The Great Show-Me State Adventure

Did you ever wonder why Missouri is called the Show-Me State? I wondered it myself just a few moments ago. So I googled it. How did we ever know anything before Google? Anyway, what I discovered was some terribly boring sentence (yes, it only took one measly sentence to tell the tale) about a congressman and a speech he made and blah blah blah now MO is the Show-Me State. Yawn. I'm a little sad for MO now because I'm sure that somewhere somewhen something exciting must've happened that could've yielded a better story and nickname. Oh well. I did, however, learn that Missouri's state insect is the honeybee. Yes! You read that right! They have a state insect! "What a funny little state," I thought. Then it occurred to me that maybe every state has an official insect. So I looked up TX. Yep. Ours is the Monarch butterfly. And our state gemstone is the blue topaz! Who knew?! And WHO decided these things? The Governor? The Committee for Official State Nonsense? My tax dollars probably paid for that committee meeting.

SO, the fam and I have just returned from a week spent in the Honeybee State where we experienced as much as we could pack in to 6 days!

First we visited the boys' great-grandmother in OK.

The next day my in-laws took us down to float the Elk River in Noel, MO. Who knew you could have SO much fun in 7.5 inches of water?? Okay, so maybe it was a little deeper in some (most) places, but it was definitely low and we found our rears dragging the bottom as often as not! The boys were in heaven though. My MIL found some cheapie swim goggles for them and they both spent every moment they could face down in the water trying to catch minnows and searching for the perfect river rock to take home. I also made two important discoveries on this journey: One, when the river is low, don't choose the raft. The canoe is MUCH easier to handle when the water is dead calm. Second, Matt takes his river rafting veeeerrrry seriously. The first 5 minutes went something like this...

"Hey Ang, this'll go better if we work together."

"Uh, Ang, let's try to establish some sort of rhythm here."

"That's not a rhythm."

"Could you maybe do the same number of strokes on each side?"

"You're making us go in circles!"

**grumbling, a big sigh, and possibly a growl**

"Okay, just PUT the oar down. Put it DOWN!"

Note to Self: Ride in the in-laws boat next year.

During the few moments we were not out experiencing the wonders of MO, the boys were in the yard playing the sport of the moment. Baseball. Yes, G is hitting a miniature soccer ball. Little boys don't seem to care what you throw at them as long as they're allowed to swing at it w/ a bat.

And yes, behind the gate, that's a cow...AKA Dinner Next Year.

Now, as if cramming 6 of us + luggage into one vehicle and driving 10 hours to the southwestern corner of MO wasn't insane enough, we promptly crammed BACK into the vehicle, the boys' great-grandparents we were visiting crammed into another vehicle, and we all drove on up to St. Louis.

First stop, The Magic House! Think Science Spectrum but with working exhibits. And on steroids. Times 10!! It was phenomenal! And really crowded. I mean really crowded. But the boys didn't care. If you're ever in St. Louis, you MUST take your kids to see this place. And if you don't have kids, grab one on your way out of the restaurant and take HIM to see this place.

This one just speaks for itself:

Grandma and the boys (notice J's reflection in the glass) talking to the fish:

J tumbling down a slide that stretched from the top of the house to the bottom...3 stories tall!!

There was also a huge beanstalk that stretched up 3 stories that the kids could climb and about a bazillion other cool things to see and do. The boys are still asking to go back!

The next day was packed with a trip to Grant's Farm, a fabulous dinner on The Hill (if God were Italian, The Hill would be Heaven), and a Cardinals game.

Here's G brushing the baby goat at Grant's Farm. Notice the baby goat munching his shirt for lunch.

J on the carousel after convincing him that riding a dragon is NOT a baby thing to do...

Busch Stadium is most excellent...notice the arch mown into the field.

Here is Pujols...the boys' new idol. He hit 2 homeruns that night and G hasn't stopped jabbering about them since.

On our last day in St. Louis, Saturday, we went to the zoo. Well, we tried to go to the zoo. Apparently everybody else in the city thought that visiting a free zoo on a Saturday morning was a good idea too. So we ditched that idea and headed for the Gateway Arch. Great googly-moogly. Have you ever actually SEEN that thing in person? I had not prior to yesterday. And I am still stunned. I had no idea it was so enormous and quite frankly, so breathtaking. It's 630 feet tall! That's more than twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty! Taller even than the Washington Monument!!

So I'm sure you're now wondering if we went to the top! Well, we tried. We stood in a line that was about as long as the arch was tall. An hour later we finally get into the museum (under the arch) only to discover that we'll have to wait another few hours to get a ride to the top. Apparently the 148,792 people that ditched the zoo idea like we did also thought the arch would be a feasible alternative. Oh well. It was impressive enough just to see it up close!

Ghetto Chicken

I think it's official. My happy little neighborhood is now my happy little ghetto. Now, maybe you're thinking I shouldn't be so taken aback by this. Maybe you're thinking, "Hey Angie! Remember that one time some drunken fool ran his car into your mailbox sending obliterated bits of black metal and a little red flag flying across your yard? And the neighbor's yard? And part of the street? And remember that time the hoodlums used the paint on Matt's truck for target practice until they got up enough skill to take out it's back window? Or what about that time someone broke into your next-door neighbor's house and stole all his stuff? Or that time there was a suspected homicide at the house around the corner?"

Yes. I obviously should've put two and two together sometime ago. But I didn't. Until now. And here's what put it all into perspective for me. Chicken. I don't often shop at the happy grocery store around the corner from my house. It's possible I might be a bit persnickity about some food items, so I spend a lot of time at the big store on the south side of town where they sell Stacy's Cinnamon Sugar Pita Chips.

Anyway, I was not buying pita chips on Ghetto Revelation Day, so I ran into the aforementioned store right by my house to pick up one of those rotisserie chickens for dinner. Not as good as pita chips, but tasty nonetheless. Now, after I've paid and am reaching for my chicken, the checker guy grabs it up and says, "Hold on Ma'am. Don't want you to set off the alarm." And he starts rubbing my chicken (it's in a container) around in frantic circles on the checkout counter. What?? Seriously! My chicken had a security device stuck on the bottom...you know, like when you buy a piece of high-dollar electronic equipment and they have to deactivate the security tag before you leave so you don't get tackled by an employee on the way out the door. My chicken! My CHICKEN! I'm living in the midst of chicken thieves! THAT, my friends, is ghetto. But on a much less stressful note, the fam and I were able to escape the Chicken Ghetto for a short while last week and spend the 4th with our families. I LOVE the 4th! It just doesn't get any better than sticky-sweet little boys, parades, slip-n-slides, hot dogs and cold beer!!

Here's G singing Lee Greenwood's 'God Bless the USA'. I think he was trying to ensure the people across the canyon could hear him as well.

Me snuggling my budding vocalist

The boys, Daddy, Papa, the neighbor, and Papa's festive Jeep in the LRC Parade

Cutie pie

Tough guys at Grandma and Grandpa's

I have a several shot series of each of the boys slipping and sliding (Action mode on the camera ROCKS!) but I thought it best not to bore you with allllll the pics since you've already suffered through the chicken story

Playing football w/ the boys...tradition at Grandma and Papa's

Exponential Acceleration

In case you've been living with your head in the clouds as I have, I'll bring you up to speed...the summer's 1/3 over. So long! Farewell! Auf wiedersehen! Adieu! I swear time goes faster as the years go by. So this evening, in typical math nerd fashion, I'm trying to decide on an equation that accurately models this strange relationship between life and time. Exponential f(x)=b^x? No. Acceleration a=∆v/∆t? Nope. Exponential acceleration? Yes! Hmmm. Wonder what that looks like. As I'm poking around in cyberspace in search of said mathematical model, I come across this...




Now if that doesn't make you giggle I don't know what will.

So, back to:

First Day of Summer...

Jaden complained for 9 months about how much he hated school, how boring 1st grade was, and how he was probably going to die if he had to learn any more phonics. So can you imagine what he chooses to spend the first day of summer doing? Playing school with Grant.

And not 3 days after that we're driving to my mom's house one afternoon which takes us right past his school. In his most dreamy and nostalgic voice he says, "Oh look! It's my school. I just LOVE that place." Oy.

A few days later, my birthday...

Matt has the boys make their own cards for my birthday. My heart swells up when I see Grant's. My baby has written his name on the front! How is he old enough to do this? And then I open it up. And he is so proud. He's drawn a picture of me and written yet another note that says, drum roll please, "more wine".

What does this say about me??

Don't answer that.

And a few more days after that...

Baseball begins! Grant's old enough to play this year so we spend the first 2 weeks of June with both boys practicing at the exact same times on the exact same days in DIFFERENT locations. Yeesh. Now that we're into the season, the boys have 2 games/week and J has one practice. But all on different days. That's baseball 5 times a week. I'm pretty sure there's a b in that equation for exponential acceleration. And it stands for baseball.










Aren't they adorable?!

Video Killed the Radio Star

Remember the mid '80s when those first commercially distributed home video cameras hit the shelves? Hot diggity those were cool...14 pounds of camera and battery precariously balanced on your right shoulder and a 3-pack of VHS tapes each the size of the family bible in the bag on your left shoulder. Those were the days. Cameras are sooooooo much more convenient in the new millennium. Thank you Jesus. Just a month or so ago Matt came home toting a cute little Flip.



It's the size of a smart phone...think Samsung Blackjack. It's all kinds of digital, point and shoot, flip-out-the-USB arm-and-plug-it-in goodness. And so, we have officially become home video nightmare parents once again. In Jaden's early life we shot gadzoodles of hours of extraordinarily exciting and fast paced video. There were movies of him laying on his tummy kicking his feet, and on his back kicking his feet, and best of all, in the SWING kicking his feet!! I'm pretty sure we once captured a priceless shot of him spitting up. And kicking his feet.

But we have evolved people! We now shoot gadzoodles of hours of the kids running up and down the field chasing the soccer ball! And kicking their feet! Get it? Nevermind. The point of all this is to share a couple of videos with you because my boys are super cute and I think you should see them. But don't worry. New camera technology also means new video editing software thus sparing you, the innocent viewer, many hours of utter boredom. Roll tape!

First we have 2 vids of cute boys tearing up the soccer field and scoring goals...







And then we have a short vid of Matt's little bro Justin and the boys on the trampoline. Justin jumps for a living. Literally. He performs in a Cirque du Soleil show and Jaden thinks this is seriously cool so he asked Uncle Justin to come hang out while he was in town. He obliged and spent some time today coaching the boys and showing them a few things. The boys were in heaven and would've kept Uncle Justin here indefinitely if they could've!




Now, our backyard trampoline significantly limited Justin in what he could show the boys, so, if you have a few minutes, click here on Justin's Cool Job and see what he does for real! It's a clip from La Nouba, the show he's in, and is amazing to watch. This specific clip shows at least a couple of the roles he's had...check it out. It's worth it!

Trekking the RHC

I love the Ranching Heritage Center. Yes. I really do. And not so much for it's cultural and educational potential, which is vast and no doubt amazing, but rather for it's wide open outdoorsiness and relative emptiness at 10 a.m. on any given Wednesday. Can you think of better conditions for letting little boys be little boys?? My big kid doesn't need this so much anymore *sniff sniff* but the little one is still very much in that stage. Every once in a while it's so nice to just let him run free and not have to get on to him for every last thing he touches/stomps/kicks/climbs on/licks. Okay. So you'll still find me offering some correction. He is, after all, a 4-year old male..."No you can't go over the gate and touch all the stuff in there. Get down. Now!" and "Don't climb on the hills. The man at the front desk said the snakes will bite your toes." And yes, the man at the front desk really did say that....something about bulls snakes mistaking little feet for ground squirrels and such. It's so nice that the RHC employees put my family's safety first. Or perhaps he was just on to me.















Yep. That's one cute kid. The other one's pretty cute too, but he becomes quite elusive when the camera comes out. I may drag him off to the RHC sometime soon to see if I can catch him unawares...

In other news this week, the boys spent the night with Grandma and Grandpa and so, Matt and I were able to take in a movie! We don't do that very often anymore as it is very nearly financially devastating to buy 2 tickets on a Friday night. Jeez! And don't even THINK about buying popcorn and Cokes. You have to sign over your firstborn child for that luxury. But I digress. My point in bringing this up at all is simply to say that Star Trek ROCKS and you should go see it. And then you should mortgage your house for more tickets, sign over kid #2 for more popcorn, and go see it again!!

Live long and prosper my friends. Live long and prosper.

Handy Angie, Smilin' Boys, and Santoneyo (in no particular order)

Happy Mother's Day to all the mommies out there...especially my own amazing momma and momma-in-law. Love you both! I had a most lovely Mother's Day myself if you don't count the 22 minute Grant meltdown on the way to church this morning. I should've just let him wear his stupid boots with his cute little polo and plaid shorts but no. It was MY day and I wanted him to wear the cute little boat shoes. He was in such a tizzy by the time we reached church that it took 3 of us to get him into his Sunday school room. Just call me mom of the year. On a much happier note, however, part of my Mom's Day gift was a VERY rare framed photo of BOTH my boys. Smiling. I know! I can't believe it either.



And now for a random shift in topic....I fixed the garbage disposer all by myself yesterday ! Thank you. Thank you. A week or so ago I stuffed a couple of lemon peels down it but they never would grind up and go away. I assumed one of them was just stuck and that it would eventually dislodge and my life could go back to normal. But alas, the bumpity bumpity clunk clunk clunk continued and I was forced, FORCED, to stick my hand down there and remedy the situation. Ick uck yeck. But it worked. I managed to remove the offending object...and it was not a lemon peel. It was something akin to this.



How boring would my life be without little boys?!

A couple weeks ago we all loaded up and headed to Santoneyo (that's Grant-speak for San Antonio) to visit my cousin Amy and her family. They were gracious enough to let our circus crash at their house and we had a great time! We spent Saturday at Sea World....holy cow. It would take about 2 weeks to walk from one side of that place to the other. But the boys had a fabulous time.

Here's Jaden and Hunter at the waterpark...I really think they would've played in there all day if we'd have let them.






We took in all the shows. Jaden and Hunter sat as front row as they could get trying to get splashed. Grant was happy to sit well OUT of the splash zone.





Here's all of us...Hunter, Buck, Amy, Matt, Angie, Grant and Jaden



On Sunday, at Jaden's request, we headed downtown to the Alamo. And that afternoon my other cousin Stacy and her boys drove up to hang out and swim for a while. Her boys are the same ages as mine by a matter of days! I don't know how Stacy, Amy, and I managed to acquire all these little boys but they are adorable and they all got along famously.





Here's Simon and Stacy...



and Joel...



and Mr. Throw a Fit Over a Pair of Boots...