Oh-Bla-Di

When we first moved West, Matt & I were young (oh, so young) DINKS embarking on a great adventure. We marveled at the new topography of our surroundings and stopped a LOT to take pictures of all the neato rocks. Just like the cliffs we stood on, we were staring out at the metaphorical horizon of our lives knowing that there was no going back once we took the next step. My Air Force career was done and our career as parents was just beginning.

 

(Me, three months pregnant with Ava)

(Matt, pre-TPS and Vegas.  Notice the lack of under-eye bags!)

When we drove back from Kansas in early June, we stopped at the same spot.  The rocks haven’t changed much in the last four years, but wow, our family sure has!

It’s been a crazy ride from there to here and seems like it has gone so fast!  Grateful for every minute and this wonderful little family we’ve grown!

In what can only be described as a fit of awesomeness, when we arrived home from our roadtrip to San Antonio on May 1, I downloaded all the photos and videos and selected winners for this blog post.  Monday morning, I had them uploaded.  Now, more than a week later (in what can only be described as a fit of not-awesomeness), I’m finally getting around to posting them.  Since I’m long on photos and short on words and time, here’s a list of ten great things about our trip!  (Brace yourself, this may be the longest blog post EVER.)

1.  Roadtrip!  We chose to drive to San Antonio this time, so got to take Noah on his first-ever roadtrip.  Considering how hard we pushed the mileage per day, both kiddos did great.  Ava watched a TON of movies (Incredibles, Peter Pan & Little Mermaid were big winners) and Noah was either eating, sleeping or fussing the whole way.  We crashed in El Paso for the night on the way there and got to go for a quick swim before going to Chili’s to eat dinner.  We were all exhausted at the end of the first day, but still got up crazy early on Day 2 to hit the road.  You know that any driving before the sun comes up doesn’t count, right?

2.  We got to San Antonio early on Good Friday afternoon and settled right into playing with heirloom toys and a few we brought along.  By the end of the day, we’d already played in the kiddie pool and had an amazing dinner.  When we woke up on Saturday, Auntie Moe had joined us and we could hardly believe we’d only been there for about 12 hours!

3.  The weekend was packed with church and cooking and Easter celebrations.  We dyed Easter eggs on Saturday afternoon while dinner was cooking…and just in time for the adults to clean up and rush out the door to Easter vigil.  To say we were packing in the memory-making would be an understatement!  Sadly, I don’t have any pictures of the grown ups dressed up to go to church.  Since I had a great dress, I consider this to be quite sad.

(Matt’s great idea for keeping Noah occupied.  Trap the sippy between the table and tray.  Dude has some serious perseverance.)

4.  Easter morning was fun.  We were up turbo early with the kiddos (have I mentioned yet that Noah was sick and running a low grade fever up to this point?) and watched some TV while we waited for grandparents to come play Easter baskets/eggs with us.  Turns out Grampa was sick, so we didn’t see him at all that day.  We did get around to hunting Easter baskets though, and Ava was pretty excited with what she found in hers (a ladybug watch!).

5.  Easter afternoon was a party at the White’s house.  It was supposed to be at Caspers’ but had to move since we were passing around the sickies.  We even made sure to get photos of the kids in their Easter best!  Just for fun, here’s last year.  And the one before that.

The kids had a great time at the party and were officially wiped out by the end of it!

6.  Our kiddos are so lucky to have two sets of their great-grandparents around.  And we’re so lucky to get to take them to visit.  We got to see Mahgie & Poppie at the Easter party and again at their house while we were in Texas.  Such a treat to get to see your babies loved on by their great-grandparents.  Noah met them for the first time at the Easter party.

And then more visiting at Air Force Village.

7.  We did two “special activities” with the whole family while we were visiting.  On Thursday, we went to the San Antonio Zoo.  Special highlights were the elephant demonstration, the reptile house, making a toy with the mold-a-rama, and popsicle treats.

That same night, we got to go see a Missions baseball game.  It was Noah’s first ever!

8.  Speaking of firsts, we had two this trip.  Noah spiked a fever on Monday so we got our first “see the doc while traveling” experience.  Ear infection…boo.  Not the most fun of firsts.  But, by Tuesday afternoon, it was like we had a whole different baby.  So much less fussy and so much more fun!

But, Matt and I had a fun first in that we got to go spend a night downtown on the Riverwalk.  It was our first time leaving the kiddos overnight.  We had a great time watching crappy cable TV (with no one asking us for anything!), going out to dinner, and sleeping for eight blissful hours in a row.  We only got one picture of such a momentous occasion…in the mirror of the elevator of our hotel.

9.  In our down time this visit, we just did a lot of eating, drinking and hanging out.  Ava played in the back yard a TON, which was great because she doesn’t get to do that much here.  Mostly, she played Ladybug Girl with her trusty sidekick, “Bingo.”

We got to share a meal with Ken, too, which was a total treat.  Ken married Matt and I, and we love to see him; but, he usually travels in the summer and we’ve missed him the last few years.  So many years, in fact, that he hadn’t met our kids yet!  There’s something special about a meeting like this, I think.

10.  Our return trip was pretty smooth sailing and we learned lessons from the first leg.  We left more pool time at the hotel and landed in a smaller town to spend the night.  So much less stressful!  We got home on Sunday at 12:15pm and were completely unpacked with kids down for naps by 2pm.  Matt and Ava even ran the train we hauled home for a while that night!

Thanks, Caspers, for a great trip!  We’re already resting up for another one!

A month (!!) ago, we took off on a spur of the moment trip to Chicago to meet up with the Caspers clan. With less than 24 hours between ticket purchase and take-off, we really had to speed up our planning/list-making. But, the rush was worth it because we had a great weekend and got to see Uncle Michael before he deploys later this month!

We took off on Noah’s five month birthday, and got to Chicago in time to have dinner with Grama Peg & Grampa Clete before checking into the hotel and hitting the sack.  We were up bright and early on Saturday morning and picked up some Dunkin’ Donuts before meeting Sue, Steve, Michael, Whitney & Maureen at the house.

It had been two years since we’d visited Chicago, so we had to update this picture from our first visit.  Same kid, same snack, two years later.

Of course, on this trip, we had a new baby to shop around too, so we got several photos like this one…

…and these.

We had a great time with lots of playing in the snow…

…and Ava even found a good ride.

Of course, there was plenty of other good fun while we were inside during the weekend.

Since it’s a rarity that the whole Caspers clan can get together, we made sure to document the occasion to its fullest.  We’ve got some video of the paparazzi for these next few shots and it’s amazing the amount of noise and the number of camera shutters clicking in the background.

And, finally, the whole Caspers clan (minus Sarah & Carl).

Great trip!  See you next time!

June was the traveling month for our family and, toward the end of the month, we ventured south to San Antonio for a visit with Matt’s family.  We arrived on a Monday and had the grandparents to ourselves until Friday, when both of Matt’s siblings were able to join us for one big family party.

The week was fairly chill, although we did get out and about a bit each day to explore San Antonio.  It was super hot and humid, so this pregnant mommy didn’t try anything too ambitious – I was really grateful to be able to use Ava’s naptimes as reasons to escape back to the air conditioning!

On Tuesday, we visited the San Antonio Botanical Gardens.  Apparently, they’ve gone through quite a bit of expansion over the years as Matt kept commenting on how he remembered things being so much smaller.

Ava had a great time exploring the flowers, trees and fountains.  She sure is a nature-lover at heart.  We’ll have to get that kid to a more plant-friendly climate soon.  My favorite part of the botanical gardens was the conservatory…it had an awesome bench set right over a giant air conditioning vent!  The rose gardens were also lovely, though, and new playhouse exhibits were set to open that weekend so we got a fun sneak peek of those too.

On Wednesday, we took the morning to go visit Mahgie & Poppie at Air Force Village.  We went to feed the fish at the pond and then joined them for lunch at the big house.  Four HUGE catfish really enjoyed the bread that Matt, Ava, & Mahgie threw to them!

The next big event was a Friday day trip to LBJ state park near Fredricksburg, TX.  We visited the living history farm where everything is done just as it would have been done in the early 19th century.  Ava got to see cows, chickens, roosters, and pigs and we all got to explore the house, barn & other outbuildings of the farm.  It was a gorgeous house…I told Matt we could have one just like it when we retire.  I *heart* old farm houses.

Our trip wasn’t all exciting outings.  We did spend some time just around the house too, and that was nice.  Matt helped his dad replace the fan in the dining room (oh boy, multiple Caspers men working on home improvement projects…look out!  At one point I asked Matt what it was like working with a mirror image of himself.) and we spent plenty of time watching movies on the new TV we discovered in the family room.

Did I mention that Texas was hot and steamy when we visited?  Well, it sure was.  The good part about that was that it made it totally ok for the adults to spend the whole afternoon sitting around the kiddie pool with our feet in and for Ava to spend hours running through the sprinklers.  You can never have too much water play on a hot day!

Sue & Steve celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary in the beginning of June and the weekend, once all the kids were home, was all about throwing them a super-secret surprise party to celebrate.  The three Caspers kids worked for a couple of months putting it together and I think it’s safe to say that their parents were not only surprised, but delighted, with the party.

All in all, we had a wonderful week in San Antonio and were glad to get to see all of the family in one trip!  Thanks to Grandma & Grandpa, Michael, Maureen & Whitney for all the fun & entertainment!

I’ve mentioned here before that, in the Webb family, our two major holidays are Christmas and Memorial Day.  We don’t generally make it to Kansas for Christmas as we’re a little more pressed for time around that part of the year, but we’ve been trying to make it back for Memorial Day the last couple of years.

Last year’s visit seemed particularly poignant since so many things had changed about the place and our family.  This year, though, it seemed that we had settled into a new normal – accustomed to a new place, our new hosts, but preserving all those traditions that make the day so special.

As usual, we gathered at the Pleasant Valley Cemetery in the morning.

Maybe it seems strange to others, but I love that Whoozy thinks of this place as just another place to have fun and enjoy company and the outdoors.

The little girls of the youngest generation always seem to fall right back into step and become fast friends again each time they see each other.  The older girls watch out for the younger girls and they all play really nicely together.

This year, Ava not only had little girls to play with but also a new baby boy cousin and a baby kitten to love on and snuggle.  She tired of holding baby Blake fairly quickly, but sat and held the kitten for nearly an hour.  In spite of Larry’s best efforts, we didn’t come home with a new pet.

We spent all afternoon gathered in a circle, eating and visiting, telling a few new stories and several old ones.

Before we left for the day, we managed to wrangle the little girls for a picture and even got a shot of their mamas.    It’s hard to believe that these little  girls have changed so much in a year.

Their pretty mamas, of course, haven’t changed a bit.  

Thanks, Webb Family, for another great get-together and thanks to Pat & Larry for hosting all of us year after year.  We’re looking forward to next year’s picnic!