It's Our 25th Anniversary

Here we are celebrating a beautiful milestone in our marriage.  Last October we were able to take our anniversary trip a bit early and go see some of Europe but today is our actual anniversary.  Life is so full of ups and downs and so is a marriage.  Marriage is a commitment and a contract that you make with each other, God, and the State.  There is no perfect marriage and ours is no exception.  We all change and grow, go through good times and bad, get on each others last nerve, and some times wonder "is this really the one God wanted me to marry?"  For that last one if you said "I do," then yep he or she is "the one."  Marriage takes a lot of work, sacrifice, and prayer.  One of the most challenging books I have ever read is "Created to be His Help Meet,"  by Debi Pearl.  I highly recommend it.  So saying all that... Yes, my marriage is wonderful and blessed!  We are two imperfect humans trying our best to live a life full of challenges and blessings, in a effort that our marriage might represents to the world, God and the church.  We have been blessed way more with highs then lows and I am so glad that David chose me as his bride, in our very young youth.  A few years ago I wrote of our love story and you are more then welcome to go back and read it.  I wish I was more blogger wise and had a link but it was in March 2011.  You can scroll to the side bar and click to find it.  But here are a few pictures of us over the years that I hope you will enjoy.  God Bless you all and a very big Happy Anniversary to the Love of my Life,  I love you David!
Alicia

One of our first dates

My Senior Party

Mrs and Mr

Our wedding invitation

our first puppy

our first Christmas

our first cruise

our first ski trip

Our first little boy

our first house

our first daughter

And baby makes 5

A California trip for the two of us

Mexico trip where I chickened out scuba diving.  Made it into the water but not  for long.

Baby Danika

Vacation for a family wedding

family cruise

Then there was Cassandra

Next came Isabella

Rome

Baby Aidric

Our first child to get married

London Tower

Christmas Eve with Expanding family

25th anniversary dessert

Dinner out

Hi!-Bye

Happy 2nd Birthday to My Little Man!

Let the celebration continue.  Today we celebrate the birthday of our 7th child, an amazing little boy named Aidric.  What a blessing to have such a healthy, active, and smart little boy.  I had a warm little outfit picked out for him but it is such a beautiful day, just like it was the day he was born.  So, he got to wear his cute little short outfit and go out in the chilly morning for pictures with Mama.  He was a trouper even though I know he was getting a bit chilled.  The girls quizzed him last night and were certain he wanted chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast.  Basically if you say chocolate and cake you really have his attention.  Then, Cassandra thought it necessary that he should open a present this morning.  So she blew up a green balloon and wrapped it in birthday paper.  She told Daddy that she had got a present for Aidric and it was even "free!"  Cassandra was thrilled and Aidric was thrilled.  She also thought it important that he have a picture of Alex at two years old.  It is a cute picture and I thought if funny that for Alexander's two year old picture we had him dressed in blue shorts and a plaid shirt and for Aidric two year old pictures we have Aidric in a blue shirt and plaid shorts.  Well, off I go, on with school but I wanted to post my pictures of my birthday boy.  Have a great day and God bless,
Alicia

My sweet little boy

The balloon present

Ok, Mom, it is a bit chilly, can we go inside?

Cassie's other "present" was a picture of Alex

Aidric liked it

Some of his favorite things in life, blankie, music and pacifier, one of which might disappear soon. :)

My Birthday

The birthday season has begun at our household.  Obviously there are other birthdays around the year but we have several in a row March through April.  I kicked off the season by turning.... 44. Yep that is right, another year older. Unfortunately it seemed like I was in the wrong city.  David was at meetings in Seattle, Alex and Ivy were at an interview in ...  Seattle, and my parents were on a trip in... yep, Seattle.  They all flew there on my birthday.  It was funny and ironic.

My birthday was still wonderful.  Before my parents flew out they took me to breakfast, then I came home and we did as much school as possible before my next outing.  My mother in-law took me to lunch and then to get my hair done.  This is quite a treat for me.  Normally I wait until I am fed up with my hair, call the local drop in generic shop, and squeeze it into my day.  This was quite different.  We went to a nice salon.  The appointment began with a glass of tea, head massage, followed by a wash, cut and style.  I felt very pampered.  So fun.

The following day my dear friend, Amy, took me to the tea house.  We enjoyed a lovely meal and lots of fun girl catch up time.

Then my wonderful husband took me away for a trip to the lake.  The mountains still have some snow and it was beautiful.  What a blessing.  It was a great birthday.  I am so blessed with such amazing family and my girls were so awesome to take care of things so that I could have some time off.  Truly, I am blessed.  Hope you are all having a blessed day also.

Alicia

Breakfast with my Parents

David and I enjoying the sun

The view out our window as evening was falling

The Pool area

smores fixings by the fire

my very yummy smore

Enjoying working on my grand babies blanket at the hotel.

5 Months

Latisha is doing so wonderful with her pregnancy.  She is at that beautiful stage of a cute little belly and feeling the baby move quite frequently.  We have been planning her baby shower and it is so exciting.  They have decided to do a family baby shower.  Which means we are going to invite families and not just a girl thing.  I got to join them as they made their baby registry and it was so fun.  Latisha being number two of seven siblings is pretty knowledgable about babies and registries, so the decisions were fairly easy.  We are looking forward to meeting August Nathaniel (Great gift from God) in around 16 weeks till then we will share pictures and I am hoping to soon get to feel our grandson moving in the belly.  Have a blessed day.
Alicia

Add caption

Weekend Getaway Surprise

Last weekend we got to go surprise our son, Alexander.  It was such a blessing.  David had to fly to Kansas City on Monday for meetings.  Wednesday, Aidric and I joined him.  It was Aidric's first flight and proved to be quite an adventure.  We had three flights to take to get there.  At the end of the first flight one of the flight attendants commented on what a wonderful little traveler Aidric was.  I said I hoped the people in the third flight felt the same.  The second flight he slept through.  Then came the third flight.  We made it to the final 20 minutes of the flight, but as we started to descend Aidric had decided he had enough and wanted to go for a walk.  That was not an option so, yes, we became one of those people.  Poor child screamed for the next 10 minutes.  But we got there safe and sound and were so excited to get to Alex.

The next day we jumped in the car and drove 3 hours to his college.  It was so exciting.  Ivy knew about the surprise and was in charge of getting Alex to us.  She had called him to have him meet her in the art building, but Alex said he needed to take a nap first.  Ivy persisted and he came.  We could hear them coming around the corner, so we sent Aidric out to meet him.  Alex said he thought, "that really looks like Aidric," and then we popped out and he was in total shock.  Alex is on the track team and had a track meet that weekend.  David had called ahead and the coach excused him from the meet.  Alex couldn't understand why but when he saw us all the pieces were falling into place.   The surprise was a success!

We got to spend the next few days enjoying time together and getting several wedding tasks checked off the list.  The day I flew in they had snow but by the time we left it was sunny and 68 degrees.  It was really nice to spend time with Alex and Ivy but the weekend came and went so quick.

Sunday morning we had to head back to the airport.  David and I had to book our tickets separately.  David had booked through his work and Aidric and I booked using our sky miles.   We were unable to book the same flights and unfortunately my flight from Minnesota home was over 4 hours.  There were some computer problems and so we sat in the plane quite a while before lift off.  It was quite late and Aidric was exhausted.  After about an hour in the air Aidric had almost fallen asleep when they came with the refreshment cart.  Well, for some reason that disturbed him and he proceeded to cry for over 30 minutes.  It was a sad tired cry, not like the scream from the flight going there, but none the less we became one of "those people" again.  He never did go to sleep on the flight but we made it home and he fell asleep in the car on the way home.  It was all worth it to get to see our son Alex and Ivy.  What a miracle flying is.

Here are a few pictures from the trip. God bless.
Alicia

Aidric and I getting ready to board our first flight

Aidric, Alexander and Ivy on campus

Me, David, Aidric, Alexander, and Ivy 

Ivy and I got to enjoy girl time at a cute tea house. While the guys got some male bonding in.

Aidric a little exhausted from shopping holding Bubba's hand

Aidric and I at the bowling alley

Alex and Ivy at the bowling alley

David the high scorer for the night of bowling.  

It's A.....Gender Reveal Party!

What a great reason for a party, announcing the gender of your baby!  Well, tonight was the big night. We were all so very excited and anxiously anticipating the results.  I got to find out a little early because I was in charge of the cupcakes, but it was my job to keep it a secret until the party. So, no one was allowed near the kitchen while I filled the cute little chocolate cupcakes with BLUE fudge.  Yes, that is right Blue.  It is a boy!!!  I was so excited when I found out, I couldn't help but shed a few tears, tears of joy of course.  Wow, this Grandma thing is going to be so much fun.

Yesterday Latisha came over and we made signs and decorations for the gender reveal party.  Then today she had her ultrasound and found out it is a boy.  So, I quickly filled chocolate cupcakes with blue fudge middle, and topped them with mocha icing, trying very hard to make sure no blue was showing. Then we headed to Brent and Latisha's. It was our family, Brent's family and a few grandparents that were there.  We came in and someone asked if we were having dessert first (the gender was going to be revealed in the cupcakes), but everyone had to wait and enjoy pizza, salad, and fruit first.   Several were being very observant as to wether Latisha or Brent wrote with a blue marker or pink, and which drink they had, blue Koolaid or pink.  There were blue and pink clothes pins.  Everyone was supposed to choose a clothes pin color and wear it as their guess to the gender.  They also had a poster with silly wives tales of figuring out what the gender of the baby was.  It was all fun and the boy was receiving the most votes.  Finally the moment arrived and everyone was given a cupcake. Then on Brent's count down they all bit in to find the blue color on the inside.   The happy parents brought out the ultrasound pictures and everyone enjoyed seeing our new little family member, already beautifully knit together in his mother's womb.  Such a Blessing.

It was a lovely evening.  We are very excited to see this new little life growing and are anticipating the day we get to hold him in our arms.  God is good!  Just wanted to share our story, hope you are all having a blessed day.
Alicia

The excited Daddy and Mommy

Great Grandma's to be... this is their first great grand babies

Pink or blue drinks

one or our signs

Cassie, Danika and Aidric making their choices

pizza and pink and blue dipped strawberries, yum.

The uncles ready to find out

awe the cupcakes

blue inside

There's our grand baby boy!

Latisha 19 weeks 

Not Quite What I Imagined

Have you ever thought, after the fact, "That isn't quite the way I had thought that would go," or "that went a lot different in my head."  I think that happens to us all.  There have been many times I planned something with great expectation only to have it go quite different then I had planned.  I guess that is where we learn to be humble and/or flexible.

David and I are playing in a coed volleyball league and I am quite frequently having those thoughts rush in my brain.  I have never been in ballet but I keep practicing, what I call, my ballet moves during a volleyball game.  In my head I am gracefully launching the ball over the net, when in reality I am occasionally miss judging the arch of the ball, and well, I believe it resembles a ballet move.   Now I am definitely not the worst volleyball player out there but I like to think of it is just a game and for fun and am quite reluctant to sacrifice my body for the game.  I find a bit of humor in the ballet moves displayed by many of my fellow players, no, it is not just me.  I don't think everyone finds quite as much humor in those moments as I do, but it does put a smile on my face.  Those competitive people out there are now thinking, "I am glad I am not on her team."

I do enjoy playing volleyball but have had a couple teams I have played on in the past where a competitive male player has encouraged me to let balls go so they could get them.  That is really not very nice to tell a person.  So for the past several years I have stood on the side lines cheering on the team and limit my game playing to fourth of July events and backyard games.  This season David organized the team and encouraged the players that this was for fun because he really wanted me to play on the team.  So, I am on the team and having a great time.  Even scoring points here and there.  My ballet moves occasionally finding success in getting the ball over the net.  David may have given the team the wrong idea of my ability, because during our first game there were looks of amazement when I would hit the ball correctly or underhand serve up a point.  I believe I perform better when I don't have overly competitive people running me over for the ball.  Now for the record, we are undefeated and we have a great team.

Latisha and Brent just got home from their trip.  They were on a cruise and Latisha said they had a great time but it was a bit different then she had expected.  We enjoy taking a cruise occasionally but unfortunately a lot of people see the cruise as a party and behave as such.  We try to block out the obscene and spend our time taking walks around the boat, enjoying romantic dinners, relaxing in chairs, and taking advantage of the positives of the ship.  It is great to cruise to distant lands where most of your needs are taken care of and the excursions are generally safe.  I do recommend that you avoid "adult" shows and games, for some reason many confuse adult with obscene.  I would love to take a Christian Cruise someday and see how things are on one of those.  The ocean is beautiful and cruise ships have much to offer, but be wise in where you go and what you do.

I hope you are all having a blessed day.
Alicia

Here are some updated picture lovely expecting couple.