This last week was tough for us! We wanted to go back on vacation. But Hayden had a great time playing and relaxing. Some interesting things happened this week/end:

• Hayden is polka dotted. He has bug bites up and down his arms and a couple on his face. They are not going away. We think their Chigger bites, i don't' know anything about them! It happened in the sand in Mississippi.
  
• Counting to 3 really works with Hayden. I tell him to do something he doesn't do it, so then i tell him i am going to count to 3 and then he will take a timeout. So by 2 he is really moving! I hope this lasts a while!
  
• Jason was watching Rocky(The whole set was out, i think he watched all of them while we were gone!) and Hayden found the case and came running over to me "Look Mom its Elvis" SO cute! He talks about Elvis all the time. About his house, his airplanes, and how we rode a bus over to his house.
  
• Hayden does NOT want to wear his jacket. He thinks it should be warm out and he should be able to wear his crocs with no jacket. But we brought out his spring jacket and cute gap hat, that Mommy loves so much
  
• On Friday night/Saturday morning Hayden woke up yelling my name.(not unusual he usually just wants me to get him milk) but i went in there and he was shaking. He was afraid of something. We don't know what it was but he is still talking about it. He keeps saying a Blue Train made a storm. But there wasn't a train outside that morning, they wake me up every time they go by at night. So i don't know if he had a dream or if something was outside his window. Hopefully he can get him to go in there again.
  
  Okay have a great week. I am going to try and put the rest of my vacation pictures on here too!
  

Today Jason is 25! A whole quarter of a century! What an old man. We celebrated with a party on Saturday. We gave him his gift which was a very nice laptop, if i do say so myself. My mom and dad and Jason's mom and dad all went in with me to buy it for him. He is VERY excited about it. It has XP professional on it, which means Microsoft Office. For those who have big deal but those who don't have it you may know our excitement about it. My mom made a homemade cake that Hayden couldn't wait to get his fingers into! Happy Birthday Jason! We Love You Lots!

Kasie and Hayden

Okay i am redoing my pictures from the trip into two categories. Hayden pics and others. The first i am doing is Hayden. I hope everyone had a nice Easter, we sure did. Its really nice to be home and now we are cleaning, doing laundry and going grocery shopping, we have nothing! I did caption some of the pictures, but if you have any questions or thoughts please share!

Today was depressing. It didn't get above 40 and we have snow! Yuck. We want to go back to the South. I would love to live down there. We stayed the night in Litchfield, IL last night and then drove to Springfield to Abraham Lincoln's house and tomb. Its werid to think how old it is! Its very grand actually. The national park service has taken it over and has 4 square blocks of park. Is house he lived in before moving to the White house is what we toured. They even have real Lincoln family artifacts. He actually has no living descents. ITs free too! The tomb is HUGE and his family is all buried there or honored there. I have pictures i'll post tomorrow i am sure. It doesn't feel like it really is Easter tomorrow. But i am sure the Easter Bunny will leave Hayden a very generous basket at home. We are in Madison staying at a Waterpark tonight and leaving early tomorrow morning and coming home. We are celebrating Easter at my cousin James tomorrow at 3, so we'll get home and quckly change and head over there. Hayden is having a ball in the waterpark. I brought him up after an hour and half down swimming and then Emily took him back down to sit in the Hot Tub. Well they are back i better go! Have a great Easter.

yikes! Its really hard to be without Internet for 3 days! Biloxi was beautiful. Mobile too! I can't believe how lucky we were to have such nice weather we saw a high of 86 and it was around 73 at the Gulf. Our hotel room over looked the water and we even saw a pod of dolphins. We were on the 9th floor at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi. You couldnt imagine the devastation from Hurricane Katrina still in the area. Many people don't realize that this was the area that actually got hit the hardest. The city was like crushed. So many what i can only imagine beautiful beach front historic mansions just flattened by Katrina. The city was begun to rebuild and beautify its magnificent city. We drove to Farve on the Bayou, or what it use to be. Its now only a sign. It was in Pass Christian where Brett Farve went to School. What beautiful county, with big huge Live Oak trees, bayous and Spanish Moss. There was still Mansions and cute beach homes. Wonderful Iron Work on the houses. Of course we had yummy seafood too. They have 26 mile long white sand beach. Hayden loved that. We went to the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center which i got 4 people in free with my new Children's Museum Membership. It was great. They had a giant nest filled with stuffed animals that we cuddled up and read stories. I want a nest now! Seriously. I can't believe how historic some of these places are. Mobile was celebrating over 300 years of being a city. Thats crazy to me. All these businesses and houses that were built in the 1700's. Hayden has been a good boy mostly too. He has had his moments, they are coming closer together too! But i just need to keep in mind he is 3 and a great traveller. The Dvd player is a life saver. Our pool at the Beau was closed but the hot tub wasnt we had lots of fun in the huge hot tub swimming and getting tanned. We saw Brandon's principle Mr Mertzig and his wife, Kathy. I know them a little bit. I was friends with their daughter. But what a small world. Biloxi is also where Barq's pop was invented. We saw the house, very cool! I bought it in bottles for Jason back home. It was so green and lush down there. I am sad to come home to winter and blah. Spring better come soon. I hope everyone has a great Easter. We'll be home Sunday afternoon. I'll post more later!

Okay here are all the pictures i have taken so far on the trip. I can't edit them or flip them so sorry! And i am sure you'll have no clue what half the things are. But enjoy!


Editor's Note: I deleted the pictures look at newer post for pictures.

Today we went to Graceland! It was very cool. I wasn't expecting it to be as fun as it was. Hayden now knows who Elvis is. He wanted to know where he was, but didn't want to talk to him. He liked his airplane the "Lisa Marie" and the tram ride. He also liked Elvis's grave due to the fountain. We had lunch at Central BBQ. We made a last minute change to another hotel. We are know staying in downtown Memphis right by Beale street. We watched the Peabody Ducks today too. Google them! Very cute and unique. We had dinner at the Commencry in Germantown outside of Memphis. Brett Farve has visited there too. I had smoked turkey and sweet potato fries, yummy! Hayden actually slept all the way through dinner. We went back to the hotel and then went on a horse drawn carriage ride. It was beautiful and a little chilly at li;ke 50 degrees! Hahaha. Okay i am going to post pictures! See you soon!

We made it to Memphis! As i write this my little traveller is fast asleep next to me. He has been such a good boy for the most part. He has had his moments. He has watched a lot of parts of movies and has played letters, markers, and all sorts of other stuff, i am running out of stuff for him to do in the car! But we are hitting up some gift shops tomorrow at Graceland! =) and the Children's Museum i do believe. I thinking i am buying a family membership for the year there. Its only $75.00 and it gets me into the Duluth, and St Paul children's museums for free. One in Gulf Shores too. We have been talking about going there next week.
Yesterday we drove to Stout to get Emily, had college food for lunch, some Spudniks(yummy potato doughnut holes from a place in Chetek), and were on our way again. We of course had to stop in Mauston for some super fresh and squeaky Cheese Curds. We drove until Springfield, IL and had dinner at a Smokey Bones. We have eaten there before. Its good! Hayden and i are sharing food for this trip. My way of saving money and eating less. Portion control! So far so good. I am also only drinking water and coffee. Today i was evil eyeing my brothers Dr pepper it looked really good! We stayed the night in Festus MO. Last night. We didn't get in until 11ish. So it was a quick stay. We woke up and hit the road this morning around 9 i think. We ate an early but very cool lunch at Lamberts. Home of the Throwed Rolls. They sit you down and throw rolls to people who want them. They also have "free" sides that we can get with your HUGE meals. Hayden and i shared Roast Beef dinner. It came with mashed potatos and your choice of sides plus the rolls and the free sides. The food was good homecookin'. They also give you HUGE plastic travel mugs with your drink in it. Pretty cool place. I would highly recommend it to anyone going through Missouri. We got into Memphis around 2 and went to the Pink Palace. It was the founder of Piggly Wiggly's mansion. Built in 1926 but never finished due to the Great Depression. The city received the house that nobody never finished or lived in and turned it into a museum. They had all sorts of stuff. Ranging from Dinosaurs, to butterflies, to mini circus, civil war artifacts, and shrunken heads. I have a picture of Hayden saying "Shrunken Head". Ahhh Mommies! It was neat. We actually had our picture taken in front before on our way home from New Orleans when Hayden was 3 months old. Okay i am off for the night! Daddy if you read this we love you and miss you!

We're off! Just saying have a good Spring Break to all those we get to have one! We are off to Memphis, then Mobile, then Biloxi and then home again! Have a great easter too! I will update very regularly with pictures! Stay tune!

PS I HATE SOCKS!

I am going to try to rename my blog something to do with that statement, If you have any cute ideas please comment them!

Here are a few pictures from Saturday. My sister was home for the weekend with a camera from school. A Nikon D50 to be exact. Powerful camera! Here are some pictures i snapped of Hayden. Enjoy!

Ice Fishing! Hayden, Jason, and Papa Smith went Ice Fishing on Monday. They sadly did not catch anything but still had lots of fun! Pictures to prove it!