Our "great" niece's first birthday

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY AVA!

Today is officially Ava's 1st birthday. It still hard for us to believe we are "great" Aunt and Uncle but we are thrilled to death to have babies around again. (I guess I should say I am thrilled! Mitchell could forget the whole baby stage and be quite content with life.) Anyway, we celebrated her birthday on Saturday and had a lot of fun. Here are a few pictures to recap her big day.

What a nice family picture!

BEFORE!

AFTER! Yummy!!!

Fun times catching fish!

Boys will be boys!

Ava is quite intrigued with David's humor

Hope loves having a baby around to love on!

Uncle Mitchell took this of Laura without her even realizing!

All my kids just love holding Ava!

Washington D.C. part 2

I have so many good pictures from Austin's Washington trip that I had to post a few more. This may have had a little to do with me telling the guys don't come home with less than 100 pictures. I was a little bummed that I couldn't go with Austin on his last elementary field trip, but I knew it would be a good bonding time for him and his Dad. Needless to say, they came home with 118 pictures. This could have something to do with letting one of Austin's class mates take some pictures on the plane because she had never flown before. Anyway, here are some more of the sights they saw. Enjoy!

A cool picture Mitch captured of the Lincoln Memorial

Don't the clouds just amaze you with God's handiwork.

Hanging out on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial

Changing of the guard

World War II Memorial

Special wreath ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown soldier

Iwo Jima

Washington D.C.

I can't believe my oldest finally got to go on his 6th grade trip to Washington DC. Mitchell and Austin had a blast. Austin came home saying it was the best field trip he had ever been on. I replied with "It better be. It was certainly the most expensive field trip you ever went on!" I'm not quite sure what their favorite spots were in D.C. They were pretty exhausted by the time they got home. Talk about a whirlwind day. They had to leave for the airport at 4:50 a.m. and they walked in the door around 10:00 p.m. that same day. They saw everything from Arlington to the Capitol.

Here's a great class picture!

Just for our Hope. The Hope Diamond. Personally I'd take my Hope any day over this one!

Thank God for the wonderful country that we are so blessed to live in.

They just work

Occasionally I (Mitchell) will be adding to this blog. I just love the new ads for the mac. Last night I caught one of these commercials, and today I found the link to the rest. Go here to check them out.