i'm ashamed to call myself a "blogger"

wow. i am really bad at this! i thought for sure that i would stay on top of a blog. wrong. i am recommitting and promising myself that i will blog on Sundays. no excuses. i mean for crying out loud, i'm awake 20 hours a day, surely i can squeeze in a blog once a week.

along the lines of a quick update, we have decided to do something new this year for thanksgiving. we will be spending thanksgiving day at "Knott's Berry Farm"! i am super excited about this for three reasons.
1. you all know what a kid i am and i LOVE amusement parks!
2. its FREE for military through thanksgiving day!
3. thanksgiving day is the official opening of the seasonal conversion to "Knott's Merry Farm"!

now, this means that there will be several special events planned in the park. the Charlie Brown Christmas Parade, Snoopy On Ice skating show, Christmas Craft Village (i should come home with a plethora of ides!), Thanksgiving Feast and of course the lighting of the 65ft tall Christmas TREE!!!!

we figured that there really isn't any point in cooking for an army and then feeding only four and we don't really want to travel back to KS during the holidays. that seems like more work than play. we like to play. SOOO, why not start our own Frakes Four tradition. a different amusement park every year on thanksgiving day. sounds right up our alley!

Life in the Frakes Lane

Hahahaha. Yeah, that was a pretty lame play on words but I couldn't help it! As lame as it may be, it's a pretty good fit. Things seem to always be going a million miles an hour around here with four permanent and one temporary (Uncle DJ...more on that later for those of you that don't know) family members each running in a different direction. This is what we CHOOSE to do. This is how we like it. I like to think of it as "organized chaos". There is a method to our madness and I wouldn't change it for a thing. Summertime is the peak of our schedule craziness and this summer has proved yet again to keep us running.

Tonight I just finished packing for what I like to call the "Opening Ceremonies" of this fantastic Frakes summer! Since school has been out we have been busy playing baseball, continuing karate, taking several weekend trips to California, Arizona and Kansas, all the while working and well, living. Now we are into phase two, the SUPER FUN STUFF! This weekend Megan (Megantron as we love to call her) are headed out to California for a friend trip. I am so incredibly excited about this. Not only are we filling our schedule with the beach and shopping and eating whatever we want, we will be spending Saturday at Disneyland! This is my second trip to Disneyland. First trip without children and husband obviously and all around my first ever friend trip! Back in January we both took advantage of the "give a day, get a day" program that Disney was offering. We spent a day volunteering with Habitat for Humanity helping them with some serious interior overhauling of their newly opened Habitat ReStore. I'm pretty sure it was the most well-worth-it hard labor I've ever done (yeah, children first but you know). So, now here we are six months later finally getting to enjoy a weekend full of the fruits of our labor. We'll head out tomorrow afternoon and the rest is history.

While I'm away things will still be moving full speed ahead around here. The boys have lined up sleepovers for Friday night and they have been talking about them non-stop all week :) Zach will get home Saturday afternoon from Texas. He's been out of town since Sunday at a trainers course of some sort. He had to prepare a couple of lessons to test his ability to teach and thankfully he was able to choose his own topic. Yes folks, he chose barbecue. He taught for 15-20 min about barbecuing. When I asked him how it went he said "I'm glad i picked something that I know a lot about because I was waaaay unprepared. It's okay though. I kicked ass like I always do." I love my husband. haha.

Sunday starts a whole new series of fun. Mike, Krisi and the kids will be getting here about the time that Megan and I are rolling back in to town. They are staying until Monday the 2nd of august so I can't wait to see what kind of fun we find. I'll be sure to let you know.

So, here we go. Life in the Frakes lane. The next four weeks are jam-packed!

What The Frakes?!

well, as everyone knows, there is never a dull moment around the Frakes home. we like it this way. we plan it this way. jam packed schedules are the only way we know how to function. this past weekend proved nothing less. Jenille came to visit! after a year of being apart, you can imagine the damage we did to vegas. no worries, the city gladly returned the favor. we have the bruises to prove it! A weekend full of road trips, shopping, late nights, water balloons, polish horse shoes, cheese burgers and friends was just what we needed. over the course of the weekend some genious coined the term "What The Frakes?!" i mean c'mon, how wonderful! What The Frakes?! just seems approriate, right? considering the constant (somewhat organized) chaos. I decided against making this gem of an expression our blog title though. well, here are a few pics from the Independence Day celebration! Enjoy :)

In the beginning...

Well, after much deliberation, I've decided its time to start a blog. It finally came down to the fact that we just have way too much fun living this life, to not better share it with our friends and family. I know we have Facebook but there is only so much you can cram into a status bar. Lets face it, I'm a story teller. Five hundred words is hardly enough to tell you about my trip to the post office let alone a trip to San Diego or one of our ever famous Frakes BBQ weekends! So, here we go. Bring on the blogging!