long overdue!!

Every time I come to my blog, I see the same picture that's been there for almost three months! I'm sorry. It seems as though my blog updating has become like my journal updating. The only time things get written down are when life is slow or I'm struggling with one thing or another. Lucky for anyone reading this, its neither. I'm just getting tired of looking at the picture that pops up.
Our lives have been busy, busy, busy since my last update. We ran our half marathon April 17th and the week after, Tyson and I left for Hawaii for six days! There isn't a day that goes by that I don't want to move there and stay there f.o.r.e.v.e.r! I have a picture on my desktop of Tyson and I with the ocean behind us and both of us will look at it and daydream for a minute.
On Waikiki Beach at sunset.
At the Dole Plantation.
One of the sharks above the water from our shark dive. Yes, we dove with sharks.
The view from Marriott Vacation Club International in Honolulu. It was a paradise all itself! We could have stayed here the entire time and I wouldn't have complained one minute.
This is the picture on my computer when you start it up! You can see why we both want to go back! This was at the Ritz Carlton in Maui.

After our trip, we cam home and Tyler finished her first soccer season. She did really well. Her coach was great and was so patient dealing with a bunch of five and six year olds!


Oddly enough, even though her soccer games went through May, every single game was freezing and windy or rainy! That's why they are wearing coats as they are playing. Yes, this is the weather that Tyson and I walked off the airplane from Hawaii into. That was not a pleasant welcome back to reality!!

After Tyler's soccer, we celebrated her 7th birthday. I can't believe she's 7 already! She's getting quit the friend base and every time we go to the gym, she's introducing one friend or another from school to me. We didn't do a birthday party for her this year, because she had one last year, and I don't want to set a standard to expect a party every year. But I'd say she had a pretty good birthday despite the lack of a party. This year, the hot toy is Zuhzuh pets. Well, she got two of them for her birthday. I guess Charlie felt threatened by these little toys rolling around on the floor at his level. One day after coming home from the gym, I saw one of these pets clothing accessories on the floor and in my head thought, gee, that's too bad Tyler left her toy laying around and Charlie got to it. Later, as I was putting Jefferson down for a nap, I noticed two black plastic things and a pink thing. I knew exactly what had happened. Charlie got the the zhuzhu pet. This was not even 48 hours after Tyler's birthday, so these were her prized toys still. I remembered from the morning, Tyler put her zhuzhu pets in a basket in her room so they could take a nap while she was gone to school. Charlie has never been one to eat the kids toys unless they leave them outside. That morning, he skipped over all the other toys on the floor, and there were many, and went into her room and got that pet and tore its face apart! I couldn't help but get her another one. I know it doesn't set the best precedent, but it was a birthday present.


After Tyler's birthday, school got out. As I mentioned earlier, it was the coldest May ever, so it didn't seem like the final weeks of school. Both kids graduated on to the next grade with flying colors. Tanner now has three years of public education under his belt without a single absence.
Jake also graduated from his pre-school. He was pretty excited about that. It was a windy day, but fun none the less. They even gave him a birthday treat because his birthday is during the summer.

After a week or two into summer. I was beginning to notice a bit of a problem. Jefferson enjoys being outside. So do the older kids. However, the older kids didn't like playing in the back yard because of one reason or another. However, I can't continue on inside with my stuff if I let everyone go out front, because Jefferson doesn't know the difference between the sidewalk and the street. And the other kids can't be in charge of keeping him out of the street. So, I was finally able to talk Tyson into getting a trampoline. It's worked like I charm!! We've even had a night when the kids slept out on it. Not without the sprinklers turning on first though. :)
Then came Tyson's birthday and father's day. Both days, sad for Tyson, passed without a huge deal. But he's another year older and wiser too...well, the wiser part is debatable. He had his usual German Chocolate cake and was good to go. Unfortunately, we weren't able to take it up to his work like we've done in the past.

After Tyson's big days, came Jake's birthday. Toy Story 3 came out the day before his birthday so we decided since he hasn't had a birthday party, that we would invite three friends and take them all to the movie. He had a great time. He was a little confused as to why he's not five now. We celebrated his birthday on his birth date and his party was on a different day, so I can see where there would be confusion.



Jefferson celebrated his 2nd birthday a week and a half after that. I can't believe it took us four kids to realize that a two year old doesn't need hundreds of dollars spent on their birthday! He got a baseball tee and bat, a push car and bubbles and couldn't have been happier! Plus he got a great display of fireworks to celebrate his birthday...well, actually it was on the 3rd that we got the fireworks, but the whole weekend was a celebration. I can't believe he's two!! Those two years have flown by!



Which brings us to the present. Life is crazy, and we don't have a spare minute for anything, but we somehow seem to fit it all in. I left out some things, Tyler's dance recital, the ten things we crammed into the 4th of July weekend, the RAGNAR race I ran. Count your blessings I didn't do a minute by minute detail of our lives. You just got the major highlights.