Kids' Trip with Papa and Nana...update

When the kids were going with Papa and Nana to go see Aunt Jackie, I decided to buy Kylee a little digital camera for her to take. It was, I admit, a selfish move because....well, I wanted pictures of their trip! When they got back, I was so excited to get them uploaded so I could see Aunt Jackie and her husband, Joey, and maybe even Freedom and Zen. I wanted to see pictures of the kids with Papa and Nana, and they're exciting adventures at the aquarium and state fair. Well, I got PART of my wish. This is what I got:

This is her view of her state fair trip:
The dogs

A girl we don't even know riding a bull

And lots and LOTS of fish at the aquarium (these are two of, literally, about 100)



She did get some good pictures of Blaine. For example:

And even one of Blaine and Papa

And I'll admit, she even got some good ones of the landscape


and even one of herself.


I was only disappointed because I really wanted to see people. We don't get to see Aunt Jackie and Uncle Joey much, and this was really their first trip with Papa and Nana. I don't want at all to negate what she took in her 144 pictures of their trip. She took some good pictures. I just wanted to see the PEOPLE.

To my relief, Nana sent me some pictures today.






I ended up getting more than I could have asked for, the best of BOTH worlds, if you will. I got to see Jackie and Joey and the kids with their grandparents, AND I got to see the trip through my creative, inventive, exciting, and precious 10 year old's eyes.

Oh hail!

It was a beautiful, sun-shiny day downtown all day. As I'm going to leave, a co-worker stops me and tells me that his wife is driving on Joe Battle (right by my house) and golf-ball size hail broke her windsheild. You can see NOTHING from downtown. It's beautiful!
Not believing him, I call Mom. She answers the phone, "Is it crazy where you are?" I said, "No, but I heard." She proceeds to tell me how crazy it is, looks like it's snowed all over the east side of town. The hail broke their skylight. Dan's truck is all beat up, etc., etc.
I head hom, beautiful ALL the way until about 3 miles from the house. Then it looks like a tornado has hit. There's trees all over the road, leaves, debri. The stoplights have no power. Windows are broken in most homes. People are all out in their yards picking up stuff.
Oh, hail, what a day!

The dents in Joey's truck that was sitting in the front of the house

The hail is stacked up around everything

Don't worry! They have shelter

Look at the size of that stuff!

It is EVERYWHERE!

Even still on the roof!

Don't ya!!

This morning Blaine was dancing around the house singing (thanks to Alvin and the Chipmunks), "Don't you wish your boyfriend was hot like Daddy!" Then he started, "Don't you wish your GIRLfriend was hot like....." (Mommy, right? Isn't that what you are expecting? I was!) "....Abby!" UGH! Of course! BTW, Abby is his favorite girl from AWANA.

Oh, and Kylee comes home yesterday to tell me that her teacher wants me to make HIM a shirt like hers for her campaign. I said, "Kylee, does he want it PINK?" She said, "I guess!" I told him to go ask him today. If he does, we'll make it. Stay tuned for the answer and, of course, pictures. Mr. Garcia in hot pink and zebra should be hysterical!

Kylee 4 President!

We had an unexected kids-free weekend this weekend. The kids took a trip with Papa and Nana to Albuquerque to the State Fair. They got checked out of school early Friday, stayed in a hotel with an indoor swimming pool, went swimming, to the aquarium, AND the State Fair. Aunt Jackie met them, too, so they got to spend time with her. They were so excited when they came home with State Fair t-shirts, Blaine's blow-up SpiderMan, and Kylee's cuddly sea lion pup.

While they were gone, Joey and I went to his 20-year class reunion, slept until noon, and did NOT cook!

I did, however, work on Kylee's campaign for president. She is running for student council president. She had all these GREAT ideas, which you will see below. I told her I would give her $20, and Dad Dad told her he would also give her $20. So...Thursday night we're off to the stores to do some shopping.

Our original idea was to do, "A Vote for Kylee will keep you smiley." We were going to do yellow smiley faces for everything. Kylee, my trusting daughter, went to school and told all her friends what we were doing. The other little girl running for president decided to copy her with a slogan of, "I'll keep you smiley, not Kylee." So, of course we changed stradegies.

We started at Sam's because Kylee had decided she needed to bribe her classmates for votes. She wanted to get candy to put with her flyers for the bribes. She was very aware of how much money she had, and it's the first time I've seen my daughter compare prices. Priceless. She decided on Dum Dum lollipops, and we headed to Michael's.

She found some zebra ribbon as right away that she LOVED! Her campaign instantly became, Go Wild! Vote for Kylee! Then she decided pink and zebra were her colors.



She wanted to print some flyers, so we headed to Office Depot to find some pink paper. As soon as we walked in the door, she found heart-shaped sticky notes that were to become the lollipop notes. That is what I spent MY Saturday on, 200 hundred of these babies.

Oh, and she also wanted a shirt, which I also spent part of my weekend on.



She also found what we thought was pink paper to print her flyers on. On Sunday when she got home from her weekend with Papa and Nana and opened the paper, only the COVER was pink, not the paper. We had already made poster boards, sucker notes, AND the t-shirt, and I was NOT headed back to the store, so I told her she just had to make it work. Of course with my creative little computer-whiz, she did.


She stayed within her budget and worked really hard on this whole idea. She took all her stuff to school today, and the election is Wednesday.

GO WILD 4 KYLEE! KYLEE FOR PRESIDENT!

Labor Day Weekend

We had a very busy and fun-filled Labor Day weekend.

Saturday morning Kylee had a dance performance to open the new studio. She looked so pretty and sssoo grown up!
They did a great job, seeing as how they had JUST learned the routine. One of them they forgot almost completely, and I'm NOT allowed to post that one. Here's the one I AM allowed to post.



Blaine also had a t-ball game. They lost again, but he looked good playing!
(Notice the tongue...hehe)



After the t-ball game, we headed to Ruidoso to meet Pops and Dawn and company. It was cold and beautiful. The deck at the house had these great gas heaters so we could sit outside in the cool air and play spades.

While we were playing, Kylee sat and drew pictures of everybody. A year or so ago, Dawn bought a table with a white board tabletop that the kids like to draw on. Uncle Ryan taught the kids how to draw butts. (OF COURSE he did!) Anyway, Ryan drew a picture of her that she, evidentally didn't like. So when he gave her the notebook back, she had drawn a picture of the butt with legs he taught her how to draw with an arrow pointing to it that said Ryan. haha! I'll have to take a picture of it and get it on here.

Sunday morning was just kind of a lazy morning.
Randa had had a blind date Thursday night that went well, and he was texting her. Daddy said, give me that phone, and he called him! He invited him to come up. And HE DID! BRAVE boy! Bless his heart! Nobody called him Jeremy (his name). It went from Lawrence to Lumpy to Loopey to Lupe. He was a really good sport about it, though. He even went by himself to the casino with the boys before he even got to SEE Randa.

That afternoon Pops took the kids to go play golf with him, and the big kids went to the horse races.
There was a horse that we, of course, LOVED.
We bet 150 on her, but she didn't win.

We all had a great time As we went to leave, the truck was LITERALLY as far away as you can possibly park and still be on the racetrack's grounds. So we decided to pay a guy who had valeted his truck to take us up there. So we jumped in the back of his truck.
It ended up being faster to walk, so we jumped out.

Randa saw a guy with a taco hat and decided to go ask him where he got it because it "rocked" and she wanted one. Although we all laughed, Dawn did NOT think it was funny and was determined to keep it from happening again!

After the races, we headed back to the house. Kylee and I went to the grocery store to get dinner and breakfast stuff. As we left the store, the TrailBlazer wouldn't start! Randa had to come get us, and we left it at the grocery store, since the guys were at the casino. When they got back, everybody decided to go dancing, so the car stayed there all night.
Then next morning, we got up, had breakfast, and just kind of hung out. A big storm rolled in that was so nice we decided to have a little nap.
Well, at least one of us did. The kids were watching for deer.
Everybody left but us and Pops and Dawn, so we did a little shopping, went to lunch and headed home.