Not quite 3 weeks ago our family travelled to Savannah, GA to see off David's "little" brother, Phillip.  He has been deployed along with more than 3,000 other soldiers of the Indiana Army National Guard to Iraq.  The ceremony was amazing.  Just seeing all of those soldiers lined up...almost more than my camera could get in!   

We "thought" we knew what group Phil was in...turns out, we were looking at the wrong group...something about 3000 people all dressed the same and marching the same makes it a tad difficult to distinguish them.

Somehow, this is the only picture I got of "our" soldier.  He was holding his baby girl, Isabelle, who he hadn't seen since she was 5 weeks old (she is now almost 4 months...I may be a tad off on one of these numbers, but we're close  ).

The army put on a great "festival" for the families.  Our kids had a blast on all of the blow-up slides and bouncy gyms.  They played little games for candy and toys, ate hot dogs, had their faces painted and even held a tiny aligator and snake (well, only Joshy did that)...and all for free!!!  Thank you taxpayers!!

Here's Josh and Jules having a ball...

Susanna LOVED her American flag...and, yes, she loves her "boops", too.  She sort of grew out of her black dress shoes and I wasn't about to buy a new pair this close to spring...and she loves to put on her boots all by herself...and, well, she's just so cute with them...

Phil got a few days of leave after the ceremony, so we spent a day in Savannah with Granne, Grandad, Uncle Phil, Aunt Melissa and Isabelle.  We went to a restaurant called The Lady and Sons...apparently the restaurant of some famous cooking show lady...Paula Deen...I've never seen her here under my rock, but if the crowd outside the restaurant was any indication, she has some fans that don't live under rocks.  Actually, because we had a party of over 10, we were able to get reservations (reason #652 to have lots of kids ) and walk right past the crowd on the parking lot...even though we didn't know who Paula Deen was!!

Here's a couple of pictures of Susanna enjoying her Daddy and her grossly overpriced food.  It's the only 2 pictures I snapped while wrestling Sammy (19 mo) who decided early that he'd eaten enough and now wanted to show everyone how ugly a temper looks even in a baby!  Good times.  I ate a few bites standing up with him, begged my 2 non-eating children to eat something, and then realized if they didn't eat their food, well, then...I get to eat their dessert!!  Good deal!

We were smart enough to let our 2 oldest drink sweet tea...and, boy, was that waiter, whose name was Vyt which rhymes with Beet...where'd that name come from??? on top of the refills.  So, we spent the next several hours looking for and visiting restrooms all over Savannah.  

Savannah is a beautiful city with what appeared to be lots of shopping.  I wasn't about to take my crew into all those fru-fru shops, though.  We did visit the candy shop  , got scared half at of our minds by the ferry boat blowing it's horn right next to us...David, Jr jumped, cowering, behind a tree, the babies ducked in their stroller, David, Sr. jumped out of his skin and I ducked for cover and braced for what seemed surely would be the train that was going to run us down right there in front of the candy shop, and greatly enjoyed playing in the water fountains in one of the many squares that the city is built around.  (Now how's that for a run-on sentence).

Here's the crew...between bathroom breaks... 

 Here they are again posing with Uncle Phil and Isabelle at the hotel..  Julia seems to have inherited my inability to open my eyes when looking at the sun.

Next topic...  in David's science experiment book, he found a fun idea...to build things out of gumdrops and toothpicks.  So, after a couple of months of forgetting to get them every time we went to the store, we finally remembered.  I got 2 bags of gumdrops and 4 boxes of toothpicks.  Turned out to be woefully inadequate, though they would have used all I got no matter how many that had been...they had so much fun!

Julia's creations started small...

 This is the beginning of David's "Eiffel Tower"...I don't think I've mentioned in awhile how much I love this boy...he has, at times, been my "high maintenance" child, but in the last 4-6 months, he has become my right arm and my buddy!  He has learned to be a hard worker, doing anything we ask him to do without complaint (and as the oldest of 5, we ask ALOT sometimes).  He has just become so loving and so sweet and so fun to be around!  7 looks good on him!

 Julia's creations got a bit bigger...the 2 bridges on the left are hers...the ones on the right are David's.

When we ran out of gumdrops, Julia built an Eiffel Tower with blocks...and took her own picture of it...since I was, of course, taking a nap...

Have I mentioned how much I ADORE my 2 youngest destroyers kids?  To think...they were so thoughtful and creative that they took my fresh baked bread and made me a bread bowl out of one...Who needs Paneral Bread soup-in-a-bowl...we've got it right here! 

Here are the two trouble makers...can't stay upset with them for too long...even when they go straight from the bread to the pantry to empty boxes of cereal and on to the clean folded laundry basket and empty it piece-by-piece...and EVEN when one takes a Sharpie to the new, not-so-cheap, leather couch...at least she only made two lines and then brought the marker to me, saying, "No write on couch".

Lastly, our newest batch of baby chicks arrived yesterday.  We are in chicky heaven.  We got 7 different varieties this time and we learned just how fragile their little 2 day old bodies are when Susanna loved one of them to death...oops...