Pretty New Page and Hitchhiker that refuses to go!

Check out the pretty new page background and banner! I am so proud of myself. I am so not computer savey, but after trying and trying and trying...did I say trying. Well you get the picture. I will be changing the boys photos to ones of them around 2 years old like the girls, but have to upload them first. Those were the days before digital! :O) Anyway still have that blasted hitchhiker. We had another find but it was not safe enough to leave him there. We were going to try and find another place but it started raining. Today I am getting the boys ready for camp, they leave Monday at 5 yes AM ugh... That is an hour that should not come twice a day! I am so a night person. Anyway off to find sneakers today and hopefully get rid of this hitchhiker. On a side note, Biltmore was great as always and the new room are awesome. So neat to see where the babies were born, the crib is exquisite. It was quite busy, we don't usually go in the busy Summer months.

Visiting Biltmore and dropping off a hitchhiker!

Well I know you can't believe I picked up a hitchhiker... let me explain. Thanks to our good friend Libby we have started going on adventures called Letterboxing. It is really a lot of fun and the whole family enjoys it. You go to their website and type in where you want to go for your adventure, like Asheville. Up pops a whole list of places in Asheville where people have placed letterboxes. There is a list of clues you have to follow and at the end there is a container of some sort with a notepad and a rubber stamp. On these adventures you take a note pad, a rubber stamp, an ink pad and a pen. You then stamp their book with your stamp and your book with theirs. One of the things the kids thought was cool was that you have to pick a name. We are the Red, White & Blue Dragons! And we have a really neat Dragon stamp. Love the name as we are a chinese-american family! Well now onto the hitchhiker, sometimes in the letterbox you will find a small package with another stamp and small notepad. This is a hitchhiker, he has no home and just travels from place to place. You then decide if you want to take it or not. Well of course, being our first hitchhiker find, we took it and are going today on a new adventure and will leave our hitchhiker there. The kids don't know that we are going yet, as I love surprises. We are also going to America's Favorite Castle... Biltmore. We need to see the new rooms they have opened up before our season pass expires. I have decided that we need to do at least a couple of fun things each week as Summer is quickly fading! Well on the emotional front, realized why I was rambling on yesterday. "It" is here now. Since I am entering "the wacky world of menopause", I never know when "it" will appear. Kind of explains why I was biting David's head off night before last, for no reason. Poor sweet David, I do feel for him. But if any of you are in "the wacky world" or have ever been around someone who is being forced to live in "the wacky world", you know horrendous mood swings live there and rarely can they be avoided. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to anything in "the wacky world". I do pray my time there is short! Well off to have some adventures with my kiddos...

New start here...

so I am calling it quits on Isabella's babyjellybeans blog after 2 years. I figured that it was high time to stop it as I had not posted in awhile so I will be blogging about her journey as well as the rest of the kiddos here. I am not really good at this kind of thing, but have seen some really great blogs that have inspired me , so why not!?! Not sure how often I will post, but blogging on Xan's birth felt good, so we will see! I have had a rough couple of months... emotionally. I have really been grieving my dad. I know kinda weird after almost 10 years. It started with Xan's graduation, wishing my dad could have been there, he loved Xan more than life itself. Then it was Father's Day, my dad's birthday, Xan's first car and then his turning 18. Whew, what an action packed 2 months. Of course on top of all of this was Isabella's reaction to all the commotion. After sitting down and taking inventory I realized it was no wonder I felt crummy! So I know that I have to turn it over to God and after having several people pray for me, I do feel better. I know that it is a process and that I do have to have God's help, to let go of this grieving. My dad was such an awesome dad and I was and always will be daddy's little girl! I just so wish he could still be here... So anyway, thought if I blogged about some of my thoughts, and got them outta my head, that maybe it would help. So here we go...