Memorial Day Weekend

I have to start off saying that I was very jealous of seeing all my Florida friend's pictures from this weekend. It seemed everyone was having a blast at the beach or on the lake. It made me long for sand and water. Which makes me even more excited for our upcoming visit!! Gavin and I will be heading south at the end of June and staying ALL of July!! You know this means that Chad is having to go off for work for an extended period of time. If he has a work trip that lasts longer than two weeks, I'm always high tailing it to Florida! I am not excited about being apart for another few months but such is our life. We always manage. But I certainly get the better end of the deal. Wink, wink!

While everyone else was soaking up the sun and splashing in the water, we had our own little weekend of fun. The weather has not been very kind to our little part of the country and this weekend was no exception. But we made the most of it, especially the extra time we got to spend with Daddy!

We discovered a new park that was HUGE! It had three playgrounds that put Gavin into slide overload. That kid loves him some slides. 

We took Gavin to his first Build-A-Bear. I have seen these stores in the mall but I have never been inside one and we had no idea what the process was like or what it entailed. Gavin had a blast and I have to say I got all caught up in the whole thing. You pick out your bear, help stuff it with stuffing and a heart, give it a bath and then dress it up. All at a price of course but it was a lot of fun. And the most special part of it was that Gavin donated his bear to a kid that lost all of this toys in the tornadoes. He didn't make even a smidgen of a fuss when he put it in the donation box. He just dropped it in there and wanted to know where the Legos were.

Watching the stuffing machine turn over and over was his favorite part

He gave that bear a BIG ole bear hug!

Bath time

A Superman outfit and the bear was all ready to go to a boy that hopefully loves him very much

We drove over to Moore to take a look at the damage done by the tornado. I have to say, pictures and news broadcasts don't even come close to being able to capture the awful devastation that town had to endure. There are streets that are just completely leveled. You can't even get down them there is so much rubble. It's awful. But I was so amazed at how many people have flocked to Moore to help and lend a hand. They already have power lines up, streets signs back in place and the healing and rebuilding process has begun. I know it must be unspeakable to lose everything, but I have been renewed with love and respect for the people of Oklahoma. I have always said I have never met a nicer community of people. And this whole process has proven that my observation was right on. There are people all over Moore just helping out anyway they can. Food and water are on every corner. People that still have houses literally have signs on their lawns stating when they are serving dinner and that anyone is welcome to join them. Its amazing that through a disaster so much love can be found.   

Rubble everywhere and trees with no leaves or bark

This was a neighborhood!

Bad weather forced us to do a lot of inside activities and sometimes we brought outside activities into the mix. Bubbles are always a hit with Gavin so when he wouldn't let me wet his hair to comb it, I just blasted him with the bubble gun and it turned into the longest hair combing experience ever. 

Chad and I have been passing the time by watching documentaries on London, Paris and Rome in preparation for our upcoming trip to Europe. I have even taken up learning basic French. Bonjour, mademoiselle!  La carte des vins, s'il vous plait! (Hello, miss. The wine list please!) And during this time, Gavin has watched The Lorax about 8,000 times. How one can repeatedly watch the same thing over and over again is incomprehensible to me. But whatever floats your little boat. I'll be glad when we can get out and spend some sufficient time outside!

And the best news of all is the unbelievable efficiency of our house builders! Even with all this bad weather, they have managed to still make progress on our house. We have our concrete slats up and are now waiting on the plumbing to go in. It is certainly getting very exciting to see actual parts of our house in our future yard. Oh I just can't wait!!

The beginnings of Casa de Mihalek

So hopefully everyone had a great and memorable Memorial Day weekend. I hope you took a moment to remember and honor those that gave the greatest sacrifice for us to be able to enjoy such a nice long weekend. I know I am so glad and thankful to have my husband back home!