Brooke and Audrey: Part 2

Thursday, July 23, 2015

March 2015 - Our last days in Naperville

We had a couple days off from school at the end of February. The girls had a Daisy field trip where they took their AG dolls and had a tea party to learn manners. The next day, the girls and I decided to make one last trip into the city to hit the Shedd aquarium. It was SUPER cold that day, but I insisted that we all wear just a fleece so that it wouldn't be a huge hassle hauling around our coats. Poor A never warmed up, so wore her hat the whole time inside!

We tried to match their hair to their American Girl Dolls....hair is clearly not my strong point!

Girls selfie in front of some fish (not pictured here)

Another girls selfie as we were waiting for the dolphin show.

One last shot of the city...

Well this is really the last shot of the city...

But then I saw that Lake Michigan was all covered and it looked so pretty, so we took one last - for real - shot of the city.

Then, on a spur of a moment idea, the girls decided to get their ears pierced!! We were heading to Claire's to buy a replacement pair of clip-on earrings. I asked the girls if they were interested in getting their ears pierced instead and Brooke jumped all over that!

She had no fear and jumped up and got it done! All she said was Ouch when they did it. I was super impressed!

So then I asked Audrey if she wanted to do it to. And she said absolutely NO! So we left and went to do some additional shopping. Then in the middle of Target Audrey decided that she did indeed want to get her ears done too. So we headed back over to the mall....

Now this picture makes it look like it went great. That is not in fact what happened at all! In summary, I was the mom holding her screaming daughter in her lap and forcing her to get her ears pierced - through bribery and sheer force of holding her down. Not a great moment.

But she was all smiles before we even left the store...and Audrey was so glad that she got to go to school on Monday and show off her ears with Brooke!

Here are some pictures of our friends during our last days in Naperville.

Me with Kelley and Amy out at Saddle Up line dancing

The girls having a slumber party with Alivia and Gabby.

Audrey with her BFF Hamsika

The girls with Ailivia

Me with Colleen

The last dinner with their very favorite Reece

One last photo of our house

Monday, April 13, 2015

Hello 2015

January 2015
D got a new position with his company. So starting in December he started working from HQ in Fairfax. But that group will be moving to Houston in May. Soooo - that meant that the Haddens were on the road again. A very tough move as Chicago was great and we all loved it there. But we were excited to move back to Houston as that is really where we'd like to settle down.

Appears to have been pretty non-eventful based on the amount of pictures that I took! Seems like cold and snow were the predominate theme throughout the month.

This is actually from November or December. Audrey had to write a personal narrative for her class and this is what she wrote! (Just for full explanation, Audrey had a seizure at the end of October and she had several medical tests following that and this was one of them)

For New Year's we took a quick side trip down to Zachary to see some of our friends. Here are the girls with Lauren!

And here are me and D with the Bradfords and the Detres.

So I always thought that once you got the below freezing, it was all the same. HA HA HA...I laugh at that now. It is not the same. -21 does feel much much much worse than freezing or even 0!

D went on a guys trip to Breckenridge with his fraternity brothers. He had a FABULOUS time!

We had our first Big snow....thankful that we had bought the snowblower!

My friend Jen Schmidt and her family build an ice rink in their backyard every winter - right? how cool is that?? We were able to spend a couple of days over there doing some skating.

The carpool gang from Fry AKA The Puff Ball Crew!!

February 2015

So it really got COLD for the month of February!! We also celebrated D's birthday, D to Arizona to run in the Ragnar Relay, we had a blizzard, and we had to say goodbye to our friends in Naperville.

Here I am rocking the snowblower! I had to do this clearing while it was still snowing and then do it again when it was all done. Both times it was about that deep!

Trying to measure the snow.

I don't think that I can emphasize how cold it was!

On a day off from school due to the snow and freezing temps, we went sledding!! Audrey is adorable!

Me and Rach at the sledding hill.

The Haddens and the Kuntzes

Lots of snow!

Since the girls had mastered ice skating, we thought it was time to take them roller skating!

And yes, I was out there roller skating - I was pretty awesome and didn't fall once!

Since D went on two guy's trips to go skiing and out to Arizona, his 40th party was just us!

Speaking of Arizona, here are some pictures from his Ragnar Relay. Basically there are two vans of six people (they were a van of 6 guys and met up with a van of 6 girls - sounds a little suspicious if you ask me!) and they run constantly for over 200 miles. Darren was the first runner and did legs 1, 13, and 25. While that sounds like the worst trip ever, he actually loved it and wants to do it again. I think it helped that he and his guys all got along really well and had fun in the van!

At the starting line

Decorated van where you marked off as you finished your legs and kept track of all your "kills" (the amount of people that you passed on your leg)

D on his final leg

At the finish line with their whole team

At a well deserved fancy breakfast the morning after it was all over.

My farewell girls night out in Naperville.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

A year in review....part 2

End of November 2014
Bahamas trip!!

Ha! I found the picture from Audrey's little birthday party!!

Here we all are getting ready for our Dolphin Experience!

The Dolphin Experience was super fantastic!

The whole family

Both girls at the top of the Surge

Cruising around on the crazy river

The whole crew getting ready for the crazy river

How cute are these rainbow bikini girls!!

Darren feeding a ray....though lesson learned: let go of the squid or your hand will be crushed in the rays mouth

View from our room

I think this is a picture of each of them doing this crazy ride. I did not participate in this fun!

December 2014

Had the girl's Hip Hop Dance recital, performed in a play, went into Chicago to see the city all decorated for Christmas, and went to MS for Christmas.