I know it's nearly Halloween, but...*Part 2*

And now for the second installment of the Swanson summer saga. I debated about splitting this up and making a part 3, but as you will soon see, I didn't...so this is the super post...and by "super" I mean post with tons o' picutres.

When the kids and I arrived home from our visit to my mom's in Washington we were blessed by the presence of another granparent. My dad actually got here a day or two before we did so he could spend some quality time with my brother's family before I demanded his attention. I'm sure I could rustle up a few picts...

The kids really do love travelling...hey, I suppose my airfare would be less if I just brought them this way...Hailey really enjoyed making cookies with Papa Ted. She didn't even seem to mind that all they did was open the package and put them on the cookie sheet.

The kids were obviously very excited for this photo.

To continue our summer of grandparent fun, a few days after my dad left we all flew to the other side of the country to visit Ben's parents. We had a fun week of visiting, relaxing, playing, jumping on the trampoline, and boating. I may have more than a few picts from this trip too...let's see if I can narrow it down.

One day we went to this tiny amusement park that Ben used to go to some when he was little. It was just a rinky-dink little place, but the kids had a great time. What makes it cooler is that Ben's mom also remembers going there when she was little!

The kids actually had to pedal this one with their hands to make it go around the track.

A ticket for you.

And you.

Hm, I wonder if these rides were built during wartime or something. The planes on this ride had built in guns that you point at eachother.

It's a good thing these two are too young to drive a real car.

I realize this picture is disgusting, but I just had to put it in because it was such a big part of our trip. For a little over four years now I have had some really strange problems with my hands. From rashes to warts to who knows what, it's just been a fun trial for me. Well, I had a particularly bad flare-up while on vacation and I could not even use my hands. This picture was taken after the worst of it. My fingers were so swollen and cracked and bleeding that I could not even bend them. On the bright side, I didn't have to change one diaper all week. The other good news is that for some reason, since then all the warts have disappeared and I am supposed to meet with an allergist soon to see if he can figure out what is going on.
It's nice to get to visit with Ben's grandma's when were are there (though I only managed to get a picture with one).

Hailey had fun meeting and playing with her cousin Greta.

Making cookies with grandma. Cute apron sweetie.

Sadly, I do not have any pictures of Ben hot-doggin' it on the lake. He was pretty impressive on those water-skis. I was sad that my hands were so miserable that I couldn't really show him my skills.

Wait a second...who's driving the boat?

Ok kids, time to cooperate for a nice family photo-op outside Niagra Falls. Oh, you don't want to?...ok

We did the Maid of the Mist boat tour right down by the falls again. It's pretty cool, as are these ponchos.

Here we are.
Here's Hailey and grandma and Hunter and me (yes, Hunter is on a leash...but we prefer to call it his bracelet...you have no idea how fast this kid can run away).

I drag Ben's family up to Niagra Falls every time we are out there. It's just so awesome and I thought it would be fun for the kids to see.

Whew, I think I made it through the super post...did you?

I know it's nearly Halloween, but... *Part 1*

I've really been meaning to post pictures from all the things we did this summer...cause it really was a lot.

We spent lots of time in our swimsuits (yes, even me, but sadly, I'm not posting any pictures of that just yet).

I'm very proud of this new playset that I scored. On my way out of the neighborhood one day I saw that someone was giving this away for free. Ben and I had to walk the big pieces 3 blocks home-they are heavier than they look. The kids love it. As previously mentioned, way back in early August the kids and I made a journey up to Washington to visit my fam and do my 10 year reunion. Here's a few picts from that trip.

Here's a bunch of cousin's when we got to go down and visit my sister's fam for a day.

The girls: me, mom, and my sister Tiffany
Hailey loved helping Papa Ken mow the lawn. She begged him to do it whenever he wasn't at work. Hunter wasn't so thrilled about the mower. He went on it with me once, but then I lost control and ran it into the fence...oops.

Here I am with my handsome date before the reunion. He was such a stud.

Me, Heidi and Tara. What cute girls. We were totally the life of the party.This picture would have been so great if it wasn't for that darn Jeff...maybe we could photoshop him out and put Mary.
Making and ice cream mess with Jonah and his mom Heidi

The kids having fun playing under this really cool quilt that my mom's mom started before she died.

My brother Evan-who cannot manage to do a normal face for a picture-and me.

Me and my stepsister Kristi. Is fun to be able to see so much family when we go up to Washington.

Stay tuned for "I know it's nearly Halloween, but...*Part 2*"...

A new look?

Every once in a while Benjamin says I should dye my hair black/dark. So, courtesy of taaz.com I have done a few makeovers, and this is probably as close as I will ever really get to dark hair. So there you go hun.

Race for the Cure 2008 and some random things

Ben and I really enjoyed doing the race for the cure (for breast cancer) for the 5th year in a row this past weekend. Thanks to our friends Kelly and Cory who so willingingly kept our kids overnight so we didn't have to bring them over at 6:30 in the morning. Since we didn't have anyone in the stroller this year we were able to run the entire thing. It was a great feeling...even if it did kick my booty. There were something like 30000 people and it was cool to be a part of it. For those who don't remember, we like to do the race in celebration of my mom who has been 12 years without cancer and in memory of her mother who passed away like 30 years ago from it. Here's a picture of Ben and I just before we left the house in the morning (yes I know, I look totally hot in spandex).

I love her smile in this picture. Hailey was very excited about the stuff we brought back for her from the race...little did she know it was all free!
Here's the two girls later that day after we had gotten all cleaned up. I convinced Hails to let me straiten her hair too.
I just thought I'd throw in an embarassing picture of my son. He likes to go potty so he can wear his big boy underwear for a bit. I'm really impressed with how well he is doing with the whole process. I'm just trying to ease him into it since he has shown so much interest. He goes in the big boy potty at least once a day (then he points to his underwear and says, "I want wear those")
Just to prove he does wear clothes too, here's another one.
I was looking at a friends blog the other day and she was talking about being obsessed with blogs on how to do little girls hair. I spent a while looking at them and felt like such a slacker for just throwing Hailey's hair up in a pony most days. So here is what I did one day.

Here I am...Rock me like a hurricane?

Yes! We survived Hurricane Ike, and it was crazy. It's going to take a long time for this area to be back to normal. The winds started in the evening on Friday the 12th, and lasted till the afternoon on Saturday. Ike made landfall in Galveston, about 70-80 miles away from our house at about 2 am on the 13th. The wind and rain was so scary. We had the kids sleep in our room at the side of our bed (on the opposite side of the room from the windows). It was so hard to sleep that night. I kept waking up and watching the news to see what was going on. The power went out at about 4 am (I think). We are some of the "lucky" ones...our power came back on this past Friday morning...so we only had 6 days without power. So many people don't have it yet. We were also lucky that nothing happened to our house...just a few boards loose on the fence. I was really worried about this big tree in the neighbors backyard...but somehow it stayed put. And here's another lucky thing-somehow Houston had an unprecedented cold front come in last week so we didn't all die of heat exhaustion...it was actually quite pleasant outside.

When we first looked out the window it didn't look like things were too bad...we saw a tree down across the road and some damage to our neighbors garage.
Later in the afternoon when the wind and rain had died down some I decided to venture out to my friends house a block down. That's when I started to see how bad Ike actually was. Trees were down all over the place, lots of them on houses...and that's just in our neighborhood, it was so much worse elsewhere. (I had to borrow the tree picts from some friends blogs just so I could show how it looked around here)

I'm just grateful that we don't live on the coast.We lost a lot of food from our fridge and freezer...that was sad. But hey, the first few days were sure did eat well-lots of bbq with friends, family and neighbors! I also learned that you can cook more than just meat on a barbeque...like pizza and nachos. Yum yum. I was also lucky to have a friend with a generator that let me put some of my meat in her freezer so I didn't have to lose it. It was a little bit stressful trying to get ice to keep our other food cold. As you might imagine...it's hard to find when there are no stores open.
The kids dealt with things pretty well...except for the part when Hailey threw up a few times during the hurricane. They got a little scared during the crazy thunder storm the night after Ike hit-the lighting was hitting really close by. They loved playing with the neighbors and really enjoyed having their dad around for a few extra days. (His building at work lost it's roof to the storm). The weather was so comfortable that we were able to go on walks all week long.
I'm getting tired of this post because it is getting so long...so I guess I'll wrap it up. I'm just glad that even with how huge this storm was, so many lives were spared and people are being friendly and working together to get things back together again.

This isn't my house or anything...I just liked seeing the flag up and flying the day after the storm.

I want my mullet back...

Yes, my son was a wanna be Billy Ray Cyrus-but those days are gone now. I gave Hunter his first haircut last week. He looks like such a stud. I had such a hard time letting go of the curls, but after these "before" pictures you will see why I had to do it. The second picture was just after he woke up in the morning, and his hair was so tangled it was just the last straw. (and yes, I could not resist the muscle shirt for his last day with the mullet)
After: (did he just grow up or what?)

We're still here somewhere

Once again I've been waiting till I had pictures to post something. Then I just decided that was too long to wait, I'm going through blogging withdrawals. The kids and I have been in Washington for over a week. We left daddy back at home to earn the big bucks. We've been having a lot of fun visiting grandma and grandpa and our other family that lives in the area. When I get back home I'll have to post some pictures from our visit to my sister's house in Corvallis-we got to go down there for cousin Annika's birthday.
Last weekend was my 10 year high school reunion-go Papermakers (yes, you read that correctly). I was kind of nervous going into it, but we had a lot of fun. Most memorable for me was probably how Heidi, Tara, Mary and I made fools of ourselves dancing up on the stage. Heidi and I were probably up there for 2 hours and sometimes no one else was up there. Good times. I have a few pictures that Heidi sent along, but I'll have to post more when we get home this weekend. I'm not sure why the pictures have funky borders...try and forgive me. The first picture is me (obviously), Melanie, and Heidi.
Here's Hailey and me at the family picnic at the park.

Here's my little Hunter boy. If you can't tell, he made a mess of himself. I tried to keep him clean for a while, but as most of my friends no by now...it is sort of a lost cause. The boy loves puddles, especially muddy ones. He was jumping and rolling around-luckily this time I didn't catch him drinking it. It got to a point where I was introducing my kids as Hailey and "the filthy one over there".