Auffert Sharks

Here's a picture I did up of the girls that I took today. I thought it turned out pretty well. They are so amazing!!

Pictures

I was trying to multi-task and started a new post while waiting for photos to load, it ended up loading them on the wrong post, so here are the pictures and read below for the details of our vacation. sorry

This is where we stayed. The girls enjoyed watching/feeding the fish and turtles.

This is a picture of the girls watching the water and fire show at the Landing. It was pretty cool.

Josie driving the Duck, this is her 2nd time. Cailyn also drove it.

Cailyn loves her floaty race car. It's the only way she'll get in the pool. She just zooms around the pool by kicking her feet. Isn't she so cute.

Branson Vacation

We had a wonderful time in Branson last weekend. We left on Friday and returned on Monday. The girls weren't ready to come back home, and Tim and could of probably stayed another day, but they can't last forever.

We didn't do a whole lot, and that was the nice part. We did some light shopping, Rode the Ducks, went to see The New Shanghai Circus, the water show at the Landing and mostly just hung out around the resort.

We did quite a bit of swimming, some mini golfing and tennis. It's really nice that all this is included at the resort. It saves on both time and money for us.

I'll leave you with some pictures of our good times. Thanks Mom and Dad.... we all had a great time!

Always something going on....

With our busy life, there is always something going on. Just yesterday was the first day of swim team. It was raining, but the girls went to meet their coaches and get a feel of it. Today, it was too cold, and boy was Josie upset. She was crying cause she was so disappointed and wanted to swim, even if it would of been freezing.

Rachel also had her first ever volleyball game yesterday. We weren't really sure what to expect. They had their first practice on Monday, I took Rachel and stayed to watch, let's just say, there was room for improvement. Rachel is a bit "different" when it comes to handling a ball. Rachel is right handed, but she can only throw a ball with her left and serve a volleyball with her left. It's odd. Tim and I worked and worked with her trying to get her to use her right hand, but she was still better when she used her left. We weren't real sure what to expect at her first game. She couldn't even get it over the net (a lot of the girls can't), but we knew Rachel had the ability to do it.

Rachel is playing in Fairfax at Summer Spike. Rachel did Awesome last night. We couldn't believe how different she looked last night actually playing a game. The first time she served, the ball went right over the net, it was great! She did really well for never playing the game before (except in PE). I learned a lot about volleyball last night. Tim and I both really enjoyed watching her play. We have a feeling she might be just as good at volleyball as she is at basketball. Rachel is planning on playing when school starts back up again. She'll have daily practices and it will be interesting to see how much she improves.

Tim, Jenni and I also surprised Rachel with a cell phone last night. Rachel has been begging for one, but we really didn't think it was time yet. But her activities have been picking up and plus with her going back and forth between her mom's and here, it was going to be nice to have a way to get in touch with her when we needed. Not that we couldn't before, but all of us agreed that Rachel was getting older and we didn't always have to go thru the other parent to talk with her. I think it will be very helpful for all of us.

Back to the phone. Rachel "thought" I was getting a new phone. She was being nosey the other day and saw me trying to figure out how to order it online. So, I lied to her and told her I was getting a new phone. Rachel asked very politely if there was any way possible we'd consider letting her have my "old" phone. Of course, all of us blew her off and had her convinced there was no way she was getting a cell phone yet. So the phone came on Tuesday. Tim and I activated it for her and took it with us to the VB games. We had a good couple hours to kill between games so pretty much the entire St. Greg's VB team/families were in the only dinner in Fairfax. While we were in there waiting and crowded, I asked Rachel if she wanted to see "my new phone". Of course, she jumped at the chance to play with it, and then Tim sent her a text while she was looking at it. It said "guess what Rachel...?" followed by a second one " this is actually your new phone! Hope you like it, love dad, mom and abby". It took her a minute to catch on, but once she did, she was squealing and jumping up to hug us all. Her face was so red. I wish I would of been able to take a picture, but that would of gave it away.

Since she has had the phone, it's pretty much been glued to her side. She is still in the new phase and trying to figure everything out with it. She got over 100 texts the first day she had it. I'm praying the New wears off soon, I'm already tired of hearing it go off..... ha. Oh well, that's part of it I guess.

I'm trying to get my house ready and things packed up to head to Branson with my parents for a long weekend. I'm hoping for a few warm days in the sun. We are just taking Josie and Cailyn because the older girls already had weekend plans with their mom. It will be nice to get away for a couple days.

I'll leave you with a couple pictures of our future Volleyball star.

My BIGGEST Kid of All.......

Tim..... really what can you say...?? Part of the reason I fell in love with him was cause he was just like a big kid always joking, playing around, and having fun. That has since come back to bite me in the butt BIG TIME!!

This weekend was really great with all the kids. Saturday we picked up Rachel and Amberlea and headed to St. Joe for a relaxing day of getting out of town together, some light shopping, and a surprise mini-golf game.

Sunday we slept in, I cooked french toast for breakfast, it was really good. We took our time that afternoon getting ready and headed over to Tim's Dad and Penny's house to see family we haven't seen for a while. After catching up for a bit and the kids playing we headed to a bbq at some friends house. We surprised the girls and didn't tell them there were going to be some inflatables at the bbq. They were very excited about this. Our friends also had a very nice pond that we enjoyed catching some fish in.

There were just 3 other kids plus our 4, so they were having a blast going down the inflatable slide. It was a nonstop rotation of kids from the top to the bottom. Tim included.

It was all great fun, Tim always enjoys any activity that he can join in with his kids. They were flying down the slide, frontwards, backwards, all sorts of ways, even some flips that ended up getting us into some trouble. Here's a few pictures of the fun.

It was all fun until around 10:00 when Tim thought he could do a flip down the slide like the girls were. Nope, not so much...... he said he flipped, but landed on his arm/wrist. He said it popped bad and then went numb. But I'm thinking by the words coming from him, it couldn't of been that numb. Tim was positive he broke it. ER......here we come.

It was a very busy night in the ER. One guy broke his leg from jumping off a roof, to an older man "surfing" behind a 4 wheeler breaking his wrist, to Tim breaking his wrist from flipping on an inflatable slide. *notice it was all MEN in the ER last night doing really stupid things, hmmm....???

The doctor said it was a fracture, same wrist he broke about 4 years back, same hand that has his broken pinky now. It was just a little up from where his last break was. They put a temporary cast on and sent us home, 2 1/2 hrs later. He will go back tomorrow and have a permanent cast put on.

Here's a picture of Tim in his cast this afternoon. (You might notice that his finger still works, ha) I'm not going to hold my breathe that Tim has finally learned his lesson. I seem to think this every time after one of his many injuries, and yet again, he seems to find another way to hurt himself. Kids, I swear.
I am getting some more pictures of our weekend from Gina and hope to post some more soon. Thanks for checking in on us.

Officially Summer......

I think that tomorrow will be the Auffert Official 1st Day of Summer!!!

Tim is now on shutdown for the next couple weeks. That's always a fun time for us. The girls should be out of school in a matter of minutes from now, I'm sure they are about to BuSt!! And me, well I don't get a break, but I'm happy I have a long weekend and am looking forward to leaving for a vacation a week from today. That's exciting!! I'll take what I can get.

I have told you that the girls' do swim team. That will be starting on Tuesday along with Rachel's 1st summer volleyball game. That will be an exciting day!! I'm looking forward to that. Tim and I always love to see our kids participate in different sports, and Rachel's VB will be a first for our family so far. Rachel is really looking forward to this and I hope she enjoys the game.

We are headed to Branson once again this year. This is a nice easy trip the kids enjoy so much. It is a lot of fun. Mom and Dad's time share resort is a nice place to relax and enjoy a few days away from home. The kids swim, and can miniature golf, play tennis, lots of activities for us to do. I'm just ready to go and relax.

We have plans to squeeze in a trip to the zoo, a couple float trips, one with the girls, maybe a Royals game, some fishing, and some time with friends and maybe a couple other surprises. Who knows?

This is every ones favorite time of year. My house is suffering because me spending a majority of my time outside these days. Hopefully our plans for the summer will work out and it will be a great time for everyone. I hope all of you have a GREAT summer too!!! I'm sure you'll be seeing some pics of our summer real soon.

A good start to the summer....

With just a week left before school is out, we are wrapping up the end of several of the girls' activities, looking forward to some new ones, and just getting excited to have a few months off for some fun times.

Rachel asked if she could have a friend over this weekend, alright, this lead to Amberlea also wanting one, and Josie, but she's a little too young for sleepovers. She settled for just playing with Amberlea and Rachel's friends and waiting, and waiting, for what seems like FOREVER to get to have a friend over. ha

I told the girls this was fine as long as I got some things done I had planned on for this weekend. Which left me multi-tasking like crazy, but I always seem to pull it all off. I wanted to finally get the girls' volleyball net up and in place this weekend they got from Easter. They have been asking, the weather didn't really cooperate cause of the wind and it was kind of chilly, but we got it up. I'm sure it will get a lot more use in the weeks to come.

I also wanted to work on my hill, THE hill. It has been a royal pain in my butt since we moved in here. Couldn't really decide what I wanted to do with it. I had many ideas, but 2 of the summers I have lived here, I've been way to pregnant to even thing about doing anything. So slowly, I've worked on it the last couple years. It is Definitely a work in progress. But, I am very happy with what we accomplished today.

We added some gravel to my small mud hole that was there all the time. This wasn't very good, cause it never failed that some kid I watched seemed to think they always needs to go walking into it when we played outside. I am glad I have a nice area to have my firepit, that I love to sit next too on those chilly summer evenings. The girls thought it was all Very Cool.

Here's a few pics of the girls last soccer game of the season, and my new fire pit area.


Tim, Josie's coach giving her a medal after the game. She scored her 1st goal this weekend...... GO JOSIE!!

With the help of my wonderful parents, I now have an area I can enjoy all summer. It still needs some work, but it's good progress.

Here's the girls and Tim trying it out and cooking some smores.... it was good.