Spring Break in Missouri

We have some pretty easy going traveling kids.  They have been at it for the majority of their lives in fact.  When we decided to hop in the car and drive 9 or 10 hours to our Uncle Adam's house in Missouri for Spring Break this year, it was no biggie.

 We love spending time with Adam and Tiff's family.  They have 2 little girls that think the boys are the best, funniest, coolest kids ever.  They recently had a baby boy and it was our first time to meet him. 

 It was Easter weekend when we got to their place and of course, we were prepared for some good times hunting for eggs, not something we usually do after church, but we counted it as FHE.

 

 

Here is little Miss Olivia, she was just tickled to find one egg.  Easy to please for sure.

Check out that egg! That bad boy was the Jack Pot egg. It was full to the max with candy. Grace is just so darn cute.  She has the littlest voice and its sorta scratchy sounding.  I love it.


Since the Joplin tornado a couple years ago Adam's family relocated to Carthage, just 15 minutes away. I was really thankful we had time to go back and see their old neighborhood, which was right down the road from the hospital.

 The hospital is gone, its been relocated.  Their old neighborhood is rebuilt.  The trees are still scary looking and basically the area is barren for greenery.  All of the new homes have storm bunkers right behind them now,  it was pretty incredible to see this area and then drive over just a few miles and it wasn't nearly so devastating.

 

You can tell right away the trees in the back ground have all their branches still, this is just a couple miles out of town.

 

 

We had to brave the rain and climb down to these great little places to throw rocks and hike around.  Just a week earlier, Justin's mom and her hubby visited the same spot and they had all sorts of sunshine.  Not fair. 
 

Grace was a trooper, she totally lasted outside longer that Justin and I did.  She had to be with the boys.  As much as possible.

I was super excited this shot worked out!  I had Jeremy's little Kodak, not my Coolpix, not too shabby.  You can see his hoodie is getting rather wet, I had my trusty umbrella.

 Never leave home without it.

 

Finally their little red noses had enough and we had to go, but it was an afternoon of super, boy geared fun, dangerous rocks to climb & rocks to throw into a river; perfection.  Love my boys.

 

You had a birthday shout HOORAY!

Cooper turned 11 this April.  HOLY COW!!  These kids just keep getting older as I get more fabulous and incredible. 

For the big day he had a few birthday boy requests, white cake with orange frosting and it must be layered!  Easily done.  It was delish.

 

 

 

 

Believe the picture above, not the crazy birthday boy below.

We love you Cooper!  Happy, Happy BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!!! 

Racer's START YOUR ENGINES!!

This years Pinewood derby was the first official one for Austin.  He was so excited, nearly about to burst.

Up there at the stage( in the dark green) is our crazy Dad as the MC.  During downtime, he asks the boys to come up and tell some jokes....really corny ones of course, its Cub Scouts after all.  Well he got a doozy this time when Scotty Gottfredson got  up to tell us all one "What to you get when you cross LSD with LDS???????? A HIGH PRIEST" can you imagine the laughter, especially after he said his mom told him that one.  Justin had to calm down to get on with the racing.

 
I tried not to get the dreaded back of the head shots, but the little guy on Cooper's right was covering his eyes!  Too funny.  Here is Austin as well checking out the action.  He won several heats and so did Cooper.

As a matter of fact, he took 2nd Place in his Wolf Den, not too shabby for his first time!  As for Cooper...

We have ourselves an Over-all Champion, which qualified him to attend the District race!!  He was just thrilled of course.  Not bad at all.