22NOV09

We were so excited that Dave offered us his pop up camper to use while we were visiting to go camping. Trav has wanted to take Lex camping for forever but we weren't really sure about the rules in Germany so we never went. Although we weren't "roughing it" enough for Travis it was so nice to have beds and a heater and we all really enjoyed some time in the wilderness!! Alexis proved to be a little bit of a princess (Trav asked her to help pick up firewood and she responded with, "but it's going to get me all DIRTY!") but by the end she was with Ryan in the dirt literally pouring it on themselves. We plan on many camping trips in the near future.

At the lake. There was a man fishing and he caught one right when we were walking up and then offered to let Lex hold it. She, of course, got a kick out of that.

These are out of order but this was at the end were Lexi decided the dirt was kind of fun.

Ryan knew it all along.

Ready for bed. Nice and warm (thanks to Aunt Tori since we didn't bring ANY warm clothes!)

Hanging out by the fire.

Eating marsh mellows. Both girls preferred the non-roasted ones!

YUM banana boats!

Helping gather firewood!

They got a kick out of riding in the front seat for the 12 feet Trav drove to find more wood! :)

20NOV09

I was so excited that we were going to be in town for the AZ state fair so that was one of the big things on my list of TO DO. I had a blast but I think it was mostly b/c Alexis and Ryan were having so much fun. We ride, played, and ate. I loved that they let Ryan ride so many rides with Alexis. We loved being able to spend time with my mom and Theresa. One of my favorite parts of the day was when Theresa took Lex through the glass maze and she kept telling her to hold her hands out but Lex didn't want to listen. She smacked RIGHT into the glass right in front where everyone could see her. It was hilarious (She wasn't hurt I promise.) What a great day.

Poor Trav was surrounded by females so he decided to prove his maleness by winning Alexis this HUGE Scooby Doo. Unfortunately, we had to leave it with Grandma Kerry who I hope is taking very good care of him! :)

Alexis loves rides! I thought for sure this was going to freak her out but my mom said even when they put the thing over their heads she was still laughing and having a blast!!!

THe super slide. Ryan looks scared but at the very end she clapped and laughed I think she wasn't sure about it at first!

They both got to go on the roller coaster.

Riding the tractor.

Lex "milking the cow" with Grandma.

Trying to catch a fish but I had a hard time helping Ryan.

So Trav took her and it took all of 10 seconds, of course.

Chilling with Daddy.

Probably my fave pic of the whole day!! The guy said Ry could go if an adult went with her. I felt so bad for Theresa since she couldn't ride any of the big rides with her growing a human and all so I LET her go. You should have seen her begging to go on just this one ride. HA HA!!!

Bumper boats.

Fun house.

Cute girl.

19NOV09

Once we got to AZ the fun never stopped. The girls LOVED hanging out with their cousins and we did a TON of stuff!! Since it was Halloween there was a Pumpkin Farm right by my in-laws so we went with my sister-in-law and her family. The girls got to decorate pumpkins, go on a hayride, bouncy castle, hay maze, and run around having fun with their cousins!

Our family!

Sitting on the little house

On the hayride

It was dark out and I guess that made Ry a little nervous in the hay maze. Really she is just doing it on her own for the picture I was holding her through the rest of it! :)

Alexis, on the other hand, didn't mind the dark at all! :)

Decorating pumpkins. Do you see what hams my kids are and Tori's are so sweet and innocent??

The best pic ever! Notice the sheep! :)

Just right.

How big am I mom?

These girls have so much fun together. Even if Ry was a little bit of a bully sometimes (that's right Tori I said LITTLE bit come on we're working on it! :) )

19NOV09

We are finally starting to feel settled in. Ft. Benning, GA is our new home and we are loving it!! I am happy to be stateside although I am already feeling a little adjustment to the fast pace life. It was much easier in Germany to say, "Oh our family only eats out once a week max." In the states you get out and doing things you need to do and all of a sudden it's 7 p.m. and the kids need to be fed, bathed, and put to bed in the next 30 minutes and you're about 20 minutes from the house still... I think it will get better. We are just still getting last minute things that we need for the house or visiting new babies (our friends the Flynn's had their new baby boy on Sunday and we got to see the little 2 day old since we now live 15 minutes away!)

I'm going to start backtracking a little bit with pics since we did so much and I really want to share the pictures. I'm starting back in Germany with all our goodbye pics. We had to say goodbye to some really great friends and it was super hard. I would have stayed in Germany in a heartbeat if I knew all those friends would always get to stay there with me (you know who you are!) I didn't get as many pics as I should have. I don't have any goodbye pics with Anni (Erica I KNOW I took some when we said goodbye at your house?? Were they with your camera???) And I didn't get enough with everyone else either but we weren't really thinking about pics we were too busy feeling sorry for ourselves! :)

I know you are going to hate this pic Ester but I LOVE it! :)

Together since they were born!

So sweet to each other.

The McGrewe kids! :)

18OCT09

So Travis just informed me that maybe I should write a blog since it's been over a month... I don't have any pictures to post but I just thought I would let everyone know we're still alive and well! :) We're really enjoying our time in AZ with all the family and friends. Lex and Ryan are enjoying all the attention and having cousins to play with all the time. We will be here for about 2 more weeks and then we are headed on our roadtrip to GA. Once we get settled there I will post some pics and keep my blog more updated!

I do want to write the adorable thing Lexi said the other day. We went camping last week with just Travis, me, Alexis, and Ryan. I was doing Lexi's hair and she said, "mom, we're going to Kindergarten today." I said, "no we're not baby not till you are 5." She said, "mom you SAID and daddy said TOO!" I said, "no we're going CAMPING today not Kindergarten." Her reply was, "Oh mom, I was just speaking Chinese!" HA HA!! It was hilarious!

Ryan is as sweet as ever and also as naughty as ever. She's gotten quite a little personality and that involves annoying her sister or doing things she KNOWS she's not suppossed to b/c she thinks they're funny. She is hilarious to watch.

It may be a while till I post again but I promise I will when I can. Also, when we do get to GA I think we may be going private. There are just too many scary things out there about blogs. So be on the look out for that.

14SEP09

Our internet is down right now. We're not sure what the deal is but I just wanted to let everyone know so if you don't hear from us for a while you know why. We are going to try to see what the problem is but we're not going to go through too much trouble so we may just not have it till we get to the hotel (we will be there in a little over a WEEK!!)

12SEP09

I thought I should post an update since it's been almost a month since my last post. Not b/c we've been boring but b/c we've been CRAZY!! Our wonderful friends The Holtgrewe's left Germany for good last Monday and we're following close behind... Our household goods (most of our stuff except for a few linenes, dishes, etc.) left on Wednessday. We are living with a few or our belongings and a LOT of military furniture. :) It's kind of nice to live simple for a little while although I am already looking forward to getting OUR stuff back. We have a lot of appointments coming up and a lot more to do including selling both of our cars... We are sad to leave Germany and all the wonderful memories we have here but excited to begin our life back in the good ole U.S.A. Those of you in AZ we will be there on September 28th and can't wait to see you all. We will probably leave AZ around the 1st of November to start our drive to GA with the girls (hopefully they will be used to it after so many LONG plane rides!) I guess that's about it for now. I'll try to keep this up to date even if there aren't going to be pictures for a while.