The End

The end of changing diapers, that is...so long as the "no more kids" idea sticks. (Although that was my mom's plan at 4, and she ended up with 3 more...)

YAY! I don't have to ask him every two seconds, either. He tells me. AND he goes #2 in the toilet. :) For a few days it was only #1 (no accidents there) but the other kind was a little touch and go. Now: no accidents for 3 days. And he even stays dry at night. Which is more than I can say for another child...

Anyway, he's very excited about his Spiderman underwear and tells everyone in the grocery store about it. He also has found the little hole in the front of his briefs and is a little obsessed.

Halloween

The kids at the trunk or treat:

Tyler is a clone, Hailey is a witch, Ashley a dinosaur and Jason is Spiderman. They love Halloween. We got plenty of candy to get rid of, too.

Cruisin'

Trevor and I were able to go on our first cruise. :) Mike and Alicia (my brother and his wife) went with us. It was so great! We took a Carnival Cruise to Catalina and Ensenada, Mexico. Next time we'll go a little more exotic, but this was a shorter cruise (4 day/4 night) that would fit into our schedules.

This is Trevor, me, Alicia and Mike about to get on the ship. They took a million pictures all through the trip and then sold them for like $10 each. I was a sucker and bought a couple. Ah well, you have to splurge sometimes.


We did A LOT of eating. Here's a picture of our table. We sat here for almost every meal and ordered a couple appetizers each, then a few entrees each. Don't forget dessert. I tried to limit myself to just one. The food was DELICIOUS, and I've never seen Trevor eat so much in my life. Maybe I should take some cooking lessons or something. That may be my problem...


Our first stop was Catalina Island. It was really fun to be there, although a little chilly. We rented a golf cart and drove around the island awhile. We had some lunch and then looked in some of the shops for some souvenirs for the kids. Side note--it was so great going on a trip with just adults. I missed the kids a lot, but every time I saw someone with kids on the ship I thought: I'm so glad we didn't bring the kids. Poor things. Maybe next time, but not for our first cruise.:)


The next stop was Ensenada, Mexico. As it turns out, there's not a whole lot to do in Ensenada...we took a little bus tour up to a blow hole. There are only 3 in the world, apparently. That's where the water forms an air pocket under the rocks by the ocean, and then it forces air and water out through the rocks. Or something.

Next to the blow hole was a HUGE flea market. Wow, what an experience. Those Mexicans are PERSISTENT. That's not politically incorrect, right? They are from Mexico...

We had some lunch at a restaurant by the flea market. This guy did a little serenade for a small fee :)


Did you know a lot of prescription drugs you can get in Mexico over the counter? Who knew. They said we couldn't bring them back on the ship with us, though. So we didn't partake. :) However, at the pharmacy we saw this statue and couldn't pass up the photo opportunity. It's a little inappropriate. But funny.


It was wonderful to be able to spend some time with Trevor, Mike, and Alicia. It made it a lot of fun to hang out with those guys. I hope the people around our dining table didn't get annoyed because we were laughing all the time. I think I need to take more vacations! So, thanks Mike and Alicia for making it all possible. And thanks Mom and Dad for watching the kids!

Come Visit

I really like people to come visit us. All of you just think about when you can come, then give me a call and we'll make plans. You may even get a free teeth cleaning out of it. (I have to bribe my guests...)

Last week my sister and her two little boys came for a visit. I LOVED it. She has such cute kids, and I always like to spend time with my sister. We did some fun things while she was here, but about the only thing I caught on camera was our trip to the museum.

Still, for those who aren't museum lovers, there are much more fun things to do if you come visit. :) We have Yellowstone close by, an endless list of recreational activities, I'm here, plus our sky really is bigger than yours. Come see for yourself.

First Day of School

Here are some pictures on the first day. It's actually AFTER the first day, but since it was a little of a crazy morning I forgot the camera. Oops. Don't worry, their school doesn't begin at the end of September, I've been sitting on these pictures and catching up with other stuff during the sweet, sweet time I have while they're at school. I do miss them, though. Then I remember how easy it is to take one child to the grocery store instead of 4. School and naps were invented to keep mothers sane. Except for those amazing women who home school, in which case I don't know how they hold onto their sanity. Good work home schoolers.

I added that last picture because Hailey didn't want me to take a picture of them together. She wanted to be by herself and the only way I could get her to smile was to get Ashley out of the picture. Nice.

Ziplining

I was on the internet a few months back trying to come up with a good Father's Day present. I found a place nearby that does a zip line "tour" with 3 zips. Trevor had never been (and neither had I) so I got him a gift certificate for two people to go. In hindsight, it seems like his Father's Day presents always involve me, too. :) But really, who would want to go zip lining by themselves? Plus, I'm way more fun than any of his guy friends...says me.

We had to use the gift certificate by the end of the 2011 season. Our summer had been busy so we hadn't had any time to go, but we squeaked it in to a free day before the "zip line season" ended.

It was a lot of fun. I thought it would be a little more of a fall at the beginning, but it was kind of like going on a really long slide. Still fun, just not quite the rush I was expecting.


Trevor

Trevor


Kim



Tyler's all excited because he found out you have to be 70 lbs. to go, and he JUST turned over from 69 lbs. to 70 lbs. I don't have the heart to tell him we have like one week left of the season....he'll probably have to wait until next year.

Redneck Fishing Tournament

A few months ago, Trevor was watching ESPN and they were doing some show on the "Redneck Fishing Tournament" in Bath, Illinois. It's a fishing tournament to try and get rid of Asian Carp. They're taking over the rivers and they want to exterminate them before they reach the great lakes.

I'm sure many of you have seen videos of these carp, either in an email video or onAmerica's Funniest Videos or something. They're the fish that jump out of the water. A lot of times they'll jump right in the boat. Trevor thought it looked like a fun trip to make. So, with our friends Jared and Marci, we decided to make it a road trip.
Please don't look too closely, I'm not really that big of a poser...

We left one evening and drove all night, getting there the next evening to Bath, Illinois.

The fishing tournament lasted two days over the weekend (Friday and Saturday), and it was SO MUCH FUN!

Tournament rules say you can't use a pole (you don't need one), but you can use a net or a bat. :) We caught around 130 fish between the four of us the first day. The tournament had two heats both days--each heat lasts two hours--but Friday we only got through one and a half heats and ran low on gas. There is no gas station in this tiny town, so we had to fill up in the next town over.

This is only about 60 fish after the first heat. Disclaimer: Those are all fake tattoos. Although some drunk guys asked Marci where she got hers...




There were a TON of fish to catch Friday. Sometimes it was all you could do to shield your face and forget about catching because there were so many fish jumping. We were so covered in fish slime and fish scales by the end of the day, it was disgusting. There were a lot of boats, but nothing compared to Saturday's madness. Friday was "Redneck Costume" day. I'm pretty sure a lot of these people weren't in costume...but they could definitely win :) This fishing tournament draws some interesting people. And some drunk ones. Marci and I got hit on more than we ever have in our lives--a lot of times with Trevor and Jared right there with us. We're hot in Illinois! :)

Our costumes were ok, but Marci's was the best with her helmet (this is common so you don't get smacked in the face with a fish--a lot of people get broken noses, etc.) with a rubber chicken duct taped to the top. :) There were several tv stations, as well as the travel channel and photographers for ESPN, etc. Marci got so many interviews because of her chicken helmet. Pretty funny stuff. She also had a boat full of photographers following us around for 45 minutes snapping millions of pictures of her catching fish. Love that girl.

Saturday was less exciting, there were WAY too many boats trying to load off one tiny boat ramp. The fish weren't jumping as much, so we left a little early to try and get an earlier start back home. We only caught about 10 fish in the first heat. Sad. I wish we got some more pictures of the fish jumping, but we didn't get a lot of action shots...the boat full of photographers said they'd send some to us so stay tuned :)

We drove all night again and got home Sunday evening so everyone could get back to work. We stopped by Mount Rushmore for a quick look.

Thanks Grandma Strupp for watching the kids! We had a blast and I know they did, too.