the nuclearness of it all

last month, the nuclear power plant that my dad works at had a family day. awesome. they were able to give tours and we got to learn about the plant. since 9/11 we haven't been able to tour the plant due to security reasons and so this was the first year that we could go, and i haven't been since i was younger. what a great time. my dad, rachel, bryan and i went with dwain and caroline and had a blast. this is the cooling tower... a spot where we had a long and lengthy discussion about who changes the lights at the top of it.... well, apparently it has to be someone with no reservations about heights... or staring down to your death. you see, you climb the ladder quite a ways up... until the cooling tower starts to flare out... then you flip yourself around (as you can see near the top the change in ladders) and you climb facing outward. yep... that's right... you climb facing away from the tower. rachel and i expressed our horror and probably talked about this the most. dwain and my dad had many conversations about how the plant actually operates, many of which i have already forgotten. still, it was a great time to spend with my dad. he is awesome and i was so grateful to be able to spend the day with him learning. and many thanks to nana for watching all the kiddos!

insect zoo

so, yes, k state has an insect zoo. grace was in heaven. oh man... i took the kids on a friday that grace had off school and we walked around the little zoo looking at many many bugs. grace asked me question after question and was thrilled with it all. several times raegan asked me to hold her because she was scared. i think next time we go we will ask for the tour guide to tell us all about the insects.

grace's favorite part was the 'petting zoo'. i'll tell you, she is not afraid. here she is with the hissing cockroaches, centipede, and the tarantula.





and the latest miracle... we got raegan to touch the tarantula as well...



what a fun day... grace left asking when we could get a pet tarantula... the crazy thing... we are actually considering it.

k state vs tennessee tech

way way way back in september, we headed out to a k state game. we felt it would be a good way to show our spirit for the community... (actually, bryan and i both wore byu t-shirts... oops). it was military appreciation day and our awesome neighbor got us front row seats and we had a blast. well, jack did great, grace wanted to rest a bit while there and raegan just played on the stairs. it was great... and k state even won. go cats.

the life of a 5 year old...

so, grace turned 5 last week... she had a great birthday and celebrated at school with her friends, then we took her out for dinner and had yummy cupcakes. on the weekend, we celebrated with nana and papa and a yummy ice cream cake. i am excited for grace, she is growing up and getting so big, but i can't believe how much she has changed. she is getting to be such a big girl. here is a look at her birthday over the years.

if only the movie could be as good as the trailer

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9 months of love

weight: 18 lbs. 11 oz.

height: 26.5 inches (this might be a little off since at 6 months he was 27 inches... and being 26.5 puts him in the less than 5th percentile... hmmm)

teeth: 7 total... 4 on top (arrived within a week of each other... talk about cranky) and 3 on the bottom

seriously... who doesn't love it?

ok, so raegan had her first day of preschool yesterday. she is going 2 days a week practically at the same time as grace, so it works out perfectly that i take grace (her class starts at 11:42), then i can drive raegan over to her school (she starts at 12:30) and we can hang out and play until class starts. grace gets out at 2:42 and raegan at 3:00... it seriously works out perfect! yay! anyway, back to raegan's first day. she loved it. i wasn't too worried about her since she loves to play and will usually run away from us to get to the nursery, but lately she has been having some issues with wanting us to stay with her... well, not anymore. our first sunday in the new ward and she jumped right in to nursery and loved it. and same with preschool. didn't even look back... not even when i wanted to take her picture.

when we picked her up she said she had a lot of fun and made lots of new friends, but didn't know what their names were... she is very excited about her new backpack and the fact that she goes to preschool... not school (like grace... which is for big girls), but preschool (which is for little girls).

school... who doesn't love it?

so... grace missed the cutoff for kindergarten by 15 days, so she is currently enjoying her third year of preschool. we have put her in a catholic school for pre-kindergarten and it has been fun. she is really enjoying her class and her teacher, mrs. bulenski. she loves being in school, but sometimes gets a little nervous about going. everyday as i am walking her to her class she says, 'i don't want to go.' but, when we get to her classroom, she goes right in and starts her activites. her class is small and she has already made some good friends.

instructions: make as big of a mess as possible... then play

ok, so after our visit in california, we drove back through nannie's, and made a 5 second stop at our home in kansas... then drove out to missouri to begin a big project of making some bookcases for the playroom.

while raegan was playing with the polly pockets...

jack was hanging out in the garage...

and grace was covering herself with sawdust

needless to say... that was a big fat mess.

but, we were able to get all of the work done we needed to in missouri, so we could finish the job up here! (although, we have yet to work on it here for more than 5 minutes... i think it is because we are still unpacking our stuff.)

seaworld... what can you say? fish, more fish, and penguins

it's true when i say... i haven't been to seaworld since i was 7. for my second trip, i think i enjoyed it as much as i did the first time around. we had a great time! so many of us were able to go and it was good just to do something like that with a big family.

just the guys

horspool madness

the rest of our trip to california was spent hanging out with the horspool family! we had lots of stuff going on and had a great time with the family. here are just some random pictures of us throughout the rest of the week. grace and raegan had such a good time playing with all of their cousins. i think they really miss having so many little kids to play with...

just the girls

moving on to greener pastures... or at least beachier pastures

after our lovely trip to new mexico, we drove the 12 hours to california! yay! what a joy it was to be back with the good ole horspool family! we started off in yucaipa for a day and then drove down to cypress and the beach for a couple days. we met up with the fongs for lunch at fortune cookie (so fun and so yummy) and then we hit up huntington beach and rented one of those fun little bikes and drove all over. the kids loved it!





then, i took jack back to the car for a little nap and bryan headed down the water with the girls. good times! they were so sad that it was a little too cold to get in the water and it was getting late. they really wanted to be wearing their swim suits and swimming... but that is for another day (sorry, no pictures of that beach trip... lame, i know).



after the trip to the beach, we drove back to cypress and ate dinner, then met up with alison, nik, jax, and kenzy for some ice cream. yum. it was so funny to see jax and grace playing together like they had never been apart. it was so sweet. then we headed over to june and warren's to sleep. they were so kind to let us stay the night with them while we were visiting. i miss them already!

on saturday, we got to go to jaxson's birthday party! grace was so glad that we were able to be there for the party! she had a good time seeing all of her old friends and hanging out with jax, nik, and kenzy. that night the la galaxy played fc barcelona at the rose bowl, so the earl's watched our kids for us and bryan and i met up with some of his brothers and friends for the game. what fun! thanks to everyone in cypress who met up with us! we had a great time visiting old friends! we miss you guys!

the big move and albuquerque

ok, so way back in july... we moved. i know. it has been a while. but we moved around the 20th of july to kansas! fun! and the day after the movers brought all of our stuff... we began a journey across the country. bryan wasn't able to take any days off during his residency program, so we decided to take a few weeks off and visit some family. we began our journey to new mexico. that was fun. nana and papa caravanned with us and the kiddos enjoyed the 13 hour drive.



well, most of the kids... here is raegan as we had to stop for a bathroom break. she hates using the little toilet in the car.


anyway, we arrived in nm and stayed for a few days! it was great to be able to spend time with nannie. grace and raegan think nannie has the best backyard (and i have to agree since i used to love to play there as a kid too!).




i have so many memories of rachel, aaron, and i, plus our cousins playing in that big tree. and grace and raegan can't get enough of it either!

while we were at nannie's house, jack successfully began to crawl on his hands and knees. it started when he would go up nannie's two small stairs into her kitchen. he still army crawls most of the time, but this was the beginning of the real crawl.

we love you, nannie (and nana and papa, too!)