Giant Heads

So a few weeks ago Ronni asked me out of the blue, "Mom can we go and see the giant heads?" Giant heads, what the heck is she talking about? But the kids didn't drop it, finally this past weekend, they showed a placemat I had purchased that has all the presidents on there and a picture of said giant heads. Sure enough our kids just requested we go and visit Mount Rushmore! So now, Tim and I are planning our first whole family vacation! The kids are super excited to know that sometime after peyton turns four and Ronni is almost six we are going to get to go. So excited in fact, every morning since Peyton has asked us if he is four. We are gearing up to start homeschooling and I am pretty sure I have found a year long topic in which to study! Thanks, kids, get ready to learn about the giant heads.

On the Road Again

So we are headed back to our home, and I am blogging from the road. My parents can get wireless anywhere, it is pretty cool. All in all, we had a great weekend! I worked on some mini-offices that a friend introduced me to. I got both Ronni and Peyton's done, so I will post a picture of those at another time. My grandma was awesome. She looks so good, it was fun listening to all the stories she has. Always entertaining.
I went to church with my Aunt Paula and Uncle Brian on saturday with no kids. It was amazing. Now I love having my kids at church too, don't get me wrong. I think they do a great job at Mass, for the most part, and I really have no true complaints, but it was really nice to get a break and I was really in tune with everything the Priest was talking about. I got over the cowboy boots and the fact he looks like Matthew Brodderick, after about six times of going to church there, so I was locked in. The only thing that distracted me were the older people in front of me. Anyway, we got through Mass without anyone getting hurt. The old lady with the cane made it to communion and back okay. I don't know why they worry me, but I just watch. Anyway, I happened to be keyed in on the old lady with the cane when we were leaving she mentioned something about St. Patrick's day and green beer. I had to chuckle a little bit. I told my aunt Paula and she said, you think that is bad, she is the person that drives grandma around! She drives grandma? She could hardly walk, I will just reiterate my earlier comment, Grandma looks awesome! (I guess the old lady pulls right up on the side walk next to the doors and grandma gets out to help her into the church when they go to sew, pretty funny!)

The rest of the night we spent eating pizza and watching basketball (ames won and I am happy to say that that was the first and last time I will be rooting for anyone with a "cyclone" in its name) It was a really fun weekend and just what the doctor ordered. The kids had a blast! We went on a walk, seeing my cousin Kimmy's old house and we played at the park. It was really neat watching the kids play with the toys I played with in my youth. Also, to pass on the love of grandma's house is just too priceless. At the end of the day, I told Ronni she needed to come downstairs and get ready to leave otherwise papa would leave without her. She just shouted down, "That's okay, I want to stay here!" Like I didn't see that one coming, but I have to say I don't blame her. I remember when I was younger counting out exactly how many nights we were going to get to stay there and being so sad when it was the last day and we didn't have any nights left. To this day, everytime I go I wish I had just one more day. I don't know why we don't go more often.

So now we are on our way home. We are looking forward to going home. Tim spent the weekend working on projects around the house. I told him not to tell me what he was doing because I didn't want to obsess over it, so now I get to go home and play the "can you guess all the things I did while you were out" game.

I hope everyone else had a great weekend and got to enjoy this weather! I can't wait for spring, I saw my first robin walking to church saturday night so I know it is getting close! It can't come fast enough!

Best Day EVER!

So the excitement has not waned since this morning. I am still just as excited now as I was when I posted this morning, and still a little bit in disbelief that I was standing in the same ballroom today as Buddy Holly did nearly 50 years ago. You may be asking yourself why I am so excited or how I even know anything about Buddy Holly, well it all began on a school night many many years ago....

The year was 1991 and my mother (the awesome gal she is) let me watch The Buddy Holly story, starring Gary Busey. I remember vividly watching it and realizing that it was way past my bedtime but mom let me stay up anyway, so I could watch the end. As she tucked me into bed that night she told me that she has one of Buddy Holly's albums and that I could listen to it sometime. I am pretty sure that I started listening to them the very next day after school. So after listening to the record for a while, skips and all, my mother transferred the record from the record player onto a blank tape so I could take it with me in a new Walkman anywhere. I remember listening to them all the time, memorizing the music word for word, skips and all. I would go roller skating around our Texas subdivision all the time, my sisters and I would choreograph dance shows to the songs. My personal favorite was jumping off, probably an antique, table or buffet right when Buddy Holly starts singing at the beginning of "Oh Boy", still one of my favorite songs to this day. Fast forward to years later, we live in Iowa now and I was in Carrol for some reason, in a CD shop, and I found two CDs of Buddy Holly's. I bought them with my own money, and was oblivious to the incredulous look the clerk probably had on his/her face at the surprise of a 13 year old buying a Buddy Holly CD. I now vividly remember having to relearn all of the words to the Buddy Holly songs, without the skips. My sisters and I had a whole new set of songs to choreograph. Only at this point in our life, we were hooked on figure skating from the 1994 winter Olympics, so instead of dancing we would figure skate (with socks) around our large living room, moving furniture when necessary. Our favorite song to skate to then-"Raining in my Heart". You can rest assured that our kids have already learned how to carpet skate to this song!

Even with all of these great memories, today has definitely been the highlight of years and years of devotion to a man that died when my mother was 4. It was so amazing being around people that also love Buddy Holly and his legend and it was cool to listen to the stories they had to tell about his life and what they knew about him. Also, to stand in such a historic place was truly awe inspiring. The highlight of my day had to be shaking the hands of the original Crickets, after standing in line for like an hour, it was finally my turn to get something signed, and talk to them and I was completely speechless! Finally I just said, "You guys are awesome and I love you guys!" It was pretty neat! Another cool thing was getting my picture taken with a Buddy Holly look alike.

It was really neat to get to pass this down to my own children. So many people came up to us and talked to us because of our children, but one especially stood out; he said thank you to us for bringing them and told us to make sure they grow up with this music in their lives. Don't worry, sir, I will do my best to pass down the awesome gift that my mom passed down to me, thanks again Mom. You Rock!