Happy Birthday, Jace! (07-28-2010)

Jace turned 9 this year!  We had fun celebrating his birthday the day after I got back from Virginia.  His favorite gift was the paper airplane book Brett got him.  Part of his birthday is the guitar lessons he will start next month.

July in Virginia for Jen (07-22-2010 to 07-26-2010)

You may be wondering why in the world I have a picture of Fred Flintstone on my blog!  Well, first you'd be wondering why it takes me so long to update my blog and then you would probably wonder about Fred...well, that's my uncle Dean!  So, it's really not Fred at all, although he told us a really funny story about how his friends tricked him into putting on a tie with that shirt so they could sneakily take a picture of him like that for one of them to put on their cell phone.  Why would they want a picture of Dean looking like Fred on their cell phones, you ask?  Well, so it could have a "Yabadabado!" ringtone when he called them, of course!

I went to visit my Granny (among other people) in July with my mom (Granny is my mom's mom, so my grandmother).  I had a great time catching up with all my mom's siblings (she has 8 of them still living and I think I saw them all while I was there!).  Dean actually lives at Granny's house, so I got to see the most of him and actually took a picture of him so he could be the star of this post!

While I was there, I wanted to do a little bit of family history on my mom's family, so one day, she and my Aunt Kay and my Aunt Terry and my Granny took me to see their old high school, which is now an elementary school, and a few other sites from their yesteryears!  Here's a few pictures of our outing:

This is a plaque at Drewry Mason High School (now Elementary School) that tells who the school was named after.  Dr. Mason just happens to be the doctor who delivered my mom and who knows how many of my aunts and uncles!

Here's Terry, my mom, and Kay outside the school:

 Here's Kay pretending to make a basket in the gym while we all cheered from the sidelines.  Apparently Kay was a star basketball player in her high school days!

It was fun wandering the halls with them, listening to their stories (and putting on a little show in the auditorium with my cousin Kaylie and Terry).  Terry talked about hanging out in the choir room a lot, and Kay in the gym.  They talked about how smart my mom was (she was salutatorian of her graduating class).

After visiting the school, we headed out to see the farm, which is a rock house where my mom's family lived for a while.  I'd never been there before and it was fun to see it and to hear about how Kay used to have dances and my mom wasn't allowed to participate but she could come and watch. 

It's a cool house...a little beat up now, but really sweet. 

 Then they took me to the cemetery where my mom's dad and step dad are buried, as well as my Uncle Jeff.  Here's some of the gravestones we saw.

My mom's dad...

 My mom's grandparents...

 And my mom's step dad and where my Granny will be buried one day...

I have more stories to add, which I will add in the blog book, about my mom's life growing up.  It was fun learning more about her family and it helped me understand her more to see where she came from even though I've heard stories all my life!  And I'm so glad my phone has a camera on it because I forgot to bring mine on the trip...so I'm glad I finally got smart and started using the phone...they aren't too bad and definitely better than nothing!

Scout Camp for Matt (07-03-2010 to 07-09-2010)

Since Matt is the scout master in our ward, he had the opportunity to join the scouts at summer camp this year.  He had a great time, of course, and the boys and I had a relaxing week without him (although I've already instructed him that he can't use his vacation days for that next summer and to start talking to the dads now!).  Anyway, he took most of the pictures, so he wasn't in very many of them.  Here are the ones that he was in:

Trying to be cool...

The whole group

And it's not often that you find "Lasater" spelled correctly on anything!

My boys...(07-02-2010)

This day was pretty rainy but we finally got a break just after lunch, so we went out to take a few pictures of the kids.  They humored me and I got this really cute one of them...I love that they are laughing in it!

Cows? Really? (06-27-2010)

So we wake up Sunday morning to cows grazing in ou front yard!  Yup...not deer...we see those all time...these were cows.  The same 2 cows that I came face-to-face with when I went running a couple weeks before.  They were just chowing on the grass, leaving cow patties behind!  Matt and Cody couldn't get them back where they came from either time...they were too skiddish.  Finally that week, the county sherriff came by while Jace & I were mowing the yard, so I gave him these pictures and the kids had fun seeing the sherrif's truck.  I think they must have caught them because we never saw them again.

Happy Father's Day (06-20-2010)

We brought Matt breakfast and presents in bed for Father's Day.  All kinds of handy things like...

A lighter for his grill...we want you to get it up and running!

Some new bungy cords...now you can go pick up my piece of metal for my giant magnet board!

And a few other handy things like some mini screwdrivers that he asked for.

And then he went outside to head to church and found this little gem.  The pink flamingoes from Grandma's magically appeared in the yard overnight with a happy father's day sign on it (remember Kathi's in town)!  Ha!  I'm sure our neighbors thought that was awesome!

Happy Father's Day honey!  We love you!

Cody' 4-wheeler (06-19-2010)

So Jace got his first little job this summer.  Cleaning our neighbor's 4-wheeler.  But you can't just clean it, you have to take it out for a little test drive beforehand!  Matt took each of the boys out for a little off-roadin'.  They had a great time and then they got the 4-wheeler all clean!

They wish they could take it out themselves!!!

Kat Comes to Visit (06-12-2010 to 06-27-2010) Last Hurrah

The last night Kat and Ryan were here, we got a sitter and came over to play a little Rummy Cube.

Here we all are

Kat, why do you make us take silly pictures like this?

I love this picture of Mom and Dad!  Having a good time!

Bye Kat!  We love you guys!  See you in December!

Kat Comes to Visit (06-12-2010 to 06-27-2010) The Beach

Here we are at the beach!  We headed down to Corpus to spend a day on the shore and getting sun burned.  Yeah, that's right, we ALL got sunburned.  Word to the wise, when the side of the sunscreen container says "wait 20 minutes after application before entering water", it means it.  Anyway...

Yes!  That's my mom!  In a swim suit!  In the ocean!  We could hardly believe our eyes!

Here's Grandpa, checking out the sand castle building going on...he's about to take over the task.

And this is how boys build sand castles.  Apparently, Grandpa, Matt and Ryan couldn't get the little castle molds to dump out the castles (I told them the sand they were using was too wet, but did they listen?)...so this is what they did...nice.

And here's Grandma, proving that you really CAN build a sand castle the right way!

Me and my boys, Matt and Brett in the water.

Bayli in the surf...cutie girl!  Love those goggles!

And Bronco was so willing to have his picture made!  These are my favorite attempts...

Jace and Brett in the surf...

There were several of these little guys to avoid...

And after a long day at the beach, some down time was in order!

On the way home, we made the obligatory Jewell family stop at Cracker Barrel for lunch!

Fun times were had by all (minus the sunburns!).  We would definitely do it again!

Kat Comes to Visit (06-12-2010 to 06-27-2010) Random Stuff

So, while Kat was here, she and Mom decided to order Dad a new camera for Father's Day.  It came while she was here, so she was able to covet it for a few days!  It's the newer version of hers (and mine) and came with all kinds of cool new features like Dolby digital sound and HD video capability and a dedicated video button (which would be so nice!).  Plus it's really small...can you tell I'm jealous???

Heather, Phil and fam stayed at our house for the first week of Kat's trip and I have only one picture!  We mostly hung out at Mom's until the kids had to get home for bed, so I guess i just didn't take any!  At night, after the kids were in bed, Phil and Matt would eat cereal, surf the web and play golf on the Wii!  And Heather I and would make fun of them until I was too tired and had to make myself go on to bed so I wouldn't fee totally yucky the next day!  Yeah, they made fun of me for being old.

Kat Comes to Visit (06-12-2010 to 06-27-2010) Vacation Bible School

Brett, Jace & Bayli got to go to Vacation Bible School (VBS) for the first week Bayli was here.  My friend Debbie is one of the people in charge at VBS, and we have been going since Jace was in preschool.  They all had a good time!  Here's a few pictures...

Here they are in the car on their way the last day.

Showing their donation money (each year VBS raises money for a good cause)

On the stage before opening assembly begins

Bayli in her row, waiting for it to start

Here's Jace with his friends Matthew and Ryan from preschool

Brett with his friend Jake from preschool

And the John boys...they are the fun ones in charge of assembly...it's quite a production!

Bayli had such a good time that she told Kat that they HAVE to come to Texas next summer for VBS!