Camping!

Last weekend we took our first camping trip as a family! We went with Luke's bro and his wife and their 3 older kids and it was so fun! We drove a couple hours west to Guadalupe Mountains National Park and camped there for the night. The next day we did a little nature hike at McKittrick Canyon then on to Carlsbad Caverns! If you don't know about the Caverns I suggest you Google them because they are AMAZING!


There is a burn ban in West Texas, no open flame whatsoever! So, we couldn't have a fire, which meant no s'mores so Aunt Ashlee made some s'mores bars and they were yummy!

We all went for a little walk up the mountain before bed.





We're pretty thankful that Joe gets to grow up so close to some of his cousins!

Morning in the tent, up with the sun and waiting for Mommy and Daddy to get out of their sleeping bags to eat breakfast!



Nature hike! We saw lots of dried up plants and cactus. Oh, and a deer!



Going down into the caves!

This craziness...

I know it's been a while...sorry, Mom! I had a bit of a blogging dry-spell after Joe's birthday and then the craziness that was the month of April began. It all started with this itty-bitty, so so tiny, little, almost microscopic hole in a pipe! Slab leak. Thankfully we escaped any sort of water damage because I guess we caught it early. One day I started hearing the sound of running water, without the water running. And if you look at the third picture down, it's because there was water running! Spraying out of that itty-bitty hole in the pipe under our house!


You have to look closely but you can see the stream of water. I guess this is what happens to 60 year old pipes! Nothing punctured the pipe, it basically just started to erode!

So we promptly got it fixed, thank you Bosworth!



Maybe 2 days later we heard that running water sound again. Long story short...we were advised by 2 different plumbing companies to re-pipe our whole house. So we did! Thank you American Leak Detection! It feels great knowing we have brand new pipes and hopefully won't have to worry about leaks, but it was not a fun process. Our kitchen floor was blue for about a month!

I didn't have a laundry room for about a month! Thanks to my mom-in-law for pretty much doing my laundry...




So, while we were waiting for new pipes and new flooring we decided to take down the wall 'o' mirrors! We saw them as a safety hazard, not to mention kind of tacky.

Speaking of tacky...they were being held up my some sort of tar/glue substance. Gross.


See...safety hazard! Yikes! Glad we got them down ourselves before they went on their own.

And the after pics! I did a lot of painting and we got new tile in the kitchen and laundry room. And you can't see them but we have new pipes running through our attic down our walls as opposed to underneath the house. Enter contented sigh of relief...








Oh and just in case you were wondering...Joe is still into sharks. So much so he is turning in to one! ;)

Joe is 4!

Yikes! I can't BELIEVE Joe is 4 years old! Crazy...I love it and I hate it! He is so much fun, when he's not being a stinker! :) He still loves sharks, books, board games and he loves his daddy!
So for his birthday we just had a small party with the family. We are so thankful that his cousins are some of his best friends! It is fun to watch them grow together. Joe requested a shark cake ummmmmmm...maybe last year! I've been hearing him ask for it for so long it was fun to finally make it for him and see his excitement. Of course I made the shark out of red velvet cake so it would look like bloody shark flesh when cut into! Ha! The kids loved it.
Thank you family for all his fun presents!