Not up to much...

"Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of the human existence." -Aristotle

We haven't been up to a whole lot, mostly just hanging out at home, trying to stay happy. That's why I haven't posted in a while.

A few things we've done:

• Spent the night at my parents' house a couple times. Once was for fun, and the other was because my parents babysat them and we didn't want to move them after they fell asleep. Thanks, "Mah-Maw" and "Pah-Paw"! (Sorry, no picture for that...)
• Saw Harry Potter 7.2! It wasn't the midnight showing, unfortunately, but we saw it the day we came out, and it was fabulous!

!!!!! *squeals and claps hands*

• Found a person who makes Pupusas, a food native to El Salvador, where Jason served his mission. The four of us plus two others loved them. So yummy! At one point, Jason had this conversation with Andrew:
  Jason - Hey Andrew, we're going to be eating pupusas tomorrow!
  Andrew - Eat poo-poo? No daddy, no!

Pupusas, not poo-poo!

• Enjoyed HOT weather by staying inside.

My cool sunglasses man

Rolling around on the floor

• Watched several intense thunderstorms.

Watching a storm move in on my parents' front  porch

• Saw Cars 2 at the movie theater. This was Andrew's first movie theater experience! He loved it!

• David has started to learn how to crawl! Ahhh! He's not able to be on his hands and knees at the same time like the baby in the picture, but he sure knows how to scoot around to get to what he wants!

• Tried to beat the heat by going to play in the fountains at the bunny park with our play group.

Playing in the water

It sounds like a lot, but spread out over 2(ish) weeks, we still had a ton of down time, which was nice. Jason's been busy with work, so it's been nice to have some things to do while he's gone.

Hopefully I'll have something more exciting to say the next time I update...

Secret: I remember hearing stories about girls only eating salads on dates because they were on a diet and wanted their dates to think they were healthy eaters. I have never been one of those girls. Bring on the real food, people! Don't get me wrong, I love a good salad, but really. You can have salad any time. Get something different!

Vacation Part 2 + Life Since

"You'll never catch up with a mere hope." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Well, I'm trying to catch up. Oh dear. Let's hope I'm able to, either with this post, or the next. We'll see.

I left off with us staying the night in Indianapolis. The reason we stopped there instead of going all the way home or stopping sooner is because my parents were staying there. Why? We had a funeral for my uncle, my mom's brother, there the next day. He's been gone for probably a year or two and had been cremated, but his two sons are in the military and were never able to be here in the states at the same time until Saturday, July 2nd, so that's when the funeral happened!

Anyway, the night before the funeral, we stayed in this REALLY cool hotel in Indianapolis, called the Crowne Plaza Hotel. This hotel was built in an old railway station, and it still has some old passenger trains inside it. In fact, they had turned the old railway cars into hotel rooms! And we got to stay in one! Thanks goes out to my dad for that one - he was the one who made the hotel reservations and paid for us all to stay there. So neat!

This was the outside of our hotel room - it really was a train car!

That Saturday was my uncle's funeral. Since it had been quite some time since he died and he was quite the casual, funny person, it was actually very light-hearted and fun! That will probably be the last funeral like that I ever go to, but I'm glad we were able to make it. :) After the funeral, we drove to Cincinnati and attended a baseball game. My uncle was an avid Reds fan, as is the rest of my mom's family, and they were playing the Indians that afternoon/evening. The Reds lost, much to the sadness of my mom's family, and happiness of my sister, Susette (a huge Indians fan). Here are some pictures from the game:

We had excellent seats! This picture was taken without zooming!

Great company - my dad, Susette in her Indians garb, Josh, and Jason

Andrew enjoyed himself big time!

Jason and I, enjoying the heat (it was HOT that day)

Andrew shared an ice cream sandwich with Jason, and every time he got some on his hands, he wiped it on his SHIRT! And in his hair. Yuck!

We got special tickets where we got free food inside with air conditioning, and that's where David happily stayed the entire time!

The next Monday was the 4th of July, and it was pretty calm. We dropped off Jason's sister, Shauna, at the airport to fly back to Las Vegas, and after that, we went grocery shopping and hung out at home. In the evening, my parents had a barbecue in their backyard with some friends, and we had fun there with them!

David rolled around on his blanket in the grass

Resting after playing soccer with the boys!

Since then, we haven't been up to a whole lot. Jason's back to work, and I'm back to watching Cars and Winnie the Pooh's counting movie a million times and cooking and cleaning and laundry.

On the up-side, David's been eating solid food for probably a week! He started waking up in the middle of the night again because he was hungry, and if we're diligent in giving him solid food at least twice during the day, he will sleep most of the way through the night again. Yay! He's loving solid food, and so far has tried carrots, sweet potatoes, applesauce, pears, and bananas.

Grabbing at the spoon because I wasn't giving it to him fast enough!

Ta daaaa! There you go. I'll probably do another post with more pictures of what we've been up to lately soon, but I haven't even uploaded them to the computer yet. So you'll just have to wait.

Secret: I am utterly and completely hair-ignorant. I only know how to wear my hair down, half up, in a ponytail, and braided down the side. I only use hairspray every once in a while. I don't even know how to use a curling iron, really. Are there some EASY styles I could quickly learn how to do, considering I'm extremely novice? What are some of your favorite, easy styles?

So Much to Talk About

"Someday is not a day of the week." -Unknown

Well, I've been putting off doing this update because so much has gone on over the past several weeks, and I'm dreading how much time it will take to upload all the pictures I really want to post. I'll try to make this short and sweet.

1. The boys had a doctor's appointment last month. At 2 1/2 years old, Andrew was 37 1/4 inches tall and 37 lbs, which are - you guessed it! - both 80%+. David, at 4 1/2 months, was 26 inches long and 15 lbs 10 oz. (Although, since it's been almost a month since then, he feels a lot heavier!) David's height was like 80%, and his weight was something like 60th. Just to give you an idea, at the same age, Andrew was 3 lbs heavier and a half inch longer than David. Yep, Andrew has always been huge! It's nice having a normal-sized baby, but because all I know is a big baby, sometimes I worry that David is too small! Silly me.

Andrew got a red-hot jaw breaker, and loved it! Can't you tell?

David loves sleeping on mommy and daddy's bed!

2. We went on a two-week vacation! We flew out to Washington State and hung out there for a few days with Jason's family. Then we drove to Utah for a family reunion in our new van! Jason's mom gave us her old one she wasn't using anymore. Yay! Afterwards, we drove to Las Vegas, where we stayed with Jason's oldest sister, Holly, and her family for several days. Brett, Holly's husband, is an ophthalmologist, and checked out my eyes while we were there. After years of having to wear contacts, he discovered that my right eye actually has 20/20 vision! Ridiculous! Who's ever heard of only needing contacts for one eye?

David and his cousin, Ryan. Ryan is 3 months older.

All the people from our part of the family who went to the extended family reunion. The reunion was for all those who shared Joseph Wiley Nebeker and Annie Helen Lindsay as their parents/grandparents/great-grandparents.

Shauna playing with David

David with his cousin Laney, Holly and Brett's daughter.

3. From Las Vegas, we drove ALL THE WAY back home to Ohio. Not in one day, but it was still a long drive. Fortunately, Shauna, Jason's sister, drove back with us, so it made the drive much more entertaining and a whole heck of a lot less stressful. Thank you Shauna! We stopped in Grand Junction, CO, and the next day drove allllll the way to Blue Springs, MO. While in Missouri, we stopped by Independence, Liberty Jail, and Adam-Ondi-Ahman, historical sites for the LDS church. Then we drove to Indianapolis for the night.

The boys actually traveled REALLY well, considering how much driving we did!

Look at that happy face!

I managed to take a pretty picture in Kansas!

Totally rocking daddy's sunglasses in Adam-Ondi-Ahman.  He had spit up all over his outfit, which turned out to be just fine because it was over 100* there that day!

There's more, but I think I'll stop there for now. I'll talk about the rest of the trip and what we've been up to since then in my next post.

Secret: I love playing Super Mario Brothers on the Wii. In fact, I just beat the very last level of the 8th world by myself for the first time today! Pretty lame thing to be excited about, huh?