Getting Ready For The Big Sha-BANG!

Chloe Hopkins, Elsie, Rachel Clarke, and Seth taking a quick break to watch Winnie the Pooh.

Olivia moving the couch, piled high with bean bags and miscellaneous baby devices, across the room by herself.

Ruby Hopkins and Elsie.

Sisters-- one tired from staying up till three, the other tired from waking her mother up at three.

Big Things Are A' Brewin'...

Travel Day #5

Monday morning our immediate family headed out to the beach bright and early (alright, 10 o'clock). Seth had been talking about going to the beach ever since we planned this trip (about 2 or 3 weeks ago). It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see his reaction to the whole thing, considering he had no idea what it was.

Give it any adjective you like, but I call it cute.

We're HOME!!! Now For Some Filling In...

We arrived safely home tonight around 9:40 with lots of shells, sand, junk food, memories, souvenirs, a greater appreciation for the patience we have, and dirty laundry. I'm sorry that I haven't blogged beyond last Sunday yet, but I plan to fix that, although how soon I do not know. (More on that to come) :)



So, back to our trip. Saturday afternoon (the one with all the funny happenings) Daddy missed our turn. Our alternate route put us right past Tyler, TX, which is where Daddy's aunt lives.

While we were visiting, Daddy's cousins stopped by too. It was a wonderful visit, and we hope it won't be another 20 years until we see them again. :)

We stayed at Great Aunt Sister's from about 9 until 3. The rest of the drive to Galveston was fun. :)

P.S. Just for those who doubted, the hermit crab is still alive and well-- and sitting on the dining room table.

201 POSTS!!!!

This is officially the 201st post on this blog!

Pictures From Travel Day #3 - #4 Morning

Our entertainment in the car.

Trying to stretch our legs.

Pictures From Travel Day #3

The playground we were sent to.

The walk.

The view out the window while driving through Kentucky.

Elsie snacked just like the rest of us-- or at least pretended to.

How fitting-- we stopped for dinner at KFC while we were on our way through Kentucky. :)

Shadow Pictures-- Travel Day #2

While Daddy was setting up the projector, we thoroughly enjoyed making shadows.

We Arrived!!!...

... in 36 hours instead of the planned 21. We have many very funny stories to tell!

So, in the last post when I wrote, "We'll be leaving in an hour or two" we genuinly thought we were. Well, we didn't.
Daddy pulled up to the front of the hotel and parked the car so that we could load it. A bellhop brought out the ONE luggage cart of our stuff (it took us two to get in!). So we started to load everything up. Seth wanted to run into the street, so I stuck him in the car (he loves to play in there) so that I could help Daddy get the big suitcases on top of the car and into the cartop carrier. No more than 3 minutes later, I hear a bump and notice Seth had his belly on the dashboard (he was in the passenger's seat), his feet on the seat, and his head is touching the windshield. "Mommy! Seth just cracked the windshield with his head!" was what I said as I lifted him out and set him on the ground. He stood there for a moment while everyone asked him if he was OK. He just rubbed his head, muttered "ow" and walked away. !!!! He didn't even cry! I'll post the picture of the crack later, as I don't have a way to get the pictures off the camera and onto here at the moment.
After that little incident, Mommy suggested I take all the kids to the little playground down the hill. We were down there a long time, and finally started wondering where Mommy and Daddy were, because they had said that they were going to join us in a few minutes to take a little walk. After at least 20 minutes or more, I sent Emma to the top of the hill to see if they were still there. Yep, they were. Emma yelled over, "What's taking so long" to which the reply was, "We locked the keys in the car." Wonderful. Fortunately, one of the bellhops was a volenteer fireman and he had a car-breaking-into- kit in his car, which solved our problem.
We finally were able to take our little walk, and got a nice family picture, which I'll post later. By the time we got back, it was lunch time, so we decided to eat in the parking lot. Once lunch was over, we got all settled, turned on the car (to which Seth shouted, "Yay! Oops" because he then dropped his plate with half of his lunch still on it) and then prayed. During the prayer, Elsie dirtied her diaper. Go figure.

More to follow soon...

Be Back Soon

We are leaving Stonewall Jackson sometime in the next hour or two. Hopefully we will get to Galveston Island sometime between 8:30 and 4 o'clock tomorrow. There will be lots of pictures, so check back on Monday. Please pray we all have patience while making this 21 hour drive. Thanks!

Pictures From Travel Day #1

Yay! A rebooting of Daddy's laptop solved my picture uploading problem, although I still feel like "a watched pot never boils" when I sit here waiting for them to upload. :)
Seth enjoying his lunch. Willa kept exclaiming, "that thing is bigger than his head!"
A little snack Daddy brought back for us.

Watching a movie.

Seth enjoying it.

Traveling Day #1

Yesterday we left at 10:40 am (our plan was to leave at 10 and that is probably our best time yet! We have actually gotten out the door 8 hours late before!) and arrived at Stonewall Jackson Resort around 1 o'clock. Upon arriving, we were greeted and helped with our luggage. We laughed over the fact that we had to make two trips of luggage carts to get all of our luggage into the room! Of course, it's not surprising, since before Seth and Elsie, I remember filling up the luggage cart all the way to the top and then hanging off the side for a ride.
Once we were settled in, we explored the hotel a little bit. When you first walk in, there is a big lobby with a vaulted ceiling. It reminded me a lot of Da and Popo's old home in the mountains because it was decorated with bears and "mountainy" kind of accessories. In this lobby, there is a gigantic stone fireplace with a warm, crackling fire, in front of which was a rug that looked very familiar. Emma and I think it is the same rug that the Clarke's have in front of their big stone fireplace. Anyway, we enjoyed exploring, and we probably would have explored outside too, but it was raining and really quite cold, considering that it turned into snow this morning!

At about 2 o'clock, Daddy went of to the Kanahwah room to set up for the presentation he was going to give this morning. Mommy took Emma, Willa, and Seth then to the pool, while Elsie and I stayed in the room and napped.

Once everyone had showered after the pool, we had dinner, and then went down to the library which is located to the left of the big stone fireplace. It was very cozy and we were surprised to find lots of children's books.

Later in the evening once Daddy had come back to the room, we set up the LCD projector and watched movies on the wall of our hotel room! If I can get the multiple picture uploading to work, I'll upload some really neat shots of the shadows we made while waiting for Daddy to get the projector set up. Everyone but Mommy watched "Moe's Big Exit" while she went back to the library to read.

Daddy stayed up late to work on a paper airplane (more to come). I won't go into detail about how much room Seth took up in bed, but I will say that the beds were very comfortable-even if Daddy thought the pillows too fluffy. :)

Stay tuned! I've only told about one day (with no pictures probably until we get to Grandmother's) and we still have 10 more to go!

Olivia's Birthday After Dinner

Elsie and I were just sitting here looking at the pictures of us, when we realized that we never posted about after dinner on my birthday. So, we decided to dive into the archives and find a picture or two post-dinner.
Mommy made a delicious supper. Mashed potatoes, biscut muffins, BBQ chicken, baked beans and broccoli were set up in special china from Japan.

I actually decorated my own cake! This was right after I had plucked the candles off.

Elsie thought that we needed a picture of her in here on my special day. :)

Playing Dress-Up With Willa

One of the reasons we girls really wanted Elsie to be a girl, was because we wanted to be able to dress her up. (We aren't allowed to dress Seth up in girl clothes, obviously). Willa had fun dressing her up the other day and being the photographer. None of us knew she did this, so one night this week at dinner we were looking through the pictures on the camera and what did we find? None other than the pictures you have just seen. It's even funnier when they pop up randomly. :)

Learning Early

What am I supposed to do with this?

Oh...

I understand.

You Will Either Weep Or Rejoice At This...

We played the first Christmas CD tonight!!!!!! Jolly Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love winter!

Posted by Emma

Eating My Sculpture

Aren't these lovely pictures? :)

Playing With Our Food

Tonight at dinner our family enjoyed the classic game of mashed potato sculptures. Keep in mind that we crafted these using only mashed potatoes, baked beans, broccoli, and forks.

We'll give you a big round of applause if you can guess what this is. :) Daddy's the artist.

By Olivia.

A little stunt trick.

The Howard Family

The Howard Family as of December 2004. The total then was 26. Now our slightly extended family totals 29, but we don't yet have a picture with the three new children included. (Seth is actually in this one, but he's -6 months.)

A new book.

Hello,

This is a new book I am very interested in reading. I thought some of you might be interested in knowing about it also. Click on the link to read about the book. Tina

http://www.visionforum.com/booksandmedia/productdetail.aspx?productid=84332&categoryid=168

A Momentous Day

Today is a very special day. So special, in fact, that it deserves to be a holiday. Why? Because...

EMMA BEAT DADDY AT MONOPOLY!!!!!!!!!!

In the history of our family, nobody has ever been able to beat Daddy at this time-consuming game. That is, until today. Let us remember it forever.

Getting Ready For The Harvest Party

Can you guess what I'm doing?

Games preparation.

More game prep.

Yes, that is a toilet seat on our dining room table.