Yay Spring!

Yes, I know, it's been a long time since my last post. Let's just say, we've been busy.

We've been in our new house since the week of Thanksgiving and are loving it! We have been working in our huge yard, learning the ins and outs of our pool, and watching the weeds grow. Its funny how different weeds look on 2 acres than in a suburban neighborhood with an HOA telling you what to do. Last week I got to use our John Deere riding mower, which was very fun. AND, Declan learned how to ride his bike without training wheels this past weekend. YAY! Now that's all he wants to do. Last week, Declan had kite day at school. It was awesome. Over 100 Kindergarteners flying kites. So fun! This weekend we had a marathon of Easter egg hunts and all got sunburned on saturday. Oooops. Next time we'll remember the sunscreen. Declan is in his fifth season of soccer and doing fantastic. Kiera is dying to play soccer too, but not until next fall.

Here are a few pictures from Easter.

Notice how Kiera is NEVER looking directly at the camera. She always has shifty eyes. Look at me, look at me!Check out Kiera's flower balloon bracelet. She waited in line for 30 min for it.
Kril, Declan, Kiera, Bryce and Andrew (D & K's 2nd cousins)Declan workin' his kite on kite day. A perfect warm and VERY windy day. He flew it like a pro.

Christmas adventures and our new house!

We have officially moved. Actually we moved just before Thanksgiving, but now we're feeling pretty settled. Things are amazing here and even though we're only 5 minutes from our old house, its a lot different. We now have 2 acres instead of .25acres and we also have a swimming pool. It will be fun when we can really use it. Kiera asks often, "when it gets warm tomorrow, can we go swimming?" Thanksgiving, we had Kril's family over to our new house and Christmas, we had my family over for a whole week. The cousins all had a lot of fun on the new playscape and our huge yard was perfect. Here are a bunch of pictures from the last month. I'll try to keep them in order.

Kiera actually smiling at the camera. A rare moment.Declan and KieraDeclan, Kiera and Addison. A very difficult photo to get. The cousins sitting by Allen's giant Christmas tree.Kiera, the eskimo, swinging in the backyard.Declan and I at his school Christmas party.
Kiera and Declan sitting on their gifts from SantaKiera examining her first Barbie toys.Cute AJ, posing with her belly out and hands in pants. Haha!Declan with his new Megatron. Now he has a bad transformer to fight the good ones. This is his bad guy face.

i'm a slacker!

I feel like a total slacker. Things have been so crazy with our family, I've been slacking on the blog front. So much has happened. But, honestly I don't feel like getting into it. On a positive note, we have a contract on our house, which was only on the market 4 days. Ha! Very awesome. We made an offer on a great house and we're waiting for a response. Blah blah blah. Here are a bunch of pictures from the few months.

On our camping trip the monarch butterflies were thick in the air. It was cool.

Breakfast while camping. Kril makes some awesome fried eggs.Way back in August, Kiera finally got her Hello Kitty birthday party. 3 years old, wow!Kristen (Kril's sister) and her husband Rob at Kiera's partyMy very runny birthday cupcakes.No those aren't my parents. They don't belong to me. Okay, yes they do. Weirdos.

summer pictures

All the pictures above are from Kristen and Rob's wedding. The kids couldn't have been cuter.

This was from this past weekend. I think the girls had fun staying at our house.

Our lake trip in Arkansas.

Not in the right order, but this is Addison's birthday cake from back in July. An above ground swimming pool cake! Who wouldn't love that?

A visit from Lisa and Addie on 4th of July weekend

All the cousins. Starting on the left Addison, Kiera, Declan, Bryce and Andrew

Declan on his last day of swim lessons.

now you know

If you want to know, you're gonna have to read. Yes, its been a couple months since my last post. I'll start with some highlights from our summer. We started out with a fabulous trip to San Francisco, which I already posted on. Declan had 2 weeks of swim lessons, then we watched fireworks on July 4th. Mentally exhausted after the accident, we went to Abilene for my niece Addie's birthday party. Then our family needed to be together for most of July. August started out with Kristen and Rob's wedding (Kril's sister). It was a wonderful time and it was so great to have all the family together. I went to Austin the following weekend to see Green Day with my very close friend, Kim (an awesome birthday for her!). That same weekend I also celebrated Kristy's birthday with her and some friends. It was great fun. Kril and I and some friends were invited to a lake cabin in Arkansas for a weekend trip. That was just what we needed. Hours and hours of floating in the water. You can't beat that kind of trip. Kril was sad because his Ray Bans sank to the bottom of the lake after jumping off the top of the boat. I was sad for him. I've never had Ray Bans. hmmmm. This weekend we had Gabby and Harlee and were VERY busy. Tomorrow is Declan's first day of school! I can't even believe it. So we bought some new school clothes for both kids, school supplies, backpacks, etc. Plus, Kiera had a birthday. 3!!!
So......we have a party to plan this weekend. Maybe things will slow down soon. Oh wait, Declan starts soccer soon and I always have soccer. Now you know why I haven't been blogging.

Kril needs the computer. I'll post pictures tomorrow!

Kim and Warren

I always try to write about something interesting or funny but not today.
Last Friday morning at 2am, Kril's oldest sister, Kim and her husband, Warren, were involved in a motorcycle accident. They weren't wearing helmets. They are both in critical condition at JPS in Fort Worth. When they arrived, they both had bleeding on the brain, and swelling of the brain. No broken bones but severe head injuries. The swelling in their brains has gone down some and the bleeding has stopped, but there hasn't been any other change in the last 48 hours and are still unconscious. We're hopeful they will wake up soon. Unfortunately with severe head injuries, there is a lot we won't know until they wake up, and we don't know when that will be.

Kim and Warren have 2 young girls, Gabby(9) and Harlee(3). Gabby is trying to be strong and Harlee is okay for now. I will include a link to a website that incudes details about their progress.
All you have to do is start a profile and you can access the site anytime.
www.caringbridge.org/visit/kimandwarrenwhitton
Please keep them in your prayers.

Wow, 10 years! Yes, it's been that long.

Yeah, so Kril and I have been married for 10 years. Can you believe it? I thought about spending time scanning wedding photos and posting those pics and saying mushy stuff about him but instead I'll chat about our vacation. Occasionally, we take a long weekend trip to Chicago and South Bend to see Notre Dame play, but we've never had a good vacation. So we figured that after 10 years, it was time. San Francisco was our 2nd choice. Europe was first, but we'll need to save up some more before that trip. Here's a short list of the stuff we did in no particular order.

1. Fisherman's Wharf- sea lions, Boudin Sourdough Bakery (YUMMY clam chowder in bread bowls), walkin' around
2. Bay Cruise to Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz
3. A day in Sausalito
4. Chinatown
5. The Academy of Sciences museum - this was very cool
6. nice dinner at The Franciscan
7. another nice dinner at Le Colonial and drinks at Bourbon and Branch
8. Sadly watching The Texas Rangers lose to The Giants - but a VERY cool stadium with fantastic food!

This is a picture of the lobby of our hotel, The Fairmont. Definitely one of the nicest I've stayed at by far.

Us at the Rangers game. It was pretty dang cold but they had awesome garlic fries. Yum!

The best view I've ever had at a ballpark. Kril picked the best seats with a view of the bay, sailboats and all.Chinatown. There was so much Hello Kitty stuff, Kiera would have gone nuts.A tree outside the museum. I've heard the trees in the Muir Woods (sp?) are much much bigger, but this one impressed me. A fabulous cafe we ate at in Sausalito. It was owned and run by Italians, so the food was excellent and the cappucino was the best I've ever had. And that's saying a lot. I'm picky about my espresso.In Sausalito with San Francisco far behind us across the water.

By the cafe.The view outside our window at night.Kril holding up Alcatraz. How in the heck is he doing that?!!??I actually got some impressive shots of the bridge as we going under it. This was one of my favorites. Its too bad it was overcast that day.Its not windy or anything.Awwwww. Look we're almost matching in our fleeces. How cute are we.Lombard Street. AKA "The Crookedest Street". See the cars winding back and forth. The stinky sea lions at Pier 39. Man, all those guys do is sleep. Lazy!