this past week on the island

this past week has just flown by. i had every intention of writing a post, but i just never got around to it. things have just slowed down and it's 10:30 p.m. on saturday night. last thursday the officer left with a friend from church, his brother-in-law and 4 other police officer on a dirt bike trip to taylor lake, colorado.

they go once a year to ride the trails in the mountain. the weather is great and he has a good time with the guys that always go. the officer left last thursday and came back this past tuesday night. the kids missed him - a lot!

this is the cabin they stay in. there's nothing around but these cabins out there. well nothing except God's amazing creation.

this was his view from the cabin every morning, the clouds hanging out over the lake.

who couldn't be happy up here. you really realize how insignificant you are, how amazing God's creation is, and how much He loves you.

my mother-in-law called and asked about having each of my kids coming up one at a time to stay a couple of days. my son was going to go first, but he got sick, so my daughter went first instead. we took her up on tuesday morning. she was a little sad she was going to miss seeing dad come home, but she was excited to spend time with grandma and papa by herself. i was excited to hang out with my son by himself.

i asked my son what he would like to do, and of course, he said, "PLAY LEGOS!" okay. that's what we did. he wanted to make a bunch of minifigures (or "menfigures" as he calls them). so we dug through all (yeah it's a lot!) to find all his head, bodies, legs, arms, hands, head accessories, and other accessories to build many menfigures. we had to find all the pieces, put them together (the right way), and build "bad" guys and "good" guys.

sorting and organizing: right up my alley.

spending 2 hours building digging through legos to find those tiny hands: no problem.

seeing my son's happy face when we finished the job: priceless!

tuesday night the officer got home from his trip. my son was so excited to see him. when the officer called and said he was about a mile from the house, we went outside to wait for him. we were so excited to see him pull up. i can't imagine how those families of soldiers who are overseas do it for months/years at a time.

wednesday the officer hung out with my son, just the two of them, together all day. they did meet up with me for lunch. they both loved hanging out with only each other all day, and i got some time to shop and coupon. i don't think i've taken a picture of my coupon binder, nicknamed "big bertha" by mrs. c. i'll have to save that for another post.

thursday the officer went to his parents to pick up my daughter. they were going to spend some time together too. papa ended up taking the officer and my daughter to a local fair. there were fair rides, fair foods, and a lot of petting farm animals. oh yeah, my daughter also rode a mechanical bull. the officer took a video of it so when i get it off his iphone, i'll post that too. they had a great time.

friday night we went to a birthday party for my newly adopted nephew. he turned two. it was a fun night of swimming and celebrating. last night we had another birthday party for my mom and my younger sister. most of our immediate family came to our house. our house is not big by any means. in fact, folding chairs had to be brought in to accomodate the 18 people in my house. however, i realized something last night after everyone left. i realized that since our house is not large, everyone had to congregate in one area, our living room. there was no, "where is so and so?" going on. everyone was either in our living room or outside. there was a lot of more visiting and talking with each other. oh yeah, we also had taco salad so that made everything better too! :) happy birthday mom! happy birthday sister!

last night when my brother-in-law was here, he hooked up our wireless router for our computer. we needed it so we can watch netflix on our wii. i really have no idea what i'm talking about, but my cousin julie says it's going to be great! :) i signed us up for netflix last night. i was looking around on the netflix website and it looks so neat. we are excited about all the old movies you can watch. the officer has been picking out old disney movies he used to watch to show the kids. we've really been enjoying some of them. i am thinking this who netflix is going to change everything. no more having to go to the movie rental place (well we'll probably go there sometimes, but not as much). no more having to walk around the movie rental place looking for movies. my kids do not like doing that because of the covers of some of the dvds. some of those covers are pure evil. netflix will be great for those days when we are stuck in the house because of crazy weather. we can just watch them on our computer or on the tv. i'm sure everyone in the world already has a wii and has netflix, but we are just coming along. it's the little things sometimes.

that's my week in a post. this week, my son gets to spend a couple of days at his grandparents all by himself. he's really looking forward to it. i'm looking forward to hanging out with my little girl for a bit.