"camping"

Devon and I are not really much for camping, so when we "camp" we go build a fire and roast hot dogs and marshmallows, then come home to sleep. We found a fun place last year just about 30 min from our house. It has a great hill for climbing. Spencer and his friend Sadie were real mountain goats.
James is helping himself to the Cheetos- he ended up spilling the whole bag- and trying to eat them off the ground. Good times.

Otherwise catching up

So I have a lot of other pictures to catch up on- sorry if this is a little overload- but they are so cute.
Spencer and James on Sunday morning. Lots of people complimented James on his suit, and he knew he looked cute.

Popcorn is popping on the apricot trees in the school's orchard, so we had to go check it out. Spencer did ask if he could eat the blossoms- not really popcorn.

James sleeps like this a lot- with his hands behind his head, I think it's so funny.
Can you tell what James' favorite toys are- cars! He loves to say "Ready, set go!"
If you look close you can see some little circles indented on Spencer's head. Somehow he got his head wedged between the back of the toilet and the over the toilet shelf. He started screaming and i came in and freed him. He said "It was like a dinosaur was trying to eat my brain!"
Devon passes his Praxis- and finished his application to grad school- yeah! We made scotcherooos to celebrate. In case you can't tel Spencer made the sign.


After watching a George about hibernation Spencer decided to make his room into a cave. Sleeping is too boring though- so his "spooky things" had another purpose.

Monument Valley Hot Air Balloon Festival

This is the sunrise on our drive to see the hot air balloons. I am always amazed at what a beautiful place we live in. I think even Devon thought this view was worth getting up early for.
As with most things on the res- the balloons didn't take off until about an hour after the schedule said- good thing there were plenty of animals to keep the kids busy.
These horses were very friendly, and this is a good view of Spencer's toothless grin. At least he can't knock anymore teeth out for a few years.
If you look really close you can see a balloon starting to be filled up right behind Spencer.
Here it is rising from the ground behind James



This is a beautiful place for a hot air balloon festival. And the wind even held off for a day so they could fly- which is saying something for spring in Monument Valley.

DC and New York

So it took a while to get back in the swing of things around here, but here are some pictures of our trip. For those who don't know Devon and I had the opportunity to take a group of 6 high school students to DC and New York for a week in March. My mom watched our boys which was so great. We had a wonderful time. Both of us had been to DC before, but we saw a lot of new things. I especially enjoyed the tours of the buildings (like the White house, the Capitol and the Library of Congress). The weather was lovely for the DC part of our trip. We stayed with Devon's aunt and uncle near DC- it was nice to see them too. Our favorite part of DC was the Holocaust Museum. It was sad, but also inspiring. At the end it showed how in countries where people stood up and helped the Jews the survival rate was much more. It made me think it is important to not just sit by and say you can't do anything about the bad things happening.
With all of the students we had literally thousands of pictures, so here are a few.
Devon at the art museum in DC. Not as big as the MET (where we spent 2 hours just on the 1st floor) but still good.

The botanical gardens. These were really pretty, I'm glad we squeezed them in.
This is the painting in the dome of the Capitol Building- it is George Washington being taken up to heaven. These are the cool things you learn when you get to take a tour.
The moon was super bright, so this was a pretty cool picture.
In the Museum of American history. I think this is my favorite of the Smithsonian Museums.
Devon and I by the Capitol. We were on our way to Tortilla Cafe, a restaurant that we went to that was on Triple D (if you watch the Food Network, you know what I mean). It was good- but super crowded.
We also got to spend a few days in New York. The first day was freezing rain- we also got lost on the subway for a few hours, but many adventures later we made it to Ellis Island the the Statue of Liberty.
The high school kids thought I was crazy to leave my poncho on the the picture, but it was part of the adventure- and it was too cold to take it off.
This was our other favorite part. We go to go see Phantom on Broadway. It was amazing!
This is the view from the top of the Empire State building. That's a lot of buildings. Definitely a change from Monument Valley
We actually ate more hot dogs from street vendors in DC than in New York, but you just have to eat one in New York. Also, the pizza here was amazing. Lots of restaurants don't have tables, people just stand at a counter and eat- no time to sit down anyway.
Central Park. It is beautiful, and huge, and right in the middle of all of these huge buildings. there were lots of people playing instruments, and they were even filming a movie while we were there.
It was a great trip. Driving was not as bad as I expected it to be- we didn't actually drive in New York- that would have been crazy. We packed things in and got up early and came back late, but it was a lot of fun, and I saw lots of new and amazing things!