The excitement never ends...

I have been absent for a long time, it seems. However, not nearly as long as some (hint to some members of the Foster Fam - my husband included!) Last week Ty went on a business trip and while he was gone I wanted to repay him for the awesome projects he completed while Max and I were in Vegas - I'll come back to that on another post. Anyway, so the days were filled with taking care of Max and then while he was napping I was painting like a mad woman...Max's bathroom, the front door and some trim on the house. Then on Thursday Max and I packed up the car, picked Tyler up from the airport (a VERY joyous reunion!) and started our journey to Worland, WY.

Why go to Worland, WY, you ask? Because the very best hosts reside there with their three adorable children and we thought that this just might be our last opportunity for a while to make such a trip. It was a long time in the car, but Max did awesome (I mean, really, really awesome. I was impressed!) and I actually love road trips. I love spending that much time in a confined space with my wonderful husband and super cute son. That isn't sarcastic...totally sincere. We drove for quite a while that day but called it quits for the night in Bozeman, MT, where we slept from midnight to 9 AM!!! So nice. We had just 4 1/2 hours left of driving and arrived at the Mark Foster home on Friday to a warm greeting. It was such a fabulous weekend! Mark and Liz really know how to treat folks right. I'll share some of the highlights - a few will be accompanied by pictures.

**Mark & Liz, I really have to apologize that you are included in only a very few pictures. We think you are very attractive people and would love to have your beautiful smiles in our pictorial memories...I was sad to see that you (especially Liz) were missing when I looked through the pictures.**

*An awesome menu throughout the weekend. I loved everything we ate! And a yummy dessert every night was absolute heaven since we hardly ever do desserts around here.

*Really cool small town - small, but not too small - with a lot of fun things to do. Oh, and they just happen to have the best doctor in their town! Mark delivered a baby during the weekend which foiled his plans to golf with Ty...but I was all caught up in the excitement that he was leaving the house to be a part of such a miracle.

*Walks to the park or around the neighborhood every night. Perfect weather for this!

Sweet, sweet Justin! Sorry we fed you to the mosquitoes, bud.



*Thermopolis...."Home of the World's Largest Mineral Hot Spring" It totally stunk - literally, but not in the enjoyment factor. It smelled like sulfur, but once you got past that you could then enjoy the fun pools and water slides, which we did. This place was super cool. It was totally small-town Wyoming, hasn't been up kept very well. Our take is that the owners are pocketing as much of the money as they can before the place gets shut down. There are hardly any rules - except for one sign that listed a few things, among them: Be Curtius (or some funny misspelling like that) :) - for a few kind of dangerous areas and the one lifeguard I saw was a middle-aged man with a big pot belly who didn't seem real concerned about anything other than looking good in his sunglasses. Still, a really fun place! Especially for the kids. I have to say that once I went down the Wet & Wild slide, I was hooked. Best water slide I've ever been on!

Grant Guy

Joy Bear

Max started a new game. He kept wanting me to put him on the edge of the pool. I wasn't so keen on the idea because I thought that meant he would take off and I'd have to chase after him (pregnant lady running around in a swimsuit - not that pretty) but when I finally did, he just plopped his bottom down on the side and scooted himself off until he fell into the water (and my arms). Ty came over and Max did it with him for a while too. It was so cute! He did it over and over and over again. I think we got a few videos of it too...

The amazing Spidey Kids!

*Seeing Max play with Joy and Grant. They had a great time together. Joy and Grant were so good about sharing toys and space with our little dude. We love their fun personalities. It was so great to be able to spend that much one-on-one time with them!

Max felt that this was just the right time to remind Joy the whereabouts of her nose - or "no" as he calls it.

*Big Horn Mountains. Beautiful country! We went up for the afternoon and had a great time. The guys all made a dam in the creek. We played on rocks and followed Max while he ran down the dirt road...then followed it all up with milk and Mark's famous Chocolate and Peanut Butter Chip cookies! We were tired on the drive back.

Ty with all the kids (minus Justin)Cutest sequence of pictures...Max was really hard to hold on the rocks - he just wanted to get in the water. We took his shoes off and let him dip. As you can see, it was pretty cold. :)

But then he was ready to do it again!

I love, love, love my two men!

Thank you, Mark Liz & Kids for such a perfect weekend! We appreciate all that you did and loved spending that much time with you. Next May we'll be looking for your Pilot rolling into our driveway.... :)

Max was so, so good on the trip home too! He only had about a ten minute cry-out. The rest of the time we checked out the trains, cows and horses on the side of the road, played hide and seek with his blanket - we would sometimes look in the rearview mirror and he would be patiently waiting with the blanket over his head for us to say "Where's Max?", or he would just put it up and say "ax?" which is his version of his name right now - and a lot of the time he just entertained himself while Tyler and I talked. It was good to be out of the car at the end of the 15 or so hours!

Now we're back to life here at home. My belly is growing more all the time - I'll be 15 weeks tomorrow, I can hardly believe it! Max has learned the sign for "baby" and since we got back from Mark & Liz's where there is a baby, he'll do the sign, say "babay" and then put up his hands, "Where go?" I'm trying to let him know that we're growing one of our very own and he or she will be here in February. :) Now it's back to finishing our project of painting the house. It was so nice to have a respite from our many home improvement projects, if only for a weekend! Life is good. So, so good!