Haircut!

I knew I wanted Abree to have a trim, before school started.

I put it off until the night before!

Here goes nothing.....

BEFORE

AFTER

Boy, I sure do miss Tawnya in moments like these. I wasn't very happy with my lack of skills and choppy results. After trimming it here-and-there, for a few days, it looks ok now.

Kindergarten Orientation

As a mom, you think the day will never come.... when all of your children are in school and you actually have some kid-FREE time to yourself during the day. I am here to testify that it does. This my year.

I'm being weaned gradually, with only 1/2 day Kindergarten, but from 12:50 to 3:10-ish (when Taylee gets home) I have no kids to answer to.

Everyone keeps saying, "What will you do with ALL of your FREE time?!" At first this distressed me... "What AM I going to do with my time?!!" But as I really started thinking about it, I started to relax... "What ever I feel like I WANT to do, GOSH!" said in my most Napoleon Dynamite accent. Reality?...... probably volunteering at the school with my kids. :)

The week before school started, Abree was invited to a Kindergarten Orientation.

We got to meet her new teacher Mrs. Matthews.

We also familiarized ourselves with the classroom and other important places; bathroom, line-up spot, backpack place and cubby. One of Abree's favorite places was the kitchen area. She only eyeball-ed it, while we were there, but I'm sure she will have many hours of fun with it, in the future.

Another highly anticipated area is the puppet theater.

After 3 years of pre-school, this girl is READY for Kindergarten!

We were excited to find out we already knew 3 of her classmates.

On another BRIGHT note, Abree started reading this week! She's known the letters and sounds for some time now, but I just hadn't sat down with her to put it all together until now. She can read 3, 4 and even some 5 letter words with blends. I am impressed!

I'm excited for this new stage in her life.... but boy, it sure does make me think about my own. As I think I've mentioned before, I'm not one that loves change, but I guess I'll just have to "get used to it". :)

Writing this has given me anxiety.... or maybe it's just a sugar buzz from the 2 brownies I just ate.

Crunch-o Munch-o!

I'm soooo bummed!

Rylee had asked to go to a friend's house to swim. I got detour directions from her friend's mom, because of major construction. I drove there on "auto pilot". Not thinking I had gotten into the turn lane, when I should have been going straight, at the light. I looked around, everything seemed to be clear. I put the van in reverse and CRUNCH ....Obviously it wasn't clear.

I was so mad at myself. That was so STUPID...and illegal. I tried to remain calm and turn it into a learning lesson for Rylee on "consequences for our actions" first hand. :)

Long story short.... I damaged the side of the other car, tweaking her gas door so it won't shut. Rylee was VERY late getting to her friends house to swim. But had a story to tell. Got my very first ticket EVER for "improper backing" to the tune of $85 bucks.

My bragging rights for NEVER having received a ticket is over.... but it wasn't a speeding ticket. Does it actually count? Jason says YES.

Later Rylee told me she had seen the car there and wondered why I was backing up......into it. She said the college-aged girl was on her cell phone and then saw me coming and put her hands up and braced for the impact. Why in the world did I not see any of this??? It would have been nice if she would have honked. Oh well, still my fault.

Middle School

I can't believe it... I have TWO kids going to middle school this year!

About 2 weeks before school started, we went to Heritage Middle School for registration. Taylee registered for 6th grade and Rylee for 8th.

After dropping a chunk of cash in the cafeteria for; agendas, PE uniforms, yearbooks, classes and an activity card, we went to find the girl's lockers. Rylee was bummed to find out she, once again, had a BOTTOM locker....3rd year in a row. Taylee discovered she had a TOP locker. Rylee was so jealous. :)

I practiced with Taylee on how the locker combination worked. After some trial and error, she figured it out. Next, we walked through her schedule going from class to class. I wanted her to get a feel for the school and to have success finding her classes that first day.

Rylee being the experienced 8th grader, felt no need to walk through her classes, but found friends in the hallway to hang out with.

Ready or not.... here they come!

Cousin Fun -Day 1

Plan A- Go camping as a family, for our summer vacation.

Plan B- Jared, Teresa and family come up from Utah and go camping with us.

Plan C- Jared, Teresa and family come up, but stay at our house and forget the camping thing.

Making Teresa and I happy. Less work, less dirt.... maybe.

Plan C addendum- Julia and her 4 boys join us and stay the night on Friday.

Although our plans had evolved we knew what ever we did we would have fun together. Jared's family arrived Wednesday night. We stayed up late playing and talking.

Thursday morning we decided to take a hike.... literally. As we drove up the windy Bogus Basin road, I talked to the kids and asked them questions about our surroundings, trying to distract them from possibly feeling carsick. It worked for about the first 20 minutes. Pretty soon we started hearing things like, "My tummy doesn't feel so good". I half acknowledged the comments and then pointed out the window, "Look! There's cows over there."

Pretty soon I was looking at Jason and asking, "How much farther? Now my tummy doesn't feel so good." :)

I'm happy to report that no one made good on their threats and we reached our destination barf-free.

First on our agenda was a picnic.

It was a cooler Summer day in Boise, maybe 75-80's. Nice if you're in the valley, but going up several thousand feet made things really cool, like 55 degrees cool. We were unprepared for this. We scavenged a few sweatshirts and jackets, then wrapped up in blankets we found in the trunk.

Teeth-chattering, chilly picnic- sandwiches, chips, cookies and lemonade.

We were pretty sure we'd be warming up as we started to hike, so we put the picnic and blankets away and started up the trail.

It was a BEE-U-TI-FUL hike.

This was the same trail Jason had taken the kids on when they did their little camping trip. I was glad to be there with them this time.

Teresa & Jared

and "cup holder" rock. That's for you Jared.

Jade & Rylee

Carson, Treyson, Colton, Taylee, Abree & Jordyn

Thinking about peeling off their jackets... starting to warm up.

Abree had just recently re-discovered her camera she got for Christmas. She took many headless and off-center pictures along the hike.

The kids LOVED climbing on the rocks and getting too close to the edge for my comfort. Many times I felt my heart racing, wondering if I should say something or if I should just bite my tongue. I did a little of both.

Nice pose Colton!

Brothers... Jared & Jason
"Sucka!"

Toward the end of the trail, there was a beautiful meadow of purple flowers.

We also discovered this cool log. It looks like some sort of animal/reptile.... platypus or crocodile?

Carson...

and Abree had to sit on it and try it out.

To avoid the "my tummy doesn't feel so good" trip back, I told the kids to take a nap. I was sure that they could use a little rest, cuz we weren't done yet.

When I looked back, this is how I found Abree. Yes, she's totally asleep.
A little creepy, huh?

Next, we had decided to check out the Morrison Knudsen Nature Center.

"Just keep swimming...swimming, swimming." -Dorey from FINDING NEMO

They had a cool indoor center with lots of animal taxidermy and hands-on kid stuff. I swear I had been there before, but didn't remember all of this. I liked the center where you could make animal tracks in the sand.

Carson LOVED looking through the book, then finding the same animal in the room. He spent several minutes there and kept saying, "Look! There it is."

Next we went outside and walked along the nature path. The kids enjoyed looking at the fish and the underwater life.

One of our favorite parts was looking at the HUGE sturgeon, as we crossed over a bridge. There was a sign calling them, "dinosaurs". The kids LOVED that they got to see "dinosaurs".

We were WAY hot by now.

After dinner, we headed to our neighborhood pool to cool off.

Jared and Jason DID end up in the pool. Teresa and I DIDN'T. We were content to lounge poolside. :)

A nice end to a LONG day.

It ain't over yet.... more fun tomorrow at Eagle Island.

Cousin Fun- Day 2

After breakfast we gathered, packed and swim-suited up for our short drive to Eagle Island State Park.

We had a BBQ lunch and then walked over to the water and beach area.

Julia and her boys found us and got in on the cousin fun.

Colton, Jade, Emma & Taylee
The kids discovered they could go all the way out to the yellow divider rope, still touching. The water was a bit cooler than the pool and took a few minutes to warm up to.

Jordyn
The kids made sand castles with motes...

and took turns burying each other in the sand.

Emma made a lovely mermaid... and Abree was her sidekick.

After having hours of fun at the beach, we went home for dinner then got ready for "Movie in the Park", at Settler's Park.

Jordyn, Cameron & Emma

As if they hadn't had enough water for the day, the kids started off in the splash park.

Colton, hoping he's in the right spot for the water drop.

Yep, perfect spot!

Emma

When it started cooling off, we wandered over to the play equipment.

Settler's Park is almost always a MAD HOUSE. It's big and has lots of fun things to play on... a kid's dream. But because it's so fun and has so much to do, it can be nearly impossible to keep track of your kids... a parent's nightmare.

Taylee followed Joshua around, leaving Julia only 3 to keep track of.

We only lost Matthew and Carson once.... that I'm aware of.

Abree

When the parent's couldn't take the "fun" anymore, we walked back over to our chairs and blankets, to get dressed and wait for the movie to start.

We've been enjoying "Movie in the Park" for several summers now. They blow up a HUGE movie screen and put speakers all around.

Each summer they seem to improve. This year, the sound improved greatly. We also appreciate the lights that go on after the movie. Last year, after the movie, people used cell phones and flashlights to try and gather their children and stuff. I remember leaving the park hoping that we got everything and resolving to be ok with it, if we didn't.

We ALWAYS came home with all of our children tough. :)

Joshua says,
"Bring on the movie treats!"

Abree and Taylee being creative in getting dressed.... personalized dressing rooms.

We watched, "Ice Age 3- Dawn of the Dinosaurs".

Not as dreadful as I thought. It made me laugh a few times. :)

The kids spent the night, in tents, in our backyard. It took them a little while to settle down, but we wore them out pretty good.