The parade

Look really close and you'll see a huge snake on this person.



The plane reads "The Spirit of St. Louis"


The Red Baron

More vacation

This sweet shot is on the roof of our hotel. Nice! Everyone enjoyed the water after the parade. The weather was actually nice...not too hot--til after we spent the morning outside watching the parade. Everyone was quite sweaty and ready to cool off, so we just went upstairs and enjoyed pool.



There was a small balcony behind the pool. If we didn't sit under the arch for the fireworks, this is where I would have gone. Sweet view!


Here's some more of us watching the parade....out of order for my story but oh well.

Fourth of July Vacation

Jason and Jon having fun next to the arch. Um, Jason trying to climb it? Not sure, but good luck!


We never attended the parade while we lived in St. Louis. I have no idea why though...it was so much fun! Right outside our hotel (literally) we took our seats and watched all the floats, clowns, ect go by. Nana insisted on getting all the kids their own balloon.

The balloons were HUGE!!!!! There was no way we girls could blow up 10 of those bad boys. So here's Jason doing it for us. Thanks bro!


Snow white and the seven dwarfs came by and I just had to get a picture. I wish that I was able to snap one of Snow White--it was totally a guy dressed up in the dress!

Best birthday cake EVER!!!!!

Ryan scored some serious brownie points with my birthday cake this year. Anyone who knows me well knows that I'm a huge Harry Potter fan (I dare anyone to ask me something about the HP world....bring it on). Anyway, so yesterday I jokingly told him that I wanted a Harry Potter cake (as opposed to the oreo ice cream one I normally have). He just laughed with Julia and I dropped it.....Well, today he and I went to Zios to have a truly yummy lunch. We had some errands to run afterwards to get ready for tonights' filipino bbq we were holding. So Ryan pulls up to some random shopping center and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why. Then he led me into this cake shop...oh the divine aromas coming from there! I noticed some cakes displayed behind the glass counters and went to investigate. Know what I saw?




I think my jaw dropped open when I realized what I was looking at. Unbeknownst to me, a few days ago Ryan and Julia had taken scans from the 7th book covers (the regular and deluxe edition) and had the bakery scan them onto a cake. Those pictures you see are edible...they're actually frosting! How cool is that? And on the inside--red velvet. I don't recall ever having it before, but wow, it was incredible.


Me enjoying my piece of the cake. A huge thank you for my wonderful husband who knows me so well and loves me anyway. :)

Family Pictures

Here are some of the most recent pictures taken of everyone in the family.
I don't know how he managed it, but Ryan caught Marcus in the act of smiling! I can NEVER do that. I'll click the button a couple of seconds before I know he's about to smile, but as soon as he sees that little red light go off his smile turns off just as fast as the flash.

Julia actually took this one for us. We were about to head out to celebrate our ninth anniversary. Dinner at Fuji and then we tried our hand at bowling (favorite past times of ours). Lots of fun.

Mr. Marcus was perfectly fine with playing in the little bouncer while Ryan and I worked in the yard.



How on earth I got them all to assume the same position is beyond me...but I like it!


Yeah, now this picture is more like it, more accurate of what our family is like.

Show me the muscle!

This picture cracks me up....Jacob knows his muscles are huge--in his eyes. I just laugh cause he's such a tiny thing with these little stick arms. I swear he's a regular Joycelyn or Jason. He eats and eats and eats, but the boy will never gain an ounce!
The rest of the pix are what I caught of Jacob and Evelyn while having fun on a hot day. They took a breather from our little pool to swing a bit. They looked so cute--I had to whip out the camera.

Landscaping

Ouch, has it really been about a month since I've blogged? Oops. Well, I can claim that I've been busy...school's out now so the house is crowded and busy with four children. I've started working from home so my free evenings are now spent transcribing reality tv shows. Plus my church calling is taking up a ton of time...but hey, that's just life right? :)
Well, this past weekend Ryan and I decided to tackle our yard. We did quite a bit of planting and seeding a year or two ago (I can't remember...I must be getting old if the years are meshing together in my mind), but with early spring weather and then freezing temperatures....well, there went our work. And the ice storms didn't help either. Our poor sycamore tree doesn't even have a top on it. Anyway, so we went to the store to pick out flowers to surround the tree with. We both agreed that impatience would be best--it describes our family (mainly our children) at the moment. Well, and they're so pretty too. I was hoping to get the purple toned ones, but since there wasn't enough available, we decided on the fire and ice looking ones.



Now under the two windows in the front...that lovely area doesn't get an ounce of sunlight EVER thanks to our tree (and the way the house is positioned too). So we asked around to find out exactly what we could plant that doesn't require any sunlight. We decided on a couple of rows of hastas (oh, I butchered the spelling on that).




The last thing we did was cover it all in some cedar mulch (LOVE that smell) and water it with the sprinkler. Now let's see mother nature work her green thumb over here and beautify our yard!