Andrew's 1st T-ball game

I love t-ball!! That's all I have to say about it. Those kids are so stinkin cute!!

SCORE!!!!!

Great weekend with an old friend

The weekend after Andrew's birthday we had an old Army friend and his son come stay with us. Adam first met Neville in basic training back in 2003. Thanks to the Army we haven't seen him much over the last 7 years. Actually I hadn't seen him since May 2003, but Adam was able to spend some time with him in 2008 while he went to a school in San Antonio, TX. It was so great to be able to catch up with Nev and to see how big his son Chase has gotten (Chase was 3 months old when we saw him last). We had a wonderful weekend and even went out to see some old tanks Fort Riley has on display on a hill...errrr......mountain.

Andrew and Chase
pretending to sleep

a train you can climb on at a playground here on Ft Riley

future conductors??

sweet Ava just hanging out in the hot weather

Chase showing off his monkey skills

Andrew's turn

Adam, Andrew and Chase taking a break at the playground

Chase and Andrew sitting on a 155mm Howitzer

going up the hill to the Atomic Cannon

all the boys (and part of Ava's head) by another "big gun"

taking a break after the long walk up

looking over Ft Riley from the top of the hill

Andrew and Nev sitting on the Atomic Cannon

Adam, Andrew and Nev on the cannon

sweet boys

me next to the cannon with Ft Riley in the background

Our little family minus Ava. We didn't think she needed to be up there :-)

Adam being Adam and laying on the Atomic Cannon

a full shot of the Atomic Cannon. This picture doesn't do it any justice. This thing was HUGE!!

Poor Ava trying to endure the heat

on our way back down. Can you tell how steep the hill was??

Happy 6th Birthday Andrew!!

Wow...I cannot believe my little man is 6 years old! Time sure has flown by. He has officially finished Kindergarten and is going to be in 1st grade this fall. That just doesn't seem right. This year Andrew's birthday fell on a Friday so I decided to take cupcakes for his class snack time. I forgot to take my camera with me to the school so I no pictures of him with his class :-( I did think to snap a picture of the cupcakes before I left the house to take them to school. That evening we had our friends Brad, Catharine and Noah come over to help celebrate. We are so lucky to have these friends here in Kansas. They were our neighbors when we lived on Fort Drum so we've known them for a while now.

peeking in the opening of the box to see Andrew's cupcakes

opening presents that night

Noah was watching and helping hand Andrew his presents to open

He really loves his books

crazy boys

showing off his new game Ladder Ball

I just love this shirt

Andrew's Scooby Doo cake

blowing out the candles

Branson, MO

On May 7 we met my parents in Branson for a little family weekend. Since it was the week before Andrew's birthday my parents brought their gifts to him and we had a mini party our first night there. Let me start off by saying my parents picked an amazing place to stay. It was a 2 bedroom suite with 2 full baths, a living room, dining area, fully stocked kitchen (not with food but with cookware, plates...etc) and a sun porch. If I remember correctly it was called the Lodge at Fall Creek. I would highly recommend staying here!

Looking from the dining area into the living room. The front door is behind Adam and behind the gold curtains is a sliding glass door leading to the sun porch.
the kitchen/dining area

one of the 2 bathrooms. They were both identical with a jacuzzi tub in each :-)

Andrew getting ready to open presents. In case you're wondering my Mom ran out of b-day bags so a few of his gifts were in Christmas bags (Andrew didn't seem to care)

Adam helping read the card

sweet Ava quietly watching her brother open gifts

Nana and Pawpaw got some major bonus points with this present. Andrew loves his scooter!

showing off how to stand on it

Andrew shared a cake with his Pawpaw since their birthdays are only a week apart.

On Saturday morning we got up and headed to Silver Dollar City. I haven't been since I was a little kid and Andrew had never been so we were all looking forward to the day. The day started out great. While waiting in line for tickets to get in we had a nice family offer to give us their visitor passes that were about to expire. This allowed us to get in for free. I am all about getting things for free! Of course we offered to buy them lunch or something to show our appreciation but they refused. We had no idea how grateful we would be for these free passes a few hours later. We walked around for a while and then Andrew rode a few rides. Everything was going great! Both kids were in a good mood and things seemed to be going well. After the rides it was lunch time so we stopped to eat before continuing our trip through the park. I was so excited to see a place that sold big pickles. You know the ones you get at ball games and such. Andrew LOVES pickles but had never seen one that big before so of course I had to get it for him at lunch. Now I feel it is time to mention just how bad Andrew's allergies have been since we moved to KS. He is on 2 different meds daily to help combat allergies. Something in MO did not like my poor boy. His allergies were kicking his tail this day and as lunch was ending we found out just how bad. As we were finishing up eating Andrew started to complain about not feeling well. Adam and I both assumed that was his way of not wanting to finish his food (he uses that excuse rather often). We both played him off and told him to finish eating when all of a sudden he went white and got sick everywhere. It was not pleasant to look at or smell :-) We tried to continue through the park because I knew it was just drainage from his allergies causing it, but he got sick 2 more times in about 45 min so we decided to leave. We got back to the suite and he took a nap. When he woke up the boy was as good as new which further proved the allergy drainage theory. Despite this is was a good weekend. We are hoping to go back again sometime soon and try the park again, especially since it's such a short drive.

watching the glass blower

on the roller coaster in the little kid section of the park. Andrew and Adam are in the 3rd car

Andrew and I waiting on our ride to start

on the teacups

taking his scooter out for a spin later that evening

The outside of our building. We are the door just above the bushes

This shows the sun rooms. We were on the 2nd floor