The Alligator......

Today is Sunday and we went to a barbecue at our neighbors across the street. We heard there was an alligator that lived in a lake here on post and they took us out to see him. Here he is - the alligator of Ech Lake. At first we could not find him so we walked around and slowly he came swimming toward us. It really was kind of creepy but very cool. He was about 6 feet long. It was really amazing to see something like that so close. The boys were so excited! Dave was talking about how he was going to get in and wrestle him like the crocodile hunter and Colton said "Um, dad - I don't think that is a very good idea - the crocodile hunter died." Very sad but very true.

What A Day!!!!!

This is a posting just to make moms having a hard day realize they aren't the only ones. Our day started off pretty good besides that I had been up all night with our puppy who has decided she can't live without one of us right there beside her. We are working on that! Anyway - Colton came down with strep throat on Sunday and so he has been really sick and in bed. Poor guy has had strep 5 times since July. So we are headed straight into the ENT - YAY!!!! Everyone knows what it takes to take care of a sick little boy - a lot! Kaden and Porter are going stir crazy because we have not been able to go anywhere since Sunday - so they are coming up with all sorts of creative ways to entertain themselves. One of those little creative instances ended up in flooding the upstairs bathroom down into the bathroom downstairs. I was getting ready to cook dinner and all of a sudden I hear water pouring into the downstairs bathroom. Porter had flushed the entire roll of toilet paper down the toilet. The entire toilet flooded. The water went into the vents and out the vents in the ceiling downstairs. It was a total disaster but luckily no permanent damage was done. Dave happened to come home right in the middle of me trying to "handle" the situation - I had towels everywhere and was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. He just sort of looked at me like "what in the world?" Of course I had to try to play down the situation so I just said "welcome home - little situation here but don't worry I got it totally taken care of." You know - moms can handle everything! Right?!?! What a DAY!!!!

HEY MOM!

Porter ran past me for the 50th time today and shouted "Hey Mom!" He does the "Hey Mom" thing so many times a day most of the time I don't even notice. But today I wanted to write it down because I realized that this is a phase that he will soon grow out of - and something that I want to remember.

Our New Home

Our New Home.....

This is our new home and we love it. I am having lots of fun filling it up with fun decorations and looking everywhere for the perfect furniture. It is just fun to decorate a new house!

Our First Trip To The Beach

We made our first trip to the beach on Thursday May 8, '08. The beach we visited was in Destin Florida. It was absolutely gorgeous. I have never seen such white sand. The water was warm and the boys could not get enough!

One of our favorite things to do was to collect sea shells. We found tons of cute little sea shells. The boys wanted to bring all of our treasures home. Of course, that was ok with me so we loaded them up in a plastic bag to bring them home. After I got the boys to bed I decided to clean them up. So I put them in a big pot of hot water. Much to my surprise - they came to life!!!! Tiny little creatures appeared out of no where! I am sad to say that the ending to this story is not a happy one. Our little ocean friends went to a better place. So rule#1 for the Patterson family beach trips will be to make sure the treasures we decide to bring home are not alive. We are new to this!! :)