Mini Reunion with College Buddies

Before I jump into posts and pictures about Roebuck Road Mania 2010, I had to post a few pics of a special visit we had the day before we left on our trip!

Several of my dear friends from JBU days happened to be coming through Siloam Springs all at the same time as they were visiting their families in the area, so we worked out a few hours of fun together. Paul, Kris, Jenna-Clare, Jeremy, Rheagan (her husband Steve wasn't able to make it this time- we missed seeing him), Lucas and me plus all the kids had a great visit!

We enjoyed a crazy and wonderful few hours with pizza at Fratelli's, hanging out in the afternoon with about a million beautiful kids and babies, and then a fantastic dinner hosted by Jeremy's parents at their lake house in Rogers. I so enjoyed getting to reconnect with these special friends! A real highlight was getting to meet Paul and Kris's adorable newborn son, John David.

Here are just a few snaps.

Jenna-Clare, John David, Kristine, Maggie, Me and Rheagan.

The oh-so-charming William (belongs to Jeremy and J-C). If any of you have met Jenna-Clare's brother Colin, don't you think he's the spitting image? Adorable!

Paul and Kris are multi-taskers: Keeping Maximus intellectually engaged and snuggling newborn John David. That's talent, folks.

It was basically a crazy madhouse with six kids under the age of 4.

Jenna-Clare shares her mad maraca skills with Maggie.

We had the extra-special treat of having Rheagan and her two little adorables stay with us for a couple days.

Thanks for the great visit, everyone!

Home Again, Home Again...

18 Days
4,500 miles
68 hours in the car
7 games of "I Spy"
38 Capri Sun juice pouches
2 amusement parks
1 car floorboard covered with beach sand.
9 places to rest our heads
2 IKEA cinnamon rolls
1 Grand Canyon
2 In-n-Out Burgers
And MANY hugs and smiles from people we love!

Roebuck Road Mania 2010 has now drawn to a close– We are back home safe and sound after a crazy 2.5-week trek to California and back. We had a great time, the kids traveled well, and we have LOTS of pictures and stories to share! Give me a couple days to crawl out from the mound of laundry and the pile of stuff we pulled out of our car, and I'll be back with more. Ahhhh, Home Sweet Home!

Monologues By Maggie

Maggie:

Hey guys, I know: Let's have some ice cream now, and then we can have some lunch later! Okay? Okay. That's the end of the story. Yes."

Busy, Busy, Busy

Whew! These past few weeks have been a real whirlwind for our little Roebuck crew. All fun stuff, but just LOTS of stuff!

Saturday night we had a fun night of celebrating the retirement of Professor Gary Warner. Some of you may not know that Lucas and I were both journalism majors at JBU, although not at the same time (He graduated 5 years ahead of me). So even though we weren't at school at the same time, we had the shared experience of learning to write from Gary Warner. And let me assure you, that is an experience! Those of you who have taken News Writing I from Gary Warner know of what I speak. :-)

Anyway... Saturday night we attended a surprise retirement celebration for Gary Warner at Emelia's in downtown Siloam Springs. It was a fun night to reconnect with journalism alumni who had flown in from all over the country and honor our former professor. And the food was DELICIOUS. Lucas had a lot of the responsibility for planning the evening, and the program and the whole night really could not have gone any better. He did such a fantastic job!

Here are a few pics of our fun evening:

Gary Warner and colleague Arnie Mayer.

Lucas was the emcee for the event.

Professor Warner has been heading up the journalism program at JBU for 17 years. That means that there have been about 17 student editors of the JBU paper. 12 of those former editors were in attendance Saturday night- they flew/drove in from all over the country!

All the journalism/PR alumni who celebrated with Professor Warner.

Little Boy Bliss

Last week we had a wonderful visit with my Grandma and Grandpa. It was so special for me to see Max and Maggie spending some quality time with their great grandparents. Both the kids completely loved our little retreat to see The Great Mama and the Great Papa (as they call them), but Max was especially on cloud nine. I'm afraid I just can't seem to keep his little scientific mind quite stimulated enough during our normal day-to-day life around here! But at the Great Papa's house– that's another story. As I heard my grandpa explain to Max about flotation and simple machines and all kinds of other things that are interesting to little boys, I couldn't help but smile as I remembered Grandpa teaching me about electric currents and various other science lessons when I was a child. Max was drinking up every bit of information and having a blast the whole time.

Well.... TODAY the kids got a great surprise when a package arrived. It was addressed to them and was from Great Papa and Great Mama. They were pretty excited to open it up:

And what they found inside was pure bliss for a little boy! The box was stuffed full with string and wooden rods and rubber bands and wires and hot glue and rubber connectors and sheets of plastics and all kinds of other building materials. Max tore into it like it was the most expensive toy money could buy at Toys R Us! His mind was spinning with ideas from minute one.

First he pulled out a sheet of plastic and ran to the drawer to get some scissors. He had to make a map "to show the divers how to find the lost city of Atlantis." Maggie made a map, too.

After maps, we had to break for lunch. But the whole time we were eating, Max was planning what he was going to build. He decided on a submarine.

Here is his first creation! I helped some, but many of the design ideas were his. He has been playing with it all afternoon.

Thanks, Great Mama and Great Papa, for such a fun and creative package!

Conversations Between Max and Maggie

Overheard this morning between Max and Maggie as they were looking at Carl and Ellie from Pixar's UP:

Maggie: Look at them!

Max: They are married.

Maggie: No, they are not married.

Max: Yes, they ARE married. Remember we saw them in the church? That means they are married.

Maggie: What's 'married'?

Max: You know, when you always stay together, and you live together in the same house and you are not friends.

Maybe I should insert here: I think Max was saying that when you are married you are more than "just friends," but I thought it was hilarious that he actually just said "you are not friends." Perhaps I'll have to make sure that he does indeed know that Lucas and I are both married and friends. :-)