Welcome Baby AJ!

Robb's sister, Ginger, had her little boy on July 26th. We were so excited to welcome little AJ into the family. We got to go to Norfolk Monday night to see him for the first time. He was such a little snuggler. On the way to Norfolk we were telling the boys what to expect at the hospital and how we expected them to behave. It was interesting because they must not remember anything from when we brought Abby home. They were asking how big he was going to be and they thought he was going to be about the size of their hand. They boys thought that he was cute but kept their distance for the most part. Abby on the other hand has been very interested in her baby dolls lately so she wanted to hold him and had trouble keeping her hands off of him. She kept pointing at him and would say "Oh Baby!" We are all very excited to have a new little baby in the family.
Congratulations Aaron, Ginger and Brook!

Yankton Vacation

Yankton Vacation Pictures

Yankton Vacation 2010

The Yankton vacation has been a tradition in Robb's family for 23 years. It is a fun and crazy mix of 3 families. The Lutz's, Lunds, and the Gaines. Now that all the kids have gotten older it has evolved into more and more people every year which is fun. We have in the last couple of years had to add a cabin, 10+ people in the cabin was a bit too cozy. We have went the last 3 years with the kids. Bryce and Caleb look forward to this vacation all year. It involves all of their favorite things. Swimming, boating, parks, grandparents, Andy, John and Megan.
We had so much fun this year! The boys have reached an age where they aren't as hard to watch and Abby was a little older this year so we didn't have to worry so much about her being in the sun. We spent a lot of time in the resort pool. Our children have zero fear of water which is good but makes me nervous at times. We always have life jackets on, so they were jumping in, doing flips and having people throw them in the air. Even Abby loved the water. However, she didn't so much love the infant life jacket that has the pillow that goes behind thier head and tips them on thier back the second they get in the water. Abby's favorite thing was yelling "UMP" and jumping off the side. We did go to the beach a couple of times but they don't really have a nice beach. It is kinda muddy and rocking so the boys weren't so sure about that. They did have fun, on one of the windy days, when the waves would splash them. We took our boat up there this year and as always it let us down. I am pretty sure our boat is allergic to water. Robb had it running in Lincoln but the second you put it in the water it always has something wrong with it. Luckily John's boat worked and we got some wakeboarding and skiing in. I must say I was a little disappointed in myself I didn't slalom ski this year. I feel like I am too out of practice when I only get to do it 1-2 times a year. However we did have quite the accomplishment this year, we managed to get 4 people up on wakeboards/skis behind the boat at the same time. This was very cool to watch. For those of you that aren't boating savvy, usually only one person is pulled behind the boat at a time.
As always, the food was delicious! Over the years traditions have developed so you pretty much know what the menu will be for most of the trip. Wonderful job on the food and snacks everyone.
This year was especially fun because our niece Brook came for a couple of days. The boys had a wonderful time playing with her. Ginger and Aaron also came for one evening. Thanks for braving the heat to come see us Ginge. We can't wait to meet baby AJ! Also my sister Steph and her son Draven came up for a day and went swimming and boating with us. All in all the vacation was wonderful. We did have some rough nights with Abby who thinks she doesn't need to sleep, but we had grandparents there to help us and I even got a couple of naps in.

4th of July weekend

4th of July

Yeah, finally a weekend home. It feels like we have been gone a lot lately and I have been looking forward to this weekend home to get our house back in order and rest a bit. We started off the 4th of July weekend with a barbeque on Friday night. Jen, a girl I know from work, and her husband Rich host a barbeque every year. Their house was the perfect place for the kids to play. They had a huge fenced backyard and a playground comparable to a park in the corner. It is always more enjoyable to go places if you don't have to worry about the kids constantly. It was nice to hang out with some of the girls from work without actually having to be at work. We all had a great time talking, drinking and eating good food. Oh yeah, and the kids had fun doing their fireworks especially the sparklers.
Saturday, we kinda played catch up and got some of our stuff done. I had to run a few errands, which is always easier if I don't have to take 3 kiddos with me. Robb brought the boat home from storage and him and the kids got it cleaned up and running just in time for the Yankton vacation next week. Later that night we lit off some of our small fireworks with the kids. I was surprised at how much the boys enjoy fireworks this year. Abby doensn't seem very impressed by them but isn't scared of them either.
Sunday, the 4th of July was a dreary, rainy day! We had planned to do the neighborhood bike parade in the morning and then go to the Waverly parade in the afternoon. Well so much for our plans. Everything got rained out and the kids were going crazy in the house so we headed out to do some shopping. We ended up eating at Grisanti's which is usually something we don't tackle with all three kids, but it sounded too good. Abby was a little bit of a disaster but the boys behaved well. We walked around the mall for awhile until everyone was wore out and then headed home. We are pretty boring and lame but we all took a nap in the afternoon. Luckily the weather finally cleared up that evening. We were planning on just hanging out in the driveway doing our fireworks, but a lot of the neighbors were out so it ended up being a fun filled night of fireworks. We didn't buy a lot of fireworks but some of our neighbors did, so we still got to see a good show!