more 4th of July photos

More snapshots from the 4th of July!

Hanging out waiting for the fireworks to begin! Look at all those pretty legs...ha ha!
Taylor and Aaron going for a dive (really showing off for the girls that were there)
Two future Jedis practicing a little before the show!
Alex and McKenzie!
The kid gang patiently waiting for the fireworks!

4th of July

Michael

Taylor and Dylan going for a dive!

Michael and Dylan

Riley and Aaron (Riley adores Aaron!!)

We celebrated the 4th of July with some good friends of ours the Water's family. The have 3 boys which are close in age to our boys so we have lots in common. Their oldest son, Aaron, is Taylor's best friend and we have adopted him into our family. We enjoy spending time with this family and our thankful that we have gotten the opportunity to know them. We also met some of their friends...Mike, Cindy, Alex and Mckenzie....and enjoyed getting to know them. We spent the day hanging out at the Water's pool then we all migrated over to Ft. Rucker to watch the fireworks display.

Party at Aunt Gail's House

Bryan got stuck manning the grill
Dylan trying to perfect his back flip!
The gang is here...in the pool!

Gail had a party at her house for all the family to get together and visit with my cousin David's daughter who was in town. It was fun to see everyone again and meet some new people! Our team kicked butt in the Pictionary game....ha ha...thanks to Amanda and myself....(had to be there). They finished the evening off with the now "traditional" alligator race across the pool and Stephen now has the "title" belt until the next family get together. Congratulations Stephen!!!!

Alyssa taking a dive into the pool!
Riley has finally figured out the back flip and now loves it!
Amanda (she is going to kill me for this one)...
Riley and Grandma sitting in the swing
Taylor, Darrien and Dakota trying out the new XBox 360

Happy Father's Day!

We hope you all had a wonderful father's day. We celebrated with my mom and Alyssa (my niece) in town. We made Jeff this wonderful cookie cake...ha ha! It was fun and I think the kids liked licking the bowl better than anything. I am thankful that I have such a wonderful husband that is such a terriffic father to our boys! Happy Father's Day to all of you dad's out there!

Long Awaited Update

Finally...I have found a few extra minutes to play and jump on this computer! I apologize to all of you who have been patiently waiting for this update! Our summer has been so busy.....but so much fun! I can't believe how fast time has flown. Here are just a few updates on some of the fun we have had this summer! We have been blessed to have quite a few guests come to our house and again blessed to take some small adventures and visit with some of our family and friends. We hope all of you are enjoying your summer as much as we have been enjoying ours.

Memorial Day Weekend

We hope you all had a great Memorial Day Weekend and took a few minutes to remember all those who sacrifice for our country. We are truly a blessed nation! We took a trip to Georgia for the weekend. We started the weekend out with Steven's high school graduation which took place at the National Fairgrounds in Perry, GA. Then we spent the weekend just hanging out with all of our family. The boys truly love going over to Aunt Gail's house and just hanging around the pool. On Sunday we went with Gail, Amanda, Arleigh, Darrien and Dakota over to Macon, Ga where we took a roll down Coleman Hill then over to visit the Art/Science museum. I am attaching a few snapshots of the kids hanging out at the pool.

Riley's Preschool Graduation

Riley officially graduate preschool this past Thursday evening. He is so proud of the fact that he is now a "kindergartener" and thinks he can do everything that Taylor can do now due to that fact! He is truly going to miss all the great friends that he made in preschool, but is thankful that a few of them are going on to Pinedale with him. During the graduation they played a slideshow of pictures from the past year...during the slideshow Riley said "mom...there is just something about this music that makes me cry". It was hard for him to say good-bye to the past year. He finally concluded "that is was okay because one day they would all be parents together and they would see each other again". He got several of his friends phone numbers, but realized in the car that he forgot to get Kimberly's number. Kimberly and Riley made a pact that they would marry each other when they got old enough. After he realized he didn't have her number he said "that's ok mom, I am going to marry her anyways so I will always know where she is at..I won't need her phone number".

Dylan's New Hair Style

Just a few snapshots of Dylan in his class. The first one is Dylan and his friend Hong-Kook. Then there are a few snapshots where Tori is giving Dylan and new hair style. Maybe this will convince him to get a haircut....or maybe not!

Dylan's Award Ceremony

Pinedale Elementary had it yearly award program on May 24th, 2006. Dylan received awards for straight A's all year, A conduct all year and the Student Government Award. Dylan thoroughly enjoyed second grade and really took a love for reading this year. Dylan finished out the year reading on a 5.3 grade level (which is 3 months into the 5th grade level). He is starting a summer program next week called Books for Buck in which he will earn $3.00 per book that he reads and gives a report on during the summer months. In between the football, baseball and soccer camps that he is attending, that should help keep him busy throughout the upcoming weeks. We hope you all have a truly wonderful summer and enjoy spending time with your families in the upcoming months.

Pinedale Beach Bums

Dylan's Second Grade Field Trip

Dylan, Tori and the gang!

For Dylan's end of the year field trip the entire second grade boarded on buses and went down to Panama City, FL to visit Gulf World and the spend the rest of the day just hanging out on the beach. Jeff got to be the lucky one to go along with the class and he had a great time hanging out with the kids.

Fun at the Fun Factory

These are a few snapshots of Riley, Dylan and our neighbor Tannor at the Fun Factory in Enterprise. We had some bad weather on the weekend so me and one of my friends from school (Kim Machicote) took the kids over to Fun Factory to have some fun. These snapshots were taken inside the Glow Golf room. I think this is one of their favorite activities there.

Dylan and Tori

This is Dylan and his girlfriend Tori. We went to Dairy Queen with them one night after the ball games. After talking with her parents we realized that we had a mutual friend at Ft. Bragg...Lori Crader. I met Lori in Alaska and Natalie was friends with Lori during flight school. It is such a small world in aviation. Dylan and Tori enjoy spending time together and we are going to miss them when they move in July. The one part of being military that hurts is saying good-bye to good friends. If you notice how long Dylan's hair is in these pictures I credit that all on Tori. I have tried to get him to cut his hair and he protest every time we talk about it. Well, his teacher told me that Tori sits behind him in class and she is always playing with his hair and running her fingers through it.....I said "no wonder he refuses to get it cut".

Our little slugger!

Riley is throughly enjoying t-ball this season. Many of his friends from school and church are playing so it is often more of a social time than playing ball. But...he is having fun and that is what counts.

Riley's Field Trip to the Zoo

Riley's end of the year field trip was to the Montgomery Zoo. Jeff went with them....since mom used up all her sick days recuperating from the surgery. They had a great time and the Ardvark was by far Riley's favorite animal. He has been drawing pictures of them ever since the field trip and finds them quite fascinating. The little boy in the picture with Riley is his friend Mikey. I work with Mikey's mom over at Pinedale and the boys will both be attending kindergarten there together. They have become good friends of ours and we enjoy spending time with them.

Update from the Mouser

Wow...it has been over a month since I have updated this Blog...my apologies....we have just been so busy around here that it is hard to sneak in computer time. With school ending this week we are all looking forward to a little bit of down time and just relaxing and enjoying the Alabama summer. Life has been good here this past month. My surgery was very successful and my recovery was rapid. I am so thankful that my Aunt Gail came to stay with me for a week and helped out during my down time. I have surgery scheduled in June to remove a tumor, this is going to be a pretty major surgery and will require two nights in the hospital and a 6 week recovery time. I am trying to convince Jeff to just send me away to a spa to recover, but he don't care for that idea. My aunt and my mom will be coming over to help out with the boys and the house.
All is well here in Alabama. The boys are wrapping up their school year this week and I am proud to say they all maintained straight A's throughout the entire year in both grades and conduct. I have never looked forward to summer vacation as much as I do this year. We are kicking off our summer with a trip to Aunt Gail's for Memorial Day weekend. Then we have plenty of summer camps (football and soccer for Dylan and soccer and basketball for Taylor). Plus, Taylor will be training for football at the school all summer long. Riley will enjoy swim lessons (probably his last time as he has become a pretty good swimmer already) and he has a Smart Start kindergarten program to attend for the entire month of June. So, are summer is already booked but we are looking forward to all the activites coming up.
If you all make it to Alabama this summer be sure to look us up....we have a few guest scheduled to visit already, but we always love company.
Love,
The Mouser 5