Bike riding with a family of 5

Okay, some of you might already know this, but I LOVE bike riding! I used to ride all around Altoona, Iowa when I lived there, and my love (no, I was corrected by Josh, it's my "act" of bike riding) has slowed down a bit since we've had a family, but it's picking right back up now that we can ride together! We have had a trailer for my bike since Dylan was born, so Jodee and he could ride in it together, but now that Jodee is an amazing bike rider, Dylan chills in the trailer by himself. This does not make him very happy, he thinks he can ride his scooter just as fast as we can do our bikes, which actually may be true on a big hill. Anyways, we made him a little upset on Saturday, but for a good cause. For any of you Edmonites, you know that the city of Edmond made a trail leading from Fink Park (Rankin and 2nd) to Hafer Park(9th and Bryant)....right? Well, it's pretty new, and I have NO idea how long it is...but we decided to bike it Saturday around 5:30. It's VERY hilly, so beware if you try to do it, it's so tiring! WE MADE IT! We played at Hafer for a while and made the trek back to Fink. Let me tell you, pulling a trailer with a 35 lb. child in the back is REALLY good exercise on those hills! I made it all the way back, huffing and puffing, but didn't finish the very last hill up to the truck. My legs were burning! We had to let Dylan try out his scooter for a while on the fun hills at Fink, so we rested and about had heart attacks watching him fly down the hills! Dustin and Jodee made it the whole way, with a few pushes from dad on the way back...I was very impressed. Then they had a good time playing in the dry creek bed at Fink...that is some good fun!

Bob Moore Employee Appreciation Day!

We love this day every September....it's the day that Josh gets appreciated by his employer, and we get to have fun for free! This year it was at Frontier City, a place we really like! We got free lunch, and the opportunity to win door prizes (which we did not win), and got to spend the day riding rides. Dustin, now that he's big enough, did the Diamondback first. It's the one that has the loop and goes forward AND backward--he loves it! It kinda hurts my head now, I must be getting old! We took the kids to all of the kiddie rides, swings, dragons, little roller coaster, and the all time favorite: the tea cups! I think they rode those 7 or 8 times! The really exciting part of the day was when we realized Jodee is finally tall enough to ride the Silver Bullet roller coaster, and she actually wanted to do it! She wasn't sure at first, going up the BIG hill, but she was smiling and laughing the rest of the way...and kept reminding us that she rode the big roller coaster! We also went to the magic show--VERY cool, he does all of the neat tricks you see on t.v. Towards the end, he came running down the aisle, and had Jodee give him a high-5! She felt pretty cool.

We also loved the "tilt-a-whirl", whatever it's called! It was a family favorite!

Well, I'm posting this, if you'll notice, during church time on Wednesday night. Yep, you probably already guessed it, someone is sick! It's not me this time, (yay for me), but it is Dustin (bummer for Dusty). We took him in today and got him started on anitbiotics, so hopefully he'll only miss 2 days of school....we'll see.

Mom's can't get sick!

What a week! It started out great...worship on Sunday, Dustin's baseball game Monday, then comes Tuesday...with a terrible cough and a fever! I felt weird Monday, I could tell I was at the beginning of a cough/cold, but the fever was totally unanticipated! It wiped me out! I thought surely it will go away by the weekend, and I'll be just fine. But, then we fast forward to Friday, I still have a fever, still feel awful, and I'm heading to the dr! She said it was bronchitis, and luckily I'm feeeling much better today on my antibiotics! The poor kids, luckily they're all very self-sufficient, but I felt so bad lying in bed for 4 days! Thankfully Josh is so good at taking over once he gets home, but once again, I felt bad because they ate out 3 out of the 4 days! Oh well....I don't get sick that often!
I felt good enough tonight to go with the family to our church picnic at OC. It was so nice to get out, and enjoy the beautiful weather with our congregation! The kids had a blast on the moon bounce, big slide, and obstacle course. Dustin even tried the boxing...and man, is he good! It's a little scary, I don't know how he became so good at that, but he had fun.
Here are some pics from our week:

Jodee learned about birthdays at school this week, and this is her "birthday hat":

Here are the kids waiting in line for the big slide at the picnic:Here is Jodee sliding! We got a picture of Dylan but he went SO fast that it was blurry, and we tried to get a picture of Dustin, but we missed him every time!No need to worry though, we got one of Dustin boxing!And here are their face paintings, a rainbow, a baseball, and "blue" (that is what Dylan asked for, and I told the girl to do whatever she wanted, as long as it was blue, so he got blue stripes!)We had a fun day today, finally, and my sweet kids are very relieved (I think), that I'm feeling better! Dylan asked me probably 20 times a day this past week, "Mom, are you feeling better yet?", and he got the answer he was looking for tonight!

Fall Baseball--GO RANGERS!

Dustin had his first baseball game Thursday night! It was so much fun to see the boys get out there and have some fun! They did great--especially considering the ball is coming at them faster now (42 mph, I think), and they can steal bases this season, too. More for them to think about while they're out on the field. It was fun, I don't think they won (I really don't keep track of the score), but Dustin had a good time and played well, and that's what counts! He made it on base, and stole some bases too, plus fielded a few balls--very cool! Good job Dusty!

Labor Day Weekend

What a fun weekend! Just ask Dustin...Saturday, we had hardly begun, and he was already so happy about our exciting weekend! We travelled up to Stillwater Saturday and enjoyed Eskimo Joe's...YUM! (We also delivered the couch frame that we sold about a month ago). My mom got to go with us--which we all loved--we had so much fun all packed into the truck! (Sorry about the quality of this pic, but it shows we were really there!)

Sunday, after church, we packed up and went to Red Rock Canyon in Hinton, OK.

We camped in a tent, hiked on two trails (and made our own!), and went fishing. The kids thought it was SO cool--the whole thing! We asked them today what was their favorite part, and all they could come up with was, "everything!" The pictures really say it all.....One of their favorite activities was playing in the dirt:Our tent is up!
Climbing the canyon with daddy:

Climbing the canyon with momma:

Campfire, fishing, and sleeping in our tent! The kids were great--most of their time was spent climbing the wall behind our campsite--it was so neat because they would all help each other, and could basically do it on their own. They were being so big--it's sad they're growing up so fast, but we're enjoying it!

We had some nice tent neighbors on one side, it was a dad and 3 of his 5 boys, (he's a pastor at a Christian church--the kids played together and had fun), and some not so nice neighbors on the other side. I had to answer some tough questions from Jodee--like why does that mommy talk so mean? I felt so bad for those kiddos, and glad my kids had never heard people talk to their children like that before!

We really enjoyed God's beautiful world--what better way to do that than to go camping!