Silver Dollar City Fun

I 'm still here! It has just been super busy. This time of year always is for us. Many family birthdays, which means many trips to Guthrie.
We did manage to go somewhere else besides Guthrie earlier this month. We took the kids to Silver Dollar City. Todd had the whole week off and our original plan was to leave after school on Wed. But Jordan decided to catch some weird bug Saturday after we had gone to Trail Days. She was very sick for 5 days and wasn't completely over it until 7 days later. She would not eat, she was losing weight (and we all know there's not much there to spare) and we could not get her out of bed except for her trips to the restroom every 30 minutes. A trip to the dr, and an antibiotic seemed to turn things around. We think it must have been a bacterial infection she may have caught from the lovely concession stand at the mid-high during Trail Days. Needless to say, I don't think she'll be wanting pizza for a while! Jake and I were safe, we had the hotdogs :)
Once we saw that she was going to be ok, we left a day later than planned.
We came back Sunday in time for Jordan to sing in the evening service at church. She did great and I am so proud of her. I will be trying to post a clip of that soon.

Here they are getting ready to ride the swings. This was Jacob's 1st time. I especially enjoyed this trip because it was the 1st time Jordan could ride these spinning rides with him and not me or their dad. We were very glad for that!

Todd and Jordan rode this winding thing 10 or 15 times! NO THANKS! Jacob rode his 1st big coaster (not this one) on this trip. He LOVES them. It just cracks me up because Jordan just started riding them last year....
He was so upset because he wasn't tall enough for this one. I have to admit though, I was relieved.

My 5 year old did ride the Powder Keg! If you have ever seen this ride you would be impressed. Here is the park's description to give you an idea:
This explosive roller coaster sends riders into a thrill zone within seconds of climbing aboard, launching from 0 to 53 miles per hour in just 2.8 seconds. A thrill ride unlike any other at the theme park, PowderKeg^® combines the shocking speed of the compressed air-launch with spiraling turns, negative gravitational or "G" forces, and "floater" hills at speeds up to 64 miles per hour for a truly wild ride experience.

He debated riding it the whole time we were there. For 2 days he watched Todd and Jordan ride it. Even his dad was reluctant to let him ride, worrying it would be a little too big for him. But he told us he was big enough (because of the sign) and that he wanted to be brave. So he rode it the last day we were there on the last run for the day! So brave!

These are a couple of pics I took for my photography II class I took last month.
We were to take window portraits...just using the light from the window and a reflector. It was fun.
I love Jacobs eyes if I can ever catch them looking at me! He is hardly ever cooperating.
Jordan, on the other hand, loves to pose. She had her 1st professional shoot yesterday for modeling. She did awesome! I will hopefully have those back soon and post a few of them for you all. I tagged along and took notes of some really great places to take pics. They took some really cool pics in Brookside & Utica.

Anyway, these are not "GREAT" but they are some of my firsts in full manual mode! I am rather proud of myself.
Stacy & I are now taking editing classes, so hopefully I will learn how to add that extra something to some of my pics.

Birthday, Zoo, Easter....

There is no rhyme or reason to this post. I have not posted in a while (as some of you have pointed out to me) so I thought I would post a few pics of what has been eating up my time.

The "Easter Bunny" brought the kids scuba gear. Jacob likes to wear his around the house and then he will ask us about 1000 times if we can take him up to the YMCA to try it out. Todd finally did and it went pretty well. Jacob loves to swim under water. The only problem is that he can't get back up to the top of the water. But he's not scared to try so we'll keep working on that, he'll get it in no time, I'm sure.
We took the kids to the zoo on Easter weekend. The zoo has an exhibit set up where you can go feed the parakeets and cockatiels. They give you a stick with seed on the end of it and the little birds come and land on your stick. Well, everything was going fine until one of them landed on Jake's head. He did not like that. He walked around the rest of the time in there with either his hand on his head or his hood on.

The bird lady....

We went to Guthrie to celebrate Todd's brother, Scott's 40th birthday!
Here is how us girls celebrated....we got our hand and feet done.

Jordan and Peyton.

This is Todd's sister, Traci and her daughter Peyton. It was so funny to watch Peyton get her feet done. When she sat up in the chair her feet couldn't reach the water. I know how she feels....

This is the birthday boy and their mom.

This is Jacob with Scott's oldest son Ryan. What good looking guys!

Zoo pics

There are two new little chimps at the zoo!No, those are not the ones I am talking about:)
Casey's blog inspired me to post some pics of our zoo trip last week.
They're not really new, this is just the 1st time we've seen them. Both of them were out playing. This is the female, she's 1 year and a little more crazy than the male. He won't be a year until this summer. She would come up to the glass and play with the kids.
Sorry for the poor quality. I was having trouble taking pics through the glass.
She would put her lips up to the glass and then smush her face down the glass, making funny faces. Just like a little kid!

Here she would put her hand up to the glass wanting Jordan to put her's up there. So neat!

Basketball

Well I am finally posting some pics from basketball, just as I promised. Weeks of trying to put into use the things taught in my photography class, and this is the best I get! I've come to decide that it's almost impossible to get a good pic in that gym!
Today was their last game and we missed them both due to Todd's injury and mostly Jacob and Jordan being very sick. Stomach bug...yuck! I finally called dr last night and she called in some pills for the vomiting, otherwise it would have been off to the ER. They were not to have ANY thing for an hour after taking the pills, but Jacob wanted a drink soooo bad. I let him have little sips. He would call out every 10 minutes, "Can I have a big drink now?"
So, Jacob wakes up this morning saying, "I feel good. Can I have some 7-up?"
Takes big gulps and drinks it down (ignoring my warnings). "Wow, I can take big drinks now!"
Few minutes go by, "Oh, that 7-up made my belly hurt." He's out in 5 minutes and sleeps for 2 more hours.
Wakes up, "I feel good. Can I have some 7-up? I need to go to my game! My team needs me, they are probably running out the curtain now, let's go!" Uh, it's 10:45, the game was at 9.

Jacob can dribble pretty well, with either hand too. He just can't quite get it up there when shooting it. He would usually pass it to someone who could though. He's a great team player.

Pivot! Yes, he pivots...it's too funny. He will try to set a pick too. All of this he learns from Todd coaching Jordan. He pays attention when it comes to sports. Sometimes I think he gets it better than the 5th - 8th grade girls Todd was coaching, my daughter included.

Yes, I did say 5th through 8th grade! Jordan plays point guard, has for several years. She can get around those girls (that are twice her size) and get the ball to the goal. She just can't shoot it over their heads. They are just too tall, and nothing against the girls, they should be taller than her....they're in the 7th and 8th grades! She's in 5th.

This pic just cracks Todd and I up. Upwards is all about matching teams & players up by skill. But what about size??? I think an 8th grader against a 5th grader might be stretching it a little:)

Oh, I almost forgot...I mentioned Todd's injury and many of you are probably wondering. He sprained his ankle very bad. Yes, AGAIN! But it's the other ankle this time. He was scrimmaging with the girls Thurs night and rolled his foot. This one is worse than the one at the lake. I am going to have to buy him some "special" shoes.

Ice, Ice Baby!

I thought I would post some pictures from the ice storm we had last month for those of you living South and West of here!
We lost power for about 3 days, we were one of the fortunate ones. We have a gas fireplace, stove and water heater, so we were still able to cook, shower and keep fairly warm. I am not a winter person, so I am certain after all of this that I do not want to live any further North!


This is Jacob's soccer net. Our poor tree. Todd and I tried to knock some of the ice off, and bolt it back together. Now we are waiting for spring to see if it worked.
It was a very eerie sound as the trees started to crack and break from all of the weight of the ice. There are not many trees left with their tops. A pilot called Todd last week and asked him what in the world happened here. He thought a tornado had come through.

Just a couple...

Well, here a re a couple of pics from Christmas. I know you all have been waiting to see something new from me, just can't get enough pics of my kids, right?
Hopefully I'll have some basketball pics to post soon. Just need to get it done. Won't be long, but I can't promise! ;o)Here is Jacob and their cousin, Tyler. I know, you can't see Jacob because he is wearing his camo and he blends with the tree, but look hard, he's there!