Valentines Day

Since this was KS and I's third Valentines Day apart I figured I would just do something small for the kids. Not to mention I am getting one heck of a head cold and I just didn't feel like doing anything remotely big. I ended up going to Bed Bath and Beyond today in search of new Tervis cups for the kids. Imagine my sunrise when I walked in to see a rather large table full of 50% off Tervis cups! I was thrilled and ended up getting six cups for what I was planning on paying for three. Needless to say the kids got their new cups for V-day and I still have three cups stashed away for St. Patrick's Day or Easter whichever I decide. I bought the cups and a bag of chocolate as their gifts from KS and I. The rest of the chocolate was sent to us by my Mom and I just combined everything and used it as our table centerpiece for dinner tonight. The kids were thrilled with it!

Blah

That is how I am feeling today, just plain blah. This morning was good and productive, registered the kids for school, took Kiale to his speech class, came home and KS made me lunch during his lunch break. It was nice, and this this afternoon I have just spiraled into a bad mood with 0 patience for the kids. Which always makes dealing with them so much harder, especially when the littlest things set you off... but oh well. We all have our good days and our bad days. I didn't work out this morning and that my have something to do with my attitude, although not the main reason. I just started back to working out after taking a month off. Back in late June I got really sick and was out of commission for almost 2 full weeks. Turns out I had a gallstone and I had a pretty serious gallbladder attack. I was too stubborn to go to the hospital for until KS told me I had to go 3 days later because I was yellow and clearly jaundice. Somehow I managed to have one large stone that ended up blocking my bile duct resulting in the jaundice. Let me tell you people, for those of you who have never had jaundice... it SUCKS. You itch, and I'm talking severe itching that doesn't stop. I would wake myself up in the middle of the night because I was scratching in my sleep. The itching lasted for almost two weeks and I thought I was going to loose my mind from it. Thankfully it subsided just in time for my sisters wedding July 9th!

Summer's end

As many of you have noticed I took the summer off from blogging. With the kids home I just couldn't bring myself to blog, so I decided to just take the summer off. It has been a good summer, but it has also been a very rough summer. The boys will be starting school in the next few weeks, Cayleigh-Grace will be starting dance lessons and homework will be back into full swing. The latter of which I am not looking forward to but it comes with the territory. With school back in I will be back to regular blogging as well as a recap of our summer. We had some pretty big things go on these past three months; the boys played T-ball for the first time and I my sister went from being a Miss to a Mrs. I am looking forward to getting back into our school time routine and I think deep down the boys are too. Talk to you all soon!

Feelings

I cannot help but find myself laughing at people on facebook sometimes. Its not me being mean its just the reaction to the lifestyle that I am growing accustomed to. People will say how they miss their hubbys while they are at work during the day. I totally get that I was the same way, when KS was working I couldn't wait for him to come home. The afternoons and weekends where my favorite parts of the day, and on those special days when he would be home for lunch were made just that much better, but now... now it is totally different. Life is different, it is empty in so many ways. I guess that is really the best way to describe it. You see I am one of those women who loves their husband more then their children. That sounds terrible doesn't it? I promise I love my kids more then life itself and I would lay down my life for them in an instant but it is different with KS, when we wed it was till death do you part. I believe I will always love him more, but that is the way it was meant to be isn't it? If you loved your children more then your spouse, your soul mate, then there would be something seriously wrong with your relationship. When we had our children we knew that eventually they will find loves of their own and start their own lives away from us, have children of their own, and then the cycle will repeat. Children only spend a short amount of time with us, 18 years (give or take a few) it is such a short period of time in contrast to the lifetime I plan to spend with KS, and yes our children with be here long after we are dead and buried. We will love our children every day of our lives, but I do not want my children to be dependent upon me their entire lives. I want them to grow and succeed on their own, without our help. Of course we would help them however they needed it (within reason) but I want them to know that they can survive without us, I do not want their lives to revolve around us to the point where they think they have to depend upon us for everything. Anyways... tangent over... with KS gone there is definitely this part of me that is empty. It is truly the strangest feeling, this feeling of longing, sadness, loving, and emptiness all mixed in together to form one cohesive emotion. The best way to describe it would be that it feels like I have this numbness in my chest that just wont go away. Sometimes I don't notice it as much as others but it is always there. Its strange really. I have a feeling it will magically disappear in about a year when KS is home with us again and this deployment is behind us, but for now it will remain where it is.

Photo Fun

I was bored (imagine that) and messing around with some old pictures today when I got a crazy idea. Why not make some collages of the kids at the same ages. So here is what my boredom turned into. Left to Right,

Kiale, Colin, and Cayleigh-Grace

At Birth 

Six Months Old

One Year Old

 18 Months Old

 Two Years Old

What did I learn from this little exercise? Cayleigh-Grace looks so much older then her brothers at all of her different stages after the first year. I wonder why that is... its like my boys retained their baby faces longer and she developed more a little girl face at a very young age. I know one reason for that is she is so much bigger then the boys ever where at any of her ages. It was a running joke that my kids get their legs late, because that is exactly what happened. Their legs didn't start getting longer until they hit three. Did you notice how short Colin's legs were at 18 months? That right there proves my point. Then you have Cayleigh-Grace who goes and blows that theory clear to the moon. Obviously it didn't pertain to our girl only our boys. I remember when it came to buying clothes for Kiale it was super easy, whatever age he was was whatever size clothes you bought for him. For Colin his pants fit his age, but had to be rolled up, and his shirts where a year ahead of him. Cayleigh-Grace is another thing all together she already fits into size 3t pants. The boys couldn't wear that size pants until they were about three and a half. She will also be wearing size 4t shirts very soon and she will be two and a half in March. I have a feeling the girl is going to be at least as tall as my sister, and she just hit 5'11. I already have my fingers crossed that she will want to play volleyball when she is older, lets just hope she plays better then her Momma did!

Our very own D-Day; Deployment Day.

Wow, so its over. The deed is done, and the love of my life is airport bound. Our day started at 5am we had to get the kids up and ready plus our showers to pick up two of his friends and all their gear by 6. Thankfully everything went smoothly and we were where we needed to be by 6:30. Then we just hung around and enjoyed our last hour before we had to say our goodbyes as the soldiers got into formation. The ceremony was short and sweet. I am hoping that the welcome home ceremony is just as short, but I have a long time before I get to worry about that. I was so surprised with myself I really kept it together during the ceremony and even during the phone calls that I had to make afterword. I am one of the most emotional people you will ever come across. (Just ask my Mom she will confirm it, she always told me she had never experienced a child as emotional as I was.) There was no huge breakdown or scene made but don't doubt the fact that watching my husband board onto the bus was the hardest thing I have ever done. Not running after him and begging him to stay took so much self control, more then I thought I would ever possess. As he loaded the bus and took his seat I raised each of the kids up to his window (not an easy task with two 50lb boys and a 35lb daughter) so they could hold his hand and say goodbye one final time, and then the bus began to pull away and it was over; or really it has just begun. 

In the days leading up to today I was filled with so many different emotions, so many of which I am still having a hard time expressing. I always write KS a going away letter and I just couldn't get the pen to write for some reason. The words just weren't coming out the way I wanted them too; so the letter went out unfinished and jumbled with a mess of random thoughts. Not the way I wanted to send him off but at the time it was just the best I could do. I even forgot to give it to him at the last minute. There they all were in formation and I have to have Kiale run it out there to him after the Army Song had run its course and they are fixing to load onto the bus. He just gave me his usual look that is normally accompanied by some comment about how "smart" I am... although this time all I got was the look. At least it got to him even if it was late and not written as well as I would have liked.

Day one is officially over. We can mark a day off the calendar and look forward to their being one less day of this deployment to go through. I let the kids stay home from school today for a "mental health" day. I figured after just seeing their Daddy leave they would need a day to just chill out and relax. We ended up coming home and having breakfast followed by everyone taking a three hour nap between eleven and two pm. After we got up the kids and I had to make a PX run to get some poster board for their 100 day celebrations at school. It ended up taking the entire afternoon for them to create their poster boards and get caught up on the past two days worth of homework since I didn't make them do their homework yesterday. Kiale actually had one of the read and response worksheets to do, I was pretty proud he did fairly well for his first one. He kept getting frustrated that he had to reread the paragraphs constantly to find the answers though. I keep telling him the more he practices the better he is going to get, but he just doesn't have the patience for it. He wants to be good at it now not later. Thankfully we were able to talk to KS multiple times throughout the day today and even tonight. He was able to tell the kids goodnight and we were able to have a bit of a conversation before he got on his last flight. He was even able to talk to his mom, Godfather, and one of his best friends from AIT and BCT. Now begins the parts of separations that I don't like (not that there really is anything to like about them...) the nights, the weekends suck too, but I am determined to find stuff to keep us all occupied. I just cannot wait for summer to get here we will be plenty busy then; doing our usual pool every day routine.

This is my 500th post... guess it seems fitting that it would be one that will change our lives forever. 

This is difficult... Predeployment.

Written January 2, 2011~ This part of being a military wife is hard to say the least. I don't even think the word difficult could even begin to describe the feelings and emotions that are surrounding my husband and myself right now. We are down to just a few short weeks before this deployment begins and it is hard to even describe what I am feeling. Today for instance I woke up and it was the first thing that I thought of. These days are the hardest. Its like I have this clock in the back of my mind that is a fixture in my peripheral vision. It isn't your normal everyday clock that is ticking away the minutes of the day, but it is a clock that is ticking down. Taking time away from us and it is constantly making its presence known. Every sweet moment between my kids and their daddy and even in the night when my husband and I have just finished making love the clock chimes and reminds me that the day is gone and that this is one last time that I will be able to hold my love for the next year or even see him wrestle with the boys or snuggle with our Grace. This is usually when the tears begin to fall and when the sadness sets in. This is when I feel the most vulnerable and the most transparent. It always hits me the hardest after sex, I don't know if it is just the emotion and hormones that are released that brings all of the sadness of pre-deployment to the forefront of my mind to the point where I cannot block it out or what, but as soon as we are through the tears start to fall.

Later on the 2nd~ Going about my day to day things no one could even guess that we are facing deployment. Unless you were to come into our house and see the bags and bags of Army gear packed and ready to be shipped overseas. We are not acting different and whatever emotion we are feeling is safely tucked away during any away time. Even when we are home and just doing our normal every day things it is as if this deployment is just a word and a thing we have to go through. We do not dwell on it and we do not even really discuss it. It is just there the big elephant in the room that at this point in time is staying silent in its corner just waiting and watching for when the ball finally decides to drop and become a permanent fixture in our household. The kids know and have known for quite some time. I was discussing it with the boys today while KS was at work (it is easier for me to talk about it when he isn't here) I was reiterating the fact that KS will be gone for a year, he will miss holidays, birthdays, plays, and anything else of significance trying to make sure that the boys understand what is going on and Colin flat out said the only thing he understands is that KS will be gone. I guess for a five year old that is all I can expect and really all that he needs to understand. They all know that KS loves them and wants to be here but he has to go and fight a fight to insure that people and families just like us are kept safe, and that parents can tuck their kids into bed at night without having to worry about terrible things happening. The next part will be to remind the kids day after day that KS loves them dearly and that he wants to be home but at this point in time he needs to be over there helping to protect everything that this country stands for.

Hopes for the New Year

Here it is December 31st 2010, the last day of the year... it just doesn't seem possible. While 2010 was a year of changes and epic adventures for this woman who up until this year lived her entire life with her entire family within a 15 mile radius of her. This has been our first full year in the Army and I have to admit they haven't let us down yet. We have had the pleasure of living in three different houses in three different states. Two of those houses were and are at a military establishment and we have loved each of them. The people we have met have been great and we even had the pleasure of forming lasting bonds with a few extra special ones. I feel that I have grown into my own in 2010 and I have begun to depend on myself rather then my family. I guess you could say I am my own person now. While 2010 was a fabulous year 2011 will be a year all in its own. Full of its own challenges and firsts. We will experience things we have never experienced before and we will rise to whatever occasion God or the Army sets before us. 2011 will see us all grow a year older and a year stronger, the kids will begin new sports they have never played before, and I will set goals for myself that I never thought of setting before. Our lives will be forever changed in 2011 and I can only hope and pray that all of those changes are for the good. So here we are, at the end of my last post for 2010. I wish you and your family the best and may you all be blessed beyond belief in 2011.

Bullet Points...

Why bullet points? I am too lazy right now to do even a half decent and well thought out blog post. Sorry.

*Potty Training took 1 week & night time doesn't count :)
*We are now the proud owners of 1 pack of Tinkerbell and 1 pack of Hello Kitty big girl panties.
*Made a trip to Ikea weekend before last, I am in LOVE!! Not to mention we made it out of there with $300 less in our bank account, but 5 dinning chairs, 2 dressers, and 4 awesome clear containers for my kitchen richer.
*Went to Oktoberfest the day before our Ikea trip, the boys road a kids roller coaster, the Fares wheel, and the twirl bears all for the first time. This was also all three of the kids first trip to any type of fair.
*We have drove all around looking at 6 different cars the within the past 2 weeks, plus KS has spent countless hours surfing the internet looking for a cheap car to get him from the house to work and back with no luck so far.
*Took the kids to the unit Halloween festival this weekend, they came back with their faces painted and their hair two different colors.
*Think I made a new friend! Very excited about this one, still miss all my girls though!!
*Bought another pantry for the kitchen, and ordered the fabric for the kitchen curtains and the fabric for the bathroom/laundry room downstairs.
*Kiale is finally catching up to where he should be for the schools here, and Colin is doing great and right on target.
*Homework takes FOREVER every night.
*Pictures and a halfway decent (at least) blog post coming very soon. I hope. ;-)

Magic

I took this with my phone today. This is what makes all of the hard times worth it...

This is frequently the scene in my truck or even while we are taking walks with her in the stroller. She is in love with her brothers and they are in love with her. This is how having siblings should be, it should be like a magical bond that can never be broken.

Easter

I will have to admit Easter turned out great here. I was really worried about how our first holiday away from our families would turn out. Thankfully thanks to friends and 2 wonderful Easter egg hunts it went really well. Both of the boys had Easter egg hunts at school and then we went to one of the two egg hunts here on base.

Colin's School Easter Egg Hunt

 

The Easter Egg hunt here on base, unfortunately I was not able to get pictures of the boys b/c they had their hunts in two different locations, and I have yet to figure out how to be in two places at the same time.

Cayleigh-Grace would not go near the Easter bunny but she did wave to him a lot and she kept saying "Bye Bye." This is the first year I have not done official Easter bunny pictures and I am very sad not to have it but I did not want a repeat of Christmas and Cayleigh-Grace screaming her head off. Maybe next year.

I cant have an Easter post without a picture of the kids dying their Easter eggs. I went for the less mess this year and bought a kit that you just rub the eggs in the sparkly dye. They boys loved it and Cayleigh-Grace just napped through it. That was one giant mess I just did not want to deal with

Time Flies & a new blog!!

Well it has been a month today since we signed on our house, and if I am going to be honest the homesickness has hit head on. It is very lonely here for me. Don't get me wrong I love this place and I love being with my husband again but I am also very lonely. Well as lonely as you can get with 3 kids running around and making 3 trips to the school each day. It is just very quiet around here, I guess I was just expecting to actually see and hear people throughout the day but in reality I am surrounded by other houses and families but I never see anyone. It is really bizarre. I miss my friends and my family back home, and I miss all the wonderful girls I spent 9 weeks talking to and pouring my heart out to while all of our husbands were going through basic training together. We made a seperate blog to keep together its called, Our Soldiers Make Us Sisters, and you can find it by clicking on the name. We haven't been active with it yet but now that everyone is settled again I am hoping we can get it up and running. We are finally 100% unpacked minus I mirror I cannot figure out where to place and a box that I repacked that is full of stuff I just don't want out since we will be moving again in 6 months.

Being with KS again is wonderful and hard all at the same time, we are going through the adjustment phase of bringing our family all under one roof again and it hasn't been without its bickering. Nothing major just little spats here and there. He was already a very quiet and inside person to begin with and it seems that going through BCT has just made him even quieter which does not help things. Its almost as if he has learned to exist and cope without us and he doesn't know how to act with us here  27/7 now. All I know is that I need interaction and attention and its like I am having to fight for it and pull it out of him. I know sound like a 5 year old right... oh well its how I feel. I am sure some of you will understand, at least I hope you will. The kids are all recovering from fevers thankfully Colin and Cayleigh-Grace's only lasted 24 hours, Kiale's on the other hand has lasted double that and he has been out of school for the past 2 days. I am hoping that he will be able to return tomorrow but I am not 100% sure on that. I would hate to make any of the other student's sick. I have begun basically doing home-school here on top of them going to school since I am not at all happy with their PreK and in my honest opinion taking Colin to school is a waste of gas money but KS wants me to keep him in just to give myself a break if nothing else, and I agree so off he will go. Don't get me wrong the school here is nice it just isn't anywhere near as good as their previous school back home was.

Well I guess that is enough for today. Have a wonderful day everyone, tomorrow is FRIDAY!!!

Kids & Random Thoughts

Do you ever have those weeks where you wish you could just send your kids back to wherever it is they came from? That is me!!! These three are driving me bonkers!! The boys have been pushing my buttons and all of my limits for the past two weeks, and Cayleigh-Grace has been very fussy. I am starting to wonder if she will hit her terrible twos at 18 months just like Kiale did. It wouldn't surprise me since she takes after him the most anyway. We will be doing a lot of traveling these next few days and I just hope that they straighten up and start acting right for me. It just seems like I have been completely unable to get control over them for some reason.

On a lighter note, we will be reunited with KS this week!! I am very excited and trying not to dwell on the fact that we will see him for two days and then have to give him back again. Hopefully we will have a lot of contact during this second phase of his training; we should, but you never know. As of right now he does not have his orders in hand but he should by later on today. I hope. Please keep us and all the other families traveling in your prayers. You could throw in an extra prayer for no snow and warmer weather too! I wouldn't mind. :-)

I sold my TV on Saturday and I bought a new entertainment center yesterday. I am really excited about it!! It won't be in for another 3-6 weeks, but that is okay since I don't even have a TV to put on it yet. I cannot wait to get it in. The picture of it makes the wood look very pink, but in reality the wood is almost the white color of maple. I will be staining it natural on the top and then the rest of it will be white. The handles will be the natural color too. I picked out our new dinning table and chairs while I was there too. You have no idea how happy I will be to have a table with more than 3 chairs, at this point when we are able to eat as a family 1 or 2 kids have to eat on the toy box that we use as a bench. The table in the link is a little bigger than the one I picked out but it looks the same. I will have a large table with 6 chairs and room to fit two more chairs if I need too!! These will be stained the same was as the entertainment center. I am so excited to be getting some new furniture, and this is all wood furniture so it should hold up well to our many future Army moves!

Reunited

Day 2 - December 16th

This day was the most amazing day I have had in years, well 16 months to be exact! We were finally reunited with KS. You would be surprised just how long a month can feel like when you have limited contact and never see the person. The morning started off great, Cayleigh-Grace and had breakfast downstairs, well Cayleigh-Grace did. I was too nervous to eat; I did have some apple juice though. We finally got to see what everything looked like since we got there so late we couldn't see anything when we arrived.

 

After breakfast we went and checked out of the hotel and met up with a fellow Army wife that I have met along this journey. To hear our stories you would swear we were twins separated at birth or something. We have been walking the same path all these years without even knowing each other. By the way "J" we are both fired, we have yet to get a picture together!

CG as we left our hotel room. 

Once we met up with "J" we had to wait for about an hour until our husbands were released. We didn't get to see our husbands march in but we did see another platoon march in. I think we both almost had heart attacks looking for our husbands in the group. They ended up standing in formation about two feet from us. Picking KS up ended up being very confusing they kept sending all of the families to different doors that all went into the same building. Even the Drill Sergeants that were running things were getting frustrated because it wasn't going as planned. Eventually we all, I am talking around 30+ people, got to the correct door filed into the correct line by platoon number and signed out our soldiers. Once we signed them out and confirmed that we had our vehicles inspected we could pick up our soldiers. That was also confusing. Some of the platoons handed out paperwork to the families and other platoons had their paper work with their soldiers. I finally got tired of waiting around being confused and just walked up to the DS at the door and asked for KS. He had to call him twice because he wasn't KS's DS so he wasn't sure if he was calling the right name. I think I had the biggest smile ever when I saw KS stand up from his chair and walk towards me, I just couldn't believe that I was finally seeing him for the first time in a month. I was on cloud 9 to say the least. They are allowed NO PDA (personal displays of affection) at all so I put my hand on him for a second and handed him CG because I knew he could at least hold her while we were on post. Cayleigh-Grace didn't recognize KS until he took his hat off, but as soon as he did she knew exactly who he was. She was so happy to see him.

CG after seeing Daddy for the first time.

After we pick KS up we met up with "J" and her husband and we all went out to lunch at Chick-Fil-A

After lunch it was finally time to head home. We went straight to pick up the boys at my parents house. I don't think I have ever seen them happier. It was so amazing to see them run out the doors of my parents house and jump into KS's arms. Colin ran straight out, but Kiale thought he had to put his shoes on until my sister Dixie told him not to worry about his shoes and to go get Daddy.

 I have never seen this boy run so fast in his entire life!

Kiale finally caught up after ditching the shoes idea.

So as you can imagine December 16th was one amazing day for my family and it was a wonderful way to kick of an amazing Christmas break! 

Army Bears

These are the kid's special Army Build-a-Bears. Each bear has a special message in them from Daddy, so when they miss him they will always be able to hear his voice and his special message for each of them. Please keep us in your prayers as tomorrow is the big day and pray for KS to enjoy basic training as much as it can be enjoyed and as well as for his safety and health while he is away.

Add a caption

The kid's special Army Build-a-Bears. Each bear has a special message in them for Daddy, so when they miss him they will always be able to hear his voice and his special message for them.

Wordless Wednesday

Blogtoberfest- October is here!!

Whats up with the button right? I am participating in blogtoberfest 2009! So during the month of October I am committed to daily blogging of some sort, so go ahead and join me in the fun and head over here and sign up!

Okay, so to tell you the truth I thought I was going to completely freak out once October got here but really, I'm fine. No freak outs not weird moods, nothing! Lets just hope it stays that way. We are down to 45 days until I drop KS off at the hotel for basic training... goodness its going to fly bye. Thankfully that goes both ways and his time apart from us is going to go bye quickly as well.

I just had a quick question, has anyone else s kids been absolutely CRAZY this week. I think mine have been in trouble nonstop since Monday. I am wondering what happened in their brains b/c whatever it is needs to fix itself so they can regain their sanity and I can give my voice a break from yelling and fussing nonstop! I don't know if its the cooler weather or what but their attitudes sure are annoying. I went through yesterday and pulled out all of the cold weather clothes, Cayleigh-Grace fits into 18 month pants perfectly. I have never had a baby fit into that length of pants this early. Colin was wearing 24 month pants at this age but that was because he was so big around, sorry Colin! I think I had to roll his pants up four times just so he could still walk in them...

Slip-n-Slide Party

My house is so quiet right now I honestly think you could hear a pin drop. All three of the kids are passed out in their beds peacefully sleeping. They are utterly exhausted, and this would be why...

There were lots of...

Slipping
Sliding
Swimming
Falling
Eating
Running
Building
Fun
All in all it was a wonderful day spent with friends and loved ones! Oh, and you cannot beat McDonald's for lunch, plus WONDERFUL ice cream will all the fixins!

Couldn't Help Myself

Gotta love the legwarmers! Our wood floors get so cold on her, I had to find something cute to keep her warm during our sweltering summers!

My favorite flowers, after a little tweeking.

I love my kids (even on the bad days...)

A Dimpled Darling

Thats my crazy girl!

A much needed break

You know, you don't really realize how stressed and just how much you need a break from reality until you finally get one. I came home from the beach yesterday feeling like a totally different woman, even today I am feeling so much better then I have in weeks. This day trip for us was so much fun. It was the kids and I (KS had to work, and has no interest in beach trips) My parents, sisters, and my sister's boyfriend Dylan. I cannot wait until next weekend when we get to do it all again!!! Who knows maybe next weekend KS will be able to join us.

I can honestly say that I am the happiest now that I have been in years, I truly feel like our family is complete... things just cannot get any better than this.

Kiale can swim now, well underwater, he loves it. He wasn't a fan of the ocean and preferred the pool, but he still had a wonderful time.

Colin on the other hand throughly enjoyed the ocean and would rather been down there then at the pool.

Boy, do I love these kids! I am one lucky momma to have been blessed with the three of them!

This was Cayleigh-Grace's first time to the beach and to a pool, and I have to admit my little water bug loved every minute of it! She wasn' t so sure about things at first and was quite clingy and a little fussy at times but she was wonderful.

Cayleigh-Grace does not like the ocean... see I have the pictures to prove it!

After we got back home we met up with my husband, the non-beach-loving person that he is at the club that we belong to and had fried fish and fried gator tail for dinner. The boys were even able to catch a toad! (Yes, I realize they are a bit sunkissed... it happens)
The perfect end to a perfect day