Summer...er...Spring 2014

So maybe I missed a season. Oh-well. We again took the long drive to Colorado to visit with Chris and Stephanie.  Jonny was supposed to go, but ended up having to go to Spain for work.  Glamorous, I know. Thankfully, Mere was able to come along and drive us-the whole way. Before anyone thinks I'm an ass-hole for making her drive the whole way, she actually likes driving.  

While we were there I hardly took any pictures at all (a reoccurring problem that results in infrequent updates) Chris and Stephanie did pick up the slack for me though. 

We had a chance to head up to A/U, our old summer camp and walk around a bit.  It made jealous of 3rd-12th graders, which is something that is usually pretty difficult to do.

Maggie practicing for future ropes course glory.

We also, checked out a nearby goat farm.  Goats are apparently old news to the girls.  Maggie didn't even want to go on the tour and Molly cut out halfway through it.  Maggie was thrilled to gorge herself on goat cheese.

Chris and Steph had a wedding to go to one day, so Mere and I took the girls to Aspen on a whim. Right after we had made the decision to go I immediately thought "This is probably a bad idea" I hadn't been considering how terrifying the road was or how it was completely possible that the girls (or me) would get car sick...and for what? $50.00 Frozen T-shirts (seriously?!?!?) In the end there was a fun park and a balloon guy who made the girls Little Mermaids, so it wasn't that bad.

the nearby parks were a big hit with girls so we hit them up daily.  Going to the park in July can be a novelty to Yuma folk.

 

We didn't camp, but we still had smores.  It's basically the same thing as camping.

  I need to look at this picture at least twice a day so that I remember they love each other.  Mostly.

  On our way home, we stopped at four corners and had some of the worst snow cones ever.  I'm pretty sure a Snoopy snow cone machine would have made a better snow cone. The girls were less critical since they like sugar in all it's forms.

After a week in Colorado, we decided since we really had no good reason to go back home, (Jonny was still out of town), we'd spend another week with Granny in Parks, AZ.  The weather was great and the girls learned about important things like ET and Kindergarten Cop (surprisingly violent-I hadn't remembered). 

We also had a chance to check out the nearby Deer farm.

I don't have a picture of it, because we were running for our lives, but I'm not sure the general population deer are fed by anyone but visitors.  As soon as you walk in, you're pretty much attacked by a gang of deer trying remove the food cups from your hands or any loose articles of clothing from your body.

 

Molly's favorite part, was probably taking the quad to the post office.

I take that back.  Hanging out with Granny's kitten, Smokey Steve was her favorite part.  They both relentlessly harassed the poor thing.

It was a fun trip and the weather was of course WAY better than it was in Yuma, but still it was nice to get back home after 2 weeks.  Maggie was especially glad, several time throughout the trip she would let me know she wanted to go home, and that she wanted to go to Mr. G's and get a bean and cheese burrito.  After we got back home, she's said several time that "It's nice to be back home!".  

So onto all the other stuff I missed in between.

I don't remember when it was, but there was a fairy party at the quartermaster depot, so Rams and I took the girls.  I was amused that Molly was instantly recognizable as "Elsa" to all the other little girls there.  They would even call her out.

Ready to party like fairies

The girls are now sharing a bedroom. I had envisioned that it would magically make them sleep in their own rooms without coming in to camp with us, but that hasn't worked out yet. Someday.

Molly practicing her Elsa ice powers.

Over Memorial Day, we visited Granny's house in Parks and took a train to the Grand Canyon.  A better mom would have taken pictures of that.  I'm not that mom.  We'll probably go again. 

Molly "graduated" from Pre K.  We were so relieved, we thought she might fail.  Her prospects are looking better now.

 

Molly had her dance recital.  She was a fairy and did an awesome job!  I bought a video and Maggie has been a little obsessed with watching it repeatedly.

Mommy and me Yoga is way better when you go into the lobby and do your own thing.

Call an exorcist! No wait, just Maggie.

For the 4th we had a good time at Annette and Kate's shindig.  lots of bouncy/wet fun. Get your head out of the gutter.

The girls have been going to preschool a few days a week 1/2 day.  Maggie has been reluctant, but she's warming up to the idea.  They say that she always has fun after I leave, it's just leaving and picking her up that she gets a little weepy. I'm so relieved that when my kids are at school, they're always great at listening and getting along with others. I can't say I always get that from them at home. We've had 3 days straight with no tears though, so things are looking up.  It's good timing too since Molly is about to head to Kindergarten!

Making marshmallow men

The school has a cute garden and lots of animals.  Here's Molly with one of the bunnies.

We may have lost our minds! Jonny brought home a cat yesterday.  After a few trial names (Tennis, Little cat A, Zoinks, Smokey Eve) we settled on Sweet Pea.  It was Molly's idea and it's way better than her first name-Elsa or the name the Humane Society gave her-Anna.  Welcome Sweet Pea! You will be loved to little bitty pieces!

 

Look at this sweet little thing! can you believe she's going to be 3 in two short weeks!?!?

I can't.

Peter Cotton Tail

If anyone is interested I actually posted some Christmas pictures and Molly's birthday pictures in the two posts before my Ireland post.  I can't believe I ever did this almost weekly.  

Before I print out another hard copy of this, thought I'd just throw Easter in there too.

I'm so sick of candy.  Just having it in the house makes everyone tense.  I'm trying to hide it, they're trying to get it.  Molly knows how to use a ladder now, so that makes things more complicated. School had an egg hunt and a party, so there was that candy.  There's been a few birthday's lately, so there's that candy. Then we brought them some Easter candy from Ireland, Meredith bought them some too.  On top of all that, we went to the country club for Easter brunch and they also had an egg hunt with even more candy.  Fortunately most of it was not worth saving and went into the trash, but still it's so much crap. 

here's Maggie with a death grip on her chocolate bunny.  She would not put it down.

 This reflects Molly's new attitude lately.  Willful? Disdain? I'm not sure what's going on.

 Easter Morning we sort of slept in (7:30) and my parents were wondering what was going on.  They went outside to see if they could see any eggs and neither saw anything.  I'd like to point out that this egg is right in front of their front door.

This year we got both our families together for brunch at the country club.  It's always nice to just get everyone into one place so you don't have to drag small children around all day.

 I've never found it to be worth my while to make my kids take pictures with strange characters.  I will say that those who do, have some of the greatest crying kids pictures ever.  My favorite is an infant Grayson with the Easter bunny.  Molly asked to take her picture with the bunny, she held it together, but I did notice she got a little uneasy when she was close up to him.  Maggie was not interested in the least.

This is the best picture of both of them that I could get.  Oh-well.

After brunch, Jonny went and played a few holes. The girls started out interested in golfing, but after meeting up with their friend the drink cart lady, they became more interested in Gatorade, pretzels and of course Maggie had to have her Perrier.  After that they pretty much just played around in the cart.

Molly with her "Sad Eyed" puppy from Gran for Easter.  Also one of her favorite flower arrangements.

 

 

Maggie is a nap fighter, not a lover.  Still, sometimes they catch up with her

 

Desert Rats!  We went out a few weeks ago.  It's fun to let them just go around a whoop it up.

 

Zonks!  Too much desert fun.  Molly has been preoccupied with who she will marry.  Of course Grayson is a front contender for her.  All day she was very vocal about this, so when she passed out like this, I made sure to send the picture to Ramsey so Grayson could see his lovely future bride.

As is tradition, we hit up the county fair with Annette and Kate.  They had a good time conning us into buying them crap.  This ride, was not a baby ride.  We went 2 days and in total, Molly rode it 4 times.  I rode it twice and Jonny rode it once.  Jonny was not a fan.  If Molly's going to be a daredevil, Jonny's going to have to suck it up!

Other random news to throw in before I wrap this thing up.  Molly started piano lessons.  So far, so good.  She has a recital next month and she'll probably have at least a small part to play for it.  Very exciting for me.  

Maggie started "real" gymnastics class.  She had 2 classes that went great and 1 that went horribly (lots of tears).  We've paid for 1 more so we'll see how that goes.  She is super into the idea of dance class.  She always wears the clothing.  She's a little obesessed with looking at tutu pictures and watching ballet videos online.  She's always talking about being in "Miss Myriah's dance class", and her dance moves/poses are pretty awesome.  Hopefully this summer she'll do better than her first attempt at dance class.

Ireland!

This is going to be the modern version of a boring slide show of someone's vacation pictures.  The best part is that you can leave now and it won't matter at all to me.

 We were lucky enough to be able to leave our kids for about a week in the capable hands of our family (mostly my mom) and take an anniversary vacation.  The week, all on it's own would have been awesome enough, but in addition, we were able to go all the way to Ireland (where Jonny has always wanted to go) and we even got to go first class!

We were pretty excited about the lay flat seats.

 

my travel buddy.

 

the first stop on our trip was Trinity College in Dublin. Mainly because it was a block from our hotel.  We took a quick tour which was interesting, and then checked out the library.

So many books! Not Alphabetized in any way!

 There was a Magnolia tree in bloom there.  Of course I had to take a picture of that.

 We did do other things during our first stay in Dublin, but I'm an iffy photographer and can't always be relied upon to take pictures. The highlights were Christ Church Cathedral where we able to watch their choir and St. Micham's church where Jonny touched "The Crusader" a mummy from their crypt.  It's supposed to have imparted some mummy luck to him, so we'll let you know how that pans out for us.

 After Dublin, we rented a car and drove to Killarney. See, that makes it sound really simple!  Jonny was the brave one who took on lefty driving.  We had a taxi driver tell us that in 20 minutes he wouldn't have any more problem and that he would even find it awkward when he went back home to drive on the right. LIES!!!! Although he did get the hang of it enough that we didn't cause any horrible accidents, I'm not sure he ever felt 100% comfortable and he certainly didn't have to worry about driving on the right at home.

In Killarney we spent all our time in and around their national park.  First stop was Ross Castle.  Some of it has been restored, so we were actually able to go up inside and take a tour.

 Later that day we went to Muckross House.  Again, we took a tour, and it was definitely a cool old place, but Good Lord, the property was insanely beautiful! It makes perfect sense that it would become a national park.

 Yes, we took a "selfie". I'm sorry.  Mostly I'm sorry because the internet has given "selfies" such a bad name.

 Nearby there was a waterfall and a few trails you could hike.

 So we did.

 So, which way is north then?

It was about 1/2 way through this day that I asked "hey, what day is it?". Yep, we kind of forgot our anniversary.  Only because we were having so much fun though.

 Also in the park they had different examples of traditional farms, complete with lots of farm animals.  

This guy was huge!

"She had hair of sticks and woooool"

 Muckross Abbey was probably my favorite place.   I'm not exactly sure why, but it was just a neat place to be.

 Chim chimney

 This is probably a weirwood. Don't you think?

 Strangely enough, the only place we were ever truly cold was the Cliffs of Moher.  Also strange: It never rained once.

 Random castle on the way to Galway. They're kind of everywhere.

 In the outskirts of Galway, these were also everywhere.

 We stayed at Ballynainch castle hotel one night.  It was a perfect little forest scene right out of our window.

 The hotel ground was really the only place that looked like that in the area.  Instead, it was mostly bogs and Ocean nearby.  We had a guy from the hotel take us on a hike nearby.

Pretty view of their beaches from up there.

As well as the bogs.

 We had another couple days in Dublin before we left.  We went to St Patrick's Cathedral and saw their choir as well.

We also went to the National museum of Archeology which had some more really cool mummies as well as other things that had been preserved in bogs for around 2,000 years.

By the end of the trip we missed the girls a lot and were excited to get back home refreshed! That didn't turn out to be entirely true, but we still had a great trip.  Can't wait to go again and see and do the many things we missed.