Chicago

Macee finally got to go on her trip with mom and dad. We took her to Chicago!Wow was it fun!! First stop...American Girl!!

 She was spoiled and got to pick out a new doll!! She saved her money and also bought her doll a new pajama set to wear in the hotel with her!!

 One thing about Chicago...even in April..COLD and WET!! It rained most of the time, and was pretty cold and windy..go figure:) Macee didnt mind, even talked her dad into letting her take her doll with her out and about!!

 We finally got to taste the famous Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza!! Wow does that look amazing or what? Troy wasnt a fan, I liked it, but it doesnt stand up to New York style thin pizza to us!!!

 See how wet the streets were...we had umbrellas with us the whole time, but at least it made the lights shining on everything EXTRA pretty!!

 For breakfast our second day...yummy breakfast buffet. Macee finally got a chance to wear her cute stylish hat we bought her in England last year!!

 Lucky us got to go see Hop...ya it was pretty dumb..Macee was more interested in when the movie was over so she could go play the video games outside...kids!!

 The last day it was finally Sunny!! yeah!! But it was colder!! We got to go see the Willis Tower, formerly the Sears Tower..SCARY!!

 This is the new sky view place where you actually go on plexiglass and are out of the building looking down!!! It was intense. Made us very dizzy!!! Crazy stuff!!

 Cute Macee with Daddy in the taxi on our way to Navy Pier for the rest of the day's playing!!

 We even found a Build-A-Bear where she got to get a cute bunny with a Chicago shirt. Wow was she spoiled rotten!!!

 Navy Pier was very cool...lots of shopping, and sights and an amusment park..cute girl!!

 She was so brave and rode these swings like 3 times...she was flying high!! We also rode the ferris wheel, and played goofy golf. Loads of fun!

 So we took the Amtrack from Centralia to Chicago and back. We left late that night, and so Macee was out cold after a few minutes and slept the whole way home. It was so nice and comfortable! We loved it!! Now we cant wait to go take the rest of the kids next time!!

busy busy us

So we have been busy as usual lately. Here are some of our busy busy lives.Troy took the boys to a St Louis Blues Hockey Game. They had a great time. Here is Britton.

And Jalan..his face is dark..but he is in there:)

All three boys in front of Wayne Gretzky's statue.

Then last week Britton won 2 tickets to the Cardinals baseball game from school. He had no time outs and got a 100% on his test, so he got in a drawing and was picked to get free tickets. So he got to go on a date with mom to the game!! It was fun to spend the evening together.

My cutie pie.

This year we signed Macee up for a cheer clinic put on by the high school cheerleaders. They had a whole bunch of little girls that they taught a cheer routine that they performed at the last home JV basketball game. Macee was so cute and did a great job. Here she is in the front row looking at the cheerleader.

Not to brag, but here it looks like macee is messing up, but if you look at the cheerleader, macee is the only one doing the RIGHT move!! Good job Sis!!

The girls had a mult-stake priest and laurel prom this weekend. I took Disnee and Brooke with 2 friends Bethany and Alexis from our ward. The girls came over and got ready together and I took them in to the dance. It was so fun. Pretty Pretty Girls!!

Our Beautiful Brooke

The girls at the stake center. We stopped and picked up another friend Carli on the way...

Jalan started track this year for the Jr High. He is super fast!!!

Here he is running the 4X100m relay. He is the anchor leg. His team won by a lot. They have some fast runners from centralia!

Jalan ran so fast he almost ran out of the picture!! He also ran the 100m dash, and took 1st in his heat...not sure if he took 1st or 2nd overall. Great job Jalan!!

And last here is our beautiful Disnee. Who knew you could find a formal dress with sleeves now a days!! Luckily we found this last summer in AZ!!

2nd In State!

We are so proud of the Centralia Orphan Basketball team! They went all the way to state and ended up taking 2nd place after a double overtime game!! Our team wasnt even ranked and nobody expected us to go this far..but we ended our season with a 30-5 record. Basketball is huge here in this town...and it was quite the event having our boys go to state!! The girls really enjoyed getting out of school, and spending 3 days and 3 nights in a hotel in Peoria IL! Congratulations Orphans!! Job well done!!

Poor Disnee

So things here havent slown down a bit as usual. About 3 weeks ago or so, Disnee started not feeling very good, and had a pain in her side. After a few days of this, we ended up in the ER to check to see if it was her appendix. After lots of needles stuck in her arms, and a CT test and ultrasound, they said everything looked ok, except she has an ovarian cyst. That is probably the problem but we dont know for sure. So we went home...and had a follow up appt with a dr the next week. Pain still was there, and she missed several days of school, and cheerleading. We were getting frustrated and didnt know what to do. The GYN she went and saw said if she takes some medication it should reduce the cyst..and come back in 8 weeks to check on it. So after a few more days of pain, troy and I were so frustrated, and so was disnee. so many tears and missed classes..so on tuesday of last week, she came home early from school again. I decided something has to be done for this poor girl. I called every dr we knew...it so happened that all the dr's were out of the office this week..there were some big conventions and stuff. So now what do we do?? So, thank goodness Troy has a way to pull strings, but he contacted a surgeon he works with here in Centralia, and he was in St Louis at a conference. Troy told him what was going on and what should we do? He said he didnt think it was still the cyst or it wouldnt still be hurting after 10 days. So he said he would come back to town tonight after the conference, and do a diagnostic laproscopic surgery to find out what is going on inside this girl. So...we made Disnee fast the rest of the day, and we took her down about 7pm to the ER. It was soooo busy, they said there were 21 people ahead of us! So Troy took her to the Dr's house...he looked at her and said yes lets do this. So they admitted her to the hospital, and at 9pm she was ready for surgery. Troy was on call this day at work...but he shouldnt be the anesthesia provider for family, so he got a Dr to do it for us. So they took Disnee back and performed this surgery on her. Dr told us that he took the appendix while he was in there, but it didnt look too bad, pretty normal. He also didnt find anything else there, other than the cyst. He didnt want to mess with it, so he left it alone. So now she was in recovery. She was crying as she was waking up from anesthesia...Troy didnt like this part when it was his daughter! but so about 11 pm Troy went home and I stayed the night with her. We had a scary time at 3 am when she passed out in my arms as I was helping her to the bathroom for the first time...not fun. But she was feeling better in the morning. Troy got there and had her walking and eating and ready to go home by 10 am. So she was pretty sore for a few days, still is. She is feeling better and is back to school today. Its times like these that make you super aware of how frail our mortal bodies are. I am so grateful for priesthood blessings and I know Heavenly Father looked out for our family and our sweet Disnee throught this scary time. Thanks to all of our loved ones who offered prayers and thoughts for her as well. We hope she is on the mend and feeling back to normal in the next couple of weeks. Love you all.

Bahamas/Disney

Well finally I am able to get to post on our trip! We had an amazing trip with the boys. We flew to Orlando, and spent some days at Disney World, and went on a 4 day cruise to the bahamas. The first day we decided to hit Epcot. Here we are at the front. It was pretty cold, and so we were bundled up! By the end of the night, we left to go get hot chocolate...we were freezing!

They had a restaraunt at the Japan section, that Troy really wanted to take the boys to. It was a hibachi place, and it was so fun! The boys got a kick out of the cook and the show they put on for you. Here is the "mt fuji" onions! It was sooooo yummy!!

So the next day we took off on our Carnival Cruise. We were pretty cold on the first day, but it gradually got warmer. Our first port was Freeport Bahamas. We didnt do much there, just looked at shops and hung out on the ship. We didnt venture out on any excursions.

We did however, have a great "formal night" that night. Jalan LOVED the lobster! We got to get dressed up and eat at our dining room on the ship. We loved the fact that we ate shrimp cocktail each night, steak, lobster, scallops, you name it, with lots of yummy desserts..especially Orange Sherbet!! Love the cruise!

Here are the boys at our next port, Nassau Bahamas. It was finally nice and warm! We got to get the shorts out! haha. Such cuties! We werent impressed with nassau much...everything is WAY too expensive there...they charged some friends we met $35 each person to go look at the aquarium! So we just went and played on the public beach for a while, and soaked up some sun, shopped at the straw market and looked around. We dont think we want to go back there anymore...

Here are the boys on the ship, enjoying the deck.  We are at sea the whole last day, and eating, playing mini golf, eating, swimming, eating, watching the hairy chest contest, eating and so forth. What a life!

 So we got back to Florida early thursday morning, and so we headed to Animal Kingdom. From here the pictures are not in the right order...Friday we went to Magic Kingdom...we like Disneyland better...it was crazy..we walked right on Pirates of the Carribean and Space Mountain, but had 30-40 min waits for Small World and Peter Pan! its definitely more for the young ones there.  There were some cool shows and such we got to see though. Saturday we went to Hollywood Studios. This was probably our favorite of the Disney parks. This picture is us on the ride, Hollywood Tower of Terror!! It was a big elevator that goes in the dark and drops and such. It was pretty scary, freaking the boys out alot. Britton only wanted to go once, but we talked him into going again! Another favorite was Aerosmith's Rockin Roller Coaster. Britton DID NOT want to go on it all, but after bugging, bribing, he gave in and went...and LOVED it! we went again...it went upside down with corkscrews and loops, in the dark..but it was a blast. There were cool shows there, stunt kind of shows..and an American Idol show..where people actually audition, and then perform in groups of 3 throughout the day, and the crowd votes..and the winners go to a finale at the end of the day. The winner each day is given a golden ticket to get to the front of the line at any of the auditions. It was pretty cool! We really liked that part.

 This was the last night in Florida, we went to eat at Pei Wei..yum! our favorite...and you can tell everyone, especially MOM is tired! I am ready to go home, and not be cooped up with BOYS BOYS BOYS every second! I love them, but whew...those 3 are crazy when they get together!

 This is actually near where Uncle Thom and Aunt Sheila live. Uncle Thom took us on a little drive to the preserve and saw some gators on the day we left on the cruise. He took us down to the beach. We were sooo cold..can you tell? It was cold and windy..ugh is this Florida? Of course, as soon as we get there, its record breaking cold...and as soon as we leave its back to nice and warm sunshine..go figure. We have bad luck in the weather department. But we still had a blast!

 This is on the ship one night...ahhhh so romantic! We had a balcony on our room, so it was nice to get to go out and see the water, and sunrises and sunsets. we got to watch us dock and leave from our own room...it was great!

 This was the last night on the cruise I think...the boys were swimming, and I was FREEZING! haha..keeping warm under the towel! haha...

Britton played sooo hard the whole trip! Never stopping. One night, they were hungry, so we ordered room service(actually I should clarify that "they" ordered room service, I may have been asleep at this point)..Britton didnt even get to eat his food before falling asleep in it!

This is blurry, but at Animal Kingdom, we got to go watch a Lion King show. It was awesome! I LOVED it. They got some volunteers from the audience to go walk around and help them do some stuff, and Jalan got picked! Thats him in the orange striped shirt. He was so embarrased! It was a great show!

This is us at Magic Kingdom. Who is the lucky lady in the front? ME! Britton loves me...I am so happy! We are on his favorite ride, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad!!! YIPEEEEE....
We had a great trip, with lots of memories made with our boys. They are already planning the next cruise..they loved the cruise I guess! I am so lucky to have such wonderful guys in my life!!

Disnee

 So Saturday was Disnee's 17th Birthday!! Happy Late Birthday wishes! Things around here have been so crazy..I feel bad I didnt get this post up sooner. Our sweet D is 17...wait, arent I still 17????? Wow where does the time go? So proud of this amazing girl. We love you D!!

Here we are singing (howling) "Happy Birthday" to her!!

Brooke's Sweet 16!

Well, today is Brooke's Sweet 16!! It was a pretty fun day for her I hope...we left the hotel this morning, she went to school, and after school she went and got her driver's license!! Look Our World!!

 Since the girls had to cheer tonight at a game, we decided to celebrate Brooke's bday on Sunday...I will make her birthday dinner...Tacos and eat strawberry shortcake! Here are the 2 birthday girls tonight before leaving for their game..arent they just so adorable?? Love these girls!

Brooke...Hope you had a memorable 16th bday!! You are a great girl!! We love you sooo much. You make life so funny and never dull! Brooke has such a strong spirit and is such a great friend to everyone.
                                                                       Happy Birthday!!!