Saying Goodbye to Friends

It is rare to find friends where the kids and spouses all get along and both families have similar values and goals for raising their children. We've only found these friendships a few times which is why we knew how special our friendship with the Sheldon's was. They left Scott AFB the end of March and have we have missed them greatly since then. Our friendship continues to be close despite the miles. We also have a great excuse to visit them because they are moving to Spokane which is still at the top of our list for places to live when Doug's career in the military is over. 

Simmon's Little Girl

We had the pleasure of taking care of Dawn and Cory's newest addition to the Simmons family while they were going through the Commander's Course here at Scott. They had moved back to McChord last summer and so this was the first time we got to meet little Emily. The kids loved having her with us  for a day and a half. She brought a lot of laughter and curiosity to our home since the kids aren't around babies very much. 

Sheldon's Promotion

 A really good friend of ours was promoted to Lt Col. on Ethan's birthday. So in the midst of celebrating his birthday we also got to celebrate Jeromie's promotion.

 I helped Anne Marie make the cake. It was a bit of a challenge and we learned a lot. We also had a lot of fun making it together.

I got this really great picture of Audrey and the girls. 

A Day at the Zoo

Dawn, Jennifer and myself braved the St. Louis humidity to take the kids to the Zoo. We had a great morning together, but I think we were all a bit pooped by the end.

In this picture from left to right is Ethan, Luke, Alex, Audrey, Jacob, Drew and Shelby

Hmmm, I wasn't sure I thought the explaination about how an alligator twists you around and drowns you was appropriate for this audience, or the story about a women's arm being ripped off. Dawn and I were trying to get the kids out of there as quickly as possible after that story!!

Blast Summer Camp

Jacob, Ethan and Alex Jones went to summer camp at our church this week. On Sunday they sang at church and it was a lot of fun seeing them on stage for the first time.

Our Last Outing with the Walter's

In the last few months we've actually done quite a few things with Dorothy and her three grils Carlie, Molly and Ellie. However, this was our last "field trip" to The Botanical Gardens in St. Louis because they are moving to Virginia next week. We will miss them a ton, but as with everyone we meet in the Air Force, it's never goodbye because we know we'll see each other again someday.

Field Trip to the Magic House

We went with some friends today to The Magic House in St. Louis. The kids had so much fun. We didn't have a chance to see everything so, we will definitely be going again soon. The pictures below are of some of their favorite things they did today.

They had a sand table and water table and all three of them spent a good amount of time at both of them.

It's hard to tell what's going on in this picture, but it is the beanstalk from Jack and the Beanstalk. Kids can climb through it and it's about three stories high.

The boys spent most of their time working on the car. They could change out the tires, check the engine, pretend to top off the fluids and do tons of other stuff.

While the boys were mechanics, Audrey went fishing! She was able to catch a pretend fish, walk it upstream, drop it in the water and watch it swim back to the pond.

Ethan was very proud of his ice cream cone!

One of the last things they did was pretend to run a pizza resturant. We were the only ones in there for most of the time, which I thought made it even more fun. They brought me pizza, plates and drinks, cleared the tables, took phone orders and rang up the amount on the cash register.

Our Week with Alex

We had the pleasure of watching Jennifer and Jeremy's son Alex this week while they were at the hospital having their second son, Jacob Jones. We had a great week with Alex and it was a lot of fun having him be a part of our family for a few days.

Santa's Express

The Missouri USO had an event for military families at Union Station in St. Louis. It was a great day with the kids and Jones Family. The kids were very excited to ride the train from Scott AFB to Union Station.

When we got there they enjoyed picking out a free toy. The toys were surprisingly really nice. Audrey got Silvermist from Tinkerbell, Ethan got a Transformer and Jacob got a remote control helicopter.
Jacob was the only one who was excited about sitting on Santa and Mrs. Claus' lap. It was a good thing Mrs. Claus was there because I think Audrey would have backed out on the whole thing if she wasn't sitting there.

They all enjoyed getting their face painted.

Audrey got a Santa.

Alex got a reindeer.

Ethan watched very carefully to see that the lady made his snowman right. As we were leaving he said "Wait, she forgot to draw a carrot nose." It was almost as if he knew something was missing, but he just couldn't figure it out right away. Jacob was very happy with his face painting. It cracked us up that he chose Santa's beard and mustache to be painted on his face.