Friday, September 16, 2011

denver aquarium {with cousins!}

On Wednesday we had an astounding 4" of rain in just one day.

And our basement flooded. 

Well, not our whole basement, but one room.  

And so we worked well into the wee small hours...

pulling up carpet, fixing drains, praying the rain would STOP.

On Thursday, I was sick of water and I wanted to get out of the house...

so my sister and I took the munchkins to Denver to meet up with our cousins. 

We decided to go to...

The Denver Aquarium.  

Ha ha ha.  Does anyone else think that is funny?  

Anyway, we took these four hooligans (and baby Scarlett too) to run off some energy and look at some fish, sharks, and other exciting sea creatures.  


This generation of boys is quite a change from our generation of four girls!

They were all so cute playing together and running to the next thing.


I finally let Tanner out of the stroller and he was wide-eyed with wonder.
  

He loved all the "ishie!" (fishies) and just kept staring at the different aquariums.  He looked like such a little boy today.  Keeping up with the big kids and taking it all in.


We saw so many crazy huge fish, star fish, sea turtles, jellie fish, sting rays, sharks, and even tigers!!


We also got to see a few birds. This one performed for the boys by saying "hello," waving, and showing off his wings.  Hunter was in shock.  I kept asking him, "what do you think?" and he would just shrug his shoulders and throw out his hands.  So funny.


By far, the boys favorite thing to see were the Sharks.  They were quite impressive and those teeth sure do look scary up close!  Hunter said a few times, "they can't break that glass and come eat us....can they?"


Hunter and Sawyer also loved the sting rays and were able to pet them.  Hunter has been a sting ray all day today...saying, "mom, pet my wings!"


The kids had fun and we enjoyed spending some time with our cousins, Jacque and Jenna.  

Jacque won a gold star for the day...at 9 months pregnant she certainly was a trooper.  

She is a total rock star...


And that is the end.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

a huge thank you {and a sneak peek}

A BIG thank you to all who participated in the fundraiser for the Johnson family.  

It was a great day! 

We were able to raise $665 for the Johnson's adoption!! 

I loved seeing familiar faces and meeting new families.

It was a beautiful day.

I am sorting through just under 3,000 photos from the day...phew!

It may be 3 or 4 weeks before I am able to get images to everyone so I thought I would do a quick sneak peak for all the families that participated. 

(I'm not sure why all the pictures look so pixeled -- is that a word?-- the images won't print this way but are showing up in blogger like this.  I don't know why.  Just to give me a headache, I suppose.  Does anyone know why? It's making me crabby and a little crazy!)


These pictures barely scratch the surface!!

Can't wait for you all to get your images and be reminded of the blessing you were in the life of an orphan and a very precious family.

Thank you.

From the bottom of my heart.

Now...I better get to work!