Beach Day with Family!!

While all of the Gillespie's were in town for a visit, we decided to spend the day at the beach!! 

I love the beach. 

I could spend every day there. 

My kids definitely take after me. 

They are in the water the minute we get there and we have to drag them out when it is time to leave. 

Plus we had a bonus to this visit. 

It was our sweet nephew Declan's first time ever to a beach. 

So of course he had to take a beach selfie with aunt Meg!

My beach babe. 

He loved it!

The Iowa Gillespie's

B and A

The Boys

Daddy and his beach baby. 

She loves the beach

Happy times

I LOVE THE BEACH!!

Our best attempt at a family picture. 

Two of my favorite beach buddies. 

I caught Tess mid awesome beach pose!

my honey. 

See I told you we tried. 

It is surprisingly harder the older they get! You would think it would get easier. 

a day at the beach...

I had been waiting for this day for sometime. 

Have i mentioned this...

I LOVE THE BEACH!!!!

 I love everything about it. 

I was so excited for the kids to get to experience it. 

 We had a great time playing with cousins in the ocean. We ate lunch and applied lots of sunblock....

 See how happy I look....

 and sun kissed....

 Even Garran was happy!!

 The kids....exhausted!!

The next day......AWFUL. 

Word to the wise. Do not use spray sun screen at the beach. Get the lotion guppy stuff. 

Oh my did we pay. I had to call into work 2 days in a row because it was so bad. I could barely move. 

I could not believe how little our sunscreen did....especially since we applied it multiple times. 

oh well. next time we will know.... and yes...their will DEFINITELY be a next time!!

Full Circle.

While this picture might not seem all that important..I think it is to Garran. 

This is kind of a full circle moment for him. 

For as long as we have been together, I have heard stories about how he and his family would go swimming in this river. 

He has such happy memories there as a child.

Now we are living here.

Now he gets to swim here with his kids. 

I know that he loved every minute of it.

He talked about how much he loved being there and having us with him. 

It was a fun day. 

So happy we got to do something fun and that was so meaningful to him. 

Road Trippin

So this summer some of the cousins did a cousin swap. Mainly Britt and Jerusha's kids. They are the two pretty ladies in the picture with me.

 So when it was time to swap them out, I rode along with Jerusha to pick up her littles. We met in Virginia at their Aunt Faye's house. I had never met Faye, so that was a treat for me. She was lovely and very kind.

 I also got to meet her son Brian who I had also never met. He was a lot of fun to meet and was super funny. I was glad that I got to ride along so that I could get to see everyone. I love a good road trip!!

Sleepy Sunday

I can't remember why we were all so tired, but this was so true to how we felt. We were a little late to church so we sat in the entry way. As soon as everyone was down they were almost literally out. I couldn't help but think how cute they all were. Snuggled together. 

Summer Fun!

So this summer we moved to NC. 

We now live super close to Garran's sister Jerusha and her family which we are loving!!!

We went to a party at their church that had a huge inflatable water slide. 

Well an adult thought it would be fun to give it a whirl and ended up slipping, sliding down the ladder part and landing on Cullan's foot. 

Crutches right up until school started. BOO. 

Luckily it was not broken... Just a super bad sprain. 

Oh the joys of summer fun!

Little Moments

Nothing beats sitting in a box with your cousin watching a little adventure time!

(Cullan and Alaina)

Excuse me...We mustache you a Question!!

So we still have some cousins staying with us while their mom is at Young Women's Camp and their dad is at work. 

Tonight I was trying to keep everyone entertained while Garran was out with the missionaries from our church. 

So I dished up some ice cream cones and sent everyone outside to avoid a mess in the house. 

Here are Kael and Alina..They said these were their "evil Santa beards". 

Not sure what that is about, but they sure are cute. 

 Then I told them to make the best mustache with their ice cream that they could and that we would send a picture to Grandma and Grandpa to have them judge. 

I thought they did a pretty good job!!

 Oh these CRAZY kids. 

It has been busy at our house this week with 7 kiddos, but we have had lots of fun and not to many squabbles. So that means success in my book!

Pictured above;

Alaina, Kael, Blane, Tobie, Briea, Cullan

Ayla fell asleep through the festivities. 

Family Time

So my SIL Jerusha is at Girls Camp with her oldest three children, and so we are watching her youngest three for the week. 

Last night was their first night with us. 

Things were crazy, but in a good way. 

Everyone running around, playing and having fun. 

Right before bed, the following conversation happened. 

Conversation between Briea and my niece Alaina tonight. 

A: Briea, isn't your favorite color pink?

B: yes it is. What is your favorite color?

A: well my first favorite color is Rainbow and my second favorite color is fink.

B: did you say fink?

A: yes, it's my nickname for pink!

And then when I checked on them later, this is how they fell asleep!

I think it is so funny how Alaina's head is hanging off the bed!!

Happy Father's Day and some other stuff.

So I missed my usual Father's Day post on our Blog. 

 But here are some great men. I have been blessed with great men to be my fathers and to be my husband. I am so thankful for each one of them for some many different reasons. I count my blessings each day when it comes to them. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now for some of the others....

Cullan drew the Tardis on this Etch A Sketch..

I mean seriously.. this is pretty good for being on an Etch A Sketch. 

I know I am his mom, but this kid has got some artistic talent. 

No big surprise. I mean look who his dad is!

 Also, the bugs in NC mean business. Usually when I post pictures like this, it is Briea. Nope this time it was Ayla. Garran and I were both paranoid at first thinking that she had lyme disease. But in the end we both agreed that it was probably just a reaction to a mosquito or spider bite. 

I just hate seeing my poor kids and their crazy reactions to stuff. 

Beating the Heat!

So it is definitely warmer in NC than in IL. 

One day the kids were getting antsy in the house and Garran and I were getting pretty sick of unpacking. 

So I googled some stuff and found this free splash pad that is part of a local park. 

The kids LOVED it. 

Garran and I had fun too. 

 The boys standing over a grate of water. 

 Ayla was so funny. She kept running around and then would come up to us and say in a giggly yell "I LOBE THIS PLACE".

 Briea waiting for the water to get her. 

Garran and I enjoying watching the kids and soaking up that vitamin D that we were both deficient in for to long!!

First few Days in NC

So for the first few days that we got to NC we stayed with my SIL Jerusha and her family. 

We enjoyed visiting and watching some softball. 

Alaina's team had lost every game this season but managed to get second place in the playoffs. 

It was such an exciting night. 

 Ayla got bored with the ball game and decided to just roll and play in the dirt.

 After a few days we got the keys to our house. The first day we were there and put the washer and dryer in, we found this little guy in the wall of the garage where we needed to hook up the washer.
Ya, I always have my eyes open now when I go out to do laundry. Have I mentioned I hate snakes!!!

 We also wanted to make some quick changes.
For example the locks.
I was feeling handy and decided to give it a try myself.

 This was our first official dinner in our new house. You can see all the boxes behind us. We were still unpacking...um we might still be unpacking. :O/

 While we were busy unpacking, Kael decided to lose a tooth. He is starting to look like a snaggle tooth look.

 After being here for a week, my dad had to fly home. He was such a big help while he was here. We really appreciated all that he did for us.

A Change...

Well with Grad School coming to an end and changes needing to be made, a move was inevitable. 

We looked all over for jobs in different places, but we finally made a decision. 

Our next stop in this Gillespie Family Adventure....NC!

I feel really good about this move for our family.

Of course we are sad about leaving all the grandparents, but it is exciting to be moving near cousins that the kids can play with.

Everything has really just fallen into place. We have a place to live that some friends of ours rent out. It's a cute little house that i think will be perfect for our family!

I will keep everyone updated with pictures and info. 

For now, we will be headed out the last week of May. 

So let the packing and cleaning begin!

oh what a day!

what a day. 

it started with taking Kael to meet his kindergarten teacher. 

it was great. 

then on the way home i stop to get gas and my card is declined. 

long story short. 

some one stole our bank info and the bank had frozen our accounts. 

sigh. 

then i come home from YW to lights and sirens in front of our neighborhood and house. 

garran greets me in the garage saying he had to call 911. 

i start to get a little nervous to say the least. 

so little boys in our neighborhood literally set our backyard on fire. 

this is really right out side our back door. 

with how dry it has been we are so lucky that it was not worse. 

good thing Garran saw it when he did and called 911.

Here is a video of the fire.

Girls Camp.

I am behind on posting. My life has been so insanely busy that blogging has just kept falling down on my list of things to get done. 

so here are some catch up posts. 

A while ago I got to spend a couple days at girls camp with the Young Women from church. 

I was sad that I could not be there longer but enjoyed the time that I was there!!

Here are the amazing girls I get to work with each week. They are a lot of fun and I have really grown to love spending time with them each Sunday!!

They all look pretty darn cute for having been camping all week. 

 They young women having fun. 

Trust stuff!!

 all of the young women at camp built this temple. 

pretty impressive i thought!!

Here is Tori and myself. 

She was our only first year camper but she did amazing!!

So glad she was able to go and meet lots of people and get to know the other girls. 

So glad I was able to spend a couple days at camp with our girls. Had such  great time!