Just before Matthew’s last ATA class for now. I actually have a whole bunch of photos of Matthew doing different poses. He directed the photos to go with the page layout he has all planned out in his head. ;)
P365 – 6 months down, 6 to go! :)
Matthew was nervous before heading out for his first sax lesson, but managed to play a little air sax for us to celebrate the occasion. ;) The lesson went well, and he came back excited and eager to get going. So far he’s working on basic technique, rhythms, reading music, etc. The honk of him blowing through the neck of the sax still catches me off guard, making me wonder what that odd noise is. LOL
It was raining when I went to pick Matthew up from karate class, so I put the umbrellas out on top of the van to dry when we got home. I love the reflections in the hood. :)
I had some major allergies towards the end of our trip that somehow morphed into a wicked cold or flu or something when we got home. Being under the weather, coupled with just general exhaustion from the trip and all the stuff I had going on right before the trip, meant I spent a few days being a complete zombie and taking a lot of really long naps.
On two of those days, Kaylee took time while I was sleeping to make me these adorable get well cards, including ice cream for my sore throat. :) The stick figure is saying “I’m going to get well island.” Such a sweet, creative girl. :)
Our first movie night after our trip – “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel”. It was a cute movie with some fun songs, and during the final credit music, a spontaneous dance party erupted!
Here they are in action…
Kaylee decided to play restaurant. She made up recipes, got out some of her play food, and ran around in this getup, saying she was a waitress at The French Chicken. :)
The final stretch of a long trip. Thank goodness for the van’s DVD player.
Welcome to Texas! Yay!! We’d driven in bright sunshine the whole way home, seeing our first clouds and a few raindrops near the border.
Twenty minutes later, the temperature had dropped about 15-20 degrees, traffic had slowed by about 30 mph, and the view looked like this…
Fortunately, we made it through the storm just fine. But UN-fortunately, the cooler temperatures did not last, and we came home to a very toasty house. LOL
Headed back towards home. We started out relatively early, intending to attempt the drive in one day, but we were thwarted by an eyelash. I realized too late to be helpful that I had an eyelash growing the wrong direction, right into my eye, which made it feel like my eye was on fire. By time I got it taken care of, the damage had been done. I was not up to driving, and Mark was too tired to do it all himself. So we stopped for the night in Joplin, MO, hitting the hotel pool early enough to have it all to ourselves… for about 15 minutes anyway. LOL (That’s Mark’s head peeking out of the hot tub.)
The kids had a nice time splashing around, while Mark soaked. I opted to sit this one out and nurse my poor eye. :)
Kaylee wants to learn to bake this summer, so when Grandma decided to make a cake, Kaylee was excited to join in and help. :)
Later that evening, everyone was together again for dinner, followed by some Train dominoes…
(Kaylee made these goofy hammy faces in every shot. LOL)
And another shot of Uncle Todd and Aunt Cristina just to make my dad happy. ;)
We love this game, and have started playing at home too with the set I got for my birthday. :)
My folks took us down to Springfield to visit the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum. It was very cool. Even having grown up in the “Land of Lincoln”, there was a lot I didn’t know about Lincoln and his family. They had a fun “scavenger hunt” of info for the kids to find too, which helped keep them focused. :)
 There were very few areas in the museum where photos were allowed (there are photos of several of the exhibits here in the Highlights sections), but they did have this cute playroom with period toys and costumes for the kids. |  |
I think Kaylee was going for flying superhero here with this shawl, but she looks a bit more vampire-ish to me. LOL
Would you like some waffle with your whipped cream, Kaylee? Grandma Karyl knows just how to fix ‘em. ;)
For some reason, this is the only pic I took on Father’s Day. LOL The six of us did also join Uncle Todd and Aunt Cristina for a “Toy Story 3” matinee, and then we all came back to the house for dinner and a rousing game of “Clue”. It was a fun day! :)
Second evening at my folks’. Mark used Grandma Karyl’s handy dandy magnifying light to try to fix the hinge on his sunglasses, which had gone a bit wonky. The screw in the hinge is very, very tiny, and he didn’t have the right size screwdriver, which made it extra challenging. He managed to improve things somewhat, although the glasses are still a bit crooked.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the room…
Grandpa Jim, Kaylee, and Matthew play on the grandparent’s computers. :) Grandma Karyl and Grandpa Jim’s was the kids’ first chance to get online this trip. I think they were going through withdrawal. LOL
On the road again, on our way down to my parents’ place in west-central Illinois. This was the third in a series of these trucks that we passed. We’d noticed a few fields full of these giant wind turbines farther north, but it was a strange sight to see the huge blades being hauled down the highway. After having driven through a wicked storm earlier, with horrible cross-winds that had turned a double-trailer semi over on its side, I can’t imagine what it must be like to try to handle these suckers in conditions like that.
Kaylee sits with Grandpa Archie figuring out the ice cream orders before a run to DQ.
But this is where the kids spent the majority of their time…
Basements make me feel slightly claustrophobic, but the kids love that they can hang out down there, watch what they want on TV, and be as noisy as they want without getting into trouble. ;)
After having arrived in northern Illinois the previous evening and hanging out at Grandpa Archie’s and Grandma De’s for the day, a certain two kiddos were caught awake waaaaaaay past their bedtime. To be fair, it was an extremely warm night, so we ended up moving them (and us) to the basement where it was cooler. :)
Day 2 in Iowa. We took Great-Grandpa over to the next town to run some errands. Unfortunately, the usual back road routes were plagued with badly marked detours, so we spent a lot of more time than we planned going in circles and looking at the Iowa countryside.
And driving through fun things like this.
Fortunately, we all survived and didn’t need to take advantage of this.
(This totally cracked Mark up, and he insisted we take a picture. Blame him if you’re offended. LOL)
We all made it safe and sound (if a little late) back to Great-Grandpa’s. :)
We made it to Iowa! Mark’s grandpa shows us and Mark’s mom his vegetables. The assisted living center built the raised beds especially for Great-Grandpa so that he could do a little gardening right on site, and the other residents have dubbed him “The Garden Guy”. Very cool place.
We also stopped in to see Mark’s Great-Uncle Walt, who lives in the same building. He’s quite a character, and we had fun catching up. :)
The first leg of the trip down, Matthew relaxes in our hotel room in Kansas City. He’s waiting for Kaylee to finish spinning in the desk chair, so he can have his turn as they kill time until we’re ready to hit the pool.
With the shorter Houston trip behind us, and Kaylee now healthy enough to travel again, the majority of the bags are repacked, waiting to be loaded into the van to head out the next day.
Resetting clocks. We’re used to a flicker now and then, but with power having been off for about an hour and a half that afternoon, it was one of the longest outages we’d had in quite some time.
Spending the evening on Google Maps trying to reschedule and reroute our summer road trip after having had to postpone due to Kaylee’s illness.
Matthew puts on his pouty face after being told he’d used up his video game time for the morning. I think he’s been taking drama lessons from Kaylee though, since this was him less than two minutes later. ;)
Poor Kaylee ended up sick again with a fever, sniffles, and a sore throat. Mark got booted to the guest room so that Kaylee could bunk in with me. Her castle loft bed just doesn’t work very well for these situations.
Back on the road, on the way home. The kids check out the comment cards that came with the karaoke CD’s in their Wendy’s kid meals. The cards were cute, but I’m not quite sure rating each other fits very well with their “the family that sings together stays together” slogan. LOL
We took the opportunity of the visit to give a bunch of the kids’ old toys (including a wagon-load of Mega Bloks) to their youngest cousins. Poor Aunt Susie’s house looked like it had exploded after they got done exploring all their new stuff. Matthew and Kaylee had a great time playing with them though, even if Kaylee was slightly disconcerted by Maddie following her absolutely everywhere. LOL
Later that afternoon the kids and I got to kill some time (a lot of time) in the van between family stops, while Mark met up with a magic book dealer friend in search of some bargains. Matthew hunkered down with his DS (and a screen to block that pesky sun), and I brought out the camera to help keep Kaylee distracted.
The kids with all their cousins, ranging from 3 years old to almost 18, in Houston after the previously mentioned oldest cousin’s graduation (she’s the tallest one). Can you tell it was hot and that some of them had been previously jumping on the trampoline in the backyard? LOL
And here’s a more natural shot. ;)
The 5th grade graduation ceremony, also organized by the parents. They surprised the kids with middle school t-shirts to wear in the traditional “Stampede”. The kids marched through the halls of the school among a crowd of cheering students, teachers, and parents. They started out under a balloon arch in their elementary school colors of red and green and exited the building through the middle school colors of blue and silver.
Congratulations, Matthew!!
In preparation for their oldest cousin’s high school graduation, the kids made cards…
Gotta love Matthew’s serious take on things. It reads: “I congratulate you on graduating High School. You worked hard and now you have alot of choices ahead of you. I hope you make your future a bright one. Sincerely, Matthew”
