There once was a girl, who had a little curl..

We're back from Destin! We had a good time, although it rained the ENTIRE time (minus one and a half days) while we were there. :( That was a bummer! But we stayed on the beach and it was nice to get away and I had fun visiting with Lisa so all in all it was a great trip. I'll blog more about that later.

In my last blog I mentioned some drama surrounding miss Rebekah Grace, so as not to prolong the suspense any longer, here it goes.

.......................

SHE CUT HER HAIR!
Yea. I didn't mistype. I wish I did.
She cut her hair. HER HAIR!
Her long, beautiful, blonde hair!
GONE.
Well, not all of it, but most of it.
Her hair that had never been cut.
((cries))
I blame Russel.
No, not really, it wasn't his fault. He was just the one here when it happened.
*sigh
It was devastating but the shock has wore off and it is hair after all and it will grow back.
I'll just post the pics so you can see...

This was after I cut it even at the bottom, as even as I wanted to attempt to cut it without a professional stepping in and working miracles.



And yes, SHE HAS NO BANGS! She cut all her bangs off! oh dear heavens, whyyyyyyyyyy (fists to air)



When I asked her why she cut her hair, what possessed her to cut off her hair she said "i wanted it short" and "my bangs were in my eyes" REALLY!?! ugggggh
So...that's that.
Our trip is going good, aside from all the rain. As if i don't have to deal with that enough in Oregon, it followed me here! LOL. oh well. a week and a half left and i'm on my way home.

Blog more later!

Fun with Family and Friends

The trip is going great so far! We are having a blast visiting family and friends. I've managed to stay quite busy which is way different than my normal routine in Oregon where I sit at home all day just me and the girls. I'm pooped! I stretched myself so thin this trip between visiting everyone I want to visit and working. It's stressful, butttt...I've only got a month and I don't know when the next time I'll be home is so it's necessary. I've had 3 photography sessions so far and I have 8 more just the week we get back from the beach. It's exciting! I didn't really expect I'd get so much interest in my photography but what can I say, my friends and family ROCK for letting me get my practice in on them.

We are heading out for Destin this morning to visit my best friend and THE BEACH! Yay! Speaking of which I should be doing something productive to prepare, but..the laundry is washing and I'm almost packed except for what's in the washer/dryer so there isn't really anything to do! (That's what I tell myself) So blogging and facebook it is : )

OH...and we had a little "drama" with Rebekah this past week. I'll blog about that too when we get home! (And i'll add pictures) TTFN!

Traveling Woes

Traveling with kids is always hard. We haven't done it much, 3 times now to be exact. But the few times we have made me want to pull my hair out! As if I don't want to pull my hair out on a daily basis as it is. How do I even have any hair left? I think actually the prepping for the trip and the anticipation is always much worse (for me) than the outcome, but...still stressful nonetheless. Either way...WE MADE IT TO GEORGIA!!! Praise the Lord! It's such a long trip, but the girls did surprisingly well. I don't know why I say surprisingly, my children are always pretty well behaved so I shouldn't be at all surprised. I guess i'm just a pessimist by nature and I always expect the worse. haha. I'm a stresser. I can't help it, it's who I am. I'm much better now than I used to be though, but that's neither here nor there.

We had to be on our flight at 6:15 am Wednesday morning which means figuring in the hour drive to the airport, parking and dragging everyone to check in, checking in and making it through security in the time you're supposed to be there, we would have to leave the house at 3:30am since we wanted to be at the airport at 4:30. YOWZERS! So, to make our life easier we stayed in a hotel in Portland Tuesday evening. We still had to be up at dang 3 am but we actually scored free parking at our hotel, woo hoo! and got to take the shuttle bus to the airport. That free parking just saved us about $90, thank you Jesus! He's always got our back.

So we were up in time, dressed and in good spirits and everything ran smoothly until...security. Rebekah. Rebekah, Rebekah, Rebekah. I told her she had to take her shoes off. She told me she didn't want to. I told her she had no choice. She told me she wasn't. (Shes a very stubborn and opinionated little girl, i wonder where she gets that from?) I told her again, she had no choice and I let it go for a minute. I got my shoes and belt off, phone, maddie's shoes, 3 carry on bags onto the belt and then the struggle began. I asked her to please take her shoes off and she threw herself on the floor screaming. My child doesn't normally pitch fits. I mean she has, but..anyways. Screaming. Staring. Me, mortified. So I picked her up to take her shoes off for her and she was kicking her feet back away from me. She kept saying "I don't want to take my pants off!" Um...who said anything about pants, Rebekah? Geeze. More screaming, more staring, my blood pressure is rising and all of a sudden I'm wishing that it were legal to beat your child in public without getting hauled off for child abuse. (Don't worry, I don't beat my children in any way, shape or form. But that doesn't mean I don't think about it from time to time!) I get her shoes off, Russel has the nerve to look at me and say "Do you mind helping me!?!" ((ears steaming)) ARE YOU KIDDING ME! So I grabbed Maddie since I was doing nothing afterall so he could get our huge double stroller and his carry-ons on the belt and then I sent him through first. Maddie ran to him no issues, Bekah would not budge. More screaming. Feet planted like cement in the ground. I had to pick her up, thank you nice security man for telling me that was allowed, and carry her through crying. I bumped into the walls of the machine the first time because she was freaking out so I had to go through a second time. But, we made it through and she stopped crying immediately. SERIOUSLY! oh-my-gosh. Livid. She is soooo glad we were in public! Then Russel's on my crap list for his little comment. I could still slap him for it. And it's 5:30ish in the morning, I was tossing and turning ALL night long, so I didn't sleep, woke up at 3am, hadn't had breakfast yet (lethal combination) and had just packed and cleaned the house (he did help with the cleaning to give him some credit) the entire week before just to add that in there, to prep for this trip, and I was NOT a happy camper. Then he's in a bad mood and blames it on ME, of course. Why did i get married again, please remind me...

Anyways...I'm getting stressed just reliving the whole experience.
The rest of the trip was breezy compared. First flight from Portland to Denver was good. A few crying issues with Maddie, but the 2 1/2 hours went fast enough. Had to immediately walk to our connecting flight and board. Denver to Atlanta is a little over 2 hours also so i was pretty tired of flying, but what can ya do. Got on, got situated, Maddie fell asleep about half hour in for the entire flight (More props to God!) and Bekah was great. She actually fell asleep during our initial decent into Atlanta, so she got a cat nap but that's ok. Maddie's the cranky one if she doesn't nap. We've just been hanging out at the house and adjusting to the time difference. Girls are doing great, but they always adjust really well. Russel headed out this morning to play paintball with his buddies over the weekend, so that'll be fun for him. This month is going to be busy, but I know it's going to fly by! Ga is muggy and hot, oh how did i ever forget. I've been sweating like crazy and having hot flashes since i've been here. *sigh

Anyways, I'm starting to ramble.
Here are a few pics from the trip over and I'll post more soon!





jumping on hotel beds-GREAT FUN!! :)






Aren't they sweet??



Maddie's first time sleeping in a big girl bed. Can you guess which side of the bed was mine? I'll give you one guess..






There was the most BEAUTIFUL sunrise when our flight took off. Russel had put the camera in the overhead bin however and by the time we could get it we had lost the real "kodak moment" But still...gorgeous.