Jamaica!!!

 Montego Bay, Jamaica

 One of the pools at our resort...so pretty!

 The beautiful view we saw everyday.

 Jarrad and I booked a private dinner on the beach. 

The food was ok, but it was really neat.

 Another dinner night...did I mention how hot and humid

Jamaica is?!

 Sarah(the bride) and I. Isn't she beautiful?!

She is such a good friend.

 If you look in the back of this picture,

you can see rooms that are connected to the pool.

We of course, stayed in the cheapest room and we barely could afford that. :)

 Day of Sarah's wedding. It was beautiful, but really,really,

HOT! 

 Courtney(Sarah's sister), Julie(friend) and I.

 I took this the day we were leaving. It was the 

nicest building I saw in Jamaica. Most looked like 

shacks.

I love this picture! I took this from the plane the day we left.

The first week in August, Jarrad and I were on our way to Negril, Jamaica!  Our friend/neighbor Sarah invited us to go see her and her fiance' Brett get married.  Jarrad and I usually, like to take a nice vacation just the two of us every few years or so. And, since Sarah's wedding was around our anniversary we decided, Let's Go!!  I'm so glad we did.  It was such a nice time.  Traveling there seemed to take forever, but once we got there it was worth it. Our resort was beautiful!

Our activities included, laying out, eating, pool, Pina Coladas(virgin of course), laying out and of course eating!!  We did go kayaking and that was about as ambitious as we got with activity.  I seriously gained 5 pounds in 4 days!! That' s what happens when you go to an all inclusive resort. :)  It was so nice to not have anything to do.  Probably, Jarrad and I's only complaint was that we couldn't go tour around Jamaica.  It's not a very safe place, so we were mostly confined to our resort, but it was still a wonderful time. Sarah and Brett's wedding was really nice and we made some great memories there. Looking at these pictures makes me want to go back!

Happy 4th Birthday Kylen!!!

On July 9th, my youngest turned 4 years old!  Kylen is our little spitfire!  I always joke that if he was born first, he would have been an only child. :-) He is so animated and he loves anything super hero and...Justin Bieber.  His favorite super heroes are Batman, Spiderman and Superman. This is a nice change for us because most of you know that Jayden and Talan or car nuts and we have every car toy known to man.  So, it's so nice to buy some different toys for a change.

His was spoiled to death with super hero toys from all the family, but his big present from us was the Batcave.  You can kinda see it in the last picture.  He was so excited about that.  Jarrad once again, did an awesome job on Ky's Spider man cake.  We didn't do a big party for him, but on his actual birthday we took his best friend Ava and our neighbors London and Roman to the McDonald's play place in town.  They had a good time together!

Happy 4th Birthday Kylen!!!  We love you!!  Thanks for keeping us on our toes and giving us some good laughs! 

Happy 9th Birthday Jayden!

You know when you're in a store and your baby is screaming in the cart and some old lady comes and says to you, "Enjoy your little ones now because they grow up so fast and you'll miss this."  And, you nod your head and think you're crazy lady.  I'll never miss a screaming baby. While I don't really miss the screaming part, I agree with the "crazy store lady" that my babies are growing up way too fast!  My first baby, Jayden turned 9 years old on May 31st!  He's such a good boy too.  We couldn't be more proud of how this kid is turning out. He gets a lot of his good traits from his mother, so it's understandable. :-)

He had some friends for a sleepover and lots of fun toys.  His big present from us was a bigger bike.  His Grandma and Grandpa Asay were able to come up and give him his Skylanders game, which was really cool, since they don't get up here that often.  Next year, I may cry when I write his birthday post because he'll be in double digits!  Happy 9th Birthday Jayden! We love you!

Spartan Race April 2012

This past April, Jarrad and I decided to try a 4 mile "mud race" that according to my friend from high school, would be a fun time. Yeah, look at my finishing picture...does that say fun time to you?  Let's just say, when I signed up for this race that I knew little about it besides it being in Indiana and it involved mud.  Which I'm a very adventurous person and so is Jarrad, so I was all for it.

Then as the race started to get closer, more and more information was being posted about it.  Then I started getting more concerned. (Read the fourth picture down) It was after reading this section that I realized, it was more than just a "fun" little mud run.  It was military or bust style...Wonderful!  So, just imagine how excited I was the morning of the race, to pick up my race packet that in bold red letters said, Warning you may die or be catastrophically injured during this race!  And, even better than that...it was a whopping 42 degrees outside and within the first 10 minutes of the race we had to swim across a pond!

During this 4 mile race, we had to carry big logs up steep muddy hills. Swim across two freezing ponds, well the first one was cold. By the time I reached the last one it felt warm. We had to climb up 2 ropes, 4 huge nets that was over mud. Jump across mud pits, jump in mud pits and go through about a mile of barbed wire.  I can't forget jumping across fire into a huge mud hole. Climb up tons of steep muddy hills with ropes to help us not slide back down. We had to walk across slippery logs and climb and jump over some more mud mountains.  You get the point, I'm sure. 

And, truth be told, if it would have been about 20 degrees warmer it would have been a pretty decent time, but it wasn't and I was freezing. Around three miles in my calves were starting to cramp up. I knew it would be a matter of time and sure enough, jumping over a mud pit my right calf completely locked up.  Thank goodness Jarrad was there to unlock it for me. That hurt! Jarrad had an unfortunate encounter with a rope.  Let's just say, it's a good thing we're done having children. I think he almost puked from the pain.

It honestly seemed like it would never end!  Just when we thought we were almost done another big obstacle would be there waiting for us. But, I was determined to finished. You didn't get a t-shirt if you didn't cross the finish line and I wanted that shirt I paid for!   We never stopped for a break and we finished in two hours!  Big shout out to Jarrad, who basically carried me through the last few obstacle because my calves were cramping up. 

I was so proud of Jarrad and I for finishing this race.  Because of the horrible weather only 70 percent finished this race.  Other runners that had done previous Spartan Races, said this race was 10 times harder.

Jarrad going through a mud pit.

Me a lovely shade of blue. 

Us before...so oblivious to what we were getting ready to do.

This my first taste of...I think I made a big mistake!

Jarrad is a little blue also, but he fared better than me in that weather!

As crazy as that race was, the worst part for me was after the race.  I had mild hypothermia and could barely talk or stay conscious for that matter.  I had never felt so sick and horrible in my life.  I stripped off my wet clothes in Jarrad's car and put his seat heaters on high and shivered for about two hours. I think those wonderful seat heaters saved me from going to the hospital! By the end of the car ride I felt quite a bit better, but it was really scary. 


All in all, I was still glad we did it.  I felt like a total bad a** for doing that race and it was fun to do it with Jarrad. It is something we did together that neither one of us will forget. That being said, we haven't signed up for next years race. :)

Spring Break Myrtle Beach!!!

This past April we decided to take a road trip and head on down to Myrtle Beach, SC for spring break.  As you can see from the some of the pictures, we had a blast!  We packed in a lot of fun for our 4 night stay.  That's not to say there weren't a few bumps in the road along the way.  I'm a Lipply, and us Lipplys' are known for our "bad luck".  Our "bump" happened our first night in Myrtle Beach.  Jarrad and I had decided that on our way down to SC would stay the night about 3 or so hours away from Myrtle Beach, so we wouldn't be very tired on our first day there.  Well, on our drive down our kids were AWESOME!!! Like we couldn't even believe awesome and the kids wanted to drive all the way there.  So, we thought, what the heck, let's keep driving we'll find a hotel once we're there.  Yeah, needless to say, our luck ran out there.  Every freaking hotel was booked and it was 10:30pm and we've been in the car since 6am.  Long story short, we ended up the nastiest hotel ever made.  It was called the Value Place.  I would've rather slept in the car...seriously...it was horrible. I curled up in a ball and tried not to move the whole night. Dang that Lipply luck!

Thankfully, that was the worst part of the vacation and at least we got it over with first!  The rest of the time was incredible!  It was so nice to be able to go on a vacation and not have to take a stroller, pack-n-play etc.  We got a 2 bedroom condo that was huge and incredible views of the ocean.  Each room had its own private balcony.  Our vacation included a trip to Hard Rock, a dolphin cruise, a round of miniature golf (which I won) :-), a trip to Planet Hollywood and lots of time spent on the beach and playing in the ocean.

In the last picture you see Jayden holding a turtle.  In our resort, they had lots of ponds where you could fish for free and didn't have to worry about buying a fishing license.  We knew this ahead of time and brought the  boys' fishing rods.  The only problem was there seemed to be more turtles than fish.  So, Jayden and Talan both caught turtles.  Jayden brought his back to show me and then took him back to the pond.  Not exactly what he wanted, but at least he caught something.

None of us wanted to leave Myrtle Beach. Jayden and Talan both asked if we could live there. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, but I know they will have great memories of this trip. I love family vacations!

Rain gutter Regatta

This past March, Jayden competed in a Rain-gutter Regatta with his fellow cub scout pack at church.  This was a whole new experience for the Asay family, whom specializes in pine wood derby car races.  We had no idea how to make a fast boat!  So about a week before the race, Jayden and Jarrad worked hard on the sail boat and did a great job.


It was definitely a learning experience for both Dad and Jayden.  As you can see in the pictures, they had actual rain gutters filled with water and you had to blow your boat down the gutter with a straw.  It doesn't seem to complicated, but you'd be surprised how easy it is to tip over your boat.  Jayden caught on toward the end and had a fun time.  We'll be better prepared next time!

Kylen as Justin Bieber at OneTrueMedia.com

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Our little Kylen has caught a bad case of Bieber Fever! It's no joke, I hear Justin Bieber songs ALL THE TIME! Since Jarrad and I have recentley gotten Iphones, Kylen got Jarrad's old ipod touch. He is constantly listening and performing Justin songs with it. And, I have to say, it is super cute to watch and who knows, maybe the kid will make us rich in the future! :-) He has memorized most of the songs and watches the Justin Bieber movie to learn some dance moves. It's pretty hilarious and secretly, I love it, because I'm a music junkie and it's fun to have a kid that enjoys it as much as me. I just wish he has a little more variety in his music tastes. It's amazing to me how each child can be so different. :)