The Milam Family: March 2009

Saturday I took the boys to Longview for a fun day. Brandon has been fighting the flu since Friday and we needed to get out of the house. We went to Pump It Up Jr. for the first time since moving to Texas. The boys had a great time there. Then we went over to Granny-Great's house to visit with her and my cousin, Robin. We ended the night with a fun dinner at Shoguns.

Self portraits:

These never get old for my boys...

Why does my 2 year old know that a policeman comes to your car window and hands you a ticket??? Must be from riding with his daddy!

My guys:

Robin, Jeni and Zachary at Shoguns

Our attempt at a group photo after dinner. Trent was in no mood for it and that's as close as he would get.:)

RUNS in the family

I participated in the Soar with the Eagles and Run Like the Devil 5K run this weekend. The event also offered a 1 mile fun run for the kids. Zachary asked me to register him for it. He has been so excited about it and could hardly go to sleep the night before. When we woke up Saturday morning, it was in the 20's!!! We didn't let the cold get the best of us and headed out for the run. There were actually a few snow flurries as we stood at the starting line.

Jerilyn, me and Nancy before the race. (Stacie did it too.)

Here is Zachary, with his cheerleader, tracking towards the finish line. He did the mile in less than 9 minutes. We were so proud!

Receiving his trophy. He was beyond thrilled that he got a trophy. He finished 3rd among all the kids 12 and under.

I had my own personal best time too. Think it may have been due to the subarctic temps. I just wanted to get it over with!!

This is what I saw when I got to the finish line.

Rustyn joined his mom in running too. He was the 1st place winner of the kid run.

It was a VERY cold, fun start to our Saturday!

Spelling Bee

Brandon's dealership registered a team in the corporate spelling bee in Gilmer. He then suggested myself and his cousin Karen to be on the team. I am a decent speller, but Karen is like a walking Webster's. She literally can spell anything! The third member of our team was a person we had never seen until the moment before we walked out on stage and he was wearing his shirt backwards. (Thank you, Brandon and company.)

Anyway, we couldn't believe what we had gotten ourselves into. For the small community of Gilmer, they put on quite a spelling bee. There were hundreds of people there!! It was the 16th annual bee and the whole town comes out for it. (This was all information withheld from us until we pulled into the parking lot.) We ended up having a blast and did well. But, before I tell you what place we got, I must tell you the circumstances...

The Yam Queen team took an instant dislike to us for unknown reasons. Pretty much every difficult word they got, they paid $50 to pass to us. We, and by we, I mean Karen, spelled them beautifully. The last word they passed to us was ubiquitous. I think it's a dumb word that no one has ever heard, but our Karen wrote it down without much thought. It was our 3rd team members time to spell so he went up and recited what Karen had told him. They told us the word was wrong and we were eliminated. We exited the stage and were about to leave the civic center when Karen tells us that she looked up the word and we spelled it correctly.

We were all about a protest because these mamas aren't afraid of a little drama! They let us back into the competition and there were only 2 teams left. We got the word mnemonic. We had it written down perfectly and I marched up there and fubbed it! Dang! We were out and got 3rd place. [For the record the ex Yam Queens didn't place!!! Guess they ran out of buy outs!]

Now we know how they roll in Gilmer and we'll be ready for them next year! We, and again I mean Karen, are going all the way!!!

2/3rds of the Mike Craig Ford team...still searching for our 3rd member

Is it just me or do I look like a 2nd grader up there with an adult microphone??

Big Foot!

The monster truck Big Foot came to MP last week. Zachary loved going to see it. He met the driver and we asked lots of questions about it. He is an expert now!

March 23, 2009

More Spring Break

Here are a few ways that we spent the rest of our week off:

Playdate with a buddy:

Going to Disney on Ice with cousins:

Fishing with Uncle David:

And A LOT of time spent playing outside in the awesome weather:

Back to reality Tuesday morning...

Happy Birthday!

The day after we got home from our trip I had my entire family over to celebrate my mom's birthday. It was a very busy day--unpacking, cooking, cleaning, etc, but well worth it. I think everyone had a good time.

St. Patrick's Day was also special for another birthday. Our dog, BO turned 13! We got him when we were in college and he has been with us for the long haul. He is a great dog, but has definitely seen his better day at this point. We gave him a few extra treats for his day, but that was about all the excitement he could handle.

I know that several of my college friends that keep up with us through this blog are laughing that BO is still around. We have some great BO stories from college days!

San Antonio: Day two and three

**I know the suspense has been killing you for the rest of my S.A. pictures, but we've been spring breakin' and didn't have time for blogging!

The second day of our trip we walked around on the Riverwalk, visited a few tourist traps and took a ride on a river boat. We were waiting for the sun to come out (or for the rain to stop) before heading to SEAWORLD. In the early afternoon our prayers were answered and beautiful weather appeared.

This morning was also the morning that my camera's battery died. After the OKC camera episode, this almost pushed me over the edge! Soooo, while day one had a million, great quality pictures, day two and three will have only a few disposable-camera-quality-pics! Poo!!!

Brandon and Zachary entering the Tomb Raider in 3D. This was one of Zachary's favorite parts of the entire trip and he rode it three times.

Trent and I did a lot of sitting outside waiting. He didn't mind a bit. He didn't feel well for most of our trip and was content just chilling in his stroller.

Zachary posing as the heaviest man inside the Guinness Record's Museum

Enjoying a riverboat ride

After some great Mexican food on the river, we headed to Sea World (Zachary is standing next to the sign at the bottom.)

Thank you to Brandon for letting us get set in this picture...he didn't understand the importance of my 24 exposures on my 'new' camera

We loved all the shows at Sea World. This one was with sea lions. The boys thought they were hilarious.

This show was super cool. It included divers, synchronized swimmers, acrobats, dolphins, and whales.

We also climbed through an enormous jungle gym. I loved this picture of Trent taking a break.

We also rode a few rides, ate our weight in junk food, checked out the sharks, and watched Shamu perform. Loved all of it, but the highlight of the day was definitely this:

All of us fed and touched the dolphins (except Trent who said they were sharks that would bite!). We loved it!!!! We were so in awe of the dolphins that it didn't even bother us that we were handling raw, stinky fish! We closed Sea World down that night and can't wait to go back sometime!

Our last morning in San Antonio we took the boys to the Alamo. The lines had been so long over the weekend that we decided to wait until Monday morning to attempt to go in. (Brandon and I knew that Zachary would be disappointed once inside since there is no real battle going on like he imagined, but we couldn't leave S.A. without letting him see for himself.) This is the only picture from inside the Alamo that I have...And it's pretty much the only thing that Z was interested in...the canon.

We watched a few parades go by on the river from our room during our stay.

After a fun meal at Joe's Crab Shack we checked out to head home. No pictures of my cuties chowing down on crab legs because of the aforementioned 24 exposures!