May Days

May started out wonderfully with a great Mother's Day.  The kids spoiled me with things they made in their classes and were just so sweet.  I truly am so blessed to be a mother to these 4 amazing children.  I am so far from perfect, and it is an exhausting job, but one I wouldn't trade for anything.

Sydney's class made placemats with pictures.  We had to send in a picture of the two of us.  This is the one we used:)

Rebecca's 1st grade class had a fun little performance for the mothers to come watch.  They had a nice breakfast for us, and the kids read some poems and filled out some questionnaires about their moms.  It was really fun to go to.  I was so proud of her.

Sydney's class also did a little performance for the moms and a breakfast.  Love my little Sydney.

Luke had a blast playing with the toys while the preschool did the "show"

Our ward had its temple day in Boston the day before Mother's Day.  It starts early enough that it is a very early morning of getting up and all the kids out the door to get up to Boston.  I told Jerry the only gift I wanted was to go stay overnight in Boston so we could spend a good amount of time in Boston and enjoy the weekend there without having to drive up early in the morning and drive back in the same day.  (It's only 2 1/2 hours, but it does make for a long day)  We found a great deal at a nice hotel and went up Friday night.  We got there late enough Friday night that we didn't do any sight seeing in the city that night.  We just went to dinner, then we went swimming at the hotel with the kids.  Probably their favorite part of the trip.  It really was so fun.  The next morning we were able to sleep in a bit and went to the temple in the morning.  The funny/sad thing is that we were the closest of anyone to the temple because we stayed there, but we were the latest.  Good thing we got the time wrong and our ward was doing the 11:30 session, not the 11, like we'd thought.  I LOVE that our ward provides babysitting so that Jerry and I can go to the temple together.  It was definitely easier to get to the temple when we lived 5 minutes away.

Boston, Mass. Temple.  

After the temple we changed and went into the city.  I'd never been into the city before, and Jerry had only been there for work, but not any site seeing.  The thing we'd heard the most about was the "Red Line Tour".  There is a literal red line drawn on the road that you can follow and it takes you to many historical sites.  We googled it and were on our way.  We parked at the Boston Commons park and walked to the start of the tour.  It was an amazing park.  I'm assuming it's Boston's equivalent of Central Park.  I'm so glad we went.  We want to go back again and finish the other half of the red line - it was a lot of walking, and the kids got very tired.  And also look into other things that we didn't get to.

Me with 3 of my 4 crazies!

Our ward had a beach party at Jennings Beach in Fairfield the week before Memorial day.  It was still a little chilly for swimming, so we didn't take suits.  That didn't stop the kids though.  We were there for only 20 minutes before they were all splashing around in the ocean.  I have to admit, I really do like living in a place where we can go to Boston one weekend, and swim in the Ocean the next.  Really, I didn't even realize we were so close to the beach.  It's only 15 minutes from us, but this was the first time we went.  The kids just LOVED it.  Luke had a blast digging and digging.

We promised the kids when we moved from Indiana that we would get new bikes when we got to CT.  Their bikes were falling apart and they had outgrown their bikes.  Almost a year later we held true to our promise.  We really love our house, but one thing that I SO miss from Indiana is the neighborhood.  It was so kid friendly, and on a very non-busy (is that a word?) street that the kids could go ride their bikes around all the time.  Now we live on a busy road and there's really nowhere the kids could ride their bike to.  It is a good thing that we have a long driveway, and the kids also go riding on the big grassy backyard.  The weather was so great in May and after being cooped up all winter we got out and played outside more.  Rebecca even taught herself to ride without training wheels.

On Memorial Day we got together with some friends at the Whiting's house for a BBQ.  It was really fun.  The kids have some great friends here, which is a blessing.

All the kids at the party.  Luke was not a happy camper:(

After the party we stopped by the mall to do some window shopping.  The girls love going into Claire's to try on all the accessories.

LONG ago we bought some airline tickets to fly from Indiana to UT (Well, it was to Denver, and then the plan was to drive up to UT from Denver) because they were on a KILLER good deal.  Like $630 for the whole family to fly.  Well, as the original trip got closer we started making the arrangements with renting a car, etc, and because of the weekend it was super expensive for us to rend a van.  It was actually cheaper to just drive to UT than to fly it because of the rental.  We called the airline and they said cancelling was no problem, and we could use the vouchers to fly another time.  Great, done deal.  Unfortunately they didn't tell us we'd have to pay a rebooking fee, whatever.  Long story, short we had some flight vouchers that had to be used before July, but we wanted to find the cheapest flight possible to be able to reduce the booking fee.  We found a good flight to Michigan at the end of May which was perfect since Jerry's brother, Brian lives there.  So I guess this is a really long way of saying we went on vacation to Michigan at the end of May. :)

While we were there we went to Frankenmuth, MI which is only a little over an hour from them.  It is an awesome Bavarian town.  Super fun.  They have the largest Christmas store in the country there.  We spent forever just looking at everything there.
We loved having lots of family time while we were there.  We watched lots of movies, and it is so nice having built in babysitters because Jerry and I were able to go out with Brian and Jennifer a few times without the kids.
We also went miniature golfing with everyone.  the kids loved it.  And also to Chuck E. Cheese.  We went into Detroit to see Brian at work at GM.  We also had to stop by the Hardcore Pawn pawn shop,  It is a reality pawn shop show that we like to watch.  It was cool being there and even got to get a picture with Seth.  We saw Les (The owner) but he was in the back and didn't come out front.  Super fun trip!

At the GM Headquarters in Detroit looking over to Canada.

On our way home from the airport we had to drive through New York.  It was early enough that we decided to stop for a bit and have some fun in NY for a bit.  We went to Rockefeller Center and the Lego store.  While we were in the NBC store I saw signs that there would be a book signing with Allyson Sweeney from Days of our Lives and Biggest Loser.  Yes, Days is my guilty pleasure.  It is a ridiculous show, but I do watch it.  (Gasp!)  And I do love Biggest Loser.  She was going to be there in just a few minutes so I decided to stick around and wait in line to see her while Jerry took the kids to the Lego store.  I don't even remember what I said to her, but she was super nice and very friendly (As I'm sure they were paying her to be...)  :)  The main thing I was thinking about was how absolutely horrible I looked after a day of travel and walking around in NY on a humid day.  I'm sure my breath was just peachy too.  It was still a very cool experience to meet her and a fun way to wrap up our vacation.