Finally the school bell rings.....

The boys went back to school on July 28th. I think they were as ready as I was. Hayden tells everyone.... the vet, his teacher, everyone at church that this has been the worst summer of his whole life. "My mom make me READ and do WORKBOOK PAGES," he says as he rolls his eyes. Most people congratulate me on keeping them busy with things other than the TV. My mom used to do it to me, so I have to pass on the missery! The kids also took diving lessons this year and they loved that so they had some fun. They certainly weren't locked in their rooms reading every minute. As you can see Hayden is still WAY too cool for his Mom to take pictures. I show him this picture and remind him there was a time when he too loved to have his picture taken! ;o)

A LONG Summer

Why is it that summers in Arizona are SOOOOO long and winter just flies right by? Maybe it is because I hate the heat and I hate to sweat even more! Most people say.... oh, but it is a DRY heat and my response is always.... so is an OVEN but it is still hot and miserable! Their come back is always.... but you have a pool in the backyard.... and I say, "and by June it is like bathwater and too hot to be refreshing!" Ok, seriously I am complaining, but since I can't sell my house and move, I will continue to complain! ;o)

Our highlight of every summer is going to the cabin in Eagar for the 4th of July. We all LIVE for the parade. The kids have their sacks to collect their candy and Liv got in on the fun this year. Hayden was acting way too cool to get candy and he just wanted to sit on the curb UNTIL I told him he would not get to eat Cole and Olivia's candy so if he didn't get his own he was out of luck. His attitude changed in a matter of seconds. Gone was his too old, too cool attitude. He was ready to get his share of the loot!

This year we got a special treat..... an Blackhawk helicopter fly by. They absolutely stole the show. It was awesome and you can see in the picture, all eyes and cameras were on them. It was unbelievable!

Dance with me......

All year Olivia has been going to dance class and her big recital was on May 31, 2008. Her dance was to "Baby Face" and they stole the show! She was so excited! After she was done dancing, she stood in the aisle and copied everyone else who danced on the stage. I was amazed how well she did in front of an auditorium full of people. She definitely doesn't take after me. I remember I took tap until it was recital time and then I REFUSED to go on stage to do my "little fishy" dance. That was the end of my dancing career! Olivia is all girl and she loves to wear her dancing costumes. Don't you just love her poses??

Go, See, Do.....

In March of this year Hayden, Cole and I went with Dad, Mitzi and Kendall to Germany. I will never forget the boys faces when they saw how big the Lufthansa plane was. Cole just couldn't believe that there were TV's on it and that he could actually watch TV the whole flight. However, thank goodness for Dramamine and Ambient! We all slept most of the flight over. This is of course the ideal thing to do since it is a night flight and when we arrived it was morning. We flew to Munich, picked up our cute, MANUAL BMW coupe and we were off to the timeshare. That is right after I remembered how to drive a stupid manual car. Reverse was the hardest part until Hayden figured out that I needed to push down to get it into reverse. Thank goodness for Hayden! Now driving on the Autobahn was an experience. Looking down at the speedometer and seeing 180 or 200 kilometers per hour seemed really fast and then I realized that once I converted it into miles per hour it still was a fast 110 miles an hour. I have to admit I would love to drive like that everyday! We had a timeshare in a small town near the Austrian boarder called Schliersee. As we checked in the receptionist at the front desk asked the kids if they had remembered to bring their swimming costumes. They looked at me and weren't quite sure why they would bring a "costume" to Germany. When I told them she was asking about their swimming suit, they giggled and said yes they did bring them. To this day, we still giggle and laugh about swimming costumes!

These pictures were taken from the top of a mountain overlooking the town where we stayed. The boys loved the tram ride tot he top but were rather disappointed that the alpine slide down the mountain was closes for the winter. They were convinced that we would make a second trip to Germany this summer just to go on that slide!

The first day we went to Salzburg Austria to go to the salt mine. Mitzi and I went there in 1990 on our first trip to Europe. It was something we knew the kids would love. We all had to dress in these white suits so our clothes wouldn't get ruined by the salt. Here are Cole and Hayden looking cute in their "mine clothes". Inside the mine are slides that we had to slide down to get farther inside the mine. I guess we were too busy racing down the slides to take pictures, but here is one from the salt mine website. If I remember right, Cole and I clocked the fastest time!! Here is also a picture of the kids playing in the snow just outside the mine. This mine in Salzburg has been around for hundreds of year and the history is amazing.

The second day we ventured over to the west to the Castles of King Ludwig. First was his winter castle, where he would go to hunt. He had a love for swans so everywhere you look there are swans.... swans swimming in the lake, swan figurines, swans carved into beds, swan tapestries. Of course there was still too much snow to see how beautiful it is in the summer with the gardens in bloom. Now before we entered they told us that we were not allowed to take flash photography, so that means you can take pictures as long as you don't use a flash right?? WRONG! I took a few pictures and some Italian people on the tour with us nearly took my head off. But at least I got some photos taken first!

Next came the Castle Neuschwanstein, better known as the Disneyland Castle, in Fussen, Germany. When I worked for Amatech, the headquarters were about 10 minutes from this castle so I have been there several times but it never gets old. However, I recommend taking the horse drawn wagon up. It is quite a long walk and going uphill will be quite the workout. On the way down, we bought some delicious Germany doughnuts sprinkled with powdered sugar. Eating those you won't remember what a long walk it is. The yellow castle was also Ludwig's and is on the mountain just opposite of Neuschwanstein. The castle did have running water and it came from this waterfall (3rd photo). Also here is a picture from the top of the castle overlooking Fussen.

The next day we drove into Munich to Dachau to a concentration camp. Cole was thrilled to go.... I think the word "camp" really threw him off. I am not sure what he thought he would see. Hayden is my World War II walking encyclopedia so he was very interested to go and learn more. It is a very somber place and to look at the pictures in the gallery and to read about what occurred there is mind boggling. We didn't take many pictures because it seems like such a reverent place and not the place for pictures. We did take a few pictures of the barracks that Hayden could share with his class at school.I remember the first time I came here. It was again with Mitzi in 1990. It was as if my history book had come to life. I remember reading about the people who think the Holocaust never happened but to come here and to feel and see what I did was life changing! Hayden asked lots of questions. It was a great teaching day. We talked about tolerance and love for others.

The following day we took the train into Munich. We were going to do some sight seeing and go to the Deutsches Museum. Before the train came we went to the bakery to buy some pretzels to eat on the ride in. Here are the kids waiting for the train being silly with pretzel mustaches.

Here are a few pictures from the museum and a government building in Munich. The architechure is gorgeous!

The next day we stayed in Schliersee and drove into the mountains and watched people ski. We ate great "eis" which is the best ice cream in the world. In fact once we found the store, Hayden, Cole and I went every night for "eis".

We enjoyed being together and having amazing experiences! My dad always says, "the only thing we take with us in the next life are memories and experiences we have in this life." I want to instill in my kids that same philosophy of going, seeing and doing! the know the boys will never forget this trip, we still talk about it at least once a week as we get into our swimming costumes!