Our trip to Texarkana

This weekend, Andy and Jessie went to Dallas with Andy's dad to see a professional baseball game....a tradition for the 3 of them since Jessie started playing baseball. So my mom picked up Joshua, Noah, and I to go to Texarkana to see my sister, Jennifer and her family, who was visiting her in laws while her husband Chris was working in Texarkana for a few days. Jennifer and Chris live in Houston, TX. But I was beginning to wonder if we were ever going to get there. We got a few miles down the freeway and Joshua says he has to pee and there isn't an exit for another 10 miles so we pull over on the side of the road so he can pee and we resume our trip...well another 20 miles down the road Noah throws up out of no where in my mom's car!....not good....she handled it well though and we were about 25 miles from Benton where I live. So we pull over at a rest stop and get Noah and the car cleaned up...and wager whether we should resume our trip or turn around and go home. I also was feeling under the weather...sinus's is my guess and wouldn't have minded going home and going back to bed...but considering Noah seemed fine and I knew my sister would be disappointed if we didn't come so we decided to resume our trip...again! Then Joshua says he is hungry and Noah had thrown up his breakfast so instead of being close to being there we still have another hour or so of driving. So we pull over at McDonald's in Arkadelphia and let the kids get out of the car and get something to eat...by the time we got to Texarkana we had been on the road for 3.5 hours for a 2 hour trip...Below are some pics of the trip and a video of the boys playing in the back yard.

The rest stop...


Joshua, Noah and Austin playing in the backyard


Mom showing Jennifer how to make a border around the luvie she is trying to make...

Martin's take over at Traveler's Game

So my brother in law Ryan hooked the family up with some Traveler Game tickets tonight that his company has seats for right there in front of 1st base. Andy's Grandma Martin, his teenage cousins Reed and Grant, and his Uncle Roger and Aunt Pam came to Cabot Monday from Ohio to visit Andy's parents and siblings here. So we all went to the game and it turned out to be a family event. They have a between inning activity where someone in the crowd participates. So my nephew Bayliss raced the Mascot from 1st base to 3rd base and of course won at the end of the 1st inning. Then his dad Tony had to catch balls with a big net that they used a sling shot to send flying through the air at the end of the 2nd inning and he caught 2/3 which was REALLY good because he recently had knee surgery this month and he had to hop, skip, and a jump to catch the 2 he caught and almost got the 3rd one. Then Reed and Grant had to dress up in banana customes at the end of the 3rd inning to race each other from 3rd base, around home and on to 1st base for the win and Reed who is the youngest gave his older brother a run for the money...he almost beat him. Then they had some guy who we didn't know....had to guess what the name of the song was at the end of the 4th inning. So on the end 5th inning Andy had to toss 3 bean bags through a board with a hole in it that was standing up. If he made it through the 1st hole he would get a year supply of Moe's Burritos, if on the 2nd time which is closer he made it he would get catering from Moe's for 15 people, if on the 3rd try he made it he would get a free Moe's burrito.....he got a free Moe's burrito....but was so close to getting one of the other prizes...apparently nobody has made it yet either....now I may have my innings mixed up on who went on which inning but you get the idea...I forgot my camera but hopefully I can get some pictures from my in laws. Also, during the Anthem Andy who was standing holding Noah got on the big screen and later Joshua got a major close up of his blue face from eating cotton candy...the camera man was standing there pointing the camera at him and I said, "Don't get a picture of me sweetpea it better be all him"....and it was....which was good for the camera man...so Jessie and I didn't get any screen action or game action though we could have if we wanted to but we didn't....maybe next time...

My Weekend in Alma

So this weekend Andy and I were going to celebrate our 5th anniversary and our parents had offered to watch the kids for us. But the closer we got to the weekend we realized that Andy was going to have to work all weekend....his busiest time at work is during the summer when all the teachers and students are out....and it is crunch time right now trying to get everything ready for when everybody comes back. So since he wasn't able to do anything this weekend we decided we would have date night Friday night and I would go to Alma and stay with my BF Monica. For those of you who don't know we lived in Alma from 2004-2007. And I LOVED living there and had a hard time moving when Andy got a job offer here. So I went and visited with Monica and we ate...visited...did some shopping and then we ate and visited some more and went to our favorite restaurant in Alma....La Fiesta. :-) I went to church at Living Word River Valley where we went when we lived here and it was great getting to see our pastors and our friends from when we lived in Alma and seeing how big all the kiddos where getting....if I remember right 5 of us at the church where pregnant at the same time and now those babies are 2 or fixing to turn 2. I also drove by my old house and all I can do is shake my head...see below for the pictures and you can click on them to see it better....except for the 1st pic...



This is what our house looked like before we sold it. It sits on 2.5 acres that has a creek that runs through it. It was a year old when we bought it and has 5 bedrooms/2 baths and around 1950 sq ft. It also has a koa pond with a water fall by the front door.

This is what the house looks like now....and according to reliable sources they let the grass grow a foot before they cut it and have NEVER weeded....so sad...I loved that house

This is a close up of the landscaping...it doesn't look like they ever pulled the weeds out of the flower bed....their used to be flowers in there somewhere...Also they had a bad hail storm so they replaced the roof which doesn't look bad I really never liked the green roof but it doesn't match the green shutters and door...

The apparently don't own a weed eater either and the tree in the back split and it has probably been laying there for months...the storm happened in the early spring.

This is the swing set Andy designed and built for the boys and you can see how grown up the grass is all around it...such a shame

Here is a picture of Monica and I...we won't discuss how many pics we took or the different positions or heights her daughter Sophia had to be in to take the pic or the different sitting/standing arrangements we were in to hid...I mean to get a close up of our beautiful smiling faces....:-)

Lunch with Grandma

On Friday the boys and I went to Cabot to have lunch with my Grandma along with my mom, my aunts and cousins at Burger King. Then we went to Grandma's house where we let the kids play together and the adults played Mexican Train Dominoes. My family loves to play games and we can be pretty competitive, that having been said. My grandma who doesn't "cheat", because cheating is done intentionally, kept forgetting where she could play her dominoes. And she is really good a playing regular dominoes but doesn't play Mexican Train Dominoes. So I laid down my domino to start my train and I don't recall that I played it where the trash train was but maybe I did.....but all I know is I left the table to change Noah's dirty diaper and "someone" played a double 10 on my train. Which lead to everyone else playing on my train so when I got back to the table I no longer had "my" train because it was turned into the "trash" train....and I had a KILLER hand too :-(....but I won the next round so it kinda made up for it :-) We had a good time though and I always enjoy spending time with my family.