foot injury, parks, moving,

So I think I posted already about hurting my foot, this picture is 6 days after the injury, but I was blessed that it would heal quickly, and it did.

Joseph loves climbing trees

Gideon was happy about the squirrel he was sitting on

Caleb loves climbing on the playground equipment

Betsy loves to swing too

Boys being silly!

Caleb loves playing hide and go seek with nothing in the cupboards!

Gideon is helping to make all the beds!

Joseph loves to climb up a tree and read!

Malachi and Caleb have a lot of fun building with magnetics, this is their I love Mom tower!

Malachi loved garage sale day, he laid in the massage table and ate bacon!!

Malachi loved getting into this bucket too!  I was sorting clothes, and heard his little voice say "Could I get some help over here?"

We went to Costco after a fun day at Dave and Buster's in Kansas City, Gideon fell asleep on the was to Costco, and Travis grabbed a cushion from one of the outdoor furniture displays, and he slept through our Costco trip.  It was fun, and a lot of people thought he was adorable!

For Mother's Day, I was given breakfast in bed, with lots of little boy helpers to eat everything.  Gideon loved eating the blueberries, they were delicious, the best blueberries I've had in a long time.  

Betsy at Night of the Stars!  She did amazing this year, a 4.0 and nominated for AVID student of the year!

I love this picture of the three little boys holding hands on our hike.  They were having such a good time!

Austin and I on the Konza  Prairie Hike

Gideon won the jackpot at Dave and Busters! He did it all by himself and won 500 tickets!

Betsy and I took the little boys to the zoo, they loved it!

Malachi loved this swing so much, he would just close his eyes and throw his head back, and enjoy the swing.  He was also enjoying the sucker in his mouth.  

Gideon could hang on a long time on the monkey bars!

Rock City was a fun place to climb and play, the kids had a great time!

Malachi didn't want Austin to fall so he was pulling her away from the edge

The kids loved rock city!  Tons of huge boulders to climb on, and one of the favorites was donut hole rock!

Another picture of donut hole rock!

Caleb and Malachi are obsessed with climbing trees!

Malachi fell asleep on Caleb while watching T.V.

Joseph having to ride the saddle on his birthday at Texas Roadhouse

Betsy found a new hat!

The past two months have been very busy!  Travis was able to take 60 days leave before we leave for Hawaii, so April 13th he signed out of work.  He was able to take Samuel with him over Easter Weekend and go visit his Dad who had had his leg amputated.  We did our Easter Egg Hunt, and Easter Egg Roll after they got back.  Samuel won, but I think Gideon had the most fun, he loved throwing, I mean rolling his egg!  We shipped our van to Hawaii April 16th, and ended up buying an SUV that seats 8 people to use until we leave.  We've spent a lot of time getting our house ready to sell, and getting all of our stuff organized and trying to get all the different shipments ready.  May 1st, all of our Household Goods were shipped to Hawaii, and we camped in the house until May 24th, when they picked up the rest of our stuff, and moved to a hotel.  Travis finished painting and getting the house ready just in time for us to leave for Hawaii.  It has just been a huge amount of work to get everything ready.  Travis has been working every day except Sundays from the time he wakes up, until it's time for bed.  I have been busy taking care of the kids all day and keeping them out of the way of Travis' projects, cooking and cleaning, and getting Caleb's schoolwork done.  We did make him come with us to Dave and Buster's in Kansas City, since it was Caleb's birthday activity, that we have been waiting for Travis to get home to do.   Everyone had a lot of fun, and Gideon won a big jackpot, he was pretty excited about that!  The kids had a lot of end of school year activities, Caleb and Samuel finished soccer, and had a lot of fun.  Betsy had NJHS and AVID end of the year celebrations, as well as going to Night of the Stars and Worlds Of Fun.  Samuel had a 5th grade graduation and party, and Austin and Betsy had final concerts.  I also had my piano recital.  Our entire family gave testimony/talk in sacrament meeting the last Sunday in May.  It was nice to have everyone prepare their testimony or talk.  We were all talking about prophets and revelation.  I had challenged everyone to pray really hard every morning for 30 days to have the spirit with them, and anytime throughout the day they felt it leave, they were to pray to have it back.  It was a wonderful experience, and helped us prepare our talks as well.   It was amazing to feel the spirit so much every day, and really helped our family a lot.  Our testimonies and talks went well and the spirit was strong.  The last day of school we moved to the hotel, it was the Rodeway Inn and was the cheapest we could find to stay in for two weeks, and we found you definitely get what you pay for, the service was terrible.  We stayed there for two weeks and they cleaned 2-3 times, there were ants everywhere and we kept getting bug bites.  The breakfast was a joke, only cereal, and sometimes there was milk in the fridge, and every once in a while there would be napkins, and hardly any bowls or spoons, we kept having to ask for more.  They did have a toaster, so I ended up buying bread, and we would make toast (we had our own butter too).  The beds weren't  very comfy, but the A/C did work so that was good.  The door lock was broken, so we had to pile stuff in front of the door so Gideon wouldn't escape.  The bathrooms were pretty gross, so we used them as little as possible.  But it was better then camping, and helped the kids appreciate the next hotels we stayed at a lot more.  Travis spent those two weeks still working on the house, mostly on the back porch, restaining it.   The girls and I mostly did things to entertain the little boys, like go to parks and pools.  Samuel played with his friends or helped Travis, and Joseph (who is grounded from electronics for failing all of his classes but one) would help Travis, work, or wander around town.  The girls and I were able to get away without little boys a couple of times in the evening when Travis was done working on the house, and we enjoyed that.  Austin and Betsy got to hang out with friends a couple of times too, and Austin babysat so Travis and I could get a date night in once.  We went and saw the new Star Wars movie "Hans Solo" and ate a nice dinner at Ikes.  Travis kept sending his steak back, so they ended up giving us a gift card, which the kids and I used for lunch the next day.  We had a BBQ on Memorial Day with our friends the McMillers, and had fun with water guns and hoses, and eating good food.  When it was time to go, we almost forgot Malachi, I finally found him in their bathroom waiting for me to wipe the poop off his butt.  That child really needs to learn to wipe himself.  On one Sunday the Branch President's family had us over for dinner, and Samuel called 911 from their phone and hung up, so then the police showed up, so that was embarrassing.  Another one of our friends let us use their kitchen a few times to make dinner so we didn't have to eat out.  5 days before we left for Hawaii, we moved to a hotel in Manhattan, since the army will pay for us to stay in a hotel for those five days, we were able to stay in a nicer one.  It was so nice!  Especially compared to what we had been staying in.  The breakfast was really good, we could make our own waffles, and had some good choices.  And it had a pool!  Our other hotel was supposed to have a pool, but didn't.  Every day, we went to the pool.  We were also within walking distance of the mall and lots of good restaurants and shopping.  Unfortunately, the house still needed a few things done before we turned it over to the realtor, so the girls had to watch the kids while Travis and I went back to the house and worked on it during the day.  Also Betsy had EXCITE camp June 6-8, it was for three days in Manhattan for girls interested in Science.  She really enjoyed that, especially getting a break from all her siblings!  We finally got the house all ready to sell, and have a realtor working on selling it for us now.  Another thing I should mention is that it had been really hot these last few weeks.  We're talking upper 90s and low 100s the entire time.   We basically ended up going to parks in the morning, and pools in the afternoons.  We did a summer movie one day that the kids enjoyed, and the library.  We loved eating at Freddys which was near the hotel.  Joseph's birthday was June 9th, he got to hang out at the library most of the day, and then he bought some boxing equipment with his birthday money. Then Austin, Betsy, and I took him to Texas Roadhouse for his birthday dinner, then we went to Walmart and bought him a Reeses Peanut Butter cup ice cream cake for his birthday, and then took it back to the hotel and sang to him.  I think he had an enjoyable day!