For the past few days, we went on a little vacation to Lake of the Ozarks.  We left Thursday morning and met our friends, the Fosters, in Camdenton for lunch at Pizza Hut.  Afterwards, we toured Bridal Cave.  The kids really enjoyed it.  It was amazing.

 This beautiful lake is at the end of the tour.  To continue any further in Bridal Cave, you have to scuba dive.

 This is where they do the weddings.

 After a few minutes at the gift shop, we stopped at Walmart for supplies.  Then we went to our cabin at the Lake of the Ozarks Recreation Area maintained by Fort Leonard Wood.  We had a two-bedroom cabin that we shared with the Fosters.  Ben and I planned to sleep on the sofa bed, but we discovered at 8:30 at night that it was broken and had no sheets.  We put the mattress on the floor and stole some bedding from the girls' bed and made it work.

That evening, we went to the swim area for about an hour.  It was really small but not busy.  The kids had a great time.  They were sad when it was time to go in for dinner.

On Friday morning, there was a very loud, wet storm when we woke up.  I was worried it would ruin our plans, but it was scheduled to move out by mid morning.  We headed up to the north end of the lake.  I had faulty coordinates for Public Beach 1, so we never found it.  Our friends had to watch the kids in the van while Ben and I went parasailing.  We're not sure this is actually a picture of us, but this is what we did, so it's close enough.

 This is what went on while we were gone.

 We grabbed lunch at Wendy's then decided to play some miniature golf at Pirate's Cove.

 Tyler was fascinated with the ball return at the end of the course.

Then it was back to the cabin and more fun in the lake.

Saturday morning, we packed up, cleaned the cabin, and went to check out Ozark Caverns.  A tour had just left right before we walked in, so we checked out the visitors' center then decided to go on the self-guided tour on the Coakly Hollow Trail.  We were about 20 yards in when it started to rain.  We almost turned back, but the rain stopped so we decided to go on.  It rained nearly the entire time, but we stayed mostly dry under the trees.  We got to the first of eight markers on the trail.  Tyler had a poopy diaper, and we didn't want to stay out too long because of the lightning.  We will definitely do the entire trail next time.

We stopped at Panera Bread for lunch then went to the Osage Rock and Mineral Club's 10th Annual Gem, Jewelry, Rock, Mineral and Fossil Show.  We looked at lots of different kinds of rocks and jewelry.  One booth even had free rocks for the kids.  It was a really fun little event.  There was a table with a lady explaining a lot about Native American tools and how they used every part of the buffalo and other interesting things.  I think that was the kids' favorite part.  Tyler really wanted to hold the inflated, dried buffalo bladder.

After that, we drove over the Bagnell Dam and headed home.  As I was unpacking, I realized that I would just be packing most of this stuff up in a few days since we leave for Utah on Friday.  No bloggin until July 17.  See most of you soon!

There isn't much to report on out here.  Sydney has been attending summer school for the past two weeks.  She has also been playing coach pitch games on Tuesday and Thursday.

Tansy has been granted permission to play outside without adult supervision.  However, she is still required to have Sydney with her.  She loves her new freedom.

Zack is talking better and better.  It is still challenging to understand him sometimes, but there are days that his vocabulary really surprises me.

Tyler is the King of No.  I have never had a kid on a no streak like him.  He says no to everything.  He has this awesome scowl to go with it.  Sometimes he walks around just saying it to himself.  He's so ornery.

Ben is working like crazy.  Between work, school, and church, he is always busy.  We actually got away for a date last night.  It was really nice.

My allergies dropped down into a chest cold last Tuesday.  Of course, this set off my asthma.  I was doing better yesterday, but still not great.  I had decided not to go to my 5K, but since I had already paid for it and was in desperate need of a good workout, I decided to try it anyway.  I finished in 42:44, which is two minutes slower than last month, but I thought it was pretty good for being sick.

This week we are going to Lake of the Ozarks for a couple of days.  I will try to coax the camera out of hibernation and get some pictures.

Happy Fathers' Day to all you dads!

This was a pretty exciting week.  Most people here were a little rattled after the Joplin tornado last Sunday.  We live three hours away from there and had some great opportunities to donate money and supplies.

On Wednesday, I was across the street at a friend's house when the siren started.  They usually test the system every Wednesday, but it seemed like a bad idea while we were in tornado watch (we are often in tornado watch here and barely notice anymore).  I opened the door to hear what was being said more clearly and heard, "Take shelter immediately."  We gathered the kids and headed to the storm shelter.  Ours in a metal box bolted to the floor of our garage.  I didn't want to risk taking my kids back across the street, so we piled in with my friend and her daughter.  She pulled out flashlights and a lantern.  She had also grabbed their bag of library books on the way out.

My phone had reception so I sent texts to people letting them know we were okay.  After 20-25 minutes, the sirens stopped and we came back out.  Things hadn't seemed too bad where we were, but we heard that afternoon that a tornado had touched down in Sedalia, which is about 20 minutes from us.  We were so grateful that we had been kept safe.  I also realized that it is even darker than I thought it would be in there so I bought more lights the next day.

Sydney's last day of first grade was Friday.  Ben has a four day weekend for Memorial Day so we were all going to meet Sydney at the bus stop.  Unfortunately, Tyler was sleeping, and it was raining.  I had made a banner and filled the bubble machine.  We decided to drive up there instead, taking the baby monitor to make sure we could hear Ty.  When Sydney's bus came, I jumped out by myself and held the sign up for her.  She loved it!  We didn't get any pictures because we jumped right in to the van after that.  She will be out for this week, then she will be going to summer school for three weeks.  She is really excited.

Zachary has decided to flip his badness switch to on.  In the last week, he has colored the spare room with markers so permanent that we will have to paint it, emptied all of my craft supplies onto my bedroom floor, squirted hydrocortisone cream on Tyler's hair, dumped half a bottle of nail polish and half a bottle of nail polish remover on to my bedroom carpet (which smelled terrible but made clean up easier), painted his forehead and wrists with pink nail polish and dripped it on the counter and floor, covered his face with black eye shadow, smeared Vaseline on my bathroom counter, smeared hand soap on his bathroom mirror and bed and window, colored his arms and pants with a ballpoint pen, colored the family room floor with blue crayon, colored the family room couch with green marker, hidden Ben's work keys in the hall closet, misplaced Ben's CTR ring, and dug a hole in wood chips in the backyard.

You might be asking, "Where were you during all of this?"  He is fast.  I will be finishing my bowl of cereal in the morning and sense that it is too quiet.  I might be preparing dinner or changing a diaper.  I don't know how he does it.  It don't think he has that much time.  I have decided that he has discovered some sort of time warp during which everything around him stops.  All I know is my patience is wearing thin.

He is also rubbing off on his brother.

Tyler dumped nearly an entire box of cereal on the floor yesterday.  Sigh.

Tansy has become the queen of talking back.  That girl ends up in time out all the time because of her mouth.  What happened to my sweet girl?  Don't get me wrong.  I love my kids, but sometimes they do drive me crazy.

I didn't post last week because I had no pictures and couldn't think of anything to say.  This week was the opposite.

Last Sunday afternoon, we had birthday cake for Ben.  That is a chocolate fudge cake with raspberry filling, homemade cream cheese frosting, and fresh raspberries.  Yes, it was a good as it sounds.

Monday was Ben's actual birthday.  Because a couple of people had leave that day, Ben was super busy and didn't even get a lunch break.  We made him a sign before he got home.  The kids started panicking when the garage started opening because the sign was on it.  I assured them that he had seen it.

We had homemade turkey burgers (so yummy), then presents and more cake.

On Tuesday, Sydney had her first coach pitch game.  Because of rain, they had only practiced twice.  Sydney is the youngest on the team.  She turned 7 just three days before practice started, and she is in the 7-9 age group.  She spent the first half dancing in the outfield.  Each kid got one time at bat, and Sydney was the last one of the whole game.  Each kid gets five pitches then they can take a base if they don't get a hit.  Sydney was a little confused about where she was supposed to be when it was her turn at bat.

Her coach got her situated, and I got a few shots of her first couple of pitches.

Being the great mom that I am, I didn't expect Sydney to actually hit the ball.  So after half a dozen pictures, I turned off the camera and put it away.  On her fifth pitch, she got a hit!  She was so surprised, she just stood there.  I started shouting, "Run, Sydney!  Run!"  She took off for first base, and I realized that I didn't have the camera out.  Since she was the last batter, they had all the kids run home.  So here is a terrible picture of Syd running in to home once I managed to fumble the camera back out of my purse.

On Friday, Ben pinned on 1st Lieutenant.  I was planning on bringing food for a small party after the ceremony, so on Friday morning, I packed up the kids to go to the commissary before the storm we were expecting hit.  When we left for the store, it was sunny and dry.  About halfway through my shopping, I looked out the window and it looked really dark.  I finished quickly, but by the time we left, it was raining buckets with lightning and thunder.  They have baggers at the commissary who also take your groceries to your car.  One of them gave me an umbrella, which I held over the kids, but once I got to the car, I couldn't hold it and get kids in the car.  The kids were screaming because they were so scared.  I drove home at 10 mph because I couldn't see where I was going through the rain.  Here is how Zack looked when we got home:

And this is me.  My back was soaked.  My hair and pants were still dripping when we got home.

Things cleared up, and it was raining a lot less Friday afternoon.  We picked Sydney up from school an hour early and headed to Ben's office.  This is him taking the oath.

I helped the kids pin on the new ranks.

When an airman is promoted, it is a tradition to punch them in the arm, which is where the enlisted people wear their ranks.  Ben's boss, Col Kmon, punched Ben after he had his new ranks on.  Tansy looked at me in horror and said, "That man just hit Daddy right on his arm!"  They all got a kick out of it.

On Saturday, I had my first 5K.  This is us before the race.  The people behind me are Marae and Adam Foster.  We pretty much do everything together, including working out three times a week.

The start of the race.  I'm way back there.

Ben kept the kids and let them watch a movie while I ran.

You'll have to excuse my weird faces.  This is as I am coming to the finish line, and I'm trying to run as fast as I can.

I came in with a time of 40:40.  Not bad for a fat girl's first try!

Afterward, I got cleaned up, and Ben and I went on a date.  We started by hitting the base wide garage sale. We like that kind of stuff, okay!  We got a lot of boy clothes, a swimsuit for Syd for next year, new jewelry, kids' books, a game for Zack's birthday, brand new toys, wrapping paper, a bike with training wheels for Zack, and more.  It was great.

We then drove to Independence to eat at Red Lobster.  So yummy.  It's our favorite place.

We picked up Sydney's portraits at JCPenney, then picked up some stuff we needed at Target.  I know.  Our dates are super exciting.  We had only hired the babysitter for five hours.  We live an hour away from everything so that eats up a lot of time.  It was nice just to be together.

I picked up both of these vests at a garage sale.  My boys looked so handsome today!

Ben was called as the Executive Secretary at church.  We will not longer enjoy lazy Sunday afternoons around this house.  At least I can prepare delicious meals for my Sunday Warrior to come home to though!

This week was nothing really out of the ordinary.  I taught piano lessons, Sydney had coach pitch, my allergies are killing me.  Nothing I haven't touched on already.  So I only have one picture of Sydney dressed like a rock star.

Yesterday, our family went to clean the church.  I hate it when it is our turn.  My boys are too small to really help to we don't get a whole lot done while we are chasing little kids down.  The family we were supposed to be working with called two minutes before we were supposed to be there to say they would be another half an hour, and they had the key.  They decided that one of them would come unlock the building then go home and finish getting ready.  So I showed up with a bad attitude.  However, when I was vacuuming the chapel, Tansy was up at the pulpit "giving a talk."  As I tried to listen over the noise, I heard her shouting, "The Holy Ghost can tell us anything!  Even what Jesus wants to say!  He even talks to the prophet!"  How can one stay grumpy when a four-year-old is bearing her testimony?  It was such a sweet moment for me as a mom.

Speaking of moms, today is Mother's Day!  I am grateful for all of the moms that have touched my life.  My grandmothers are amazing women whom I admire and respect.  But most of all, I am grateful for my mom:

She is the greatest example of kindness, love, and patience you could ever imagine.  She has made me who I am today, and I turned out pretty great, if I do say so myself.  Thank you, Mom!  I love you!

We have a pretty standard tradition of coloring Easter eggs for Family Home Evening the week before Easter.  Poor Tyler was just a spectator this year, but the rest of the kids had a great time.  It took a while because they wanted some pretty vibrant colors.  We also had the setback of cleaning up the blue dye Tyler knocked over before we even started.  So much fun.

Since school was out on Friday and Monday for Easter break, I decided to have Sydney's birthday party Friday afternoon.  It was pretty overwhelming since Ben was at work, Tyler was teething, and Zack was sick.  But Sydney had a good time.  I don't have any pictures of the games since I was pretty involved.  I also forgot to take pictures of the cute bunny cupcakes I made.

We played Pin the Tail on the Bunny, had an egg and spoon race, and several other plastic egg related activities.

Saturday was the actual birthday, and it was jam-packed.  We started the day with a trip to Independence to get Sydney's portraits taken at JCPenney.  Then we had to go to Pizza Street.  It was Sydney's choice, but that's our favorite place in Independence.

Sydney had also been asking for weeks to go to the B-2 with the flags by the base's front gate for her birthday.  We could go anytime, but that's what she wanted.  Ben took the girls out there while Tyler napped and I got some chores done with Zack.

When they got back we had Sydney's family party.  She got a TON of art supplies from Grandma and Grandpa Olsen.

She got cards with money from other grandparents.  She LOVES money.  She was so excited to pay her tithing today.

And we had a pinata.  There was no way I was doing this with a bunch of crazy 7-year-olds.  Just our family.  Everyone got lots of turns and lots of candy.

Another bunny cake.  Sydney was loving having her birthday the day before Easter.

That evening there was and Easter egg hunt and cookout with our neighbors on our street.  There were 12 eggs for each kid and the big kids were very good about sharing with the little ones.

Tansy spent most of the evening by the fire pit.

Sydney had to try out her new rollerblades and pads that she bought that morning with her birthday money.  We had to go to four stores to find pads that weren't princesses or black!

Zack played basketball with the 15-year-old across the street.  He would hand him the ball then get another one while he was shooting.  It was adorable.

Easter morning was a hit.  There was chocolate and the standard book from the Easter Bunny.  There were also temporary tattoos that are proving to be a bit less permanent than the Easter Bunny expected.  We didn't think about trying to get them off yesterday, and there was no time this morning.  After a week they haven't faded so the Abshire kids were covered in tattoos at church today.

Hunting for Easter eggs.

Poor allergic Tyler was stuck at the table.

Tyler also decided to get himself a snack in the pantry a couple of days ago.  Sigh.

There was a stake women's conference yesterday, but it was also the caselot sale at the commissary.  These are not like caselot sales in Utah.  You stand in a long, slow line with a flatbed dolly and weave through the warehouse portion of the store.  I am usually there at 8:00 in the morning and get home around 12:00.  More than once I have picked up the last box of something I wanted.  Ben asked me which one I was going to go to.  I told him that we have been commanded to attend all of our meeting so I was going to the Relief Society conference.  He reminded me that we have also been commanded to store food.  I told him that since the sale went all day, I would go to the conference, and if there was stuff that the Lord really wanted us to have in our food storage, it would still be there when I went in the afternoon.  I got great stuff!  I was so excited!  They had better items than they usually have and our pantry is super stocked.  That was such a blessing to me.