Hog Heaven

We've been in Northwest Arkansas since Wednesday. My dear cousin Amanda got married on Saturday so the whole Link crew decided to make a vacation out of it! My parents went down much earlier, but the Reeds, LeBlancs and Links headed up there mid-week. Our kids loved it because they got to miss a few more days of school...not bad since Spring Break was last week!!!

We stayed in Bella Vista, a community where my parents have a timeshare and drove into Siloam Springs to visit with my Mema and other family that were in town for the wedding. We really enjoyed our time together and thanks to all of the good cooks in our family, we ate and ate and ate. On Friday night we introduced our spouses and kids to a Link family tradition and had dinner at the Venesian Inn in a little community called Tontitown.

Although the weather got pretty chilly, it didn't stop my Dad, Bryan and Matt from playing lots of golf and Peyton and David got in one day of good tennis play.  The kids enjoyed being outside playing at the park and exploring.

The wedding was great and Amanda was a BEAUTIFUL bride. The look on her husband's face when he first saw her walking down the aisle was priceless! The reception was held in the really neat community center downtown and was so pretty decorated in the wedding colors of pink and gray. And the wedding cake...SO good!

We had a wonderful time and need to make sure that we don't wait so long to all get together as a family again. I took tons of pictures but here are some my favorites.

Tennis anyone?

Cousins! Minus Ethan who was napping

Love these four kiddos!

Granddaddy and E Man

Kids visiting the Veterans Memorial in Bella Vista

David

David, Katy and Bryan

Pretty Mema

Enjoying their treat after dinner at the Venesian Inn

Dad and Mom at the wedding reception

Cousins~Nicole, me, Amanda, Matt and Sarah

Me, Matt and Nicole

My precious Aunt Melanie
who was a beautiful mother of the bride

Enjoying the sparkler box before we headed
 outside to send off the bride and the groom

Four pretty girls with their sparklers

Katy and Me

My sweet Preston

Love my Peyton

Spring Break and a little Madness

It's been Spring Break this week although it really hasn't felt too different. I took off on Tuesday because Peyton had a doctor's appt in Dallas, but other than that it's been a normal week for us. The boys have really enjoyed spending time with David in the mornings and getting more time with Grammy in the afternoons.

The most exciting thing around here has been the start of March Madness. Each year David has had us fill out brackets so that we can keep up with tournament. This year we've had some extra fun because there is also a Link Family bracket. Everyone from my side of the family has submitted a bracket online...including Pearson who is playing in utero! After the first day my sister and I were tied for the lead. My bracket has suffered a few dings today, but hopefully it will all even out. Since my beloved Bears didn't make the big dance again this year, I'm pulling for the Jayhawks...GO KANSAS!!

All things new and improved

So...what do you think about our new look?!? I'm really happy with it. Ashley at Great Gabbie Designs did a really nice job of taking my big ol' wish list and then used her talents to come up with this cute design. Yeah! Of course now that means that I'm going to have to be better about blogging. We've got some fun stuff coming up so it shouldn't be too hard to get back into the swing of things. Of course, I may have to loosen up on my issue about having posts without pictures.

SO....this is what's been up with us so far this week. It's Texas Public Schools Week here in the great state and the boy's school had a Parent Involvement Night on Monday. Preston and the rest of his Kindergarten classmates were supposed to perform a music program that they've been working on but the poor music teacher has been out with the flu and it had to be rescheduled. Instead we visited the various booths and collected our door prize tickets. Next, everyone headed to the cafeteria where we ate pizza and spread out tickets hoping to win. Sadly we didn't win anything but we definitely had a great time visiting with our friends the Smith's and the Cobb's.

I also participated in another TPS Week activity by reading to the sweetest group of second graders at Terrell Elementary. I read Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato, Cindy Ellen -A Wild Western Cinderella and some other book about an albino squirrel (weird!) . After I was done, Jonathan Cannon a reporter I work with a lot interviewed me about the importance of reading. The story was on the front page of the paper today which was pretty neat.

That's all for now. Let me know what you think about the new design and drop by Ashley's blog and let her know too. I bet she'd appreciate hearing from you!

Getting a new look

SO excited that this blog is going to get a make-over soon thanks to Great Gabbie Designs!!