trips and dog hair

We have been one traveling family this summer. The boys and we doggies went back up to the Farm in Virginia this past week to spend time with Oma Sally, Papa Dale, Uncle Luke, Aunt Jessica and Isabelle. We had a great visit of boat riding, fishing, & gator rides.

Jon & Emma voyaged down to Panama City Beach, Florida with Weddington Community Church's youth group. They loved spending time with the kids and other chaperones at camp. It was an amazing experience when several kids gave their lives to Christ and got baptized in the ocean. They look forward to deepening relationships to the other people who went on the trip.

So...where will our family go in a week and a half? To Texas, of course! That should be our last trip of the summer since Colton starts preschool at the end of August. Preschool! Can you believe it? Take a look at our big boy!

And of course you need to check out our doggy lover. This child loves us more than most things- even his new lizard flashlight from Oma & Papa.

And...this looks a little wierd...but we think it's interesting. Emma cut our hair (mainly Jenga's) before our trip to VA...and it looks like she cut a dog off a dog. Enjoy your day.

CAROWINDS!

Cole's favorite ride...look at that excitement!

Did you all know that Ima Carol is in town? We are having so much fun with her (despite the fact that when she's here, our family goes out and does fun things and leaves us in the backyard...we don't mind though, really.) On Saturday, they went to Carowinds and the boys had a blast! Through the heat and crowds, they had so much fun riding rides and taking it all in. At first, Colton seemed a little hesitant about the bigger rides. But Jon convinced him to go on a "train" (the Woodstock Express which is actually a fun little roller coaster) and he absolutely LOVED it. He rode it about 8 or 9 times throughout the day. Beckett's favorite things were the Woodstock gliders (which actually went really high!), the train, and he even got to go on a fun little waterslide! Next year, we know that if Beck's tall enough, those boys are gonna ride the roller coaster all day together.

One of Beck's favorites...

(Cooling off a little!)

Happy Father's Day, Jon! WE LOVE YOU!!!

Playing Puppies

One of the boys' favorite things to do right now is play "puppy." They like to pretend to take puppy naps and then wake up and jump up and lick and bark and play. It's cute.

Beckett LOVES us pups. He always remembers to give us attention and hugs. WE LOVE BECK. And he's funny too. This evening, as the boys were playing upstairs with daddy and getting ready for bed, Beckett stole Cole's PJs and laughed hysterically about it.

With all the children leaving Jacksonville and heading up north, our family must have accidentally brought home one of the Keigley children! Bergen stayed with us for a couple days and we all enjoyed having him! Cole & Berg are quickly becoming best buds. They played so well...and even though Beckett felt left out sometimes, they all enjoyed hanging out together.

Go Carts Go!

In my last post we wrote about Cole's time in Florida as well as Emma & Beck's travels to meet up with him and the boys' new cousin, Rowan. (Look, we're doing so good...a second post in just under a week! We're trying to do better for our few hopefully loyal readers!) While our family was in Tallahassee, they went to Uncle Stin's place of employment, FUN STATION! Cole rode on go carts for the first time and had a blast! The carousel machines didn't work, but we still think Beck looked pretty cute on the lion below! The boys had a great time playing games inside too....Cole's favorites were skee-ball & battleship.

Rowan

Colton went down to Florida two weeks ago with Oma Sally, knowing that Emma was going down for baby Rowan to be born soon. He had a great time playing with his uncles & with Oma Sally & Papa Dale. We missed him so much and are so glad all our family is back home now! Our family actually grew when they came back and we have one extra boy in the house. His name is Bergen and he's staying with us this week- we like him. Here are some shots of the adorable new baby Rowan & our family with him. Cole had about the same reaction to Rowan that he did to Beckett. There was no way we were going to put that baby on his lap. We wish we could have gone down to Florida to play with Luna- maybe next visit!

Soccer!

I know it's been awhile since we've posted anything-- we are lazy dogs and we have actually been quite busy. We sure do hope our readers will come back and read about the fun and amazing Joersz boys. The images of this post might be surprising to some of you who know that Cole was very reserved at the beginning of the soccer season. In fact, Emma and Jon were about to call off soccer games for the rest of the season because he just didn't play. He didn't want to- instead he sat on our laps and was very shy towards his coach & other players. But all of a sudden- last Sunday, he decided he was ready to play. He doesn't go out of his way to kick the ball, (and sometimes he runs out of the way to avoid the ball...) but he is running on the field and listening to his coach and talking to the other players. We're so proud of our boy! {Will try to post some more new pictures soon and more often!}

transformer underwear

did I mention that Beckett is working on potty training?
any ideas, suggestions or words of encouragement?

big boys!

FLORIDA!

We got home from Florida this past Monday and we had SO MUCH FUN! The trip down was nice and Jon drove the whole way (Emma liked that). Addie and I were crammed in the back because we brought down several baby things for Erik & Sarah's little guy. Addie didn't seem to care about giving me any space in the back seat and sprawled herself out. I sat up most of the way, but that's okay- I was excited to see where my family was taking me! We spent most of our trip outside with our aunts Maizey and Molly and even got to spend some time with our sweet cousin Luna. We jumped in Lake Sometimes and fetched sticks and splashed around. This was our idea of a fun time- that and running off and making Emma drive to find us!

The boys had a great time seeing most of their uncles during our trip. (Wish we could have had Luke, Jess & Izzy down too!) During our time down in Florida, they went to a dinosaur museum, played outside, went to the BEST PLAYGROUND EVER, played with airplanes, went on walks....all sorts of fun. Our family is traveling again this week but is leaving us home. Don't worry, we'll try to behave. Enjoy looking at some pictures of the fun times we had in Florida!

[Cool life-like dinosaurs that Colton said were "too loud!"]

Yellow Snow

When I woke up and Jon let me outside to go to the bathroom on Saturday morning, my paws stepped out into this wet white substance called SNOW. I was quite excited to play in it and so was my family. The boys got all bundled up and went outside to throw snowballs and make a snowman. After Beckett's gloves got wet, he decided it was time to go in, but Colton wanted to stay out and play for a long time. He had a blast! We went out again today for a walk and enjoyed some sunny snow time! I hope this snow comes back soon!

-Addie

New bike...

Colton got a new bike this week with Christmas money from G.G. and Grandpa. He's grown so much in the past few months that all of a sudden, he looked huge on his little bike that we got him for his last birthday. His new ride is a 16" red Huffy that says "Rockit" on the side. (Like rocket and rock it! at the same time) He loves it and also loves the new accessories...a cool horn, new kneepads, elbow pads & even a super-cool pair of bike gloves where his fingers stick out. He didn't like the change to the new helmet (his old one was Cars-themed) but after the bike ride this morning, we think he likes his blue shark helmet which fits better too! We doggies are quite fond of all the walks we are going on as well. Thanks G.G & Grandpa!

Christmas...

We just had a lovely 4 day Christmas celebration as a family. It was very nice and relaxing! We pups got some new pink collars (our other ones were STINKY! In fact, WE are stinky and need baths too- get on that, EMMA!) The boys loved opening presents this year (Cole especially), and moved from one present to the next very quickly. We read the story of Jesus' birth from Cole's new Bible. When we woke up in the morning, it was raining very hard. Cole asked, "Is it raining because God poured a cup of water down?"

It's been fun to have Jon home for 4 whole days and not be traveling! I'm sure we won't always have Christmases like this one, but I do hope that we will try to be still and remember why we're celebrating in years to come!

Favorite gift for each kid?

Colton- Legos. He loves those things! (And Jon had a fun time assembling them too!)

Beckett- Chapstick. He'd carry that thing around and put it on all day if he could. He's so proud to have his own.

Peanut Butter Kisses ROCK!

Addie Here. I just wanted to share with you the most delicious treat that I experienced this week. Yes, they might have been sealed in a bag and pushed to the back of the counter top... but I found a way to reach them and eat every single one (even most of the plastic bag too!). These peanut butter kiss cookies were quite a favorite- Jon and the boys LOVED eating them and Emma obviously liked taking pictures of them. I hear they'll be making more and plan to keep them away from me. We'll see how that goes!

Today

Highlights of our trip to Texas

We doggies were not allowed to fly out to Texas with our family for Thanksgiving this year. We're not holding it against them, just saying that Jessica made the effort to drive down with her pups and they had a great time spending time with our family. In this blog post, we're going to pretend we got to have fun in Texas...

Jessica and the boys. Suprisingly Emma didn't take any pictures of Banter and Taupper!

Grannie and Grandpa with the boys. I think we bribed Colton with dessert here...

We went down to Temple to spend Thanksgiving day with family and had a great time!

Zane and Maddie kept the boys entertained and they had a great time together. Zane even taught Colton how to tackle his mommy. Hmm.... Thanks Zane!

Here's Jessica and Al when we went to the Botanical Gardens to take family pictures. It was a beautiful place!

The boys loved playing with Jeremy and Chillon. The boys quickly warmed up to Chillon when she gave them a piece of gum. GUM is their favorite these days! Beckett finally keeps it in his mouth now.

A goofy family photo. Those are always fun.

The boys' favorite activity in Texas was a train ride in Fort Worth. We went twice and the train went through the park, across a river and under another (real) train track. They thought it was great!

Besides the trains, an all week favorite activity was playing in the leaves in Ima and Papa's backyard. Neighbor kids came over.

They ran, jumped, hid in & threw all over- wonderful fall leaves!