vaca-trip

I don't usually think of our vacations as relaxing but I don't think of our trips as to hectic. So I classified our last one as both. A vaca-trip. Here are a few pictures. I will write more about it later. Enjoy!

pictures from vaca-trip

So we are heading into "bear country" and the kids are scared. We are driving and they are searching every where to see if they can spot a bear. So after about 30-40 minutes of trying to calm their fears, I finally say "the chances of us seeing a bear is very small." In other words, we won't see a bear. We drive all through yellowstone and see about 5 buffalo, a few deer and some pretty birds. woo-hoo. We head out of yellowstone and hit tons of cars on the side of the road we think more buffalo. To our surprise, there were 3 bears! So we got out and got a closer look after we assured the kids they were going to be okay. You might have to click on it and look more closely.



This is a lot of what we saw in yellowstone. Kind of sad.



My sister had baby kittys! They were soooo cute.



My dad is a kid at heart and actually has a cotton candy machine! So this is Megan in heaven with a huge ball of cotton candy!


All the grandkids enjoying cotton candy.

pictures from vaca-trip

Having fun in the hotel room!



I love this picture. Do you think I consider myself an Iowan!?



All of us in front in front of Mt. Rushmore.
It was bright as you can see Joseph covering his eyes.




Old Faithful in Yellowstone going off.




This is all Sarah wanted to do when we pulled out the stroller, so we stopped pulling it out!

colors

I chose new colors for my blog to reflect my mood. Blazing red mad!

The need to VENT!

I need to vent! Maybe if I get some of my frustrations out in black and white, I will be able to let this go and move on.
My brother-in-law was to get married this saturday, he emailed us and gave us the info for a Holiday Inn Express for all the "wedding party" to make reservations at. So I looked it up online and made reservations, using the "special" code he gave us. This was a month ago. We get our credit card bill and the hotel has already charged us, I thought sometimes this is normal, we have been charged a fee in advance before, but this was the whole $220 bucks for 2 nights.

This last week we found out the wedding is off. No, this is a good thing. It did not sound healthy from the beginning. Anyway, I call to cancel, and they tell me they can not refund a penny!!!!!!! I am fuming still and it has been 3 days. When I went online it pulled up a list of rooms under this "special" code and I just clicked on the cheapest one. Who wouldn't??? Appearently this wasn't part of the whole "special wedding party" (so why wasn't this mentioned?) this was an advance purchase price. Are you kidding me?!?! How in their "honorable" company policy can they expect people to pay for a hotel room and as the "general manager" said "take a risk" at paying for it a full month in advance!

The wedding was called off, not our doing, but I think the least this lousy hotel can do is give us our money back. They won't even give us a credit to use towards another of their hotels! I wouldn't even care if they charged us a fee of some sort for canceling, but for heavens sake give us our money back.

Either way, we are not paying. I am disputing the charge on my card and if that doesn't work my brother-in-law is paying. We are still heading out to Idaho and Utah and I am doing everything in my power to stay away from Holiday Inn! They better watch out if I ever stay in one again. They might end up missing a few items!!!!!!!!!!!! GGRRRRR!!!!!!!

The End!!!

My final testing for kickboxing is done! I am excited to sleep in a little this next week! Here are my stats:
lost 3 inches in my stomach
lost 2 1/2 inches in my lower waist/bottom area
lost 2 inches in my thighs
lost 2 inches in my chest
gained 3/4 inch in my arms, but there is no jiggle and it is more muscle now
and lost 9 pounds
push-ups - going from, I believe, 13 to 57 in a minute
sit-ups- going from 9 to 32 in a minute
sit and reach 19 to 21
and I did worse on my mile 12:15 to 13:26.

I have been sick since thursday and I missed friday, which is the only day I have ever missed.
I am pleased with my results and I feel healthier, well not right now, because my throat is killing me, I ache and I am starving but I can't eat anything because it hurts so bad. Anyway, it was fun but I am glad that it is over. I am ready for a little change. Hopefully I can continue to workout in our basement. So here is to 10 weeks of working out!!!

Singing!!!

My kids have all been singers. Megan and Sarah especially. They love the Cars movie soundtrack and for christmas Megan got a karaoke player and just recently we found the cd for the Cars movie, so this is the kids singing and dancing to it. I wish you could hear Sarah more but she knows this song well and will actually sing along to it! So cute!

Megan and her wonderful teacher at the end of her kindergarten year! Thank you for being a wonderful teacher!!!

Sarah finally doing "kissy lips".

Sarah taking a little nap.

Joseph having fun swinging.

Pictures from lately

We set up our tent recently in our backyard, Brent, Megan and Joseph were going to sleep in it. Joseph was to scared by the time night came, but Megan was fine, and don't ask Brent about how he slept. (or I should say didn't sleep!) I still had to get up early so I didn't sleep out there and there was no way Sarah was sleeping out there. So this is Sarah and Joseph after they discovered the little vent whole at the bottom. We just got our tent at Christmas so this is the first time being used!

Megan, Sarah and Joseph in the tent. Sarah does "kissy lips", she wouldn't do it for this one but Megan and Joseph did.

A little dark, but this is after a baseball game last week.