What an amazing week!!!

Our vacation was so much more than we could of imagined. The weather was beautiful and the scenery was breathtaking. The kids had an awesome time and we miss it already. 3200+ miles in 7 days. A vacation everyone should take:)

Jackson Hole, WY

We loved this place and hope to visit there again soon!

Is this not the greatest candid shot?!? The kids were awesome on vacation. They were always willing to keep going without complaint. They had a wonderful time and even suggested that we drive straight through on the way home. 21 hours with no complaints.

I love this man so much! He made this trip possible and we had the best trip ever!

The Grand Tetons!

What an amazing experience. We all loved this so much!

White water rafting the Yellowstone River.

I wanted to see a bear and that I did along with his cubs:)

Mr. Big Boy!

Old Faithful!

Brad is in heaven. He's surrounded by a her

The grand canyon of yellowstone. This picture doesn't look real to me but this is exactly what it looks like.

Yellowstone is so beautiful!!! We would go back in a second!

After the winter we had did we really want to see snow? Oh what the heck. The temps were in the low 70's and beautiful. It was kind of neat;)

Yep that's right! I was at 9666 ft. Who would of thought being so scared of heights. I think I've
taken on a new appreciation for heights. Switchbacks and sudden drop offs do that to you;)

The kids first view of the mountains. Mom and Dads too;)

Custer Park. Brad has a new friend. This guy and many other ones made themselves right at home in the truck windows:)

This would be Bessie. We were so lucky and saw hundreds of buffalo. If we were brave we could of reached out of the truck and touched them.

The two goofs! I loved all of the laughter we had during this trip.

Our "princess" and I. Allison is such a girl! She loved all of the history in this trip!

Mt. Rushmore was beautiful and one of my favs. As a whole we all loved visiting South Dakota!

The Badlands! Breathtaking!

Some fun pictures from today!

Seriously one of the sweetest boys ever!!!

Allison...wow where did the last 9.5 years go?

Little Miss "I know what I want" I love that about her:)

It's so hard to believe that Syd is 6! What a sweet, amazing little girl!

Who would of thought that sweet little boy could have a little bit of stinker in him. Oh how Gage loves to drive his little sister crazy;) Yep he has me wrapped right around his finger though.

How many can we fit in a baby pool??

My Quilty Admission

Ok so I must come forward and admit a tad bit of anxiety about our upcoming vacation. I'd consider myself very family orientened. In the past I had issues going away for vacation because I worry that my extended family may need me and I won't be there for them. Everyone that I tell this to laugh and think that I'm crazy. But this time around another part of me is really excited to finally experience such a wonderful vacation with Brad and the kids. Brad and I have been married for 11 years and together for almost 18 years and this is our farthest that we've been away from home. Unbelievable!!! Packing is coming. Of course I'm packing way too much but hey I'm new at this. Now everything would be perfect if Allison, Zach and I would get over these icky colds or whatever it is we have;)

7 days until vacation

Yep that's right and I haven't even started to get ready for it. I know that I have all of next week but the kids start the rec dept summer activities and I'm watching Jen's three little ones while she goes to school/work. I need to kick it into gear.

Last day of school!!

Today is officially the last day of school. The kids were so excited to be done! I will have more pictures to post later when I go help out at their class parties. This should be fun. Spacey mom double booked herself at two schools at the same time. Can you duh! Hey I'm getting old...afterschool today I have a 2nd grader and a 4th grader. How did that happen so quickly??

Scrapbooking Lately

12 Fridays kit
12 Fridays Kit

12 Fridays Kit

I've been doing some scrapbooking lately for a scrapfest that I'm particpating in at http://www.lifetimemoments.com/ It's motivating me to use up some of those supplies that I hoard. I also finished my design team work for http://www.twelvefridays.com/ last night.

Happy Birthday Brad!

Happy Birthday to the World's Best Husband!

I'm so lucky to be married to this sweet guy!

It's kind of nice to be married to an older man for a couple

of months!:)

Happy "Anniversary" Dad

The Birthday Boy!

Busted!!!

Auubrey kicking Brad's butt into gear!

Oops! Double post;)

Where did they go?

Mr. Gage wondering what happened to those tires!

Ok I've been a bad blogger again. Oh well, things have been busy. On June 2nd it was dad's "anniversary" of his 29th bday. He was a little bummed about the whole thing. I think that Jen, John, Brad and I made up for that;) He needed new boat tires and we wanted to make sure he couldn't use that as an excuse not to enjoy some fishing this summer. So we went ahead with our plan on that Monday! Dad came home to his boat on wood blocks and was thinking what now. Shortly after he got home John and Jen arrived with his new tires and John put them back on. All is good!

My last post for the night...I promise

A little something that I need to drop in the mail tomorrow to my cousin's wife who had twins on St. Patty's Day! I made one for my sweet aunt {grandma} and one for the new mommy!

Singing the Gallbladder Blues

So I had a pretty cruddy week here. It all started on Wed. when I was suppose to visit some friends in Milwaukee for lunch. I was really looking forward to it. I came down with something and it wasn't pleasant. These ugly symptoms progressed into Friday. Friday afternoon I thought I was feeling better and decided to venture out to the Frolic (town carnival) with the kiddos. I did really well until the end of our evening and decided it was time to head home. John and Jen watched the kids while Brad ran me home.

The night went downhill from there. All week I was having this upper side pain to go along with my other symptoms. At about 1:00AM I thought I was truly going to die. Either that or in labor. And I knew that wasn't the case. I tried waking Brad to call my sister to take me to the ER with no such luck. I tell you that man is one sound sleeper. Somehow I got myself through the night in one piece minus my sanity. Alli had a 9:00AM game in Sun Prairie and being the nerotic mom that I am I wasn't going to miss it. (Good thing I didn't, she scored twice!) I was actually somewhat comfy throughout the game. Things started up again a little bit when we were headed home and Brad and Jen made me go to the ER. Ok I must say that I HATE the ER. There isn't much that I wouldn't do to avoid a trip to the ER. It's just an unpleasant place to be and takes soooo long. I didn't want to be there...period! Suprisingly I got placed in a room very quickly and had a young male nurse. They must of been pretty slow because before the nurse could take my history the MD came in. So there I was in this dreadful room with two good looking males getting ready to tell them all of my wonderful symptoms. I felt like I was going through childbirth again and was an open book. It wasn't long after the exam that the dr. got things rolling. A paramedic student came in and put in an i.v. That was a scary moment seeing the word student on his name tag. He did a good job though. He took a ton of blood also. Things were really looking like it was my gallbladder. After being a pin cushion it was off to U/S we went. That was pretty quick and uncomfortable.

In the end it turns out that I don't have gallstones but still have something going on that they are unsure of. I'm on a bland diet and meds to stop my stomach spasms. I was so incredible grateful that I got to burst their surgery bubble for at least now. I'm thinking that if I have another attack I may not be so lucky but at this point I need to just be good so that I can make it past our vacation! Oh how I love medicine!!! NOT!

Birthday Party Recap/Memorial Day Weekend

And here is Mr. Birthday Boy!!! Gage is officially four!! What a clown.

It's her party and she cried if she wanted to. Bless her little heart. This is one of the only pictures I could get of her smiling. It turns out that she ended up going to urgent care later that day and she had a broken collar bone from a fall out of the bed she took earlier that week. Poor sweetie!

Is she a cute kid or what???

Grandpa John W. playing kickball with the kiddos. What a good sport!!!

I love this picture of dad! This is so him, always with his thinking face on!

Miles, Sydney and Zach being all goofy!

So we had a pretty quiet Memorial Day weekend besides the big birthday party! Brad gave me a scrapbook pass on Saturday, so I scrapped most of the day away. It was so nice. The weather was great so the kids and Brad spent most of the day outside. Brad spent 6 hours washing his truck while the kids played with the hoses. Summer is definetly in the air:)