Time to Catch Up with Les

"ARE YOU READY TO RUMBLE!!!!!"-er...I mean, read my catch up post? :)

What did you do last weekend?
Well last weekend, as in today and yesterday, weren't too exciting for the Brown family. I'll go ahead and tell you about what we did 2 weekends ago instead. We had just rounded up our month long visit in UT & needed to leave on Wed so that we could be back in KS by Fri night. (because Matt's boss is LAME & gave him some crap about needing to be "on call" it really ticked me off...anyway) I made a few too many trips to IKEA and yard sales while we were visiting and had to literally CRAM everything into the van!

This is a pic of us arriving in Denver, but what you can't see is that we have a whole other storage container on top of the van FULL of stuff, plus the jogging stroller! Our drive from Lehi to Denver was smooth, we left at about 2:30 am & got there about 10:30 am. I slept pretty well, but was still tired from staying up that late packing! So, we hung out with friends all day & planned on doing the same thing that night. Matt napped for a few hours in the afternoon, and we left Denver at about 10:00pm. (oh, and I managed to squeeze some new carpet remminants into the van too!) Everything was going according to plan until Matt realized that his nap wasn't going to cut it. We stopped at a rest stop for him to take a power nap & instead of just sitting there I decided to take a turn driving. (I'm not a huge fan of driving at night & it didn't take long for me to remember why) I had driven about an hour & was feeling SO SO sleepy! I knew that Matt was too tired too, so I stopped the first chance I got and looked for the nearest hotel. To make an already long story a little shorter...we ended up spending $80 bucks for all 6 of us to sleep in a room with 2 full beds & no crib! Good thing Pase was zonked & slept on the make-shift bed I made her on the floor! We left the next morning at 9:30 am feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the remaining 5 hours of our drive.

What's new with your kids? (list each kid)

Trinity-Is losing more teeth by the minute & is very excited to meet her new 1st grade teacher tomorrow, Mrs. Noe, at the back to school night. She is so super helpful & capable of doing so many "adult" things that I forget to treat her like the 6 year old little girl she really is. She is driven, determined, persistant, and persuasive...just like me...so we are either a great team, or arch enemies :) I love her to bits and will really miss having her around during the day time.

Brinley-Has really taken a 180 from the quiet "little girl" she was a year ago. She is so full of spunk and fire that is fully illuminated when she is in her comfort zone. She has a wild imagination and is always putting on shows for us where she is a dancer or singer (in full costume. Wig, hat, glasses, jewelry, etc.) I'll have to post a video sometime. She can always make me laugh & loves all the attention she gets. It will be interesting to see how she reacts around her peers when she starts Joy School next month.

Grayden-Is NOT my baby anymore! "I don't need any help" is his favorite thing to say & he often uses his fists rather than his words to remind everyone of that:( However, he is a lover at heart and is constantly looking Matt or I in the eye & saying, "Mom(or Dad)...I LOVE YOU!" I am going to see if he is interested in becoming potty trained after Matt has been on deployment for a while. All the books say its never a good time to start when a life changing event has occured recently. I'm pretty sure deployment falls in that category :)

Pasynne, Paysenn, Paisynn-My mistaken identity child...the poor thing will grow up with a story of how her name never had a consistant spelling. LOL She will be ONE on thursday & I really don't know where that year went! She really took off walking while we were in UT and is all over the place! Going from crawling to walking just opens up a whole new plethora of things for her to get into. Her favorite new discovery is the trash...in every room...GROSS.

Any fun summer plans coming up?

Nope :) Our only plans were to go to UT & we really had a fun time. I have SO many pics of things we did while we were there & I am really really REALLY going to try and update my own blog with them! One of the high lights was going to "Foam Day" with all the grandkids, but there were so many other things we all enjoyed. Parades, camping in the back yard, Trafalga, Pinata, game nights, swimming, & more.

Anything else you wanna share?
Nothing super exciting comes to mind?? Matt leaves on Tues Night (wed morning really, but 3:30am on Wed seems more like Tues night to me) & it hit me pretty hard today that he really is leaving :( I had a good cry with Matt (well, I was the only one crying) and spent some quality time together talking about how it would go by fast. I just don't know who it will be harder on, me or the kids?

I don't want to end on a "downer" so I guess I'll end by telling you about Matt's surprise going away gift to me. He completely surprised me by getting a super duper new camera lens for my Nikon!! It hasn't come yet, but it should be here ANY DAY & I can't wait!!! Right now my camera just has the one lens it came with, which is a 18-55M, and the new one is a 18-200M!! I am so excited...I'm gonna feel like a proffesional. Hahaha