Utah Trip & Goulding Reunion-June 2013

We went to Utah for Memorial Day.  What a fun Utah trip we had. 

 We went to the Allen Reunion up in Kingston.

 Then we went to dinner at Aunt Lana's.  Tanner had a blast playing with all of his cousins.  :)

 And of course the balloons.

Then we went to Light the Night.

It was a pretty cool thing.  Besides the bawling our eyes out part :)

There was a very special spirit there.  It was fun hearing about all the boys and the wonderful lives they had.

We spent a lot of time at the cemetery this trip.  I didn't realize that the year mark was going to hit me so hard.  I had a rough morning so I left the kids with Dusky and spent quite a while at the cemetery by myself.  It was nice to be there where it's peaceful and just be able to cry as hard as I wanted.

There were a lot of people that visited that weekend because lots of stuff got left on his grave.

We took the girls to the sand dunes.

They were in heaven.

Sienna is her father's child.  The girl has no fear.  She climbed onto a rock that had a steep dropoff on the other side and I heard her say to herself "Ugghhh...this is gonna hurt!"  and then she jumped.

hahaha.  She is a funny girl.

 On Tuesday we drove down to Palm Springs for the annual Goulding family reunion.  

Dusky and I were in charge this year so we reserved a bunch of rooms at the timeshare there.

On our drive down we stopped to get food and as we were getting back in the car Dusky said to the girls  "See that big hill up there...that's where the world ends.  When we go off the other side we are just going to fall off the end of the world!"  Kaia and Eja went wide eyed and Sienna said "Okay, let me buckle up!"

Like I said, she's CRAZY!

When we got to palm springs we all got checked in and the kids started swimming immediately.  It was a pretty fun place.  We ate pizza and did a lot of swimming.  There was a guy out by the pool every night playing his guitar and singing.  So Rob joined him and it was fun to listed to them.

Dusky was a goofball as usual...

Wednesday we went to Knotts Soak City.  Everyone had a blast.  Kaia and Eja were too scared to do anything but the kiddie slides.  Sienna went on all of the slides by herself.  I was pretty shocked.  She even went down the dark tube ones by herself.  I thought for sure she would come out crying but she wanted to do it all again.

Then we went back to the rooms and swam some more.

The next day the boys played golf and the girls took all the kids to the park.  It's soooo hot there.

Rennie, Helayna, Rob & Sally, and Dusky wanted to stay an extra night and everyone else left to go home

 I was going to take Tanner and Eja and fly out of Palm Springs.  We went to the airport and our flight was delayed.  It finally got to the point that we were going to miss the last connection in Denver so we decided to go back to the hotel and try again the next morning.

That was a wise choice because the little Tan Man was not a fan of sitting still.  He was trying to climb out of his stroller ALL DAY LONG

 So, this years reunion was a success.  We always love our time spent with the Goulding Fam!

Our Louisiana Trip-July 2013

Dusky decided that it had been way too long since him and Justin had done a "Monday Movie Marathon"

So we got on a plane and flew to Louisiana....

First we went down to the school.  They were nice enough to let us use the big ol' 15 passenger van.  It's been a while since I drove one of those.  We got to see everyone, which was super fun.  

The girls LOVED Jeanette (Grandma Nette)

We stayed with Bobby and Tricia Green.  It was so much fun catching up.  I didn't realize how much I missed her until I was sitting on her couch like old times.  We took the kids to Chick-fil-a while Dusky went to the movies.  We were there for like 3 hours.  It was fun catching up with everyone.

That night the girls wanted to have a sleepover in Emma's room.  When Dusky got home from the movie he checked on them and Kaia and Sienna were spread clear across the bed while Emma was straight as a board on the very edge.  About an hour later we heard a big THUMP.  Dusky ran in and picked Emma up off the floor, moved the girls over, and lined the floor around the bed with pillows.  The next morning Emma went to her doctor's appointment and told the doctor "That white girl kicked me off the bed!"  Hahahaha.  I love her.  She's the cutest.

The next morning we went to IHOP.  Kaia really doesn't like losing at tic-tac-toe.

Then we took the kids to the zoo.

A great time was had by all!

Until next time, Louisiana...

May 2013

 May in the Goulding household was quite eventful!  

First of all, our air conditioner went out like 3 times.  The first time the air went out it was a black guy that came to fix it.  As soon as he walked in the door Eja yelled "Do he have a brown face?"

So I quickly said " Yes Eja...Go play in your room!"

Luckily he was super nice and just laughed.  He had just had his first little baby 2 days before that and he thought kids were awesome!

Little Tan man is getting so big.  He's the cutest thing ever.

Sienna is the little mother of the family.  She is sooo helpful.  She loves to take care of everyone.

The other day we had just dropped Kaia off at school.  We had a few minutes before we had to leave to take Sienna so I sat down to feed Tanner.  By the time I was done, Sienna had taken Eja in her room, got her dressed, brushed her hair, helped her brush her teeth, put her in the car, and buckled her up.  haha.  I had to go out and say "Sienna, thank you for helping but you can get Eja out of the car because we don't have to leave for 20 minutes!"

She's the cutest ever.

Tanner gets around.  He's a fast little buggar.

He also sleeps like a crazy man.  I usually have to wake him up to take Kaia to school in the mornings.  I go in to his room and during the night he pulls his pants off and buries himself in the pillow.

For Mother's Day my mom got my the cutest chairs and table for my front porch.  I LOVE them!

 Selfies....

I love my crazy girls...

The girls love to feed their little brother.  Kaia & Sienna fight over it.  They do a really good job too.

Kaia had "Water Day" at school.

She had so much fun running around, spraying people.

 They had all sorts of relays

Eja and Kyden are little best friends.  and worst enemies.  They are really cute together.  We always laugh and say they look like twins.  When they run around together, they are the same size, same hair color, they even look alike.  They are getting to the point where they play really good together.  It's cute to watch.

Kaia had her first piano recital.  She did so good.  I was so impressed that she got up and played her songs without being too shy.  She was pretty proud of herself.

Sienna had to dress up as a character so she wanted to take Kaia's MaKenna doll.  She looked adorable.

Dusky took Sienna and Eja and went to Utah a couple of days early before he had to go to work so I wouldn't have to take all 4 by myself.  I stayed with Kaia and Tanner so we could go to Kaia's Kindergarten Graduation.  They day before they left Sienna said "Are me and Kaia going to Utah tomorrow?"  and I told her "No, you and Eja are going."  THen she said "Well, they pretty much look the same...so sometimes I forget!"

hahaha.  She's a crack up.

Kaia, Tanner, and I had a little playdate at McDonalds with everyone gone.  Plus Kaia was pretty excited that she got to have a girls night/sleepover with mom for a couple nights by herself.