Graduation!!!!!!

May 16, 2010 will forever be a day of remembrance in our family.  Trent graduated dental school and completed a phase of our lives we are grateful to let go of.  Gammy, Uncle Louis, Grandma and Grandpa Buttars all arrived for the big day to celebrate with us and it was a perfect day.

Trent with Grandma and Grandpa.  There are not many pictures of Trent in his robe since Carlie said she was cold and wanted to see what it felt like to be a doctor but she ended up keeping it on most of the day.  She was a very proud mama.

Uncle Louis flew to commission Trent to a Captain in the Air Force and made it to the graduation ceremony.  The boys were so excited they both tried to sit on his lap and Ryan just kept staring at him.  He kept saying, " you fly the B-1 Bomber Uncle Louis?"  He couldn't believe that one of his heroes was sitting right next to him.  Gammy and Uncle Louis and Grandma kept the boys quite during the ceremony.  They did great.  

We don't look as beat up after the war as I think we feel.  

In between events, we found a water fountain and the boys played for an hour trying not to get soaked.  Raef was doing some meditation and I had to get a picture.  It was so cute.

The Big, Crazy, "what are you thinking?," trip

We started out our journey flying to Utah for Rilee and Tommy's wedding in SLC.  It was picture perfect, except for the snow, and she really did pull of a most beautiful wedding.  Every detail was thought of and it went great.  She looked great and we couldn't be happier to have Tommy part of the family now.  The boys couldn't wait to see Grandpa and Grandma and most importantly, Erin.  Cass and Scott came to the hotel and watched the boys for us while we went to the wedding dinner and then stayed to catch up.  We love you guys!  It's always fun and relaxed when we're together.  I look forward to much more hanging out while we live in Vegas so you'd better be ready.  Next we flew to Dallas to visit my mom and her....umm...."significant other" (that's for you mom).  We stayed with them and had a ball getting to know Doug better and discovering Dallas.  I didn't cook even one meal and can't say enough about that.  Mental note:  hire a cook.  They can grocery shop also!  Anyways, we found Dallas to be so vibrant and full of fun things to explore.  We could have spent weeks just in downtown Dallas.

Mom and Ryan

This is at the water gardens.  We took these stone steps that were a bit scary down to a pool and Ryan's face was in this same pose the entire time.  He was quite scared and nervous.  He looked sick and hardly cracked a smile!  It's nice to think that some fear exists in that little one.

We went to another pool that was a beautiful teal color and it was a very quiet atmosphere.  I think it was called a "meditation pool."  You can imagine how great of meditation we had.

Raefsters big smile!

We also went to a very cool little place in Dallas(of course I can't remember the name of it) where it appeared we had time traveled.  There was a cannon shooting every 10 minutes or so while all of the people were dressed in western clothing (revolutionary and cowboy) and there was food, mazes, exhibits everywhere. It was great.  The boys were anxious and nervous to climb up on this huge steer but they stayed there long enough for the picture and then wanted down.  Actually I was a little nervous too!!

This was a parade of the soldiers that walked through the town.  We thought it was funny that they really never did leave their cover.  Even while speaking to one another as we walked by, they were talking with a drawl and discussing the present war they were fighting in.

Of course there was a balloon man there and the boys were thrilled to get a sword and armored hat.  The maze and the balloons were their favorite part of the day I think!

Then we headed to the Aquarium and found another reason we are jealous of the people in Dallas.  It was really fantastic!  We loved these little penguins and the boys giggled all day after they were pushing each other into the pool. 

The fam!

There are sharks and fish swimming all around you in this tunnel.  It was very cool.

Our next part of the trip was leaving the boys with Gammy and Doug and flying to Vegas for a few days.  We spend the first two days looking for an apartment and discovering which areas were safe to live and learning about the schools.  We met Trent's clinic director and took a tour and found out which zip codes we should be looking for housing in.  That was great since none of the apartments we had decided on were in that area.  Then we met a resident there who asked us about our housing needs and said we should go look at their house as they will be leaving to move to a new base and would love to help their owners out by finding residents for it.  We were excited to find a house with a good price and possibly a yard even but stayed calm as we didn't want to get too exited!  We went to Aliante, an adorable brand new community in North Las Vegas with amazing parks and schools and the mountains!  yeah!  And the house?  It was perfect.  I still can't believe how perfect it is.  It is small but fits our needs just right.  And there is a yard....with grass... and a cute little palm tree.  Score!  Then the residents wife gave us the low down on the program and the year which we much appreciated.  We also found out the owners of the home live a few blocks from Trent's parents in IF.  Crazy!  Too good to be true right?  I am still a bit panicky that it will all fall apart but so far all is good.  We think that the Lord said, "okay, I know these last four years were rough for you concerning your home, so I am just going to get this done for you and that's that.  Say thankyou and go have some fun!"  So we did.  We walked the strip and did some major people watching.  We ate great food and then went to a Blue Man Group Concert that made us question if we had been drugged before we entered.  It was crazy!  We slept in, took baths, relaxed and enjoyed the view from our room(it was crazy windy out so no swimming allowed).  It was just what we needed.  Oh and we had the most delicious mango coke ever made at the Coke store that has ruined all coke now.  

We flew back to Dallas to pick up the boys and do some laundry and squeeze a few more adventures in.  The highlight for Trent was touring the Dallas Cowboy stadium.  Raef ran the whole thing while making a getaway touchdown and then shakin' his thang!"

The next series of pictures make me laugh everytime.

                             They are pretending they are players walking out onto the field.

                                                                Still walking.

                                    Still walking.  So tough looking I might add!

                            Wait a minute!  The players don't come out this way Dad!

                                              Here we go!  Now this is right!

                                               The locker room!  Pretty nice!

The locker room that they really wanted to see!  Raef is posing like the cheerleader above him!  They took more pictures in this locker room than the guys!  The real players!!!  The reason there is a stadium!!  Anyways, after Dallas we flew back to Cleveland, well almost.  The airport shut down for a lightning storm so we went back to Gammys house without any luggage of course and slept the night and tried again the next day.  I spent over an hour standing at the ticket line as the lady tried to figure out how to get Trents luggage (which contained his Air Force uniform he was going to be commisioned  a Captain in in two days) to Cleveland before it was too late.  Well, it all worked out and we even had time to mow the 10,000 helicopter seeds in our yard and get groceries before everyone began arriving for Trent's big graduation day!  

Spring has arrived!

This Spring has kind of been sad to me as we know it will be our last in Ohio.  Thankfully, it was the most beautiful Spring I can remember.  The blossoms stayed on the trees exceptionally long and kept the trees looking magnificent.  This flower blooms in early Spring right next to my back deck and I look forward to all year long.

Easter

We let each of the boys color 6 eggs and it turned out to be so much fun!  At first, it was just Daddy dropping the eggs in the dye for them but it quickly ended up a big mess of color dyed fingers and lots of giggles!

The evidence of a perfect night coloring eggs.  Ryan made all of his eggs a different color and then learned how to redye the eggs and eventually ended up with all purple eggs. He was so proud!

We found these hilarious stickers for the eggs and watched the boys play with their "egg people" for an hour as they laughed and made different voices.

Smiles all around!

Easter morning was wonderful.  Trent did the shopping for the gifts from the Easter Bunny and we couldn't wait for morning.  Last year the boys enjoyed finding the eggs more than eating what was in them so this year I only put one little candy in each one and they didn't even open them.  They were too excited to find another egg and eat their candy in their baskets.  Later than morning was not so good as I finished cooking breakfast and came out into the living room to find Ryan had dumped all of the eggs and grass all over the floor.  It literally covered every square inch of the ground.  I gasped as I walked in and then walked straight outside as I held my screams from coming out.  I went in and put Ryan into time out and talked to him about what he had done.  Raef said he didn't make the mess and he went upstairs to stay out of the room.  Good idea!  Ryan went into three time outs until he finally got the idea that he would be cleaning the mess up, not mom.  As he sat crying and apologizing to me, Raef walked downstairs crying.  He came over to me and said, "mom, I lied.  I went upstairs and said a prayer  to Heavenly Father and I'm sorry that I lied to you.  I made the mess too."  Trent and I looked at eachother as our eyes filled with tears also.  What a moment!  Our whole family crying!  Really, though we couldn't be prouder.  It was working!  Our boys were learning, despite our inexperience and craziness in teaching.  We are doing okay and we felt so grateful that our little boys were learning the most basic of principles.  So cute!

                                                                    

Not so easy

We wanted to thank everyone again for your thoughts and prayers in Raef's behalf this last week.  If you did not hear, Raef was back in the hospital again for 3 days due to a cold that induced his asthma.  The first day I took him in was the worse I have seen him.  Trent and I both apologize for not speaking with everyone about the situation and keeping you all up to date this time.  We went numb both of us.  I think perhaps to protect us from breaking during that moment.  We are so beyond exhausted and tired of this happening to our little boy and feel helpless as we watch his asthma progress to emergency status within 1 day.  It's scary to say the least.  In four years here in Ohio, we have been to the ER with Raef 6 times and ICU 3 of those.  We are tired of talking about it with people.  I feel like maybe if we don't talk about it anymore, it will go quickly and we can get him home and pretend it never happened.  We both know, looking back, that that is not the best path we should have taken, but until you have gone through something like this over and over again, it is difficult to explain.  So, please know of our gratitude to all of you and although we may not have been in contact with you, we knew that you loved us and that's what we needed.  We are optimistic and hopeful that Las Vegas will do miracles for Raef and allow him to stay out of the hospital and no more rides in the ambulance.  Please join with us in prayer for him that his lungs would heal and he would grow strong enough to fights this.  We love you all and are tremendously grateful for your love and strength you give us.
 

A day outside in the mud!

We hadn't gotten outside for awhile due to the weather so we all jumped at the chance, even if it was muddy. The boys couldn't wait to get their boots on and go tromp!  I hadn't taken pictures for awhile either so I enjoyed the time and found myself taking way too many as usual.  

It took a bit of work to get them all cleaned up but it was well worth my house staying clean for awhile and their big smiles!  Man, I love boys!

I wish I could somehow hang on to this age forever.  I butch chopped Ryan's hair and am under strict orders not to touch it again until after the graduation and wedding this summer.  Sorry bud!  Could he look any more like his Daddy?

The lighting on this photo is off but I still love it.  Raef has always had the most beautiful blue eyes and this picture captures that.

Muddy but still adorable.

This shot reminds me of the big brother, little brother relationship the boys have.  Raef tries his best to always protect Ryan and take care of him.  Although Ryan has a much tougher personality and can take care of Raef just as well.  They are a perfect pair.

Doing some stunts on his favorite possession!  Everytime we go outside for anything....anything at all, he runs for his bike.

We found Bumblebee!!!!!

While having our car fixed yet again, Trent spotted an amazing find!  He couldn't wait to get home and tell the boys who he found. But....it was a secret of course because if the deceptacons found him, they would try to kill him.  So, under strict instructions that they couldn't give away his location, off we went to see the real Bumblebee.  They were so excited they could hardly stand it.  Ryan was carrying his little car Bumblebee and kept saying, "I can't believe it, we found him Dad."  Bumblebee is Ryans favorite transformer!  They rode inside and then even got to rev the engine and turn his lights on.  He was decked out to the max with transformer symbols everywhere on the outside and in.  Good find Dad!

Poor Ryan hit a table on his nose and ended up with quite the swollen nose.  I left work to take him to the doctor because his nose was so crooked and swollen.  They x-rayed him and said it was just crooked because of the inflammation.  On the way to the doctor, I gave him a pb&j sandwich but he took one bite and said, "mom, I can't smell this, what kind of sandwich is it."  It was about 1 week later before he said he could smell and he was so excited!  He sounded funny because of his one nostril being closed off.  This picture looks bad but about 3 days into it was definitely the worse when it bruised and looked like a very bad black eye.  Poor guy!

Raef's big 5!

We are still in disbelief that our baby is 5 years old!  And he is just the coolest kid we know.  We love him so very much and feel tremendously blessed to have him in our little family.  He wanted a dinosaur and transformers themed birthday party and we let him invite a few friends and family.  Papa was there to celebrate with us also!  It seems like he is smiling in every one of these pics because he was smiling the whole night.  This is what he loves most!  We had pizza first and play time and then cake and icecream and presents finally at the end. 

Ryan kept asking why it isn't his birthday.  We felt bad after he endured a party for Raef on Friday night by Uncle Cam, a friend party for Raef on Saturday night, and then a celebration for Papa on Sunday.  "No birthday for me," he kept saying.  He hung in there though and was a good sport, just very sad and confused. 

These are the nicest dinos I've ever seen.  They are very heavy and look quite real.

Raef was very spoiled with presents everywhere and tons of cool handmade cards.  Phone calls poured in the entire day and he actually got annoyed by the end of the day and I just spoke to people.  If I told him the phone was for him, he would hit his forehead and say, "what, another call just for me?" "I'm so lucky!"  It was a perfect day!