Juggling Our Way Through Life

Cale and Aiden tested for their orange belts on April 13 and passed their testing.  We are so proud of both of them.  Especially Cale.  He kept doing taekwondo with his broken arm and didn't give up!  Master Kim even called him out for this saying that he was proud of him for not giving up! 

Easter was lots of fun!  The week leading up to it we did Easter egg dying, Easter egg hunt at Aiden's preschool, egg hunt at taekwondo, egg hunt on Easter morning at our place, church, lunch at Kristi's and dinner with the Koziatek's.  It was a great week and beautiful weather!!

Egg hunt at Master Kim's

Titus decided he had to be in the picture.  The kiddos love our neighbor Vickie's dog and her!!!

Hanging with the Koziateks!

Mal was in town at the end of March and we all decided to go to the zoo on March 23.  Cale was walking and fell and hit his left wrist just right that he broke it.  It was very hard to watch him be in so much pain.  4 hours later, he had a cast and only needs to wear it for 4 weeks, so we are blessed with that!!  He actually gets it off on 4/22!!  Woo Hoo.  It's not been easy, but we have made it through!  He even has had a lot of people sign his cast!

St. Louis hosted the Legofest this year at America's Center and we took the kiddos on March 22, the day after we got back from our trip!  Whew, was that a busy weekend.  It was awesome.  They had all sorts of characters and things made of legos and then just legos galore from piles of legos to lego robotics to play with.  The kiddos had a blast!

For spring break in March we headed to Gatlinburg, TN and the Smokey Mountains with the kiddos.  This was the first time going with just the 4 of us.  We had a blast together.  The kiddos made it through some pretty rough hikes.  They did a 4 mile roundtrip one to a waterfall the first day there and were troopers.  The 2nd day we were there, we spent a greater part of the day exploring Cade's Cove and eating lunch out of the back of the van overlooking the mountains.  We then did a short hike to Cascade Falls and the kiddos and Jeff finished with a dip in the pool and hot tub!  Day 3 we did something totally new.  We drove through Cherokee Indian Reservation and through Bryson City to Deep Creek Trail.  We had never been on this side of the mountain and it was super fun.  We saw 3 waterfalls on the trail, then ate lunch by the river and played frisbee.  Then on the way back, we stopped in Bryson City and had ice cream at a cute shop.  We also stopped at the visitor center over there and saw a really cool old settlement and saw our first animals here.  We saw an elk, and groundhog!  The kiddos ended the night in the whirlpool tub! Our last day in Gatlinburg we spent indoors.  We went to the Ripley's Aquarium which we absolutely love!  And then we did something I have been trying to convince Jeff to do for years.  We went to the Dixie Stampede dinner show and it was great!  The kiddos got really into it and the food was delicious!  It was such a great trip overall.  It's nice that the kiddos are getting older and it's so much easier to travel with them!  Can't wait for our next family travel adventure!

Checking out the rivers on our first day

These boys could throw rocks for hours!

This bridge freaked me out.  We had to cross it our first day to get to the waterfall.  It only had a rail on one side and beneath was a roaring river that if you fell in could really hurt you.  I made it across with Cale!  I sang outloud to God the whole time crossing!

They told us anytime you see a group of daffodils or flowers, it was the site of a old homestead!

Lunch in the van at Cade's Cove

Cade's Cove

The old Mill at Cade's Cove

Day 3 hikes to 3 waterfalls!

Old Ice Cream parlor

These bear statues were everywhere in the Cherokee Reservation.  They had different paintings on each one.

Elk sighting

Ripley's Aquarium

Dixie Stampede

Mama's Farmhouse.  One of our favorite restaurants ever!