Camping for Alyssa's birthday

As a kid, we always went camping with my dad and cousins. I'm not talking "trailer" camping... if you can even call that camping... I'm talking good, old fashioned camping in tents. I think it's the tents that made it so fun. Setting them up, telling stories all night long, getting dirty and EVERYTHING smelling like camp fire. As I sit and write this post, I still smell like campfire. Don't worry I'll shower soon, but it reminds me of all the fun I had as a kiddo and for that matter this weekend.

We went camping for my little sister Alyssa's 13th birthday. (Before I talk about the camping trip, let me just mention that it's hard to believe that our little Lissaroo is a TEENAGER! Where has the time gone?) Like when we were kids, we decided to camp the good old fashioned way. The kids (Alyssa, Chinalyn and Tyler) even decided to ditch their tent and camp "under the stars" instead. The days at the coast were beautiful, but the nights were COLD. I could barely handle it in the tent so I give them credit for really roughing it (roughing it is just not as much fun when you have a baby and you're all grown up). We all had fun riding bikes, shopping in Pismo and visiting with family. My cousin Lisa and her fiance' Chris drove over and it was great to hang out and catch up with them. Christy's crew came up on Saturday night and Brogan is used to the trailer, so he had ROUGH night trying to adjust to tent living. Jed finally went into the car and slept with him. Chris brought fish he had caught during the week and Josie bought some in Avila... and we had an incredible dinner of fish and potatoes. Josie just seasoned them, wrapped them in foil and popped them on the grill. She definitely knows how to cook! It was a great time to kick back, relax and be thankful to have family that lives nearby.

Happy Birthday Auntie Alyssa!

Daddy

Aubrey and I were looking at this picture this morning and we decided to write a post about how special Aubrey's Daddy is.

Justin is really in his element as a daddy. He comes home from work everyday ready to help out with Aubrey. From day one, he's been a great diaper changer, play pal, and snuggler. Aubrey gets an instant smile when she sees her daddy because she knows he's fun! Justin changes Aubrey's diaper in the morning and gets her dressed while I get ready. He feeds her breakfast, and when it's cereal with apples and bananas he sings her the "Apples and Bananas" song. When it's not, he modifies the song to fit whatever food it is. Justin knows every tickle spot she has and can really make her laugh. He takes her for long walks, loves giving her her evening bath and even brushes her hair (he likes to fluff it up so it doesn't look like "boy hair"). Aubrey gets her big sunshiney cheeks from her daddy and her ability to kick back and relax (you should see her prop up those feet in her stroller). Justin is the perfect daddy and we're so blessed that we get to have him!

Choo-Choo, Brogan's TWO!

That's Brogan on his "Choo-Choo Phone". Today we celebrated his 2nd birthday, which was actually last Wednesday. Christy sure knows how to throw a party :) Brogan had all of his cousins and a few little friends there to help him ring in his 3rd year of life. All the little kiddos got an engineer's hat, a hankerchief, and a goody bag and EVERYTHING was train theme, including the incredible Thomas cake from Albertson's. Despite all the guests, Brogan was his usual independent self, pushing his tractor through the flowerbeds, riding his train, or just plain playing outside. The weather ended up being BEAUTIFUL, but we were worried so my dad sent up this amazing shade tent. Aubrey enjoyed the swing and a ride on the Thomas train that my grandpa bought for Brogan and her to share. It's so exciting to watch my little guy(well not technically mine, but I feel like he's almost mine) grow up. He's at that age where he learns something new each day. Auntie loves you Bubba! Happy 2nd Birthday!
P.S. Lorie, this little cutie is Riley- what I picture your little one looking like :)

PUMP IT UP!!

Not the picture you expected?

Unfortunately I don't have any of the fun ones. Hopefully Lorie will post some on her blog, I didn't bring my camera. I do, however, have a souvenir of a different type. While racing Scott in one of the obstacle courses, I fell off the wall and twisted my ankle. This is what it looked like last night right after I got home.Today, way more swollen and a nice shade of blue. So I made and appointment at the foot and ankle institute and their diagnosis was no fracture, but definite torn ligaments. The extent of the damage is still unknown, but I have and MRI on Thursday afternoon. I sprained this same ankle a few years back while hiking the Grand Canyon. I think I did some permanent damage back then because I had to hike out of the canyon with no support on it. It's never been the same since. The doctor said that we'll have to do a stress test after I wear the boot for 7 weeks and see how well the tendons and ligaments are supporting it. Surgery is an option he wants me to consider, but I'm not sure whether this is the right time to do something like that. Hopefully, the boot will help it to heal nicely and we won't even have to consider that option. In the meantime, I'll be sporting some new fashionable footwear. :)

The injury I sustained was worth the rewards. For those of you who don't know, the whole reason we were at Pump It Up, was because of a project we were doing through our church. We recently finished a series called The Way, where we were encouraged to really step out in our lives and live "The Way" the Bible calls us to live. We were challenged to really stretch ourselves in the way we live daily and in bigger ways to make a difference in everything we do. During the series, someone at the church generously donated $50,000 to the church to spread amoung the small groups. Each group got about $2,000 to serve our community in a way that we felt called to serve. Our group decided to reach out to kids because we are all either teachers, social service workers or parents/prego. We planned a "celebration" for a group kids in the foster care system where they could enjoy themselves for the day and really be worry free. They were given gifts and reminded of how special God made them and that he has a plan for their lives. We read them the book You Are Special by Max Lucado and prayed for them. Although, I think parts of it were definately out of the kids comfort zone, I hope that we were able to plant that seed, build a hope in them. Kids in the foster care system are so hardened; they've put up a wall to protect themselves. You could definitely see that in these kids, but we're praying for them and hoping that they'll soon be put in an adoptive home with Christian parents. Can't wait to share some pictures with you guys. Pray for the kids in foster care in your community, they need it :)

Aubrey's 1st Easter

Aubrey's 1st Easter Bag-sket :)
(Eating Easter breakfast in the background)
Sittin' pretty in her frilly dress.
Waking up from an Easter nap...
isn't it the cutest when they wake up talking to themselves in such a happy mood :)
Checking out the basket from Grandma Kim.
Practicing her standing... her new favorite trick.
US! :)Aubrey's 1st Easter was wonderful! What a beautiful day to celebrate God's gift to the world!
HE IS RISEN!

Limocycle

Ever since Justin and I started dating, we always talked about getting a tandem bike. I'm not one for enjoying working out by myself, so I thought it would be like the perfect workout. You could talk to eachother while pedaling, right? Well, the Christmas before last (2005), with the help of my dad's addiction to going to auctions, Justin made our wish come true. He completely redid, what I hear was a pretty shabby looking tandem (or you could call it by it's technical name-- The Schwinn Twin). A little welding, a lot of pain and some new seats and stickers and vwa-la it was brand new. It was a great surprise, but I was pregnant at the time and after a spill on our first time out (Justin decided to try to go off-roading or something on it) I was too scared to get back on while I was pregnant. So today was the day.... we decided Aubrey was big enough to put in her bike buggy and go for a ride. Needless to say, we were quite the site... too bad I didn't have anyone to take a picture of us all riding... I'll save that for another post. We rode over to Scott and Lorie's, but they weren't home, so we just headed home. Maybe we'll attempt a longer ride this weekend... hmm Dewar's Ice Cream sounds like a good destination :)

A day at the coast...

Today we took Aubrey to the coast to visit Christy and the crew who were camping at Lopez Lake. It was Aubrey's first time going to the beach and she loved the feel of the water on her feet! We attempted a hike, but she wasn't too keen on riding in the backpack (she preferred daddy's shoulders as you can see in that priceless picture). Brogan was so excited about playing in the sand, we could barely convince him to take one picture. We had such an enjoyable day!

Happy Birthday Grandpa Burdette

Justin's Grandpa Pres turned 82 yesterday! For his birthday, we brought over Aubrey in her jammies with some strawberry shortcake for dessert. It's always great to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa. Both of them are an inspiration. We only hope that when we're 82, we can look back on our years and have as many accomplishments to be proud of as Pres does. We love you!

Success at last!

That's right folks... today was the day... AUBREY made it in nursery through the WHOLE church service! We are used to taking the walk of shame as we get paged to go pick her up, but today, thanks to some patience and persistance on the part of Christie and Colleen, Aubrey made it. I really wish I would have had our camera with me when we went to pick her up because it was a pretty funny sight. As we're walking up, I saw her stroller sitting outside the room and I was wondering "what the heck, did they get so sick of her they kicked her out?". No, I knew they didn't, but as I got closer I see our chubby little baby fast asleep in her stroller with her bottom lip all puckered out. It was too cute! Apparently she got pretty upset about 30 min before church was out, but they wanted to let us stay in service so they took her for a walk and she fell asleep. She was so content they opened the door and left her outside :) Thank you Christie and Colleen!
Service today was great, so it was the perfect day to stay there (God must have known). Basically it was a very untraditional service (not that our church has too many predictable services) but they just had worship and prerecorded scripture readings intermixed. It was just such a great reminder of the grace and power of God. We heard of the various miracles that Jesus performed, all the kids came in the service and circled the congregation waving palm fronds (it was beautiful). Worship was powerful! Our friend from Bible study, Stacey, is acting as the worship pastor until our church finds a new one and she did a fabulous job! WHAT A GREAT SUNDAY!