RONNIE DUNN

So a few weeks ago I get a text from my friend asking if I like Ronnie Dunn. I knew I had heard of him as a country singer but honestly couldn't place his with any songs but said I did. She then said she had won tickets to his concert for that weekend and wondered if I wanted to go because her husband couldn't get off work that day. I said sure and we started making plans. The concert was in Jackpot, NV which neither one of us knew where it was except that it couldn't be too far because lots of our friends had been on day trips there. After a little research we found out where it was and I booked a hotel in Twin Falls, the closest city with open rooms. We left about 1 in the afternoon and drove straight to the concert. We got there and took a bit to find where it was and how to get to our seats. We were early so got to pick from lots of seats. We sat in the middle but had grandstand seating so kind of far back. Well not too long after the concert started Melissa said we should go to take pictures by him since lots of other people were by the stage and no one seemed to care.

We did and this is the view we ended up with. (Oh and it still took me a few songs to figure out he was part of the group Brooks and Dunn, but I did eventually.)

Did I mention it was 100 degrees out that day so we were DYING from the heat?

After the concert got out we went and played penny slots since I never had, and don't worry I only spend $5 and lost it all. We went to Twin Falls and ate and crashed for the night. The next morning we shopped and then headed home. It was her first girls weekend and a trip we may need to repeat. THANKS MELISSA FOR SHARING YOUR TICKETS!!!!

Party!!!

Brian's friend from ROTC and his wife invited us to a birthday party for him and 2 of his kids. They are the only other ROTC family with kids close to our age so we spend a lot of time with them. It was their daughter's 3rd birthday and son's 1st birthday. My kids obviously loved the cupcakes, Connor the most.

We gave the little girl some chalk because she LOVED ours when she was here a few weeks before. All the kids really got into it and this is what Ty looked like when he was done. I made him stand in the bathroom while I beat his pants on the sidewalk where they hadn't drawn. Connor was chalked up too but not this bad.

Coming home from New Mexico

On the way home from New Mexico we stopped at "Hole 'n the Rock" just outside of Moab, UT. We had my niece Taylor with us too, that's the extra kid in the picture. They had more cool stuff outside it than the last time I was there (which was like 3 1/2 years ago). There was this Mater and a super cool Jeep made out of license plates and the tires were made of tools.

Love the boys faces in this

on a turtle at Hole 'n the Rock

On the way home Tyler had been playing with Bailey and pretending to bite her foot, which she loves. Well he did it and she kicked and knocked out his other front tooth. ( He lost 1 while we were in New Mexico). He had actually asked me earlier that morning to pull it but I didn't think it was quite loose enough. We never did find the tooth. This is obviously not on the way home but in our front room the next morning.


We made it home about an hour before Tyler's 1st soccer game that night. My kids loved the Holiday Inn in Price, UT. They asked if we can always stay there. We ate dinner and breakfast there and the kids ate free so not too bad.

New Mexico

We went to New Mexico for one of my niece's baptisms. We left Friday when Brian got done with school at 3 and drove to Monticello, UT and stayed in the worst hotel I've EVER stayed in, which is saying something after a trip to Utah when the man in the room next to us tried to commit suicide and the cops were there for hours talking him out of his room with all my siblings and parents in the room next door to his. Needless to say we go in at Midnight, the baby screamed til 2 or 2:30 and we were gone from the hotel by 6:15. We made it to New Mexico by about 9, but Brian insisted on going to the Army surplus store when we were all just ready to be done but we made it to my brother's house about 10 am, in time to shower, get ready and go to lunch with everyone. I have no pictures of most of the events, like the baptism, but Sunday after church we got all girly. I painted all the toes you see in 4th of July theme (since it was the 4th of July weekend after all). Yeah took me a couple hours but got stars stripes or other red, white, and blue themes painted on them all. These are Bailey's toes, I didn't think she'd hold still so I did hers later,

after she grabbed the nail polish bag and

sat herself and it in my lap and put her toes in my face.

I'm afraid she's going to be much girlier than I ever was.

Now I warned you we went all girly.....

the kids thought it was fun to decorate daddy/uncle Brian

My dad and Brian left on the 4th of July to go home because they both had school Tuesday morning. My sister's best friend's parents (follow that) have a nice pool in their backyard and had invited all of us and a few other church friends over for a BBQ and swim. I got ZERO pictures of this also but my sister and her friend took a lot, so maybe eventually I'll get them too.

My kids had a BLAST and loved every second of swimming and eating and swimming and eating. My mom kept the baby at my brother's house until she woke up from her nap then she came too and LOVED it.

Soccer

Well I am finally starting to catch up from our crazy summer. And no these catch up posts will not be in order but hey there will be posts so that's what counts right?

When I told Tyler we were moving (in the spring) he asked if he could play soccer again this year so he could meet friends like he did after we moved last year. I of course said yes since secretly (OK maybe not too secretly) I want all my kids to love to play soccer like I did for 14 years. Well at one of the games Brian's mom was there and taking pictures and then Connor took the camera and started taking pictures of his own.

I just love the look on Connor's face here

And once again I am horrible at picture taking so the coach sent me these of the
end of season party they had since the last game of the season was canceled
(again, just like last year due to a thunder storm)





Not sure why the face, but it's all I have.

He did much better this year and got in and got aggressive, which is SO not like him. I was pretty proud. Of course the game he scored 3 goals in Daddy wasn't there for because it was during finals week, but Tyler scored more in other games that Daddy did get to see.

When we had treats Tyler said we could NOT bring Capri Suns because EVERYBODY else did so he wanted something different so we did Gatorade and airheads and he was SO proud of his snacks. Funny kid.

First day of 1st Grade

Well Tyler started 1st grade yesterday. He has been so excited for weeks to be able to ride the bus, eat lunch at school, and go to the new school.
I hid all the school clothes from them because the boys were both so excited about them. Tyler was up at 6:50 and ready to leave for school by 7:05. His bus is supposed to come at 7:55 so he had some time to wait. He sat by our front window waiting for his friends to come out (the bus stop is right in front of our house). Finally when the little girl he knows in his class (who went to the same school as him last year and was in his class there) pulled up he was ready to go outside (at 7:40). So we waited and talked and waited some more. The bus finally came at 8:10.

He was less than cooperative when I was trying to take theses pictures.....

I know you can't really see him in these 2 pictures but he is sitting next to this little girl (the only one he knows in his class.

I told him I could follow the bus to school and meet him there and take pictures and walk him to class. He looked HORRIFIED at the thought and said I could wait for him after school to take pictures of him getting off the bus but I COULD NOT follow the bus to school!!!! My camera is not the greatest and this is the only picture I got of him after school.

All he would tell us is lunch is good, recess was fun and his teacher seems nice. I know informative huh.

Vacation

Well we have been home from vacation for a week now and I think we are finally all well enough to say we enjoyed it. From these pictures you will see if I was a single parent my children's lives would remain fairly undocumented but luckily they have 2 photographer uncles that came on the vacation with us, I'm just not going to sort through the other 1000's of pictures they each took to find some of my kids right now. (Which means not all the events are even documented here since I missed 2 due to sick or grumpy kids.)

Brian wasn't able to go with us but everyone else in my family went on a week long trip to Rapid City, South Dakota. Which for some may sound boring but we had a blast because we lived there for 6 years and we had fun showing our families all the things we did when we were younger. We all arrived on Wednesday the 1st and just hung out and relaxed after all the super long car trips.

Thursday we went to Reptile Gardens. In case you were wondering there were..... My parents, My Brother Shawn his wife and 5 kids, my sister Shelleen her husband and their 6 kids, my brother Shad his 7 month pregnant wife, and their 4 kids, my sister Shannon her husband and 4 kids, me and my 3 kids and My little brother his wife and their little girl, that equals 11 adults and 23 kids ranging in age from 17-9months. Yeah it was quite a site to behold. But we had a lot of fun at Reptile gardens, petting snakes, crocodiles, alligators, giant tortoises. and seeing all kinds of birds, insects, amphibians, and reptiles. We all came home hot and tired but had so much fun.
Notice that those are not MY children but my nieces, nephews, and brother petting the crocodile, but yes my children did pet, I just have no picture proof.

This is the same one I have pictures with at Tyler's age

Funny Mirrors at Reptile Gardens

Friday we went to the Maze (most of us; not 2 babies, 1 grandma, and 1 pregnant aunt). There are 4 towers you have to find to get the 4 presidents stamped onto your card. I remember it seemed impossible as a kid and lets just say my sense of direction in the maze has not improved in the last 20 years. Connor really did have fun he just was mad I made him sit by his brother for some reason.

Saturday was a "free day" where there was nothing specific planned for the group so we got to do whatever we wanted. My brother Shawn, sister Shannon and my family decided to miniature gold at Pirate's Cove. My kids have never been miniature golfing for real so they were pretty excited. I didn't golf just ran back and forth between the potty and the 4 groups we had golfing to help kids gold and retrieve balls that went astray and other such motherly tasks. It was SUPER fun. We then took my parents and sister Shannon to meet my sister Shelleen at Cabelas. My parents and Shannon and fam had never been. I'm used to a slightly more impressive store but my family was still impressed and the highlight was watching them feed the fish live smaller fish and worms, I know cool huh. We then went to the mall and looked around mostly for memory sake.

Made it here in 1 shot.

When you turned in your putter you got

a bag of pirate themed loot, pretty cool I thought.

My kids were a little small for the stocks but thought it was cool none the less

Sunday we went to church and doubled the size of the primary who my sister's best friend happened to be in charge of so Shad and his wife got to sub for sunbeams and Shawn played the piano until the normal person arrived. After dinner that night we visited the grave sites of an adopted grandma and one of my parents foster babies that died of SIDS. It took FOREVER to find the headstone for the baby because grass had grown over it and it was VERY small to begin with. After about 20-30 minutes looking, and digging and removing the grass from around multiple headstones we found it and decided we need to get him a nicer headstone than the one the state paid for. It was also Bailey's birthday which we didn't do anything for because we had plans for later in the week which was good since when we got home from the cemetery she threw up like 8 times. Yeah not so fun. She was sick again the next morning so my mom decided to stay home with her while the rest of us went to Mt Rushmore.

We hadn't been there since they actually built tourist informative buildings so we had fun looking at all that had changed since we were there 17 years ago. We took what we thought would be a relatively easy stroller friendly hike, boy were we wrong. We got to carry the strollers, do about 300 stairs and keep 10-15 kids going where they were supposed to be going and allowed to be. And it was pretty hot that day so we were EXHAUSTED when we got home. I of course took no pictures of the Monument of my kids with anything that proves we were actually there, but before we left we got ice cream and I did take a picture of Connor eating that:)

Tuesday we went to Dinosaur Hill and reenacted some pictures from when we moved to SD 23 years ago. Some are a little less than flattering of me but oh well. Connor kept telling me his tummy hurt, which has become his mantra of late when he doesn't want to do whatever we're doing so I didn't think much of it but my niece skinned her knee so I did let him and her sit in the car til everyone else was done. We were headed to Storybook Island and Connor threw up all down the front of himself. So I dropped Ty off with my sister and took Connor and Bailey back to the lodge we were staying in so he could sleep and puke. Yeah super fun day for us. I did get a little break when he slept for real for a couple hours so I ran to get the rest of the stuff I needed for Bailey's party and show Tyler where I used to buy my candy when I was his age. I of course was in charge of dinner that night and we had so much leftover on other nights I made half of what I had planned to make and told everyone to bring all their leftovers they didn't want to take home. I did take lots of pictures of Bailey eating her cake but I'll do a separate post for that. Connor was feeling better by that night and I thought we were home free til Tyler started throwing up. Bailey threw up at 3 in the morning that night but after that no one threw up.

Dinosaur leg

this was about the only smile Connor gave us

All 23 current grandchildren on the tail of the T-Rex

All my sibling in order from youngest to oldest

Tuesday after dinner and before Tyler started puking we went down to see about renting paddle boats. We of course were too late to really do it but when the lady told my niece she was closing she burst out crying since we had told her since we got there we would do it one night and this was our last night. Well the lady said we could take them our for 10 minutes or so. Well I have a DEEP DEEP DEEP fear of water and Connor still couldn't get his arm wet so we just sat in a boat that was still anchored to the dock. But Tyler got on with my brother in law and thought it was super fun. Connor was pretty good natured about not being able to do as much as everyone else but still a little bummed.

Oh and we had just done our family picture so if you look close you can see everyone is in brown because we had matching shirts made that had a picture of Mount Rushmore and said

"KIDD FAMILY REUNION 2011" on the back

My niece rode there and back with me to help with the kids and keep me awake on the 12 hour trip. Which was good because I didn't sleep much for days before or any of the night we there since I was with my parents (who were sick or snoring or both) and my baby who was sick or not sleeping or both. But it was still a lot of fun and totally worth it.