Welcome to the family, Lando!

This week, we added a new member to the family, Lando. He’s a four month old rescued pup. He was described by his foster mom as a “mellow fellow.” We are enjoying him!









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School’s Out For Summer!

Yesterday, the boys celebrated the last day of school for the 2017-2018 school year.

Kai finished second grade with Mrs. Roth. Sage finished third grade with Ms. Moyes. They both learned a ton and made new friends. It was another awesome year!



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Snuggle Party

Sage just came into the living room and announced, “I’m having a snuggle party in mommy and daddy’s room. You’re all invited!” He’s almost ten years old and he still wants his nightly snuggles. I am going to enjoy this while I can knowing it won’t be long before he won’t even want to hug me.


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WOW! What a weekend!

What’s a 4 day weekend without an adventure?! On a recent 4 day weekend while Jared was in Georgia for work, the boys and I had a weekend getaway.

We started our adventure at the Strafford Safari Park. We loved seeing and feeding all the animals. Our favorites were the gentle giraffe and her baby, the crazy camels, and the lemurs. We also had a run in with the lioness. She was a little grumpy and tried to pounce on the boys while giving a ferocious roar! Thank goodness she was in a cage!

Day 2, we headed to the Wonders of Wildlife Museum and Aquarium in Springfield. It’s known as WOW for short and truly lives up to that name. It was incredible - by far, the best aquarium I’ve seen. The best parts were the hands on and up close experiences!





























After the aquarium, we headed to the lake for a quick visit with PaPa. We played sand volleyball at Captain Ron’s, caught a few keepers, and spent lots of time outside.






















We continued our adventure with a trip to Noah and Charlotte’s house. The kids played for a few hours and watched a movie before we headed home.



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“This is Fun” Hugs

I’m not sure if I’ve blogged about Kai’s “This is fun” hugs before or not. I want to make sure I have. Ever since Kai was able to walk, he’s given us “This is fun!” hugs. Whenever he was doing something enjoyable such as playing on the playground, he would spontaneously stop, run over to us, give us a quick hug, and run back to whatever he was doing. Sometimes he would say, “This is fun!” Other times, he would just smile and give a good squeeze.

The best part is, he still does it even at almost nine years old. On Friday night, we were at Captain Ron’s playing sand volleyball. Kai was with his PaPa on the other side of the net. After one play, he was laughing, stopped, ran over to my side, gave me a big hug and said, “This is fun!,” and ran back over to his side of the net. Even though it was only for a few seconds, it made my heart happy and made me remember all the other times I’ve gotten a “This is fun!” hug. It’s a moment to remember.


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Kai’s First Baseball Game

Kai wanted to try baseball this year. He’s doing great considering he hasn’t played since Tball when he was 4. Yesterday was his first game. He played mostly first base, and a little bit of shortstop and centerfield. He batted 4th in the lineup and got on base every time. He had three singles, a double, and a triple! Go, Kai!

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All District Art Show

Sage had two pieces of art selected for the All District Art Show. We are so proud!









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Sage’s First Violin Concert

On Monday, we enjoyed Sage’s first violin concert. He has been learning violin at school as part of the Strings program. They all did well!

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Decades Day

The boys wanted to dress like Michael Jackson for Decades Day at school.



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Spring Break 2018

Even though our spring break included adding a sump pump to our basement (eating up our travel budget) and rain nearly every single day (so much rain) we still managed to squeeze in some fun. The boys even checked another state off their list with a quick trip to Iowa.

On our road trip, we stopped halfway in Hannibal to see Mark Twain’s boyhood home and learn about the author and his adventures.













After a quick history lesson, we continued on to our destination, Burlington, Iowa. It’s the home town of a friend who gave a few recommendations on places to go. So, we went and enjoyed our stay. The boys really enjoyed Fun City which is a mega plex with go carts, laser tag, indoor ropes courses, an indoor water park, bowling, arcade games, and a place called Ballocity. Sage and Kai spent a total of about 7 hours playing in Ballocity having “Capture the Flag” wars, climbing through tunnels and sliding down slides. Needless to say, Fun City lived up to its name.

The second day, we did a quick tour of all the Burlington parks and playgrounds and snuck in a couple hikes before the rain started again.



Starr Cave Park


Tricky hike with lots of obstacles!


The world’s curviest street, Snake Alley.


We think it was called Mosquito Park because it was so small it was the size of a mosquito. Beautiful views of the Mississippi though!


The boys’ favorite - simply because of the name. Silly boys!





Geode State Park had their favorite playground.





But, not their favorite hike. Neither of them look amused. 😬

Once the rain started again, we went back to the hotel for some hot tub and pool time before heading back to Fun City for the night.








Finally, on Friday, that great ball of light in the sky known as the sun reappeared. Hallelujah! We spent Friday back in St. Louis at some of our favorite playgrounds.







This spring break was definitely the wettest with rain every day except for Friday. But, hey, thanks to our new sump pump, at least our basement was dry. 😫