Swine and Cheese? Yes, please.

Holy Smokes!!! What a great weekend here. Shawn was in the second annual Holy Spirit Smoke Off this weekend and they were SMOKIN'!! (By the way, their team name is "Swine and Cheese") It all began on Friday afternoon as the guys started their setup - which is quite the complicated process, but throw in a few beers and I'm pretty sure they had some good times. This year the guys placed FIRST in the ribs competition, second in brisket, and SECOND OVERALL!! There were 22 teams this year and we only missed first by 3 points...grrrr...motivation for next year. The kids had a blast. They had full roam of the parking lot and playground with all their friends and as Austin put it last night on our walk home, "Mom, can we do this every weekend??" Unfortunately I would have to say no to that one, as we are still recovering from all the craziness. It's a lot of work, but totally fun (once a year). And the meat...oh man, the meat is amazing. I will never ever be a vegetarian. And those that are, have definitely not had some of those award winning ribs. yum yum yum. Here's the team with their new banner to hang....such studs.
And here's the team with all the kids...I guess the wives are somewhere doing all the work........

Can't wait til next year guys!! Great times had by all, and obviously, lots of good eats.

Happy Father's Day!!!

Early to Bed.

It is go go go here. Summer is so much fun, but man, I am exhausted! And so are the kids. They are ready for bed almost immediately after dinner these days. Last week was Bible School which the kids loved and came home singing almost every day. This week is swim lessons. Again, the kids are loving it - and they are all improving a ton. I know not all kids love the pool, some people just don't care to be in the water, which is totally fine - to each his own. But, as a mother of 4 young kiddos you must learn to survive in the water. My goal is that they can all hold their breath under water for at least a couple seconds. Austin is all over the place so he is no problem. Ashlyn is finally putting her head under water a bit and of course Gab has no problem going under. So, 3 out of 4 isn't too bad. We've had a great time at lessons, picnic lunches with friends at the pool - and then more swimming. We are all ready for some relaxing by the time we get out of the sun. Lucas had a pretty rough week last week - with no help from me...he was so so fussy and wheezy. I thought it was just his allergies and asthma, but as 6 days passed by I finally couldn't handle the fussiness and took him to the asthma doc. Turns out he had a bad ear infection - huh?? It was his first one (or first one we knew of) and he was sleeping fine at night so I never thought it would be the ear, but of course it was. Now we are finishing up the antibiotics and doing much better. He is back to all smiles again finally!! Had a fun birthday party for mom tonight too. So glad we live close for celebrations like that. I can't imagine missing that stuff. Or any of it - I love love love that we chose to live here, we are so blessed by our wonderful family. And now I am feeling blessed to have a couch to sprawl out on so I must sign off now.
Enjoy the sunshine!!

Where did May go??

Wow, you hit a deer and the month just flies by! I didn't blog for a whole month! Yikes! I have had more than one person ask me if I had stopped blogging and if everything was ok since I hadn't posted in so long. May was just a crazy month. The kids had their end of the year parties and we started summer off with a bang! We went to a rodeo, courtesy of my moms work, which was awesome. The kids had a blast and didn't go to bed til 11. Then we went to a hot air balloon lift off which was really cool and again late to bed. We had a bunch of friends over for dinner and smores since Shawn built a fire pit in the backyard - again late to bed...do you see a pattern?? We went to a T-Bones game with some friends (need I say late to bed?). We went on a huge camping adventure - I like to call it Camp Chaos - with 30 of our closest friends. SO fun. We love to camp and the kids think it's about the coolest thing in the world. Spent a whole day at the beach while camping which is always the kids favorite. And it's now gotten to where Shawn and I can enjoy some time together while the kids play and we don't have to chase anyone (of course, this is only because we left Lucas with my parents and Shawn's parents). We have really been enjoying the lazy mornings of staying in pjs and sleeping in. Yes, I said sleeping in. The kids have decided sleep isn't so bad this summer and have gotten a bit lazy which I have thoroughly enjoyed. We started Bible School today - Austin and Ashlyn both get to go and they loved it. Then next week starts 2 weeks of swim lessons -yay! So, there is a reason I haven't blogged - I'm exhausted by the end of the night and don't even have the energy to type! I absolutely love summer - the weather has been great, my garden is starting to grow, my herbs are going crazy - yipee! I also starting doing the CSA program at Hen House which is where you pick up fresh food from local farmers once a week. It's awesome. You never know what you are getting, but you get some great food and it makes you try new things which I enjoy. The kids love it. They think it is so cool to get our "farmer food". Of course, they thought we were going to get food from Papa Turner, I had to explain it was from all different farmers - too cute. On a similar note - Shawn recently built us a compost in our yard and I love it. It's amazing how much stuff can go in there that you would normally throw away. The kids take a bowl of stuff out from the kitchen everyday. And shawn puts in grass about once a week. Very cool.


Here's Shawn and Austin chillin' at the T-Bones game, we had lawn tickets so the kids could run around (T-Bones are a baseball team here)And here's Ash and her girlfriend, Lucy at the balloon lift-off.

This was the last day of school after the pre-school parties. I had new sunglasses and cinnamon rolls out for the kids when they got home. Go Summer!! The kids were sooo excited.
And that's what we've been up to so far this summer. It's been crazy, but crazy is good around here. We are looking forward to at least 2 more camping trips we have planned for the summer, 2 weddings, a weekend in Manhattan, The Holy Spirit Smoke-off, Jazz Festival, lots of trips to the pool and parks and many, many popsicles!