to random people.  I'm guessing Preston might be a handful when he is a teenager.

Mike and Christen left around 9:00 or so, but they let us keep Skye with us.  We had a great time with her!  Lagoon is so much fun when the kids are this age.  Wanting to ride anything!  It was great!  We stayed until the bitter end.  Jorja, Skye and Preston were riding Wicked until the garbage cans were placed in front.  We had such a great time today!

Jorja slept in her room tonight.  Brooke and her family are now camping at Lagoon.  Jorja has been worried about Boing.  She didn't want to check on her before Lagoon because she was worried she died and then she would be sad all day.  Mike and I went and checked on her.  She was alive, but is not looking well.  Jorja has done everything. She has taken her to the vet, given her medicine.  It looked like she recovered for awhile, but that was short lived.  She has not been herself since she broke her leg.  Jorja had her out of her cage and held her for a long time after we got home.  Boing isn't going to be alive much longer. I have a beautiful picture I took of Jorja and Boing, but Jorja does not want me to put it up here.  Poor girl sure loves her frogs.  I'm glad she got a chance to say good-bye to Boing.

Happy 8th Birthday Preston!

My baby is 8.  Wow.  He is such a precious little boy.  He is full of love and joy.  We are so happy we were blessed to have him in our lives. There was a time I was pretty sure we would only have three kids.  Not by our choice.  Luckily we were blessed with this amazing soul.

Preston

I needed to take Mike to work today so I could use the jeep.  My car is in the shop.  Mike wanted to get there early, so I woke up Preston to open presents.  Jorja wanted to give her present to Preston before school.  Mike and I had a before school present too.  Preston didn't seem to mind.

 Jorja gave him a pina~colada sucker and a mine craft toy

 Preston and Jorja

 Mike and I gave him a Wolf book along with a scout shirt

 Ummm....Preston, you look creepy

I was able to drop Mike off and get back home in time to take the other kids to school.  Preston was ready when I got back and the two of us headed to the store.  We wanted to pick up some birthday treats for him to handout to his class.  He picked mini-cupcakes and Biscoff cookies.  He was so happy with that!  I usually volunteer in his classroom on Mondays, so that worked out well.  I met Preston for lunch.  I asked him what he would like.  Maysen had picked Sonic. Jorja wanted Jamba Juice and Chick-Fil-A.  Preston, what did he want?  He wanted Lunchables.  Haha!

I started to get really worried about Boing today.  I called and got a 4:15 appointment.  I asked Mike if I could pick him up earlier.  That worked out well.  Preston really wanted to open the rest of his presents, so we opened them really quickly.  He was thrilled when he got the Great Wolf Lodge medallion from Maysen.

Maysen & Preston

 Wand topper from Great Wolf Lodge

 Baptism book

 Tom & Jerry hot air balloon

 DIY Straws I found in France

 A mini dream light version of his pillow pet

Today was also Preston's first time going to scouts.  Sue is his leader. She is so much fun.  He is going to love it.  She has had this calling for awhile, I was really hoping Preston would get her for a leader.

Preston & Sue

 Sue & Judy

Preston, Ethan, Griffin, Braxton, Aiden

Mike, Jorja and I dropped Preston off and then hurried down to the vet.  Turns out Boing has a broken leg, or a bent leg that has healed weird.  I can't remember, but that is why she has been so hurt.  Poor little froggy.  We got some medicine to give the frog.  He said if Boing doesn't start eating in the next few days we would need to feed her watered down dog food.  That's random.  Jorja whispered to me while we were at the vet, "I'm so glad we brought her in."  She is even going to help pay for the appointment.  She really loves her frogs.

Boing

Preston wanted crepes for dinner.  It is also Erica's birthday, so their family came over for crepes too.  Erica is in a play, so they didn't make it until quite late, but it worked out perfectly . . . especially since we had a vet visit thrown in there.  Shannon made the cake for both of them.  I was grateful for that because I was frazzled and extremely busy!

 Eighteen candles for Erica, Eight for Preston

 Birthday boy/girl

 Preston & Erica

 Erica & Preston

Erica gave Preston different packages of candy.  Preston gave Erica some ice cream bars.  Simple and perfect.

Home Sweet Home

We made it!  We left our hotel early this morning.  We can walk through our hotel to get to the metro station.  We got to the airport without ever going outside.  That is pretty cool.  We thought we planned enough time to get to the plane.  We figured we would be an hour early.  We had about 30 euros left to spend, so we thought we could be slow and enjoy ourselves.  We were unable to checkin online for some reason.  We ended up having to stand in a LONG line!  We were in that line for at least 45 minutes.  Once we were through we had to take a train to our gate, then go through security.  That took a long time!  As we were walking to our gate we passed a macaroon stand.  My friend had told me to try one.  I thought I would pick up a few as I passed.  I asked for three and handed her the euros.  She said I had to pay somewhere else.  I wandered over there and had to wait in another huge line!  I was tempted to just leave the macaroons on a shelf and walk out of there.  I wasn't sure what to do.  Mike said, "Well, it wouldn't be a trip with you if we didn't almost miss our flight to stop and get a treat."  There was still a line when we got to our gate, so everything was fine.  The line was so long to board, but the Delta app said our flight had left while we were still waiting.

The flight home was non-stop, so that was great.  It wasn't as cool of a plane as the one we came here on, but it was still really nice.  I love the planes with tvs on the seat ahead of you.  I brought nice headphones and was able to watch a few movies.  The rating system was wrong on the plane though. I watched Draft Day, which I really liked, but I was surprised how bad the language was in it.  I looked up the rating when I got home and saw that it was PG-13.  That's what it said on the plane.  I just can't believe PG-13 allows so many horrible words in them now. Why do they do that?  The movie was wonderful, but the bad words make it seem creepy.  I also watched Billy Elliot.  The plane said it was also PG-13.  I didn't make it very far before I turned it off.  So many things I didn't want to see or hear.  I looked up that movie when I got home.  That one was rated R.  I decided to watch While You Were Sleeping instead.  I knew that one would be quite tame compared to the others.

The crazy thing about international flights is they feed you so much! Every two seconds we were being offered food.  This was an 11 hour flight, so a lot of it makes sense; but the flight over here was only 6 hours.  We got two meals at least!  Our flight to Hawaii was almost that long and we only got pretzels.  Weird.

It took us quite awhile to go through customs when we landed.  I was thinking about how you never see this part of the Amazing Race!  My dad was waiting for us when we finally got through.  We got home and all four kids ran out and gave us hugs.  Even Stockton.  It was great! My dad left soon after and they attacked him.  I'm glad he was able to stay with them while we were gone.  They seemed to like it!

Stockton, Jorja, Preston, Maysen hugging my dad

My neighbor, Kristen, brought Jorja a new frog while we were gone. Her brother works at Cactus and Tropicals.  Several frogs came in on a shipment.  A lot of the other workers claimed them.  He said he needed one for Jorja.  How sweet!  Jorja is in love with this frog.  She has named him Horizon.  He is very jumpy.  He jumps so far that he practically flies through the air.

Jorja and Horizon

 Horizon

Jorja told me she was worried about her other frog, Boing.  She hadn't been eating and was no longer sticking to her cage, she was just hanging out in the dirt.  It wasn't until later tonight that we got really worried, but by then all the vet places were closed.  Hopefully she gets better, but I'm quite worried about her.

 Boing

 Jorja & Boing

We picked up a few souvenirs for the kids.  We got Jorja and Preston each a penny for their penny passport.  We also got them an Eiffel Tower medallion that we got in the Eiffel Tower.  Preston was thrilled!

Preston with his first medallion

 Preston with his and Jorja's medallions

 Jorja holding no medallions

 Stockton with a Calvin and Hobbs book in French

 Maysen with a cup from Disneyland Paris

Mike and I had such a fun trip, but it is so wonderful to be home!