SEASON'S PASS!

So this is a rare "Brent" post so I hope you enjoy. Abigail, Colin, and I are very excited this summer because Aunt Mary got us all season's passes to Busch Gardens/Water Country. We only live about 15 minutes from both so its a great thing to do on weekends, or even for a date night! We had a great time even though we rode ZERO roller coasters. Yes, it is a sad fact, but when you have a 2 year old with you its reality. It's okay cause we went to my favorite spot to eat, DA FESTHAUS (I took liberations with the spelling!) The chicken dinner with German potato salad is amazing.... I get it every time.

Anyways, Colin had a great time too. His favorite part was riding the train. We rode the train...once, twice, three times... okay four! He loved to hear the train noises, steer the pretend wheel, and pump his fist in the air. His other favorite part was running around the small water park they had in his diaper. For some reason he's into squeeling right now, so here I am following after my son as he turns a corner, racing by moms squeeling at the top of his lungs. Little to say there was much laughter from oncoming parents.


So we want to give a big thanks to Mary as we will be enjoying Busch Gardens many more times this summer.... and of course riding the train. The day ended with us riding the shuttle back to our car. It was about 3:30 and it was mostly older people and families with kids. The conductor in the back says on his microphone, "did everyone have a great time today?" There is mostly silence, then he says a second later, "everyone must be tired and ready to be home." I'm sitting there thinking, yes thats a true statement. A sure sign i'm getting old!

Here is my FAVORITE picture of the day. We were sitting on the benches waiting for the train, when all of the sudden it comes around the corner. As you can see Abigail is much more excited than Colin to see the train! She was fixing her hair and it all became one big motion!

Little Gymnast

Yesterday Colin and I had our last gymnastics class. We both had a lot of fun going each week. Colin started to really love it and was very good at almost everything. His favorite is the balance beam (he loves to do the flamingo pose and also somersaults on it) but he LOVED it when they brought out the tunnels for them to play in. It was a lot of fun and here are a few pictures of Colin doing some of the stunts he learned.

proud moment

This morning Colin PEED ON THE POTTY! (can you tell I'm very excited about it) We haven't made too much of an issue of potty training as we are looking to move sometime this summer. But we did buy a potty chair and Colin has maybe sat on it about 10 times in the past few weeks for a second or so. I wasn't pushing it but he went this morning. He is so proud of himself. Its really cute. I gave him a piece of chocolate and told him if he poops he gets two pieces. So he ran back to the potty chair and tried to poop. This might be easier than I thought. But he hasn't wanted to go since. So we will see. But I'm very proud of him. Colin and Brent love to watch Emeril each night.

beach bum

busy week

Colin and I have had a busy week. On Sunday we went to va beach to look at homes (we did put an offer on one but didn't get the house) and then we went to a cookout for James and Angela as they are leaving for CA in a few weeks. Colin LOVED AJ's pool (as he calls it). He wasn't sure at first but then once the dogs went swimming in the pool he thought it wasn't so bad. As you can see he really loved it. We're going to have to check out our neighborhood pool now that its open full time.

Then on Tuesday Colin and I went with my grandma up to the farm. We got back last night. Colin is an outdoors kid and loved being outside. (which is why we need a decent yard for him to play around in). He picked raspberries and ate all of them so we couldn't bring any home. But we cut grass and worked in the garden. Colin also brought his lawnmower and cut grass along side of us. He started calling my grandma ooo-eeee (which i think we will encourage - haha its really cute - its a combination of Howard and Ethel but now its just for grandma) He loved playing with the trucks that used to be uncle jeff's and even got to see some trucks in person as our distant cousins are building a house on their farm down the road. Very exciting for Colin. Sarah came up for dinner one night so we had ooo-eee and ah ah (thats for aunt Sarah) just need a ting tang and a walla walla bing bang. haha! We love the farm and are going back for our long fourth of July weekend.

buying a house the second time....

The first time we bought a house we looked at it and fell in love with the house right away. We didn't really pay attention to the neighborhood or anything like that. And our house was nice... the neighborhood while safe needed some tlc. And also not one I could take colin for walks on as the streets were very narrow. This time around we are putting a lot more things into consideration. Which I guess is good but means that we still don't have a house. Brent and I have looked at I think 50 homes now in person and hundreds more online. Thank goodness for google maps because I can see the neighborhoods online and map out if we can go on bike rides or walks through the neighborhood - things like that. Colin makes things a little more difficult because we want a safe neighborhood for him to play in and also good schools in case where're still here in 3 years. It seems we can either get the house we really want with no yard or no privacy (you look into 6 other homes) or a nice yard but a smaller house than we want. We have passed up on two really nice homes. The first we almost put an offer and went back and walked the neighborhood but just didn't feel that was the house for us. The second house we put in a full price offer and asked them to pay half the closing costs and they didn't accept our offer and we didn't want to counter offer or want to accept their counter offer. The house was amazing but the yard tiny tiny. Both times the Lord has kept us from buying these homes and we dont regret it. We're just very tired of thinking about it and looking at homes. We know the Lord didn't make our house take a year to sell for us to get a house we're not in love with down here but we're getting tired of waiting. So hopefully we will find our house soon. I'm sure we're the pickiest buyers our agent is working with but he's very patient and is always ready to take us out.

A few days ago Colin and I were at the playground and he sat on the steps and wanted me to run through the playground and then go down the slide. I guess Momma makes a funny picture trying to slide down a slide meant for little kids. But I told him we had to go home in a few minutes and he told me "one more" while holding up 1 finger. I think I tell him that a lot because now he tells me "one more" if we are at the playground so he can go down the slide again, or "one more" cookie (his favorite), "one more" if he is throwing rocks in the river, "one more" drink or he uses it pretty much for everything. and he's so cute doing it I usually give in (except for the cookie part) and let him tell me one more a few times until we're done. I have to say "last one" now so he knows we're going home or doing something different. So anyways I said Ok and went down the slide one more time. Well, as I'm halfway down the slide I see him take off running in the opposite direction looking back at me and laughing all the way! And he's fast. He had it planned the whole time. I guess he figured it gave him a few more minutes at the playground. I caught up with him and he was still laughing at his "trick" the whole walk home.

Today we went on a walk to find trucks. Colin LOVES his trucks and gets so excited when he sees one in real life that we follow the garbage truck around every Thursday. We have to wait for him to come around and then we follow it around the block. But they are paving a road a few streets over and we have been going to check on the progress almost every day. Whatever they are doing it seems to take at least 20 trucks and at least 8 or 9 different types. We watched them for an hour today until Momma got hot :) Colin could've watched them all day. But there were some trucks parked on the side and Colin started yelling "man"... "Man"... "MAN!!!!" (louder each time) and tried to get the attention of the construction workers (which he calls man) and then very expressively pointed the the unused trucks. Most of the workers just waved back - not knowing what he was trying to get them to do. Which made Colin just try harder. It was really funny - a little embarrassing for me and frustrating for Colin since they didn't listen but toward the end one of the trucks were used so Colin was happy.