Nevermind

yeah, nevermind, i'm not editing the previous post, so here are some pictures of the Lake Mead swimming day =)

Our little trip... Day 4

We started today at 5. that's am, not pm. And we drove across the Mojave Desert. it was really boring. really. It was pretty, but after four or five hours of the SAME scenery, one can only find so many ways to angle the camera to get different looking shots. Yes, I took lots of pictures of the land. a lot. After driving for what seemed like eternity and seeing no water (there were a couple times that I thought I saw bodies of water. I was informed that it was a dusty haze. I'm still not convinced), we arrived at Lake Mead. It is a beautiful place! (aside from all the trash at the lake's edge) We are camped right on the lake with a gorgeous view. Ave and Billy went swimming, I did not, but I did take pictures, and as soon as I get them on the computer, I will edit this post. Tomorrow, we plan to take a dam tour. A Hoover Dam tour. I'm excited! I really want to ask where I can get some dam bait =) Billy and Ave are asleep, they laid down to take a nap, but I think they're out for the night, and I'm bored! Here are some pics of sunrise on the Mojave...

I took this one as Billy ws washing the windshield, I think it's pretty neat.

That's it for now folks, stay tuned for scenes from the coming days!

Our little trip... Day 3

From the time we boarded the plane in Little Rock, Ave talked about wanting to "see some aminals at the thoo". I looked up the closest zoo to us, and on Sunday we took her to the Oakland Zoo. After a little trip through what might have been the ghetto (thank you gps lady) we arrived. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was a great zoo. We rode the sky ride (think ski lift over the zoo) and got a great view of all the animals. I think Ave's favorite were the lizards and snakes. yes i know, blech. We had a great time, and I found out a few hours later, that I had gotten a real nice sunburn. Oh,before we went to the zoo, we went to a flea-market. I was disappointed I didn't find anything. Billy bought some sort of tool and Ave got a blow up Dora doll (that has since deflated)
After the zoo trip, we went back to the camper and Billy broke everything down, hooked up, and we headed out. We drove for about six hours before we stopped for the night. We stayed in Tehachapi. I don't know how to pronounce that word. It was a neat looking town and had windmills EVERYWHERE. Here are a few pics from day 3...

Ave and Daddy on the sky ride

Ave excited about petting a goat. She said they were PaPaw's goats.

Super excited about Dora
Waving to the camels on the sky ride

Amazed by the sickeningly (<--that's a word, i just made it up) long snake.

I took a million pictures of the landscape, but I'll spare you and just let you watch a short video of it (in which Billy hints at the fact that maybe I've taken too many pictures of said landscape)

Our little trip..Day 2

We woke up early on Saturday and headed out to find some breakfast. We found a little place called The Copper Skillet. It was cute, and the food was yummy! Then we were off to see the Golden Gate Bridge. It was amazing! We crossed the bridge and headed for Muir Woods. It was a beautiful drive, and I'm sure the actual woods would have been gorgeous as well, but it would have been about a two mile hike just to get to where the woods started because of parking (and this girl wasn't hiking that in flip flops that were already rubbing blisters on her feet). Sooo, we went to Muir Beach instead. It was gorgeous! (well except for the three naked guys who were laying out, I mean really, who does that on a family beach?!) And now, a few pictures for your viewing pleasure... (sorry, there are none of the nudists)

Golden Gate Bridge
Ave excited about the "big water"
Ave on the beach


The Copper Skillet
Muir Beach


Stay tuned...

Our little trip

Ave and I arrived Friday evening in San Francisco! I was so proud of her during our trip (well, most of the time anyway) We left Little Rock at 12:15 and arrived in Dallas around 1:45. She did really well on the plane, I was worried she would get super bored especially since we had to keep our seatbelts on the entire time because of the weather (and also because we were sitting right beside the fligh attendant, and she was a seatbelt nazi) Our flight from Dallas wasn't scheduled to leave until 4, I know that sounds like it might be a long time with a two year old, but it gave us just enough time to eat, for Ave to play in the playplace, also for Ave to walk through the airport crying and screaming at the TOP of her lungs until we got to our gate (and ride a million escalators because that's her new favorite thing to do). After boarding the next flight, we sat for what seemed like forever! and it was HOT! apparently, they were having issues with the cooling system. Luckily, Ave fell asleep before takeoff. It was a three hour flight and she slept for almost an hour. She did really well on that flight as well. I suggest a big book of post-its ( those little yellow paper pads invented by those girls Romy and Michelle) and some twist up crayons as a good plane distractor for your child. When we arrived in San Francisco, we rode the BART to Concord where Billy picked us up. As I've mentioned earlier, Ave loooves choochoo trains! She was soo excited to ride it. We got to the camper, and ate a little dinner and crashed out! That was it for day one, here are a few pics: (and they're not in order, because for some unknown reason, I cannot move my pictures around!!)

Ave on the BART
Ave at SFO

Ave trying to semi-run away from her mommy at Dallas. She looks scared in this picture, it could have been due to the wierd marine guy who would NOT leave us alone, thankfully he sat six rows in front of us on the plane. and yes, i counted.

Ave and Emma waiting on our flight Ave on the first plane

Stay tuned! More to come. (in just a minute, cause now we are on day three of our little trip)

Yard Sales, Room Makeover, and Snakes!

That's what we've been up to, yard sales, room makeover, and snakes. I decided to redo Ave's room, here's a sneak peak. I'll post more pics when I get all the wall decor up and get the chandelier (hopefully) up. It used to be baby girl pink. I wasn't sure about putting turquoise on all the walls, but I love how it turned out! I spent eight bucks on some material and made the curtains, I'm also making some to go at the head of her bed. That's her tutu hanging on the curtain rod. And don't you love my Martha-esque pompoms hanging from the ceiling!? I spent four bucks on some tissue paper at the dollar tree and made them! I'm going to hang more this week. (sorry the picture isn't so great, it was dark and there was a sleeping girl in there =)

See, told you there was a sleeping girl =) I got this antique bedroom suite from my dad, I'll post more pictures of it later, it's super cute! Would anyone like to guess what she is snuggled up to? anybody? anybody? Okay, I'll tell ya. it's a stick horse. yes, it is. I tried to slip it out of her hands and she held on tight. It was in the yard sale, and no one seemed to want it, so my mother took it to her house after the yard sale, along with Ave. Apparantly she slept with it at their house last night as well =) and just had to bring it back home with us when I went to pick her up today. guess she really loves the little guy.

Two of my sisters and I had a yard sale Saturday. bleh. apparently when there are 19 other garage sales going on in arkadelphia, no one wants to drive 5 miles out of town to come to ours. so, I still have "stuff" that I don't want. guess I'm making a another trip to the beehive this week.

Snakes. gross. nasty. hate them. On my way to Mother and Daddy's today, I ran over one. I bragged to Mother " I got to run over a big snake today!" Which leads to her asking if I've seen any around the house (we are surrounded by woods) I proudly say "nope!" fast forward to 10:30 this evening. We had just gotten home and I put Ave to bed. The dogs were barking their "Hey, we're FOR REAL barking this time!" bark. I grabbed my flashlight and go to check it out. To my horror, there is a copperhead standing, yes standing, striking at the ferocious barking dogs. I freaked out and called Mother and Daddy, I don't really know what I thought they could do from 60 miles away, but hey, whatever. So after hanging up with Mother, I decided to take her advice and whack it with a shovel. I went to get the shovel. I come back and my sweet Ella had the snake in her mouth, slinging from side to side! When she let go, I whacked it with the shovel. then I really chopped it up. cause I hate snakes. Here are some pics of the aftermath.

I hope this snake's friends saw what happen so that they know not to come around.

My poor baby's face! =( ( I thought Duke had gotten bitten too, but then I realized his head is always fat. no pics of him)

This just breaks my heart!

After calling mother and crying to her about Ella, and researching it, I'm pretty sure she's gonna be okay. I gave her some benadryl and she seems to be doing alright.

So, I'm going to bed, (probably to dream about snakes)!

Oh and when I got online to research the snakebite stuff, I clicked on Amber's blog and the first sentence is about a snake! c'mon snakes, leave me alone today!

ahem, just updating... again.

Once again, I'm updating after three weeks of nothing! We really haven't been up to much, just hanging out and enjoying the days without RAIN! This past weekend we went to Dierks to see the three Smith cousins that were graduating, Congrats to HaylieRae, Hope, and Tyler! It seems like they should still be babies, guess that means I'm getting older huh? Saturday, we went to the graduation/birthday celebration, it was great to see everyone! Great food, old picture albums, fireworks, and one big crazy family. fun times! The rest of the week has been pretty low-key, just working on some May Belle's orders, and getting some flowers in their new potted homes, or "working in the dirt" as Ave would say, she even had a little song for it =) Tomorrow we're going to help Uncle Kevin move into his new apartment and Ave is going to spend the weekend with Ma and PawPaw, I don't know what I'm going to do all by myself! Probably just clean her room, and yes the way it looks, it will indeed take the whole weekend to get it done! Anyway, here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure!

Gabby and Ave @ Graduation

The Graduates: HaylieRae, Tyler, Hope

Amazing how entertaining plain ol' dirt can be!

These next pictures were taken at Granny and PaPaw's, she loves the chickens!

Ave trying to catch a baby chick (it's in the lower right of the pic)

Sneaking up on them =)

Feeding them some bread

She actually touched one! (just didn't get it on film)

We babysat Seth a few days last week. It's just too bad that I didn't get any pictures of him the first day they got in the pool! He didn't have any swim trunks and the water was pretty chilly even after I put the warm water in, so I dressed him in one of Ave's swim bottoms and he was wearin the pink hat that Ave is wearing in these pictures. Maybe he wasn't traumatized too much =)

Poor Marley Jane, this is her post when she wants to come inside, she will stand and stare at us through the window until we acknowledge her, pretty cute. and a little scary, the porch is pretty high off the ground!

Ave: Take my picture, take my picture! I wanna show it to Daddy!

Melts my heart!

We love you Daddy! See you in 15 days!!

A little catch-up

So I see it's been three weeks since I've updated this thing. It may be due to the fact that the main topic of this blog (ahem, avery may hrabal) has been driving me batty! Just kidding. not really though =). I quit my job two weeks ago to stay home with the little poot head. It's been an experience and we are trying to adjust to the new routine. We are having lots of fun. when we're not arguing over who's going to clean up her messes. I guess she thinks it's a fun game to make me ask her 1,927,284 times to take all 527 baby dolls back into her bedroom after she's put them down for a nap in the living room and forgotten about them.poor babies. We are going to fly out to CA soon to see Billy (We miss you Daddy!), but it's not soon enough for ave. Everyday, she asks me "We gonna get on the airplane? Go see Daddy?" If we're getting ready to leave the house, for anything, even putting shoes on to go check the mail, "we gonna get on the airplane?" I'm afraid she may be disappointed when we actually do get on the airplane. See, she thinks "the kids" a.k.a Jon & Kate Plus 8, are going with us. The girl loves that show, and if we ever do any of the things that they have done, she refers to "the kids". This is the episode that gave her that idea. Anywho, here are a couple pictures of the miss independent almost three year old.

Checking out her eggs at Easter

Riding on Maw and Pawpaw's new boat

This only took two days to wear off. I walked in her room as she was in the process of doing this. Me: Ave what are you doing?
Ave: It's okay. It's jus a accident

In all fairness, she did do a good job with the red "x". maybe she was practicing writing her alphabet.

She does this when I'm sewing, and she doesn't want to go to bed by herself

Cousin Seth came for a visit

Helping him out with his shoes

Sharing her pizza...

...and he bit her finger.

I heart her =)