Our Summer Adventure 2013

First, HAPPY BIRTHDAY D.J.!!!

Okay, now before summer is too far gone to tell the tale, this summer was a crazy hectic roller coaster that went by way too quickly.  Here is a recap of some of our favorite adventures. 

First, we bought a new house at the end of May, and then went out of town for annual training for most of June, so we moved a load here and a load there until we were able to get everything moved to the new house.

 

Jillian and DJ spent June and Fourth of July with their mom travelling all over and enjoying their vacation.  David and Mason spent most of June at their dad’s place in San Antonio, Texas, hanging out with him and playing basketball in the driveway.   

 

 

 ROAD TRIP!!!

My friend, Alisha, came for a visit and to help us move (although she did not know about that last part until her tickets were purchased) at the beginning of June so she went along for the ride to meet the boys’ father in Texarkana the first weekend in June.  That is when we solved all the world’s problems that were worth solving, to include changing all the state capitals to coincide with the state’s names (for example, Nevada City, Nevada or Missouri City, Missouri).  We figured this would make things a little simpler for immigrants and third graders (and anyone else who cannot remember what they learned in third grade.  The one exception to this rule would be Arkansas, because once we arrived in Arkadelphia, Arkansas there was no escaping the fact that it needed to be the Arkansas state capital.  I am not sure if we were slap happy from lack of sleep or from standstill traffic through Little Rock, but this all seemed like a fantabulous plan at the time. 

The water tower says, "Akadelphia, A Great Place to Call Home"

(Sounds like a great state capital to me...)         

After dropping the boys off and then finding a hotel room in Arkadelphia (of course), we woke up to hotel waffles (the best!) and then detoured on our way home to visit Graceland. 

 

 

While we were there we signed the sidewalk outside of Graceland,

 

took some pictures,

 

 

and did some souvenir shopping before stopping for lunch and finishing out trek back to Millersville, MO. 

 

The rest of the month went by extremely fast between moving, annual training, and mobilization assistance in New Jersey.  There was a restaurant next to our hotel that was absolutely delicious called Three Brothers (Best Pizza EVER!). 

While I was in NJ with Agnes and Brother Jeremy, we had an opportunity to make our way to Philadelphia (not to be confused with Arkadelphia),

and tour the Masonic Temple...

We also had the opportunity to take the train into New York City our last day before heading home, where we took the boat tour around the Statue of Liberty, visited the 9-11 Memorial, enjoyed lunch, and did some people watching. 

 

 

 

At the end of June our 2010 Ford Flex was wrecked when an accident crashed into us while we were at a stop sign, 

so we began the ever-tedious task of finding another vehicle unexpectedly.  During this adventure we also went to pick Mason and David up from Texarkana, head to the cabin with the family for the Fourth of July, pick up Jillian and DJ for the rest of the summer, and help DJ look up and identify every bug, insect, spider, frog, and lizard he could catch and examine in our new yard. 

Thank goodness we have not found any snakes in our yard yet...

In August we took a mini vacation to St. Louis our only free weekend before school started.  We took all the kids downtown,

 

up into the Arch,

out for Ted Drewes Frozen Custard,

and then stayed the night at a hotel with an indoor pool for the kids to swim and play and swim some more.  Then we spent all day Sunday at the zoo...

 

 

before heading back home to get ready for the work week (and collapse).













School started WAY too soon this year, and before we knew it David and Mason were back in school and Jillian and DJ were on their way back to Arkansas to get ready to head back to classes as well. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a grand adventure…

 

 

 

 

-Mom-