Loads of Vacation Pictures

Vacation highlights (in chronological order): Got a beautiful rental car~ which we deemed to be "our next vehicle" within our first hour of driving it, we went to Wildwood beach, went to NJ to visit with my cousins, went to Hershey Park, had a traditional big family dinner with Matthew's grandparents, drove to Southern VA to see my Oma, went to Busch Gardens, went to Dutch Wonderland, and hit the outlets and did big time shopping... because you all know we are clothing deprived.

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Saturn Outlook, which we ended up not enjoying. Story at the end.

Our family photo on the beach,

Matthew's brother, Bryan, is waving in the back :) Hi Bryan, we love you too!

Playing at night on the pier...

On the Tram Car

I'm childless on the Tram Car :) .... ahhh....

Uncle Bryan took Kylie on this, it was a window fun house/maze.
And a slide at the end..
Kylie only went on it because she knew Uncle Bryan would have so much fun :) Then we left the beach and drove to my cousins in NJ. These are her boys, G and Frankie.

My Aunt Chiarina

Kadyn and FrankieAll of Us Our trip to Hershey Park

Kylie's height was a Reese's... my fave!

The girls with their cousin, Addy, on a ride. Kylie and Kacey just loved playing all week with Addy!

More...

The Chocolate World tour with Grandma and Grandpa... you get free chocolate at the end :) Kacey and Grandpa watering the flowers. This is one of the only pictures I had from Sunday! The morning went by so fast we didn't have time to take any Sunday Pictures :(
Kacey's doing my hair.

Monday morning we drove down to visit my grandmother. The Washington DC Temple, where Matthew and I were married, overlooks the 495 Beltway.
My Oma :) and her 3 great-granddaughters.

Busch Gardens here we come!!!!

Don't you just want to kiss those cheeks!

Kacey getting her face painted.

Kylie getting her face painted.

On the log flume. Kacey and Oma at Das FestHaus. The best place to eat at Busch Gardens!

The girls were very entertained by everything.

In the grape buckets in Italy.

Kacey screamed her head off each time this ride went down. Poor Kacey.

Back up in PA, Kylie beat Matthew at Wii bowling. It was awesome, he's not the type of person to let someone else win. Ever. Not even he's 5 year old daughter. So this was great :) Kylie really was freakishly good.

Now at Dutch Wonderland...

Group shot, for the matching ladybug outfits of course!

Look at Kacey's mouth. SO FUNNY! Again poor Kacey. And she goes so willingly ON the ride. She knows what's going to happen :) Sweet little thing, we hardly ever heard a word out of her.

Matthew's pretending he's Emmett.

The kiddie waterpark in Dutch Wonderland.

Kylie was pretending to be Ariel, from Little Mermaid. She seriously, would NOT get up.
We had to bring Kacey to her for a photo.

Before we left for the airport, we went over to see Matthew's Grandparents one more time... we got a nice photo.

*** It was a fun trip. We packed the days with family and adventures, we definitely made the most of our trip! We had lots of fun seeing family and friends that we don't see on a regular basis. It was fun catching up. And big hug to Kaylan (my college roommate who married Matthew's brother, Brad's friend). I didn't get any photos of you :( but I love you and miss you.

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If you still care to read...Here are the lowlights, well 1 lowlight. Our fancy shmancy, "this is going to be our next car" died on us. Not just battery died type of deal, but steering wheel won't turn, car won't go in reverse, now it's dead and let's sit in the 90 degree, 100% humidity for 90 minutes waiting for Budget to replace our vehicle and we're 5 feet away from hitting another car... real bad. Ugh. Did I mention we'd just spend the day in an amusement park, we were tired and dirty and hot and just wanted to shower, but again... had to wait 90 minutes and the quickest thing they could get to us was a Nissan Murano, which was smaller than our rented vehicle. We only had 1 day left on our vacation, so we took what we could get. I did however get a 10% discount and an additional $30 credit to my already great rental deal... and we got a free gas tank out of it. But still, it was ridiculous!

Back from Vacation

So many pictures to choose from (500+), I'm not sure where to start.

But we are home- Kacey spiked a fever. For the past 24 hours, she hasn't gone below 100... mostly around 102-103, but as high as 104.8. :( She's cranky and tired. So let me just post one picture for now from our trip, and I'll do more later when I can sort through...

Going across left to right: Rosie and Bryan, Brad and Amanda, Addy, Grandpa, Kacey, Kadyn, Grandma, Kylie, Aaron and _______ (insert girlfriend/wife here, we're waiting Aaron!!!), me and Matthew

Thankful Thursday

So we're coming back into town after a vacation... and how great do I have it???!!!!

While we were away, my mom did all my ironing (and the worst- Matthew's dress shirts that need all the starch and whatnot, I probably had 2 dozen shirts hanging up in the laundry room), she cleaned and organized my pantry, my refridgerator, my freezer, my 2 other cleaning/storage closets... she took care of our Maggie Moo Moo's, which includes medication every 12 hours and all the various potty breaks, she started my cars... found my van battery dead, called AAA and waited for them and got a new battery (which was FREE because her and I together as a team are unstoppable!), wiped down all 4 bathrooms just to make them "sparkle," picked up my contacts from Sam's Club, picked up the girls' new ballet slippers I ordered from the dance store when they finally got delivered, added various chemicals every few days for maintenance of the pool, and got my mail... AND is stocking me up with fresh milk, bread, etc... how awesome is my MOM!!!!!! :) Momma, you're the best! :)

Sunday Afternoon Pictures

No matching dresses today, I know... shock of shocks!

But they had other cute dresses we needed to bring out of the closet :) Happy Father's Day Daddy!!!
All the girlies!

Thankful Thursday

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We had Enrichment a week ago, a fabulous one if I do say so myself... the food alone was to die for I digress, anyway one of our sisters taught a motivation class about the Power of 30. Essentially, it's how dedicating just 30 minutes a day, or a week, or a month, can really organize you and make you feel like your accomplishing things and progressing in your life... instead of always being behind.

Anyway, this sister did such a great job and I (as well as I think everyone else) was truly motivated. I've done so much this past week in short little spurts, really organizing myself and getting things done-- not just ordinary weekly tasks like laundry and ironing... but digging deep in the closets, and Kylie's school supply corner, and cleaning on the top of my fridge (which accumulates so much junk because that's our go to place because the munchkins can't reach it!!!).

This week I've had a great feeling because I've been making more with my time, and taking control to get things done. I'm really grateful for Sister Gee and her fabulous lesson!

Sunday Afternoon Pictures

Oh goodness... we finish lunch, get ready for pictures... and the camera battery's dead. So we go to the second choice camera. That battery's dead. Come on. I dressed the girls adorable, festive for Flag Day... so best option was to take pictures when we came home from chuch. But I think everyone's tired and disshelved. Anyway, you see how cute and patriotic we are. (Matthew even came home from his earlier morning meetings and changed his tie to a flag, to match us.)I love this one of Kacey Lacey!!! (that's not her middle name, Matthew and I aren't that cruel!) :)

Thankful Thursday

I have had an overwhelming response to my "Coupons to Troops" post. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm getting batches in the mail from people I don't even know... it's so wonderful to see people using their time and effort to show support and to help make the temporal needs of our soldiers' families more easily met. I've got families just getting the paper to clip the coupons and send them my way. How great! In my opinion, the annual pay that these military families get is not sufficient for their duty they dedicate to us and our country! So it's great and easy to help out.

Again, if you're interested.... get me your expireds!!! It's such a waste to throw them away! I ship to a naval base in Guam and an army base in Germany. The military families (well, mostly wives gives the feedback) are so appreciative. And it's nice for them to know that we care... even when it's a whole bunch of coupons!!!!

Sunday Afternoon Pictures

Matching Gymboree Dresses!!!

(not me- them)

Originally, I had these dresses for Kylie and Kacey but thank you ebay! I was able to find a larger one for Kylie, and Kacey went up to Kylie's size and Kadyn got Kacey's!

A moment of silence for the shoes. Seriously, no lie... my favorite pair of shoes. I like them so much, they don't go on the ground with my other shoes. No No. These go up on the top shelf, away from the other shoes (or children wanting to walk around in my heels).

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The girls went to their first baptism on Saturday. They were very excited. Kylie regularly talks about how the Daddy hold his hand here, and you hold your hand here... and dunk. In fact, she likes to pretend in the pool. So I was thrilled for her to be able to see one for the first time and even more fun, it being her friend Bryan who was getting baptized. (that and I secretly hope Kylie will marry Bryan- but that's another story) Kacey was also very attentive during the baptism.. to the point that I was afraid she was going to jump in... she was a little too close for me. I had to go up and grab her.