Florida Photos: SOOO Busy!

We have been blessed with a great trip to Florida this year. Grandma and Grandpa have provided us with lots of fun. That along with playdates and parties have kept us incredibly busy. So busy, in fact, that we have postponed our return trip by a day so we can actually get prepared instead of just throwing our stuff in the van and taking off.

Of course there's been lots of pool time.



















And Grandpa and Kirk took the kids to the beach (because I wasn't feeling so well that day)







The girls actually fell asleep on the beach after playing in the water and the sand!



Kirk's birthday - we had a chance to celebrate with family and friends:















Saying goodbye to Daddy is ALWAYS hard!





Father's Day at Church:









Last Saturday we visited Celebration Station (thanks Grandpa and Grandpa we had a GREAT time!!)

The girls on the little roller coaster - they loved it!





Bumper boats - it was pretty hot so I was asking the kids to spray me while I watched them :)



Kaitlyn got to drive her own go-kart and apparantly she had a lead foot :)



Grandpa and Caleb had to ride together but I still think they had fun!


Mini-golfing. Watching the girls "golf" is a riot. Mostly it involves them slowly shoving the ball into the hole :)



They needed a lot of help from Grandpa!



And since the big kids were so much quicker (Caleb even got a hole in one!) Grandma got to go on ahead.



Alyssa was pretty sick of pictues so she was done smiling by this point.



We're done! Happy, tired and HOT!



And today, an awesome Star Wars birthday party!

My Jedi knights:





Fun, balloon popping game - Kaitlyn won :)



And then we were visited by Storm Troopers!

Kaitlyn seems quite comfortable holding that gun...



Alyssa's got it a little backwards:



But Julianna has no problem with it.



Rachel need convincing to even get near the Troopers - sister love to the rescue!





Now Caleb, on the other hand, got a little different treatment... Hmmm... I did tell him I never want to see this again :)



We had a really good trip to Florida this year and we will miss our family and friends as we return home to Virginia.









Wow, we had a LOT of fun and it's soo hard to believe that our vacation is already over. Thank you so much Grandma and Grandpa for everything! We will miss you sooo much and can't wait to see you again soon. Love you!

Goodbye Florida, we'll see you soon...

Happy Father's Day From The Pool

For the second year in a row, we are in Florida for Father's Day. It's hard to be apart from Kirk on this special day and the kids certainly miss him but we're excited to share Father's Day with Grandpa :)

Because it's Father's Day and because Kirk isn't here he's missed out on a few things the kids have been doing which of course, involve the pool. So, in their own special way the kids show off their "talents" and wish their dad a Happy Father's Day. (sorry for the length - they LOVED to be filmed and even asked for more filming after this so I could get video of Alyssa "swimming up" - whatever that means!)



Have a great day daddy, we love you!!

And Happy Father's Day to my dad, you're the best dad and Grandpa the kids and I could have!

First Summer Field Trip

Grandma and Grandpa took us all to a great museum in Tampa called MOSI (Museum of Science and Industry) and the kids loved it. They have a whole section called Kids in Charge! which of course, they enjoyed.

The kids did some silly stuff like:

- lying on nails:



- losing their heads, er, bodies:





- sticking to walls:





- playing with "food":



- building stuff:



- making shadows on the wall, playing tug-of-war and seeing and doing lots of other cool and fun stuff!

It took a few hours but we were finally able to drag the kids away to other parts of the museum - the 2nd favorite of the day was "Disasterville" where our family got to experience a tornado, housefire and hurricane all in one hour!!



But don't worry - we had rescue workers handy! (I think Caleb's expression is because the sheer magnitude of his job is beginning to sink in...)



Getting blown away - Alyssa wanted NO part of it...



I can't blame her - the wind inside went up to 80MPH!!



But with all these disasters the only stressful time was figuring out what small (er, cheap) trinket to pick up at the gift shop :) I'm smiling because we're done and at the checkout! We settled on mugs with the girls names on it - of course none of them said "Julianna" so we went with "Anna" - hopefully a Sharpie will fill in the rest...



At least someone was happy:





My sad attempt at getting a shot of the kids with the cool flowers - no one really wanted to cooperate.



Thanks Mom and Dad (Grandma and Grandpa) for a great day at the museum. We can't wait till we get to go again.

Happy Birthday To A Real Man

Last night we watched a new TV show called The Protector. It stars an actress I really like, Ally Walker - her old series Profiler was by far one of my all-time favorite series. The Protector was okay but honestly I am so tired of the same old character on TV.

Her character sketch goes like this (and you will find the same character on quite a number of other current TV crime-drama series):
- strong, independent woman
- doesn't need any help
- is always right
- every male character is wrong and stupid - she can run circles around them in her sleep - other detectives may have thoughts or ideas but they are always wrong - only Ally's character, Gloria is correct - about EVERYTHING
- she dumped her lame, horrible, cheating husband
- can single-handedly raise her 2 boys - no man needed
- is in perfect shape making her physically superior to men
- must rescue others (especially men) and be everyones protector (as if, somehow a woman who weighs 100 pounds will be protection against an attacker but this we are to believe)

I'm so tired of this female character. Why is it okay to teach our daughters that men are complete idiots? Why do we have to push so hard that our girls can be independent and don't need men?

I want to tell you about the man I'm married to:

He's smart - VERY smart - much smarter than I am and I respect him for it.

He's an AWESOME dad - to say that I could raise my kids without him would be a complete joke - they need him in their lives - without him they would be missing something - they would be missing a FATHER and last I checked a father is a hugely vital role in a child's life no matter what TV tells us.

He's quite competent - believe it or not my husband knows how to do a lot of things - many of which I don't know how to do, so rather than me telling him he's stupid because he's a male I'm happy to have him help or do things for me. He can even take care of all five of our children on his own and do a very fine job at it.

He works hard, very hard - he holds down a full time job plus writes for magazines plus does other side jobs so that I can stay home and be a mom to our kids. He's NOT lazy - he runs on so little sleep so that I can have more - he gives and gives so that our family has what we have - there's no way I could do half of what he does.

He's not lame, he doesn't cheat and he's not horrible - I am blessed by God to have the husband that I have. I know there are jerks out there - men who do not do what they're supposed to - but you know what? There are men who are amazing and special and I married the best. And I want all 4 of my daughters growing up looking for a man like him.

Today my husband turns 36. I want to wish him a very happy birthday and I want to thank God for bringing him into this world 36 years ago and I pray that he has many more to come.

Apparently I'm no "Protector" because I need my husband and I wouldn't feel whole without him.

So Lifetime, until you can figure out how to make real characters and not sad cookie-cutter cut-outs I'm going to avoid your show. There are good men out there that independent women can love and respect and really, I find it hard to believe that every male cop is a stupid idiot just because of his gender. The plot of the pilot wasn't that good either.

Happy 36th Birthday, Kirk! I love you and pray you have a great birthday and a wonderful next year.

I mean, come on, doesn't he make juggling triplets look easy? :)

Officially Summer

Today was the first official day of summer. The kids got out on Friday so today was their first day off. And what are we doing? We're already in Florida! We don't waste any time starting summer :)

And the kids didn't waste anytime getting into the pool. The triplets were doing well when we left Florida last year and they seem to have picked up right where they left off and then some.

I'm way behind on pictures and end of school happenings but I did want to share a video of the kids in the pool.



If you notice Alyssa is trying to get me to "climb aboard" the raft - I took another few minutes of video after this one and she was asking me STILL to climb aboard - on some things she has a one track mind :)

Title Undetermined (Camping)

Oh, I had a few other thoughts for this blog post title but I figured I'd rather not scare anyone!!

It could have been: "Bruised, Battered and Burnt" but I didn't want anyone to think we'd been killed in a car wreck or housefire :)

Or I could have gone with "Camping is NOT for wimps ergo Camping is NOT for me!" but it's only about 95% true - I did survive... barely and apparantly I'm going to be doing it again next year - yikes, I'm already nervous.

Don't get me wrong the surroundings were beautiful - we slept (though I do use the term slept loosely) right near a waterfall, we tubed down a river complete with some rapids (thus the bruised part), we were surrounded by trees and mountains.

Sounds beautiful but I didn't mention - the bathrooms were uphill and we trecked up there many, many times a day sometimes in the middle of the night often with 3 girls in tow - the bathrooms were small and hot and none of the doors worked and the girls couldn't turn on the water by themselves or use the dryer by themselves leaving me to juggle doors, water and dryer - it got old - FAST!

I didn't mention that too many people don't pay attention to the quiet curfew and while all my kids can sleep through everyone talking, yelling, driving, waving flashlights, using car blinkers repeatedly for no apparant reason - I cannot.

I don't like sleeping in sand or sticking to the mud or standing on really hot playgrounds with no place to sit while the girls play for hours.

I know, I'm a baby but this is why God gave me a house to live in. Maybe someday He'll call me to live in the middle of the brush and I will make do but right now I am feeling extremely blessed to have a roof over my head - a real one, not a plastic one.

Enough about me, the kids had a great time because unlike me they really enjoy being dirty, playing in the mud, sleeping on the ground and swimming in cold pools.

The really, very beautiful waterfall we slept nearby:



And oh how the kids loved the river - kept them occupied for hours!













My "rock" girls:







Some of our group tubing - Kirk, myself and the big kids got a chance to ride - it was too rough for the triplets - maybe next year...



My handsome guy in the river - he was gracious enough to buy us an air mattress so I didn't have to sleep directly on the ground AND was willing to come home a night early so we could all sleep in our beds - true love!!



Our "home" away from home - it says it sleeps 8 so it slept our 7 pretty "comfortably".



There will be no pictures of me. They will all be destroyed. All of them...

We survived. We are all a bit burnt, we have lots of new cuts and bruises but we are alive and soo grateful to be home and have the day off yesterday. A big thanks to the men and women who serve our country and those who have family serving our country. Our family was able to have the freedom to take the weekend off and I very much appreciate my freedom!!

Happy Birthday To My Dad!!

I want to take a moment to wish my dad a very Happy Birthday! I can't be there to celebrate with today but I will be there in a week - yep, it's time to head to Florida again and swim in the pool :) The kids are counting down the days - they can hardly wait.

Happy Birthday to my dad who is still young enough to have fun:



Crazy enough to go on field trips with my kids:



And still living well despite having had to raise me as a teenager! Dad, thanks for being an awesome dad and a fun-loving Grandpa. We love you and miss you and can't wait to see you soon!

I hope you have a wonderful day and a very blessed year :)

Is God Bigger Than Sam?

We have a lot of fun conversations now that the girls are 4 1/2 (today! Yikes!) but my favorite one generally goes like this:

Mom, is God bigger than Daddy?
Yes, He is.
Is God bigger than our house?
Yes.
Is God bigger than Sam?

Who is Sam you ask?

Sam is a horse.

But he's not just any horse. He's a VERY biiiggg horse! Sam is NOT on a platform - he is just that big.



A few weeks ago the girls had a field trip to one of their classmates houses to go riding on this sweet pony:



And the girls were very excited to do so.



Seems the whole class was :)



Alyssa rode first out of my three and she seemed like a natural!



Rachel was very excited to give it a try but she was the only one who wouldn't go twice around the circle - once was enough for her.



Julianna loved being on the horse and was happy to show me how much :)



After riding the girls got to feed the horses a carrot - notice how close this horse is to the stall gate - unlike Sam who towers over it.



Sam and the class - he's just a cool horse.



From their perspective Sam must be enormous and when they ask me if God is bigger than Sam it's like me asking is God bigger than a skyscraper (well, almost). I mean Sam is big to me, I can't imagine what he looks like them.

But the best part is that the girls are thinking about God and who He is and I get a chance to teach them that yes, God is bigger than Sam, God is bigger than all of us and yet He still loved us enough to send His Son to die for us.

Now that's just awesome!

Happy Anniversary!! 15 Years!!

It doesn't seem possible...

I'm NOT old enough...

To have been married for 15 years - but it's true. At the very young age of 19 I married my high school sweetheart - okay, he was mine, I wasn't his - he'd already graduated - I was a senior when we met - still, it's close enough :)

We've had our ups and downs but one thing is certain what God joins together He intends to stay that way but He doesn't intend for us to go it alone. On the bad days I cry out for help and God always answers. He restores the love I sometimes lack and makes me whole again. Without God's grace in our lives as husband and wife we would fail as a unit and as a family.

This song says it really well and is so relevant for us! Although we didn't get engaged at 19 and 21 we were quite young and we have now been married 15 years...



Happy 15th Anniversary to my wonderful husband, Kirk. Thanks for everything and may God grant us many more years together.