girls road trip to LA

now, that's a girls road trip to Louisiana (LA) ... not the other LA!

Kendall & I drove to McKinney to meet up with Naomi & her 2 girls, Avery & Abby so that all of us girls could ride together to Shreveport, LA to visit Lauren & her fam for a few days.  This will be our last little get-together with school starting up very soooooon, for all of us!

on our way ... Abby and Avery

Avery gave up her seat so Kendall could sit near the front ...
Kendall still rides rear-facing so she was happily
entertained by Avery & Abby anytime we drove around! 

riding in style ... these girls enjoyed several movies
during the drive to & from LA

ready for a nap ... thumb in mouth & "Bear" in her arm!
this girl LOVES her "Bear"!

We got to spend Monday evening - Thursday morning at Lauren's and everyone had a great time ... the 4 oldest girls played soooo well together, Kendall loved walking around & playing with new toys & getting attention from the older girls, and Cole tried to play as the only boy, totally outnumbered by 5 girls (plus 3 Mommys)!  I did a terrible job of remembering to take pictures during our time together ... I didn't get 1 picture of us 3 (uhhh!), but Naomi got a few of the girls, so here they are ...

Girls just wanna have fun ... and that is definitely true
about these 4 girls!  Abby, Emie, Avery & Bree ...
they had a great time playing the entire time we were there!

Avery & Abby   and   Emie & Bree

We enjoyed spending time at a couple of their church's children's ministry events (that Lauren was in charge of) ... one afternoon, we left all 6 kids with a babysitter so Naomi, Lauren & I could enjoy a nice lunch out & an afternoon movie ... and one afternoon we went swimming at a neighbor's house.

Kendall "tubing" ... I forgot to bring her pool floatie,
so we had to get creative ... ha!

an afternoon in the pool & a break from the
hot LA weather ... Abby, me & Kendall 

We had a fun few days spending quality girl time together and a little get-away for Kendall & I ... although we both desperately missed Daddy & were very excited to get home to see him!  This was the 1st time we've been away overnight for this many days! 

Kendall did very well on our trip ... and we worked really hard on increasing her food intake, as she'll be dropping formula & bottles next week ... and then we had an awesome sign language breakthrough while we were there ... Kendall started signing for "more" ... she does it really for "more food" or just for like "I want food", instead of just "more" of whatever, but I really don't care at this point ... I'm just soooo excited she's got it ... and that she can tell me when she wants to eat or eat more!  We've been working on this for a while now (and I have to admit, I started trying to teach her "more" and "all done" (or "all done done" as we say in the Rogers fam, thanks to our 1st niece Hannah) very late & I really haven't been very consistent in working on it with her, until very recently), so I'm thrilled that she's understanding it & showing me, in her own cute Kendall-adapted way ... I LOVE to see new developments in her!


I also wanted to wish a gigantic HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY to my sister, E!  Soooooo wish we could have all been together to celebrate this big 3-0 with you!  Sooooooo excited you are coming to visit us in a couple of weeks for some sister fun!  Kendall also wishes her Auntie E a VERY happy birthday!  We Love you, E!

our Canada vacation posts linked

It's taken me waaaay too long to get all of our vacation in Canada posted ... and it's all mixed in with our other daily/weekly posts ... and I know it's going to be difficult trying to find them later on since they aren't all listed together ... so, I've linked all the different posts together here ... more so for us in the future, but here it is ... in case you'd like to see them all together, too!

Day 1 & 2 ... helloooo, beautiful BC
Day 3 ... our day at cresent beach
Day 4 ... Fish-ish-ish
Day 5 ... Delta church & a BBQ
Day 6 & 7 ... the Island ... part 1
Day 8 ... the Island ... part 2
Day 8 part 2 ... Twaassen ... revisited
Day 9 ... happy Canada Day
Day 10 & 11 ... bye-bye, Oh Canada ... sadly!
our Rogers family photo shoot

our Rogers family photo shoot

The last time all of the Rogers family had professional pictures taken was in January of 2006 ... that was 4.5 years ago & 4 more grandchildren have been born since then ... so when we came to visit the fam this summer, it was the perfect time for a new Rogers family photo!

Mary found this amazing old historic farmhouse complete with a big white wrap-around porch, a barn, a water pump & well, and plenty of other awesome places to take pictures!  I honestly could have stayed there all day taking pictures, but the weather was chilly & it had rained earlier that morning, but thankfully, it did stop for us.

Coordinating 10 adults & 8 kids under the age of 6 (4 of which are 12 -21 months) was definitely a challenge at times ... we had hopes of many other shots ... one of which was a grandchildren picture, another one of the grandchildren & grandparents ... but they just didn't happen as we had hoped.  All in all everyone did pretty good ... and we got several good ones ... here are the best of the best!

the 2 that started it all ... Jay Don & Mary Lee ...
but now they are called GranGran & Huni!

the original Rogers 6 ... Mary Lee, Ashley, Amber,
Rhett, Brandon, and Jay Don

this is my favorite family shot that we took

Ashley has a twin brother, a younger brother & a younger sister ... here they all are with their families ...

Brandon's fam ... Mary, Sadie (4),
Hannah (6), Kylie (20 mo) & Brandon

Rhett & Yulia

Rhett's fam ... Yulia, Brandon (4),
Rhett & Tyler (12 mo)

Amber & Tobias

Amber's fam ... Tobias, Jude (21 mo),
Gabe (within days of being 4) & Amber

the 8 grandchildren ... in birth order:

Hannah (age 6)

Sadie (age 4)

Brandon (age 4)

Gabriel (just days from turning 4)

Jude (21 months)

Kylie (20 months) with Brandon

Kendall
(11 mo adjusted age / 13.5 mo birth age)

Tyler (13 months) with GranGran

the newest 1 year olds ... Kendall is 3 weeks older than Tyler ...
however, she was supposed to be 8 weeks younger than him!

Here are a few of our favorites of our family of 3 ...

I  HEART this MAN!

my sweet family of 3

this is how Kendall holds on during a
Daddy shoulder ride ... she's grabs for 
2 full fists of hair!  LOVE it!

A big thanks to my sweet sister-in-law Mary who got the photo shoot all set up for us! It's great to have these updated family pictures!

bye-bye, Oh Canada ... sadly!

Friday ... July 2 ... our last day in Canada ... we spent the morning playing with the girls, packing our suitcases (and a new trunk that we had to buy to get all of Ashley's old baseball, football & hockey cards and some other childhood memoriabilia back home with us), and saying bye-bye (which Kendall says now).

No pictures of our very sad, tearful good-bye ... the girls were soooo sweet & just did not want us to go ... and we didn't want to go either, but we needed to start our drive back to Seattle. The whole good-bye was very sad ... Hannah kept hugging me & saying "but I don't want you to go, Aunt Texas" ... both Hannah & Sadie gave Kendall 100 kisses & hugs good-bye. They were such good "little mommys" to Kendall for 10 days ... and Kendall adored them ever bit as much ... I knew we'd all go through withdrawals! It is sad to have to say good-bye to family ... we always have such a great time together and then it will probably be at least another year to 18 months before we will get to see them again ... Kendall will be at least 2 by then & will have changed so much, as will the girls. Not getting to see them & be in their lives more often (and in Kendall's life) is truly the hardest part about living so far apart.

after waiting in a 1.5 hour line-up to cross the border,
the USA sign was a GREAT sight to see!

LOVE the red, white & blue!

(We called them to let them know we had crossed the border and Mary told us that poor sweet Hannah, who doesn't show any emotion to anyone publicly, cried & cried for 30 minutes, saying she missed us, missed Kendall ... and she could not be consoled.)

We drove to Seattle ... got our hotel room ... ate dinner at Red Robin ... dropped off our rental car ... re-packed a few things & went to bed ... we were to unfortunately have a VERY early start to the next day!


Saturday ... July 3 ... we were up, showered & dressed, all luggage down to the lobby, checked out of our hotel room, continental breakfast consumed & on the hotel shuttle to the airport by 6:30am ... and I should also mention ... quite tired and dealing with a sick Kendall!

We got to the airport with hundreds of other people all checking in with the airline we were with and finally got our turn up to the ticket counter ... we were on another completely full flight, so they offered to check any of our carry-on luggage for FREE ... YES, Please! We also (AGAIN) didn't have seats together, so when the agent asked if we wanted to upgrade our tickets for $25 (each seat) & that we'd be sitting together ... I asked for that to include both flights ... and she said she'd do that for us ... so we did it ... the best $50 we've spent (I like to look at like we paid $12.50 for each of our seats & I think that's great!) ... front row seats on both flights (that's the 1st time I'd ever sat on a "row 1" my entire life!), extra leg room, sitting together ... with our sick sweet Kendall ... who did amazingly well & slept nearly the entire time on both flights in my arms and never cried once (even though, she had double ear infections, which was diagnosed the next day!) ... she is such a good baby!

We made it back to our house that late afternoon ... from a great trip to Vancouver, BC!  So many 1st's were experienced by Kendall and we're happy to have taken such a great 1st vacation as a family of 3 ... but, it's also good to be back home!


I've got one more post to do of our vacation ... it's the Rogers family photos that we had taken while we were there ... so stay tuned for just a few more pictures, soon to come!

one HOT day at the ZOO

Today we spent a few hours at the Fort Worth Zoo! I'm really not sure what we were thinking ... or if we were thinking at all ... since it's the dead middle of summer ... and hot, Hot, HOT outside (temperatures in the high 90's - low 100's), but when my friend Chesley said she was taking her 3 kidos to the zoo on Friday & invited us to join her ... I said YES!   I knew it was going to be hot, but still everyone had a great time ...

This was Kendall's 1st visit to the Fort Worth Zoo ... although, this was not her 1st visit to a zoo (she visited the Dallas Zoo last August when she was only a few weeks old) ... it was her 1st time to actually see some animals in real life! We officially became Zoo Members & are now proud owners of a zoo pass, which has a lot of benefits, besides free admission & free parking anytime we want to go, for a year. I know we'll use it a lot this fall & spring ... all of our friends have one so this will be a fun play-date for Kendall & her little friends, too!

sweet little friends ... Kendall & Emerson Walton (10 mo)

Garrett Walton (consulting the map for us again), and
Cohen & Cage Collins ... apparently I did not get 1 picture of
these boys from the front, but they are all cutie-patooties! 

We saw all the main animals (monkeys, elephants, zebras, giraffes, tigers, rhinos) and then cooled off during lunch in the MOLA (the Museum of Living Art - reptiles, amphibians & more) ... we all enjoyed eating our lunch in front of a HUGE aquarium, complete with alligators, turtles & fish of all kinds swimming by us the whole time ... it was really cool AND we were all indoors in wonderful air conditioning! After lunch the Collins family had to leave, but the rest of us toured the MOLA building. I really don't like snakes (like, at all!), but they also have several huge aquariums that Kendall & I did enjoy, very much ... and MOLA is all indoors & air conditioned as well, so that makes it even better!  We were very thankful for this brand new exhibit!

our kids at MOLA ... Mich & Madeline, Kendall, and
Ansley, Garrett & Emerson

Kendall & Emerson checking out all the fish in one of the
many tanks inside MOLA ... definitely Kendall's favorite
animal at the zoo (and anywhere else, right now, for that matter)!

Mommy & Kendall ... apparently Kendall was done giving
out smiles by the time we took a picture together! ha!

Loving all the fish & reaching out to touch them ...  not that
great of picture with the flash on Kendall, but like the reflection 

Katherine & her sweet baby Madeline (7 months old)

After visiting MOLA, we all headed home ... we hit some ugly traffic on our way home & Kendall took a nap the whole time! We had a fun time hanging out with these 3 families and are looking forward to many more play-dates in the future!  (Hopefully I'll do a better job at taking more pictures next play-date ... I didn't do so great today & didn't even get one of Chesley, who got us all out to the zoo today!)

happy Canada day!

Thursday ... July 1 ... Canada Day ... and this year, we were in Canada to celebrate it! And celebrate we did, despite the Canada rain throughout the day ... we had a full day of fun! Mary & I left the boys with all the girls so we could get a little shopping done ... we were on the hunt for some cute Canada Day shirts for the girls. (Mary had already been looking for us, but hadn't found anything for all 4 girls' sizes before we arrived.) We tried a couple of stores with no luck ... and then hit The Children's Place and scored ... super cute matching "Canada Rocks!" t-shirts for all 4 girls in all 4 sizes ... and they were on sale ... double score!

We got decked out in our Canada shirts, colors ... and Canada tattoos ... and headed to the block-party for a little outdoor fun. There were several businesses that had set up different booths for all the kids to make crafts, play games & win prizes ... there were 2 live bands playing and Hannah even showed us her dance moves!

at the neighborhood Happy Canada
Day block-party

it was really chilly out, especially with the light
Canada rain, but Kendall had a fun time sporting
her red rain jacket & maple leaf tattoo

Kendall & Daddy

Mommy & Kendall

Hannah & Sadie making crafts at the block-party

Kylie & Auntie Mary ... sporting their Canada Day tattoos

Sadie with her craft

sweet Kendall

After an afternoon nap for Kendall & Kylie, we all went over to Huni & GranGran's new Canadian home for the happy Canada Day party! They had reserved the game room in their building, so we had a big room for all the kids to play & enjoy dinner ...

happy 14 months old and
happy Canada day!

happy Canada Day from my family to yours!

the girls ... in their Canada Rocks! shirts ...
Sadie, Kendall, Hannah and Kylie
(Kylie was ready to eat & had strapped herself into her chair
that was still on the floor and she didn't want to get out of it,
so we moved her to the couch for a picture & then she ate!)

Kendall enjoying her dinner

Sadie & Hannah at their table

After dinner, we spent the rest of our time in their condo having dessert, looking through lots more pictures, baby books of Ashley & Brandon, sports articles & memorabilia and watching the fireworks!  We had a great time spending the day at Huni & GranGran's to celebrate Canada Day!