July 30, 2006

St. Louis--2006

It has been a while since I have posted anything new! We have been so busy with our vacation, and I have only had time to post about Melissa's puke ride so far! This time I will tell about the first part of our trip to St. Louis. We left our house at 11:30 p.m. on Monday July 17, 2006. Ben likes to drive at night so the kids sleep and we don't have to hear a lot of fighting or "I'm hungry!" "I'm thirsty." "How much longer?", etc. So, he slept all day to get ready for the drive. It took us about 9 1/2 hours to get to our hotel--The Adam's Mark--and then we had a full day! When we stopped for breakfast we took a pic of the McDonald's (it is in the Video) because we thought it was weird that you can rent DVD's at McDonald's, but when we mentioned it to Jimmy and Melissa once we got to Colorado, they just acted like, "Who DOESN'T rent movies at McDonald's?" So, it must be a trend in the states above Texas. Anyway, after we checked into our room, we set out to see the Arch! We went in the entrance under ground and made our way to the ticket booth. Jacob was in tears....he DID NOT want to ride the tram to the top. After questioning him about his fear (because it is very unlike Jacob to be fearful) I found out that for some odd reason he thought it was like a Six Flags ride and it was going to shoot us up to the top, loop us around and have us flying back down! Kids are so funny! I assured him we would be going slowly and there would be no flying involved. We bought tickets for the Riverboat ride down the Mississippi and the tram to the top of the Arch. We had about 2 hours before the riverboat would leave, so first we visited the museum under the Arch. It was very cool and interesting. The riverboat ride was first and it lasted an hour. I was good and dizzy by the time that was over, and we are beginning to find out Cole gets motion sick also, so he was not feeling too great either. Then we went to the loading area. It was very interesting to me how they get you to the top, because I kept trying to figure out how they were going to make an elevator go up a curved building without tilting sideways....anyways things like that don't always make sense to me. There are eight "pods" as I like to refer to them. They are connected and take you to the top like a train...or tram. Each "pod" has 5 seats and no seatbelts....which made Annalisa a little bit worried. We went to the top at the amazing speed of 4 mph...which is also how fast the riverboat took us down the river! Jacob was very scared the entire way up and would not let go of my hand! Once we got to the top though, he was fine and running around to look out the windows. Annalisa loved it until it was time to go and she got a horrible nose bleed. It was not going to stop bleeding, which just made her cry worse. The policeman came to check on her, but we had to wait 8 min. for the next tram to get there. Once we got close to the bottom, it stopped bleeding and she was fine. She kept telling us, "I had fun, but my nose didn't want to go to the top." I just love kids! We had a lot of fun doing all of that, then we headed back to our hotel room for a nap before the Cardinal's baseball game...which I will post about another time! I hope you enjoy the pics from the Arch and the riverboat I included in our Photo Story. Also, the kids helped make the Photo Story this time and it was lots of fun! It is about 4 1/2 min. long, though. Enjoy!

July 24, 2006

Shake, Rattle and Roll!












Yesterday (Sunday) we went to Six Flags Denver (Elitch Gardens)with Melissa, Peyton and Emily. We had a BLAST!! We did the waterpark first--which was a bit crowded and a tad bit cold, but still loads of fun! After we got wet and the sun was going down, we hit up the amusement park. We stayed in Kiddie Land for about 3 hours and let the kids ride all of the kiddie rides. It was so much fun to watch them. I will post pics of that later, but for now this post is about MELISSA'S RIDE! While we had been in the waterpark, Ben went to scope out the amusement park. Melissa had been telling us earlier about the types of rides she likes---puke rides!! So Ben told her he had found her ride! After Kiddie Land he took us over to see it, and he was right---it was all for her! She is on the front row in a white shirt with no one beside her. She was screaming the whole time and her girls were down with us waving at her. I know she had fun. She had to get her $15 out of the trip and ride an adult ride while she was there! The only problem she had after getting off the ride was when Ben told her to look up to she the Tower of Doom ride--when she looked up she fell backward and started laughing. She was very disoriented! Have fun viewing!

July 17, 2006

Swim Parties!


Jacob's birthday is in February which is not an ideal time for swimming! Being the water lover that he is, he has always wanted a swim party for his birthday, so this year we did not give him a party in February. We waited until July so he could swim. The parties were very last minute because when we went to Dallas for Emma's party we realized that we would probably not be going back to the Dallas area again before school starts, so we had a swim party for Jacob at Peepaw and Granma's. Thomas, Sarah, Uncle Robert and Aunt Gwen came to swim with Jacob and he had a blast! After we left Peepaw and Granma's house we went to Nana and Poppa's so Jacob could swim there too. He was very excited about 2 swim parties! We are hoping to have one more swim party at Windy and Bubba's house (in case you haven't figured it out we are just hitting up all the people with pools!!) so Jacob can swim with Blake and Carter. We have had a lot of fun so far, and maybe next year more people can come and swim with Jacob during the summer!
Sunday, July 9, 2006


July 7, 2006

Aunt Renee and Uncle Rowland's Wedding

Here is a video of A. Renee and U. Rowland's wedding. I hope this works...I found a new website I am trying out. The video is about 3:18 long. Enjoy!

July 6, 2006

They Got Hitched!

Well, Aunt Renee married Uncle Rowland....AGAIN!...this past Tuesday. I was very happy to be there, and I got to video the wedding from the vows to the end. After the wedding we had delicious cake, wonderful coffee punch (made by Brin), and tasty chicken salad. Apparently the cake and punch will also be served at Brin's wedding and this was just a "trial run" for her! Glad it went well! After that we went behind Mamaw Duckworth's house to the pond and had a skeet shooting contest (which Megan forced me to be a part of, and I looked like a fool), fishing contest, and a homemade ice cream contest. Brin won the skeet shooting contest (she hit 10 out of 10), and I believe she won the ice cream contest also. So she got a rifle and $50. Wow! We ate bar-b-que and listened to some good ole' live country music. It was a lot of fun! We didn't stay for the fireworks because we had to drive home, but I am sure they were very pretty! Thanks Aunt Renee and Uncle Rowland for the good time on the 4th of July! Have a great marriage!

We're Remodeling Our House!



Last summer we remodeled the front room of our house and we now have a foyer and nicer living area. We had sooooo much fun remodeling that we decided to remodel our back room this summer! We split the back room between the window, put a wall up and moved the washroom to the opposite side of the room. Now I have a really big walk-in closet/dressing room and a much bigger washroom. We are still working on it, but I love it already. Next we will be fixing our bathroom and it will be a bit bigger than it is now....without all the mold!! YAY! The kids helped Ben push the wall out where our new closet door is! They thought that was LOTS of fun! I even get air conditioning in my closet! And my computer desk will go in there too! It is very nice!

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star


Video Hosting - Upload Video - Video Sharing


This is just a trial run to see if I can get videos to play on my blogsite. Annalisa was singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, then her brothers joined in. Since they found out I can make videos with my new camera, they have been little actors for me! I viewed this and it is choppy if you don't let it completely stream before you push play. I hope it works for you!