Africa from my pov

matt has been wanting to visit his dad in africa ever since grandpa left, and since grandpa is coming home this year, off he went! this was matt's graduation/birthday/boys trip/christmas/anniversary gift. ;) as we were planning, grandpa sooo generously offered to pay for alexis/and/or/christian to come along. surprisingly, alexis wasn't super thrilled about tagging along with the boys, but after some deliberation, chris decided he was game. it was a lot of work to get ready for! visa's, passports, shots, pills, they were busy boys! on thursday, april 10th they were finally off!

they texted from their first layover, and then when they got there. and this was the first picture i got from chris. so awesome! he said he'd made a friend and was chilling at the ghana temple.

 matt and grandpa went inside to do a session and chris hung out with one of the temple guards.

 

 Captioned: "Hanging out with Eben at the Ghana Temple."

i've checked him (ato kwamena ofori-amoakoh)

out on fb and he looks like a really cool guy.

 

 

from matt:

the flight to frankfurt was 7 hours, then another 7 to ghana. they were tired! but excited and ready for some fun.

grandpa had told them about this fun ice cream place, and they wanted to bring back a bowl for frankie, but the owner was not so nice and tried to take them for a ride. several times. that was a pretty common theme. matt said people would give him a ridiculously high price and when he'd say he didn't have that kind of money they'd innocently say "just go to the atm." if only it were that easy.

this one was titled "playing football with the locals."

facetime from the hostel. matt said there were tons of friendly college students there and it was really fun.

after a day or two in accra, they headed down to cape coast to stay at a hotel that keeps alligators.

at the pool. so simple, who knew that was all you needed to do for safety?

my scared of heights boy crossed a really high suspension bridge!

they went to a castle and saw some of the holding rooms for the slaves before they left for america. crazy sad.

one of the highlights was when matt and chris went paragliding at a paragliding festival.

they loved it!

here is christian running to take off.

and here is matt!

 he looks hilarious! he said he felt like he was running normally, but he was afraid of getting tripped, because several other people had fallen.

away they go!

hahahaha.

picking some fabric for a friend. 

goofy poses.

cuties!

 all the kids loved christian! they hung on him and got his phone number. he's gotten several calls and texts from his african friends.

he searched for this african shirt. he wore it on the flight home and again to school the next day. i love that he was so excited to show it off and talk about his trip!

 

on their way home they had a 7 hour layover in frankfurt, so they headed out into the city! they grabbed some pastries and took some pictures. now they both have the international travel bug!!! so glad our boys were able to have this bonding adventure. i'm trying to get matt to do a couple of posts, so we shall see!

WiR

(Week in review)

I got behind on blogging over spring break. Matt and Chris went to Africa (more to come) and I didn't want to put that on the blog when we girls were alone, so I just shut it down. And then it's so hard to get back in the groove. So hard. 

We've been doing a lot of bike riding lately. The parkway is a nice straight stretch, so I let the girls go as fast as they can, but they're kind of timid, so they don't go too far. Gotta work on those training wheels soon!

We read several Easter stories and watched the little Living Scriptures Easter movie. So when Lexi picked laney up from nursery (on Easter Sunday) Celestia said how smart she was and how much she knew about Easter. They made these tombs and had a Jesus who had come out of the tomb. Celestia said he didn't fit in there very well, so laney tore her tomb so he could go in and out. (Jesus got lost as soon as we got home from church and we had a sad laney)

We went to crystal's birthday party on "Easter Monday." My kind of birthday party, go out the back door and you are there. 

Fun!

And lookie here! 

#trendsetters

I read the comments and had to chuckle. Half the people said Frankie is such a cute name and the other half couldn't believe she would name her daughter something so horrid. I'm sure it's the same for my little blondie. 

Speaking of. 

Preschool day cuteness. 

Frankie and Addie have been doing chores. Takin' out the trash. 

Our Addie-kins got Citizen of the Month at school and we are so proud of her! Afterwards we took her to Rita's for some yumminess. 

She was hot stuff. She got a cotton candy Italian ice with gummy bears and mini chocolate chips. Yummy, right?

I asked her how many kids she wanted to have and she said a thousand. What does she want to be when she grows up? Everything. I love this crazy 5-year-old. And daddy needs a haircut!

Windy days! We've had so many windy days!

Saturday was a fun and busy day. I drove the ballet bus and then took the two crazy 5-year-olds to the commissary where they were the loudest people in the store. We dropped Addie and Abby off at Sarah's for a play date and hurried home to make snackie lunch for the prom girls getting ready at our house. I made (this is important because I love food) egg rolls, buffalo wings, popcorn chicken, pizza rolls, potstickers, mozzarella sticks, veggie platter, grapes, 3 kinds of cookies, and 3 kinds of soda. The prom girls ate nothing. Except Meghan, who grabbed a plate on her way out. My kind of girl! 

We went to bubba's baseball game for an hour and a half and then rushed home for prom pictures. Franks and I went to cvs and then picked Addie up. Then it was off to girls night for Sarah's birthday. We had so much fun. (: I have a wonderful circle of women that I call friends. We talked and laughed till 2. Awesome sauce. 

On Sunday we had our big special meeting at church. It's a lot. They changed the boundaries and now we'll have a little ward that will grow. The little ward that could! I know these things are done prayerfully and for a reason, but it's stinky to miss seeing friends every week. And next Sunday 97% of the ward will get new callings. Change is good. (:

After church we had our LG friends over for a make-up Easter dinner. Since Matt and Chris were gone, Lexi went to Meg's for Lisa's birthday and the girls and I ate corn dogs. So yesterday we did it up and everyone brought yummy food and it was a nice time. Anytime you cram 32 people in a house it's a good time, right?! 

Today I met up with Matt for a senior special date. #earlybird

We wanted to go for a hike, but when you are parents you adjust and readjust. Chris needed to make up a test, which meant he'd need a ride home from school. So instead of going straight up to greenwell, we went to the high school and waited for 15 minutes, all for him to get in the car, remember there was a LX game he wanted to go to, and for us to drop him right back off. Love kids. 

By that time it had started slowly sprinkling, and was supposed to rain all evening, so we stayed local and checked out a cemetery I've wanted to check out. (Weird?) the first part of it is a pet cemetery, so we enjoyed reading about all the fluffies and busters and wolfgangs. Some had pictures. People love their pets!

Then as we got into the people part we saw our dear friend Sandra's grave. That was a sweet surprise, she was a special, soft spoken lady that I got to work with in primary before she lost her battle to cancer. 

It was full on raining by the time we left, and Lexi was bugging to go to the LX game too, so we headed up. You take what you can get, right?

We're so happy spring has decided to stay. We are busy and happy and good. (:

easter 2014 overload

i will get back to spring break soon, but for now, a million bad easter pics.

our cute neighbors down the street make bunny tracks each year and it is pretty magical!

instead of a toy, book, or movie, i  the easter bunny got everyone a personalized basket. they are very cute. :)

and, the already stuffed baskets were almost the same price as the empty, so the easter bunny, went with the prestuffed baskets and called it good.

choco bunnies are soooo fun!

lexi had threatened that she was not to be woken up, but i like to take my life into my hands, so we did it anyway. she was thrilled.

happy sweet tooth girl.

then we had the egg hunt. addie was totally ready to leap for that pink egg. i caught the pic, and then stopped her. just like any other good mom would have done.

hunting!

big helper girl.

delaney had pouted through the big girls hunt, so when it was her turn she had 3 big sister helpers. yes, 3. alexis felt the need to point eggs out to laney as well.

we love a good egg hunt.

"oh, what's over here?" 

i love that the finder is last in line. :)

and back to saturday fun.

i bucked up and we painted eggs. i love holidays, but i don't like that job. 

dying eggs and carving pumpkins are right up there on my list of holiday jobs i dislike.

the messy hands and several eggs delaney dropped on the floor are among the reasons that i don't love dying easter eggs. among other reasons.

lexi had frankie take a few pics of her.

i remembered that we should probably get pictures too with just a few minutes to spare.

 it was a bright day and the lightning notso-hotso, but here are my cute easter girls.

right about the time this pic was taken, our boys were boarding their flight home from ghana. 

but that's another post for another day.

so hard to get all 4 looking at me. at least lexi is always ready. trained the biggins to be always ready way back when addie was a baby.

haha.

i was gathering snacks and asked lexi to take a few individuals.

not quite what i had in mind, but they're cute.

lady sunshine was done with pictures.

checking out the prints.

and of course frankie and her twin, who she was only too happy to hold. she is obsessed with poor adeline!

since the boys were gone, and lexi doesn't eat, we skipped the easter meal and opted for corndogs and a bike ride. it was a nice, quiet easter.