Ft. Polk

We headed off to visit Nick in Ft. Polk one weekend in mid-August. I wanted the kids to visit him on base before he gets out of the army. I'd like for them to have some memories of him in the army. They had a great time playing around on the base and watching all of Uncle Nick's many movies on his huge TV!

Trust me this is much harder than it looks! This is as high as I got!

Thomas just loves all the cool army stuff! And, FYI the gun is NOT loaded. I like this picture because he just thinks he's the coolest thing ever in this gear, but note the spiderman jammies!!

We had a great weekend with Nick. DeRidder and Leesville (where Ft. Polk is located) are deplorable little Louisiana towns. Very hot, very humid, mosquites the size of birds...etc. Let's put it this way, Ft. Polk was the training place for soldiers headed to Vietnam because the climate there was so similar to the jungle of Vietnam that it helped aclimate the soldiers. However, it was great to visit Nick and see how the other soldiers treat him with so much respect. I sometimes need reminding that he's not the obnoxious little brat that I grew up with! It makes me really proud to see him there so obviously respected by the men that work with him.

Blessings,

Leslie

South Padre

I know we haven't blogged all week, but we've been having too much fun to sit at the computer for too long! Here are a few pictures from our week so far...

Thomas and Colton in Mexico.

Nick biting the dust on his boogie board.

Nick and Parker in Mexico.

Half in Mexico and half in the U.S!

Jason in a shop in Mexico trying out a gunbelt!

Hudson crawling in the sand.

This is a picture of the guys in the POURING rain when they had to go out and retrieve our tent after the wind pulled it out of the ground and blew it halfway down the beach!

Cody and Shelby

We are having a great time...all 16 of us! Scott, Patty and the boys headed home this afternoon and Cody and Shelby leave tomorrow. The rest of us are here until Sunday morning. I'll try to post some more pics soon!

Blessings,

Leslie

Flower Girls!!

We attended my cousin Pepper's wedding on Saturday. Grace and Mandy were the flower girls. They looked adorable in their white dresses, ballet shoes with a ring of baby's breath on their heads!

The wedding was beautiful and we enjoyed visiting with all our family. All the cousins then caravan'd to South Padre on Sunday for our 5th annual Rollins cousin's summer at the beach.

Today was Thomas's birthday party. He chose Elvis as this year's theme...surprise, surprise. We had the party in the Rugel gym and had a live Elvis concert! "Elvis" did a concert and Thomas performed three songs with him. He did a great job. We were all so proud of him for getting up there and singing. He did "Blue Suede Shoes," "Hound Dog," and "Jailhouse Rock." Three of his all time favorites! The kids all had a great time dancing to the Elvis songs, climbing on the rock wall and hula hoopin.

Even some of the mom's and dad's gave the rock wall a try!

Blessings,

Leslie

Here are a few pictures from Thopmas's birthday dinner we had on his real birthday last Tuesday. We had BBQ from Eddie Deen's.

He got birthday money and a nintendo ds. Grace loved it so much that she decided that she decided to spend the money in her bank account to get her one!

Blessings,

Leslie

July 4th, 2007

The kids rode in our neighborhood July 4th parade today. They had a great time, Scott however found it difficult to keep up with them! He had to run the entire distance!

Blessings,

Leslie