Weekly happenings

Eli's been wanting to take Aaron to the Airplane Restaurant since we went without him last time, so on Monday evening, our FHE activity included dinner and flying lessons.

I spotted this banner as we were walking out and it made me tear up. I love my hero.

The library's Music and Movement class had the parachute this week so we didn't want to miss out. I love seeing these little guys love music so much. They start dancing the second we walk into class and sing the rest of the day away.

On Thursday, Aaron took the day off to make pizza for his work team so the boys and I accompanied him for the delivery and then headed to Denver. Alex watched our boys... (Again. I know. She's such a blessing to us.) while Aaron and I went to the temple. We were presently surprised to see the beautiful tulips were still alive since we had the crazy winter storm last week. I always enjoy a temple date with Aaron, but when it's the temple where we were married, my heart explodes with even more love for him.

Friday evening was spent outside at the neighborhood park.

Saturday we started the day with swimming at the Y followed by lunch at Texas Roadhouse. Aaron continues to amaze me with how he makes family time a priority even though he has a lot of his plate with homework and work on his mind.

Eli ate 3 rolls and wanted more.

I caught Aaron pushing the boys on the swing as he took a homework break to grill some chicken for our dinner. 

I was reminded this week what a blessing it is that I get to stay at home every day with my little crew. Austin is walking more and more and I love seeing him grow. And this week is Eli's birthday week and he'll soon be THREE!!

A Tea Party

Friday night I planned a tea party with these lovely friends of mine. We sipped tea, munched on fruit and talked about motherhood. 

Aaron teases me that I love planning parties, but I hate spending money. Ha. I found the teapot at Goodwill - I mean, I need to have a teapot if I'm going to have a tea party, right?! And then I recently discovered the sale bin of flowers at King Soopers and found four dozen pink roses for 8 dollars. I picked off the dead petals and the flowers were good as new. ;) Event planning was my favorite part of my corporate America job, so now I just find any excuse to plan a party!

Carmel covered strawberries.

Cheers to spring and friendship! 

(It was extremely ironic that a major winter storm hit that night.)

Love my little family

Aaron had this pic on his phone and I love Austin's little tongue pocking out! He's THIS close to walking and when I look at him, he doesn't look like a baby anymore! 

Eli talks about bowling all the time so last Monday night for FHE we headed to Bass Pro for a little bowling activity. Eli was the winner!

Eli has had such a great time with his preschool friends. My friend Teigan taught preschool on Tuesday and they studied the letter S and pretended to be astronauts headed to space.

Wednesday we met Aaron for lunch at Kneaders and the boys were happy to see him in the middle of the day. I was too! :)

Austin was screaming like crazy a few nights ago and I wondered if he was having a nightmare? He finally calmed down and put himself back to sleep and the next morning woke up like this. Maybe he was caught in his pjs?!

Aaron has TWO classes left and he finishes his Masters. This pic pretty much sums up his week nights and Saturdays. In an effort to not to do homework on Sunday, he has dedicated every Saturday to studying. Although it drives me crazy at time, I'm grateful for the example is it to our boys of making the Sabbath a holy day. (And, I love hearing Eli say he needs to do his homework and he asks when he can go to college.)

We've started saying, "Family Volk" at the end of our family prayers and everyone gets into it. :)

In other news, our church was cancelled today because of SNOW!! It's crazy.

Cousins

We went a month without seeing our Davis cousins and my mom so we made up for it last week and hung out with them Wednesday AND Thursday! We went to Denver Wednesday and spent the morning at the park and then walked to Wendy's for a frosty after naps.

Thursday the party was at our house and we went swimming at the Y and then fed the ducks by our library.

This cousin relationship makes me so happy. 

I brought this little table into our kitchen last week as we baked muffins and the idea was genius. The boys were entertained making pretend muffins as I cleaned the dishes.

A brother heart to heart on the porch.

Austin loves sharing his food with everyone. Caught these two sharing a popsicle. 

Saturday night Aaron and I went to Denver and saw Newsies with our friends! Every time I see a musical, I want to jump on the stage and dance and sing along. 

Seize the day!

Exploring

The Dinosaur Museum has been on our list of places to explore in Colorado so we may that happen last week. The boys are suddenly obsessed with dinos. I've never cared to learn much about these creatures until now, so we all enjoyed spending the morning exploring the museum and going to story time.

Eli often asks to get in the crib with Austin after nap time. Austin doesn't seem to mind.

To kick off our conference weekend last weekend, we went to Bass Pro for dinner (and because we had coupons for free kids' meals!)

Conference bingo. Oh how we love General Conference. I'm always so uplifted and encouraged to keep trying to do my best. I also love being reminded about the simple actions I can do improve my personal and family life. 

Aaron went to the church to watch the priesthood session and Eli begged to go with him. Aaron is the best dad and let Eli tag along. :)

Austin and I went on a walk and spent some one and one time at the park. I look at him and can't believe he's growing up so much. Where's my baby?!

These little shoes. Garage sale find. Love!

Visiting Thailand

Aaron served his mission in Thailand 6 years ago and has dreamed about going back ever since returning home. Having served a mission myself, I felt like I understood his love of serving a mission in another country, but it seriously wasn’t until I saw Aaron interacting with the people of Thailand that I fell more in love with all of his heart – specifically the part that has remained in Thailand since his mission.

The Air Force has a language emersion program in which Aaron took online classes for a year. He did well in the class and qualified for a trip to work in Thailand for a month as a translator at an Infectious Disease Research Center. When his assignment finished, Aaron's parents and I traveled to Thailand to tour Aaron's mission areas and see the country Aaron loves so much.

Since Aaron’s plane ticket was paid for by the Air Force, this really was the cheapest way we could ever enjoy a trip to Thailand. Aaron knows I’m a succor for saving money so when he presented the financial benefits of taking a trip together now, I was convinced we should go. Well, kind of. We weighed out the pros and cons of taking our boys with us. I didn’t know if I could really leave them for so long. My in-laws were willing to travel with the boys and me, so I thought we’d make it a family trip. Then, Alex offered to watch the boys while Aaron and I went. Although I know Aaron would love for the boys to visit Thailand some day, I didn’t think right now was the best time to take them. One reason being that the travel time is over 24 hours with layovers included. The second reason was Aaron put together a rather in-depth travel itinerary which included visiting several areas where he served. We were originally going to sleep on a bus overnight and then arrive to a new destination early the next day and begin exploring. When we discovered we could catch domestic flights for $30 each, we opted for that travel route instead.

I did pay an extra $85 for flight insurance on my ticket incase I decided to cancel my flight last minute. Everyone kept asking me if I was “so excited to go” and several times I broke down into tears replying that I felt so guilty leaving. Hours before my flight left, little Austin woke up crying in the night and as I fed him a bottle, tears ran down my face wondering why I was leaving him. My mom, Alex and Angela were seriously so supportive and reassured me that they would be just fine. It really has been a blessing living close to Alex and her family and Eli was ecstatic to have a 12-night slumber party with his cousins. Several times after we facetimed the boys while in Thailand, I hung up the phone and cried. I was so homesick for them!

The highlight of the trip was meeting all the members that Aaron worked with. He served as a branch president for a year in Buriram and now it's a ward! The current bishop was baptized right as Aaron left and it was amazing to see how the church has grown in Thailand. The church has been in Thailand for only 50 years and the saints there are excited for the temple that was announced in the April 2015 General Conference. Currently the saints attend the temple in Hong Kong, over 1,000 miles away.

The members asked me what I thought about Thailand and I told him that I loved it, but it's so far away! I commented that I can't imagine having my boys serve there someday as missionaries and one of the members told me that she will take good care of my little Volk boys if they are called to serve there! With tears in my eyes, I committed at that moment to better prepare my little future missionaries to be ready to serve missions someday. 

We also enjoyed eating lots of Thai food, riding Elephants, petting Tigers, attending church, riding a bamboo raft, visiting Wats, going on a dinner cruise, taking a cooking class and learning more about the Thai culture. 

I have over 400 pictures, but here is a snippet of our trip! We visited Bangkok, Burriam, Chiang Mai and Lampang.

Now that we're home and everyone was safe, I can say it was great trip. ;)

We love you Thailand!