Happy 8 Years!!!

I know it's a few days late, but on July 6th, Courtney and I celebrated 8 wonderful years as husband and wife!! So much has happened in the last 8 years! I remember celebrating our 1st anniversary in Omaha, leaving our almost 4 month old baby girl with Mimi and Umpa and calling every 2 hours to check on her!!! How times have changed. We were fortunate to go out on our actual anniversary, thank you Mimi, and had a great time having dinner and drinks with only us...and the Tour de France, at The Stadium, on Tuesday night for a couple hours. It's nice every now and then to get some alone time to reflect on what has happened and how we need to charge into the next year w/ so many awesome changes and fun, not only for each other, but as a family!! I just wanted to give a huge I LOVE YOU to my Prince Charming, the man I can't imagine my life without!! I love you Courtney and I can't wait to see what the next year has in store for us...Lord knows it will go all too quickly again!!!

The crazy travelers!!

So, here's an update to last week....Courtney ended up leaving on my birthday, June 17th, for his 620 mile trip across Wisconsin, and I got a phone call on June 18th around 7:30pm telling me he's calling it quits after 117ish miles in his day. Now, you have to understand my husband. In order for him to pull the plug on anything in his life, especially a pre-planned 10 days of vacation and an incredible chance to create history on a 1st time ride by gravel/single track(mountain biking, for the non-biking people) and to get to do it in a different state to accomplish this...my hubby is more than game!! After getting lost from his riding companions and taking an hour long detour, he decided to call it quits and after 2 hours of a combo of his parents and mine and myself searching for a hotel in the town of Prairie du Chien, just across the river, which happened to be having it's annual "Festival" which apparently the entire state of Wisconsin shows up for, we found him a small room 7 miles outside of town to take a hot shower and sleep in a real bed for the night. So as luck would have it, I got to travel to Wisconsin for the first time, yeah, I know, I'm sheltered, with my Bob(the oldest and youngest hanged w/ Mimi and Umpa for the day complete w/ garage sales of buying things we don't need and they're first bowling experience...which I can't wait to witness myself:-)!! I must say, taking a 5 year old on a 4 hour out and back road trip was a bit scary, but she was the biggest trooper(mind you, I would have lost my mind w/ all 3...I know, you thought I was super Mom, but guess again:-)! We had a nice 2 hour layover in Jim's Bar in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin w/ lunch and a couple cold ones, then took a small tour of the crazy roads Courtney explored the day before. Now, I was very excited for him to be back with us, but I feel terrible that he wasn't able to accomplish what was his hope for his week....there's always next year in this house:-).

Sidenote-I never realized how beautiful and hilly(mountain-like) northern Iowa and Wisconsin was, but WOW!!! That is some beautiful country and if you are anything of a landscape/bridge fanatic like I am(thank you Bob Ross), then you will just love that area of God's awesome world he created for us!!!!

So, that brings us to having a Happy Father's Day w/ our favorite Daddy and a great visit with Uncle Chris and Auntie Annie, to decide that the end of this week we'd take ourselves a little road trip to visit them and the new house!! So excited to just get out of DM proper for a day or two, don't care to where, but excited to do whatever is offered:-)!! So on Thursday, we will load the family into our little Fit(and this time it will be quite a fit), all 6 of us...Peanut included...to go and do our 2nd road trip of the summer! So fun and hopefully be back in town for the Boone 3/6 hour on Saturday to see our men in black and our PRC girls kick some serious butt to represent DM this year:-)!!

That brings us up to speed, other than the dog chewing Daddy's Father's Day gift(a new wallet), trust me, not the happiest Daddy ever, and the crazy wacky dog who loves tabletops, countertops, anything that is off limits, every trash can in the Casa de Hilton and has officially learned her name, although I think it's more screamed than spoken lately....we're golden:-)!! Have a great rest of your week and I can't wait to share our fun adventures from this weekend, because you know it will be interesting:-)!!

The Big 3-0!!!!

So I've been told that turning 30 is the best thing ever...the beginning of the rest of your life. I'm hopeful for this to take the wonderful adventure that has been the last 30 years and create a new chapter w/ the next 30! I've had a wonderful time celebrating with Courtney a couple nights ago w/ dinner w/o kids...Huge thanks to Auntie Katie-who on a side note is going to be the mommy of a baby girl!!! Also, great times with the kids, if you include screaming and fighting as great times, hey, it's my life w/ all 3 home for the summer and 102 heat index outside:-)!! We've gotten used to the relaxed schedule this summer...but I feel it's time to ramp it up and put an orderly schedule if you will into effect so they have certain things to do w/o driving me or each other crazy several days a week.

On a segway...Courtney has left for a week long trip to Wisconsin on the TransWisconsin "Race"-it's gonna be a mountain bike touring ride for he and a couple buddies, complete w/ tent camping, lots of exploration and 620 miles on the bike over the next week. I still can't comprehend how he can pound it all out, but I know he can accomplish anything he makes his mind up to, so it will be so exciting to hear all the fun stories and posts throughout the week and after he gets home too!

So, here's to the next chapter for me!! My 30's will be fantastic, or at last that's what they all say:-)! Now, to go sit outside for 1 1/2 hrs at swimming lessons!!! Have a good one and talk w/ you all soon!!

Laying guard.

Our new little addition!!

So America, we have the newest family member announcement to the Hilton family upon us....and NO, it's not #4...it's a NEW DOG!!!

Courtney and I have been talking about this for about a month, and then last Saturday morning, low and behold, my precious husband offered up the idea of checking out the Animal Rescue League here in Des Moines in the effort of finding us a poochie!!! So our journey started at the West Des Moines location, which had one beagle that was being reserved. So we traveled onto our next location on the South Side, which had only 1 dog that was not too great w/ kiddos under 7! So our final destination was the main site in almost Saydel(like 30 minutes from home for all you out of towners), and we went right past the big dogs, which I figured we'd get, just solely because we've been around them for so long, and went right to the medium sized pooches. After looking at a beagle and a jack russell terrier(wow, that dog never stopped barking), we came across a beautiful little bassett hound that appeared to have the Hilton name stamped all over her! She had been found wandering on the side of E 14th Street(a busy one for the out of towners again), and had been there just 9 days as luck would have it:-)! We asked to take a look at her and w/in the first couple minutes of talking and playing with her, Courtney was ready to start the adoption process before anyone else snatched up our little baby!

SIDENOTE: We told the kids that after Patrick was potty trained we would get a dog, but last summer just didn't seem right, so we put it off and the kids had kind of forgotten about it until spring hit and dog fever was back in full swing! In all reality, the idea of potty training another child, oh I mean puppy was daunting to me, as I kinda suck in the dog potty training dept. So when we actively started looking a month ago, we decided to go with a dog from the ARL(Animal Rescue League) that was older, but not too old:-).

We were signed, sealed and delivered w/in 1 hour and we had our new baby girl, Peanut, weighing in at 24 lbs(still a little underweight, but she's finally eating her food now, so hopefully we'll get up there soon) and a huge ball of love and laziness:-)! She's even responding to her new name of Peanut, chosen for Patrick's peanut allergy(her previous name was Arwen, poor dog) and has started to tell us when she needs to potty and is not doing it on the one room of carpet in the entire house, yeah Peanut!!! We feel like she's always been ours and can't wait to find what the future holds for us and our newest addition.

Sidenote(again): Yes, this does mean we're officially done w/ the baby making factory now that #4 is of the canine variety, sorry for all you hopefuls out there!! Here's a few pics of our new little lady!

Date Time with Daddy!!

So after Courtney cranking(literally) out 135 miles yesterday, I know, insane:-), we decided that we'd go for a ride downtown for some breakfast while Patrick was in school this morning! These times are few and far between for us, but so grateful for them when we're able to make things happen!! So my sweet dear husband saddled up and we ended up deciding to hit Panera at Jordan Creek instead, better breakfast than Java Joes, says Courtney, I would have no idea...I lead a sheltered coffee shop life! Nice ride out on a incredibly beautiful day w/ only a few huffs and puffs from me, thank goodness Courtney enjoys riding company and rode "slow" with me the whole way there:-). Excellent breakfast and wonderful time sitting on the patio at Panera with the love of my life getting a chance to talk about anything and everything we could cram into an hours time w/o little people sticking their oh so precious little noses in the middle of. It's so nice to take time to remember what is important in our life together and make plans for the future, mind you, we don't make long distance plans, we make how are we going to survive another week plans in our home, and things are much calmer now too! We recalled today after seeing a mom at the mall with her 2 little girls, probably 2 and 4, pregnant w/ #3, very pregnant, how that used to be us!!! I look back now and have decided that when the kids were little, we must have survived only on pure survival mode itself!! I constantly see families w/ 3 little ones like we had and think how on earth do they do it? Then again, how did we do it??? I think we were crazy for popping those little babies out so quickly, not that I'd change a single thing about any of it! It definately made us so much closer and be able to connect on a totally different level than just husband and wife, the role of Mom and Dad suit us very well and I can't imagine being on this roller coaster ride w/ anyone else but him!!!

So I digress, but it's fun for us getting out once every 3-4 months alone for an hour or so, I know it's not much or often, but it's better than nothing, right:-)? Can't wait for our next fun outing together and hope it's a wonderful birthday dinner in a month before my hubby takes off to brave the gravel in Wisconsin for a week! I know, crazy, but hey, we wouldn't live up to the title of this blog if there weren't random adventures to keep us all on our toes!!

So much has happened around here!!

So, I know it's been what seems like forever since I've last posted, and that would be true, 6 weeks to be exact, but lots of weird crazy busy things have been happening in Hilton Land!! Where to begin???? Well, lets start back in April, when we found out that we are going to be getting a new cousin in our house!!! My sister, Auntie Katie, as she's affectionately called around here, is expecting her first baby, due November 5! She told the world on her 25th birthday on April 15th, and we couldn't be happier!! We told the kiddos about a week ago while she was overseas for a college class, and now that she's back home, the kids think it's weird still that there is a baby growing in her tummy, but I'm sure they will figure it out soon enough!! The next week after Katie's birthday and grand announcement, she graduated from Grandview College after a mere 7 years in the collegiate world and is going to be furthering her education through the University of Chicago, I hope I'm right on this:-), getting her masters in Child and Adolescent Psychology hopefully in the next 2 years, while becoming a Mommy!!! Right on the tail of this wonderful landmark came the death of my Grandpa Larsen, my last living "official" grandparent(I have a step grandma, hence the official thing). He had battled lots of things in the last 6 months, with a partial leg amputation and the possibility of another, when he peacefully past away in his sleep in early May. I was unable to get to the funeral in Milbank, South Dakota, but have been able to grieve the best way you can long distance. A few days later, my little baby, Patrick, turned 4!! Oh my word, how is this possible?? I am now a Mom of a 4, 5 and 7 year old, ahh!! We celebrated his birthday on Mother's Day, which was a big Transformer's bash! I have to be completely honest, I really never thought I'd ever know so much about one subject that I care so little about!! But, he's my world daily and if I'm gonna survive, I'm for sure gonna need to know every Autobot and Decepticon's name and what they transform into and what their powers are:-). Too fun!!! Mother's Day was wonderful home with the family and dinner out on the eve of another big event around here(I know, it never ends lately)! Last Monday morning, my father in law has hip surgery to get a new one! We spent many hours this last week traveling back and forth downtown to Mercy and many trips to Mimi and Umpa's house to let out the dog! He threw us w/ a little scare when his little ticker decided to not cooperate post surgery and he was taken to the cardiology floor for a day, being released on some meds to help control things for the next couple months during recovery. He is now home and impatiently waiting to back to "normal" again real soon:-)! In the midst of all this, we had a member of our family become famous, well, to the Des Moines community anyways and of course w/ family!! Courtney had been interviewed by a friend who blogs for KCCI Channel 8 news, a while back about being Car Free in DM. He is officially car free and we are a "Car Light" family, according to all parties who determine stuff like this:-). His article was published to the KCCI blog now 2 weeks ago and then was approached by the actual anchors of the 10pm news for KCCI, for an on air interview which happened 4 days later!! Our famous Daddy!!! He then received a call on Thursday night saying that he had been picked as "The Commuter of the Year" by the Bike to Work Week staff and will be doing a ride tomorrow, Monday morning, which is the first "official" day of Bike to Work Week, with Leonard Boswell and other elected officials and then will be given his award by the Mayor of Des Moines! WOW, is about all I can say about that!! He's very deserving of such an award and any and all of this "fame" he has received in the last couple weeks, we're SOOOO PROUD of our Daddy!! He's accomplished so much for himself, his family and his community and we're so happy someone else also sees how wonderful he is!

Well, I think that brings us up to speed, with the exception of Patrick learning to ride his bike w/o training wheels a few days before his 4th birthday, Momma getting her own "commuter" bike for Mother's Day/Birthday(not til next month, but hey, who won't take an early present especially w/ the deal we got on it!!) We've now got the end of the school year trips, picnics, dance recitals and the beginning of what we hope to be a laid back summer, with some swimming lessons, Vacation Bible School, and maybe some camping/biking adventures scattered in there too!! So here's to the craziness that will now ensue here at the Hilton household for a wonderful, relaxing, busy summer!! Hope everyone has a wonderful May!!