4th of July Weekend in Pictures

Well because we did so much and I have so many great photos I thought I would just tell about our weekend in pictures. It's a little different but I think it will be fun.

Driving to Memphis: Jay, Jayci, Me, & Brenda (Jay's Mom)

The Memphis Zoo: Jayci w/ Giraffe, Jayci waiting on the Sea Lions, Jay & I waiting, The Sea Lion show, Cori & Jayci with the panda bear, My fam in some exhibit.

Sparklers: Jayci, Kirsten, & Elijah watching Cori open the sparklers, Jay with his tiny sparkler, Jayci, Elijah, & Kirsten

Red, White, & Blue Photo Shoot

Swimming (both Friday & Saturday): Elijah helping Jayci down the Slip-N-Slide, Jayci surfing down, Jayci & Kirsten rinsing off before getting into the pool, Elijah jumping off the diving board, Kirsten jumping off the diving board

Saturday night & Sunday on the way Home: Jayci amazed by the fireworks, Cori & Jayci, Jayci at the hotel Saturday night, Watching a movie on the iPod, Staring out the window trying to figure out a way to avoid taking a nap a little longer.

OK I hope you enjoyed my little photo post. As you can see we did a lot and had a good time. It would have been a really really long post to try and write everything out! Hope everyone had a very safe and fun 4th of July!!! We sure did!

Summer Lovin'...

If every day could be like today I would never want Summer to end. OK well not all of today because I lost my keys this morning so I ended up running like 30 minutes late and we missed the puppet show we were supposed to be seeing. Oh well it was a fun day anyway. We still went to the library downtown (and caught the last song of the puppet show) and met up with my friend Mary and her two boys for lunch and some fun in the park. Her boys are like 7 and 9 so they are quite a bit older than Jayci but it was still fun.

After the library we went over to the park across the street in the Rivermarket to eat lunch and play. Oh also Jay surprised us by getting off work early and meeting up with us! I have to say this may be one of our weekly trips. I know it is a little far to drive for a picnic and play but it was really fun. The park has little fountains of water coming out of the ground and tunnels in the ground for the kids to play in. I forgot my camera today but did get a few pictures with my phone.



After the park we came home and rested for a bit then went out to my in-laws house to swim. Let me just say Jayci is becoming such a little fish. She can actually touch in the shallow end of the pool. This means she doesn't have to wear here floaties or life jacket if she doesn't want to. Which she LOVES! She can jump off the side and she tries to swim back to the wall. She more less hops back but we are really working on swimming. Tonight she actually swam underwater for a few seconds. I think she is still unsure about the water she doesn't like to get her feet out from under her for too long. But it is still so much fun watching her learn. She is just growing so fast. Here are a few pictures from swimming. She also loves going down the slide now.




By the way did you notice my black nail polish in the first photo? It's really a black with just a hint of red in it. I wasn't sure at first but I did my toes and then like 2 days later I did my nails in the same color. I am really LOVING it. What do you think about black nail polish? Is it too goth or just up to the person and how they wear it?

Finally all caught up

As you can see from the post below we obviously had a blast at the lake. However, our weekend was just getting started when we got back. We rested up for about and hour and then had to go to Jay's brother's, Christian, birthday party. He had a small family swimming party. I can't believe he is actually 13 now. It doesn't seem like he was only 9 when Jay and I got married. I know 4 years is not that long but it just seems like I have and continue to watch him go from this obnoxious little kid to this big obnoxious teenager! Ha. Just kidding. He is really turning into a great young man. I just can't help but love him a little. Anyway, here are some pictures from that night. Of course they are all of Jayci but never the less here they are...

This is Jayci jumping off the steps. Later in the evening she actually tried this without a life vest on. Needless to say I didn't get a picture of that because I was too busy jumping in the pool after her!


Here she is going down the slide. She would go up it and get to the top and just start crying. It was kind of funny. I had to tell her somebody was going to come push her down it if she didn't hurry up and go. She finally went. This same routine went on like 3 times. Every time she would climb up there willingly. I just don't get it?!?


Some fun with Daddy...




Then on Sunday we celebrated Jay and all the other great dad's out there with a wonderful Father's Day. I love you so much, Jay. Thank you for being a wonderful Dad to our daughter and a loving husband to me!

OK I just decided to add a few more pictures from today to this blog. Jayci and I went to magic springs with my aunt Kim and her daughters Kimmie and McKenna. And even though we got rained on (more like poured on) we had a lot of fun.

Jayci and McKenna waiting to swim because it started thundering and lightening as soon as we got there. Luckily it stopped after like 15 minutes. For a few hours anyway...


Jayci, Kim, and McKenna sliding


Kimmie and McKenna riding Diamond Mine Run. You can kind of see Jayci and I in front of them if you look really close.


Kim & Jayci riding Diamond Mine Run. Kim couldn't really use my camera so to get pics I had to be off of the ride. This is blurry but you can still see she is enjoying, more like getting used to, the ride.


Jayci, Kimmie, and McKenna riding the apples. You can see it is really raining by this time. We left as soon as they got off of this ride.


All in all we had a good day. Oh yeah forgot to mention we also rode Plummet (sp?) Summit and Jayci was really excited about riding it until it actually started moving. Then she freaked out a bit. Oh well, hopefully she will get used to them. Jay nor I have ever been afraid of roller coasters so I'm not sure how to react to a child that may have that fear. Guess we will just do what most parents do and Love her anyway!!!

OK two blog posts in one day that is just crazy. Oh well, I'm at least all caught up. Hope you enjoyed it because I probably won't post for another 6 months. Just kidding...hopefully. I really am going to try and get better.

Lake Fun

Just an FYI this is a pretty LONG post.

This week was our vacation. We had such a good time. We left town about 7:30 Sunday night and headed to Lake Norfork. We packed coloring books, crayons, & movies (on the iPod) for Jayci to be entertained on our 3-4 hour journey. We ended up arriving right about 11:00 and even though Jayci was still awake she did really good the whole trip. Toward the end she started whinning about her bottom hurting; honestly, mine hurt too.

So at the lake we joined my mom, her boyfriend Greg, Greg's daughter Allie, Greg's brother Jeff, Jeff's son Joe and his wife Nicole. Then Monday morning Greg's oldest daughter Ashley came with 3 of her friends. Needless to say we had a pretty big group.

Anyway, Sunday night was a late one because after the long drive Jayci was just excited to be there she had some energy to burn. So we went to bed late and got up bright & early Monday morning (8:00). We took the morning pretty easy and I cooked breakfast for everyone. That was definitly a new experience for me. I've never cooked for that many people. One lessoned learned: don't ask everyone how they like there eggs just scrammble them. They will either eat them or not. Either way is ok.

Around noon we loaded up and went on the boats (Jeff & Gregg's). Here we are on Greg's Boat.
Jayci liked the boat ok but she really was more concerned about swimming. She was funny the first time we anchored out and just swam in the middle of the lake. She was a little nervous but liked it a lot.



Jayci swimming with Ashley and her friends! Needless to say Jayci recieved a lot of attention this last week!!! It was really great to have so many people to play with her and actually want to! Ha

I am so glad she is getting used to her life jacket. The very first time I made her wear it, in the pool, she hated it. I was afraid that she would just fuss about it the whole time but she didn't complain one time. After stopping for a bit we went and caught up with Jeff & everyone on his boat. We found a beach to pull up on and eat lunch and swim. This was all great and fun until...

...It started Thundering & Lightening!!

Ok so it wasn't exactly right over us but it did start raining. Which when your already wet it not a big deal. Unless it's lightening. So Gregg had the idea of leaving where we were and trying to go around the storm. Yeah, so that idea didn't work! So we end up heading back to the docks and end up right in the middle of the storm. It's like raining really hard so Greg can't see very well but can't slow down because we will get pounded. Oh yes did I mention it was hailing! During all this me, Jayci, Mom, and Allie end up huddled in the floor of the boat under the dash board singing whatever song we could think of to make Jayci laugh so she wouldn't freak. We started out singing Jesus loves me and apparently that wasn't funny enough. The next songs we sung were Shes a Brick...House, Baby got Back, and Apple Bottom Jeans. Apparently in a crisis Jayci just needs a little rap to make her happy. Ha! Anyway we got back to the dock safely and just in time for the sun to peek through. It was all a little scary but a memory that will last a long time.


This is Jeff after a long day!!!

Monday evening we all just took it easy. Jay & I went to Wal-Mart, Jayci took a 3 hour nap with my mom, and everyone else just hung out.

Tuesday we woke up fairly early, ate breakfast and loaded up to go back out on the boat. Jay and I decided to cliff jump. I used to do this all the time growing up but for some reason getting older and having a child changes your prospective on doing dangerous thing. (At least for me it does.) Anyway, I jumped once and it was really scary but fun. Somebody got a picture but I don't have it yet so I will have to come back and add it.

After this Jayci decided to be brave and try out a little tubbing. She LOVED it! Of course I rode with her and we went pretty slow but we had a lot of fun. While tubbing we saw this float called a bannana split that you hook up and pull with the boat. Gregg asked the owners if we could borrow it and they let us. Jayci lasted about 5 minutes on this and was out! It was great.
Jayci & I on the tube

Jayci passed out on the bannana


We headed in soon after that to cook dinner and just hang out.

Wednesday~ half way through our week. At this point everyone is a little tired and wears out easily. We got out on the water around noon and Jayci lasted about four hours before having a complete melt down. Which for a 3 year old is really good. So Jay, Jayci, Allie, & I went back to the house for a nap. Needless to say Jayci was asleep before we even got back to the dock.

After a 3 hour nap we woke up just in time for everyone else to be back from boating. We cooked dinner, hung out some, then Jay, Jayci, Allie, & I went for a late night boat ride. It was really fun and Jayci enjoyed it a lot. She couldn't see the waves clearly so she kept yelling "waves where are you."

This is Allie...Jayci's best friend for the week. Thank you Allie for being so great with Jayci. She has even asked a few times since we have been home "Where's Allie?" I swear that is all we heard all week from her. HA!


This may have been the same night that I got some pictures of Jayci playing in the bubbles. I'm not sure...the week kind of runs together.


Thursday~ I don't think anything exciting happened. We went back out on the boat, swam, grilled dinner, ate, and went to bed

Friday~ Greg's oldest daughter, Ashley, and her friends left to go back home. Jay, my mom, Gregg, Jayci, Allie, Jeff, and I all went to this place called "The Zone" that is in Mtn. Home. We played video games and rode Go Karts. Even Jayci rode a Go-Kart. I don't have a picture of this but she LOVED it.

After some play time we went to dinner at El Chico's then back to the house to change to do one last evening of boating. I would say we got out on the boat about 6:30 and the plan was just to do a little tubing and swimming and be back on land about 9 or so... Until the guys decided they wanted to cross the Arkansas/Missouri border via boat. We found it alright! Ended up about 4 miles into Missouri. How do we know that we were in Missouri? Good question. Somebody finally thought about my phone and the Map application it has on it. So we confirmed it by the little blue dot that shows up on the screen showing you exactly where you are.

This little blue dot also became very handy on the way back to the dock. The map will also show what part is water and what part is land. By the time we headed back to the dock it was dark so we used the blue dot to guide us and make sure we were in the middle of the lake. Obviously we also used lights and such but the dot also have us a bit of extra comfort and allowed for us to get home way earlier than we probably would have without it. Isn't modern technology great?!?

OK well that was our week! We had such a great time. It was hard having to come back home. I may post again today or tomorrow on the rest of our weekend. I am really going to try to get better at posting more often. I need a way to keep up with all the silly things Jayci does or says! We'll see how that goes!?!

~ Kristen