Who we are and what we do

My baby turned 7

2010-09-12T17:20:00.001-06:00

Carter turned 7 in November. We insisted that he wanted a cake that looked like a fish aquarium that was in a cake book I bought on clearance at Barnes and Noble. So, I gave it my best shot. We had a little party at our house with our family and Grandma Polly and Grandpa Pete. He’s always bummed about not having a “friend” party, but his birthday is always around Thanksgiving and we are always on track break, so it’s hard to have those kinds of parties.

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He said he loved the cake … hopefully I won’t have to do too many more because I am definitely not that creative on my own.

Carter’s Y-ball season

2010-09-12T17:01:00.001-06:00

I love the YMCA basketball program right now. The boys are all at the age that they still don’t care if they win or lose and just love to dribble the ball down the court and shoot it. Carter gets so excited about the whole thing. I enjoy it sooooo much more than watching him play soccer. That’s the former athlete in me getting frustrated ;-). We also really like this coach, he has been really great for all the boys playing.

New pics of the Kids

2010-09-12T16:49:00.001-06:00

We had some new pics taken of the kids last fall, so definitely need to be redone again. They were pretty darn cute though.

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Let’s try this again

2010-09-12T16:41:00.001-06:00

I’ve decided that I really am not a good blogster. I can’t seem to make myself sit down and update. I know I should be better, but life seems to get away from me. I have a bit more time on my hands right now for a variety of reasons … Ryan decided not to play football, Kennedy’s soccer coach decided to be a complete dipstick loser and disbanded their team instead of letting the other parents coach … yes, Jeremy Canning, I am talking about you, you idiot … hopefully you Google your name sometime and this post comes up. So, I’ve decided to try and start updating stuff from the last year, at least so the family can see pictures if they don’t have Facebook. That, I’ve been pretty good at updating.

Back to the daily grind

2009-12-19T12:10:00.001-07:00

Once we got home from our Oregon Coast vacation we started back into the regular fall schedule that seems to be the most crazy time of our year. Carter started first grade about three days after we returned home and all the kids jumped into their sports seasons. Carter played soccer, Kennedy decided to play both soccer and volleyball, and Ryan was on the Mountain View freshman football team, which is way more intense than I had anticipated. So, we were running everywhere and I was helping with pre-game meals for the football team, with Young Women’s on top of that. It makes for a crazy three month period, but, everyone had a great time and I enjoy watching the kids play their sports, so I don’t mind the craziness too much.

Getting ready to head into the building.

At his first desk. Woohoo, I now have no kids at home, all day long. That’s probably bad of me to admit it, but I kind of enjoy the alone time.

Carter getting his trophy after the last soccer game this fall. He had a pretty good season, scored a few goals.

Kennedy decked out in her cold-weather gear. We played in some nasty conditions during the season-ending tournament. It snowed and rained and was down right cold.

She had a lot of fun with this team though. They played pretty good and the although she hates playing forward, the one time coach put her there this season, she did score. Way to go sis.

Ryan had a great time playing football this fall. The team ended up tied for first at the end of the year. He met lots of new guys and got in really good shape. Now I’m just trying to get him to keep lifting weights throughout the winter.

Getting his D-line sweatshirt at the football banquet at the end of the year. I love that they have to dress up for the banquet.

We also got to get in a 4 day camping trip at Ponderosa State Park in McCall over Labor Day weekend. There is a huge group that always goes that weekend, probably about 10-15 families or so. Normally we stay at my in-laws condo and go to the campground and hang out and then we can sleep in beds when we leave, but the kids really wanted to tent-it for the weekend, so we did. It was actually a lot of fun and I remembered that I love dutch-oven food and just being outdoors. There was also a 1-2 year old bear running around the campground all weekend. Made for some interesting adventures for Ryan and his YM leader Chris Freeman. They followed it around on their bikes for awhile.

Our camping set-up. It was nice to have the screen tent set up for shade and for keeping the bees away from the cooking area.

Carter at Payette Lake. It’s just a few minutes walk from where we were camping. It had a roped off swimming area.

Kennedy at the lake with the two younger girls she hung out with Shelby and Samantha. She had a good time with them.

Carter trying to get on the raft with the girls.

Not any pics of Ryan in these. He was off with his buddies or just wandering between camps the whole weekend.

Catch up – Oregon Coast

2009-12-11T16:56:00.001-07:00

We rented a house on Nye Beach in Newport, Oregon for four nights and then headed up to Portland to visit Chris’ brother Greg and his family for a couple of days before heading back to Boise and getting into the fall grind of sports and school. We had a great time. Kennedy and I were up early every morning and out on the beach. The really low tide was at about 7 am every morning we were there, and we were out there. The kids and Chris were out on the beach pretty much til after dark almost every night. We only had one day of rain and we spent that day at the aquarium. In Portland we hit the Oregon Zoo and a place OMSI, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Kind of like an oversized Discovery Center if you are familiar with Boise.

Pretty much the look on her face the entire time we were there. Totally in her element.

The water was soooo cold and Carter spent most of the time running in and out of the surf.

The sand was great at Nye Beach. Ryan got buried after this.

Ken and I caught a bunch of these little guys around the rocks that were on the beach. Couldn’t get Carter to touch anything though.

Ryan was up on a rock here. We were at the beach by Otter Crest and the Devil’s Punchbowl.

Ryan and Carter being very careful crossing these rocks. I about biffed it walking across them before these guys did. They were so darn slick. Back behind the is the actual Devil’s Punchbowl. When it’s high tide, you definitely don’t want to be in there.

Kennedy holding a starfish. We didn’t see a lot of them on this trip. Normally at this beach there are a ton.

So these two, along with there dad, and sometimes Ryan, would build moats and other sand creations and then we would sit on the beach and wait for the water to come in and destroy them. Definitely getting hit by some cold water here.

Had to sneak in one of the hubby. I don’t get pictures of him very often. Normally he’s the one behind the lens.

After the first couple of days, Ryan discovered that he should probably just wear his swim trunks everywhere so he wasn’t soaking all his regular clothes.

Ry at the Oregon Zoo.

Carter at the zoo.

My niece Piper. Chris’ brother Greg and his family met us at the zoo. Lots of fun, she’s a sweetie.

My other niece, Sydney. She’s a character.

The rest of the fam that we met up with. Kathy, my sister-in-law is in the front in the black shirt. Chris’ cousin Andreas’ is behind her with the blue jacket and Chris’ brother Greg is next to him in the brown and green shirt.

Ken at the zoo. Sorry, no animal pics. I do have some, but nothing too exciting.

Carter at OMSI. We don’t have a lot of pics from here, definitely a hands on place. He built the boat by himself and got it to go. They had wind blowing from behind Carter to make the boats sail.

Catch-up

2009-12-04T00:21:00.003-07:00

Crazy, the last time I managed to post something was just after Kennedy’s birthday and a camping trip to a spider infested campground. I keep thinking I will be better, but it hasn’t been happening.

Summer was kind of crazy for us. I spent nearly ever day driving to and from Mountain View High School taking Ryan to summer workouts for football. It made for some interesting days. He enjoyed it and worked hard, so it was worth it. Now if I can just get him through driver’s ed before next season, it will make my life so much easier.

We only had a two week break between summer football workouts and Carter going back to school. Still can’t believe my baby is in first grade. Wow. I spent a week at my parents with my kids in Teton Valley and then we packed up again and headed for the Oregon Coast for another week. That was our summer in a nutshell. Go, go, go.

I guess that’s enough for now, here’s some pictures from those exciting adventures …

We hiked up to the Wind Cave with Ann-Marie and her kids when we were at my parents. It was probably a total of three miles, but you end up pretty far in the mountains. Very beautiful except for the fact that it rained, hailed and thundered and lightening on us on the way down. Here are Avery, Kennedy, Connor and Carter. Ryan was probably headed up the hill already.

Connor, Carter and Addie after our lunch break.

Avery and Kennedy under the ledge. Pretty cool place.

Ryan helping Carter come out of the mouth of the cave. Yep, that’s running water. Very windy, cold and pitch black inside. We went pretty far back, had to climb on our hands and knees a bit.

On to the Oregon Coast. We stayed in Newport. This is a Yaquina Head light house, you can climb clear up to the top.

Just a cute picture of the munchkin as we were headed through the lighthouse.

Ryan and Kennedy at the touch pool when we went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Lots of fun, spent most of the day there.

Ryan and I with sharks swimming around us in the glass shark tunnels.

Couldn’t leave without the token picture in the shark mouth.

Here’s the house we rented for the week. About a two minute walk from the beach. Kennedy and I got up about 6:30 every morning to catch low tide. She caught tons of crabs and all the kids spent a lot of time in the water, which was freezing. I’ll have to post pics later, I’m wiped and it’s after midnight here.

Random stuff to update you all

2009-07-05T21:03:00.001-06:00

It seems we are all really busy and then I sit down to update the blog and can’t hardly think of a single thing to post about.

We finished soccer in the middle of May and have been out riding quite a bit. I’ve been busy with Young Women’s stuff and trying to get ready for girls camp, which was this last week. Carter has been taking swimming lessons and finally finished Kindergarten on June 29th. We got our garden planted and are finally seeing the results (yeah)!!! I’ve discovered that I actually do like yellow squash and zucchini, as long as it’s sautéed in butter and has some good seasoning on it. None of that mashed up stuff for me (sorry Polly, my m-i-l).

Kennedy turned 12 last Wednesday on July 1, so she was able to go to girls camp with me. That was quite fun. We’ve come to discover that we love our new stake and feel more at home there than we ever did in our old stake. The move was a good one, although hard at first. The Stake President and the YW Stake Presidency really seem to love having us in the stake and it’s been really good for all the girls in the ward to feel loved and wanted by the rest of the youth.

Anyhow, here’s some pictures of our adventures in the last few months.

Carter and two other boys in his class received awards for being the most “enthusiastic” students on the last day. I’m not sure whether to be proud or a bit mortified, because he is quite the loud child. I’ll settle for proud.

This was Tuesday night at girls camp (the day before her birthday) and we made Kennedy get up on a picnic table to sing happy birthday to her for Bishop’s night. I’m sure she was mortified.

Kennedy and her friend Megan hanging out with us in the cafeteria Wednesday. We were all so dang tired by this point.

These were my girls. Five 4th year girls and four youth leaders. We had a great time, they were such cool girls.

Kennedy and all her youth leader friends. Older girls just seem to love her. In the pic she’s with Chelsea, Kelsey, Kayla, Natalie and Stephanie.

Megan with her gladiator sword.

Megan’s sister Chelsea (different from the one above). She is one of my Mia Maids, so was with me up at camp. She spent quite a bit of time braiding hair, which makes her a hit with everyone, especially the 1st year girls.

Chelsea and Kennedy

Sweet sisters Chelsea and Megan.

So, we got home Thursday and Kennedy had talked me into letting her have a party Friday night. So, Chris took five girls to Wahooz to have a ball.

And then we have the 4th of July, which was yesterday. We had a BBQ at the Brown’s and then lit off fireworks. Quite the buys night. Didn’t get any pics from the BBQ, but got a few from fireworks.

And finally a picture from my garden. I’ve got to share this cause I’m way to proud to finally have a garden that is growing well (hopefully that doesn’t jinx it).

And on a sad note. My friend Shirley that was diagnosed with cancer passed away Monday morning before I left for girls camp. I’ve decided that it was a good thing to be in that atmosphere this last week as I was dealing with my emotions. The spirit was there and the girls kept me going and kept my spirits up, even if they didn’t realize it. Her funeral was Friday, it was nice to see such a great family come together and be so upbeat because they understand the Plan of Happiness and know that they will be reunited with Shirley someday.

Our new hobby

2009-04-25T22:16:00.001-06:00

So, Chris has been trying to talk me into this for a long time now. Finally, as we were returning the kids lease packages to Greenwood’s downtown after ski season was over, we saw, on the side of Harrison Blvd., exactly was Chris was looking for. So, we pulled over, we checked it out, and we called the number and bought a Honda 50cc dirt bike for Carter. This was last Saturday, and we are now the proud (I hope that’s the right word) owners of three more dirt bikes for our kids.

We went out on the maiden voyage today and had a great time. I’m the only one missing a bike now, but I rode Ryan’s when he was taking breaks, so that’s fine. We only had a few mishaps. Ryan and Kennedy both dumped their bikes once. Carter ran into the loaner trailer form the dealership twice (the one we bought had to be sent back to the factory for rewiring), and he also managed to flip his bike over about a 1/4 of a mile away from me chasing after Chris, Ryan and Kennedy when they left to go on a trail ride. I waited for him to get back up and ended up having to run in a panic to him when I couldn’t see him moving. He’s fine, was a little shook up, but I’m definitely glad that we invested in all the safety gear for them: boots, pants, chest protectors, jerseys, helmets, gloves and goggles.

Kennedy was pretty bummed that her cool hot pink helmet and gloves hadn’t come into the shop yet, so she’s in Chris’ street helmet.

Carter

Kennedy

Carter

Kennedy

Ryan

Chris

The fam: Kennedy, Chris, Ryan and Carter

The fam: Carter, Kennedy, Chris and Ryan

Carter and Kennedy

Carter’s helmet with Ken in the background.

Kennedy with her windblown hair. I’ve decided that I’m going to have to buy some biker bandannas for Kennedy and I if we are going to be hanging out in the wind.

Ryan

Carter bummed because we were getting ready to pack up.

Ryan

Ryan all geared up

Another picture of Carter hamming it up and dancing on the trailer.

For my mom :)

2009-04-25T21:58:00.001-06:00

Sorry, I’ve been really bad about blogging lately. I just get busy with life and don’t take time to record what’s been happening. Between Kennedy and Carter in soccer, Kennedy running track, YW stuff, scout stuff, YM stuff, we all seem to be going, going, gone half the time.

Anyhow, here are just a few pics of things that have been going on the last few months and then I will do another post about our new family hobby we began this past week that everyone seems to love.

The next three photos are from a trip that Kennedy and I took with some friends to Salt Lake for a volleyball tournament. Lots of fun. We went shopping at Gateway, did Temple Square and watched the Joseph Smith movie at Legacy Theater (which totally make the whole trip worth it), and spent 10 hours watching Chelsea play volleyball before driving back to Boise in the middle of the night.

Kennedy at California Pizza Kitchen

Kennedy and I in the Visitor’s Center at Temple Square.

Kennedy crashing during the volleyball tournament.

These next pictures are family pictures from Mason’s blessing in Teton Valley. It was a fun, but short trip. We spent one night and drove 12 hours for the event. Yes we love our family.

Carter being a ham

All the boy grandchildren

All the grandchildren

Kennedy and Lily (the only girls)

Jenny and Tim with their kids, Josh, Brandon and Dyllan

Chris and I with the fam: Kennedy, Carter and Ryan

Our kids, don’t they look like they love eachother

Kaleb and Jennie with their daughter Lily

Mike and Kimberlee with their kids Tallin and Case

David and Rachel with the new baby: Mason

My mom and dad

Just had to include this one, isn’t it great :)

Also, just wanted to say a big

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

to my sister-in-law Jen. Love you and hope that you had a great day.

Fun weekend

2009-03-09T10:32:00.001-06:00

Part of my family comes to Boise every March for the boys state basketball tournament. My dad is the head coach for the boys team from my old high school, Teton High School in eastern Idaho. Even if the team doesn’t make it, my parents at least come over. This year my sister Jenny, her husband Tim and their three boys, Dyllan, Josh and Brandon also came and stayed with us. We had a pretty packed house this last week, 12 people in our little three bedroom, 2 bath, but we got along great and had a fun time.

Chris took my dad, Tim and the four older kids to the BSU-Fresno State game Thursday night while I went shopping and out to dinner with my mom, Jenny and the two little boys, Carter and Brandon.

Friday night everyone went to watch 3A basketball games except for Chris and I. We took Kennedy, Josh, Brandon and Carter to the elementary school’s Spring Fling fundraiser.

Saturday was Dyllan’s 16th birthday, so we all went to eat at Kyoto’s, a Japanese steakhouse off Fairview Ave. It was really good and we had a fun time. This was about the only time I had my camera out the whole weekend.

Dyllan, Josh and Ryan

All the kids: Brandon, Kennedy, Dyllan, Ryan, Josh and Carter

Chris and Kennedy

My dad and mom (Mike and Marcia)

Jenny and Tim

This is Tony, he is our favorite chef at the restaurant, we love it when he gets our table, and he did Saturday, yay.

OK, this is definitely not at while we were eating. This is my dad showing Dyllan that he can still take him down. It was hilarious. We couldn’t stop laughing.

Heading to the park for some fun

2009-02-20T15:46:00.001-07:00

We’ve been pretty busy the past three weeks or so going to high school basketball games. Not much to post about, but today was nice enough that we headed to the park with some friends so the boys and Jaina could get some pent up energy taken care of.

It was a fun day with friends. Thanks for setting it up Elli.

Family basketball

2009-01-22T12:07:00.001-07:00

When we all get together, it never fails that we spend a day at the school playing basketball. The guys generally play for awhile trying to show off their skills and the rest of us hang out and chat and watch the smaller kids play. The quality of the pictures aren’t that great because the camera was on the wrong settings.

Kennedy and Lily

Ryan guarding Josh with David in the background

Chris, Michael, Josh and Ryan

David going up

Dyllan shooting

Carter playing with his Air Hog helicopter that he got for Christmas

Carter playing dress-up in the boys old basketball uniform.

Back to Christmas

2009-01-22T11:45:00.001-07:00

I just have to share a few more memories and photos from Christmas day and the rest of our time up at my parents. Christmas day was a lot of fun. We had my parents, all of my siblings and their kids and my Grandma Green who is in her 90’s, there. About 22 people in all were there. Very crowded, but lots of fun for everyone.

There were an obscene amount of presents there.

My brother Kaleb and his daughter Lily.

My dad and mom.

My Grandma Green

Carter and Kennedy

Kaleb, Jennie and Lily. Lily is wearing the sweater that my sister Jenny knitted for her.

Carter with Guitar Hero World Tour, he’s still a little upset with me that they didn’t get the game with the drums and microphone.

Ryan

Rachel, David and my nephew Dyllan.

Kim and Michael

My brother-in-law Tim with the cool wall hangings that Jenny gave to him. One is from up at Grand Targhee and the other is of Palisades Reservoir.

Skiing

2009-01-20T15:32:00.001-07:00

We spent most of Monday up at Bogus Basin skiing. Well, the hubby and kids did, I spent the day working on stuff in the lodge and taking care of whoever was in there at the moment too tired or cold to be on the slopes. We got quite a few good pictures of the kids. We have an inversion here Boise right now. So, down here, you can't se the sun. And it's so cold. But, at about 5000 feet on the drive up you have blue sky and it's sooooo nice.

Don't they all look so excited to be leaving at 8 am on a day off from school.

Looking up from the bottom of Bogus Basin Road.

Once we hit the fog, everything was frozen like this.

And this was about as far ahead as we could see.

Once we broke through the fog, blue sky, all the way.

Kennedy

Carter

Ryan

Chris and Bill (my friend Tresa's husband)

Carter and Derek (Bill's son)

And on the way home, everyone was ready to drop.

Last picture, I promise. On the way down, you can't see it very well, but where the horizon ends, down below is all white clouds again. Here's hoping we get a storm in the next few days so we can get rid of this dirty air.

More Christmas

2009-01-18T15:32:00.001-07:00

We left for my parents on Christmas Eve. I was really excited to go to my parents for Christmas because all of my brothers and my sister and their families were going to be there. My dad's family always has a big Christmas Eve party with a great dinner, gift exchanges and the nativity being acted out. It was a full house.

Carter dressed up as a shepherd.

Kennedy in her angel costume.

Dyllan so excited to be in his wise man crown.

My dad getting ready to read the Nativity story.

Sid, Slade and Tracey playing Joseph, baby Jesus and Mary.

Opening presents from the cousins.

He got a Magic 8 Ball from his cousin.

Kennedy got a lot of cooking stuff from her cousin.

Tim, Michael, Bret and Shon chatting after the festivities.

Ryan and my niece Lily in their little lamb ears. So cute.

Ryan got a new pocketknife from his cousin.

Christmas pics

2009-01-17T10:10:00.001-07:00

It's kind of late to be posting pictures from around Christmas time, but really, who cares. We took a lot and had a lot of fun through the holidays. Around the middle of December we always have a kid's Christmas party at Chris' office. It's pretty fun, Santa comes and gives everyone a present. There's usually food and a few games for the kids. It gives the spouses a bit of time to get to know each other and hang out for a bit.

This is the first year that when we walked into the room and Carter saw the tree and the chair that Santa sits in that he didn't turn around and say, "OK, we can go home now."

Carter making his candy cane reindeer.

Can't you tell how excited she was to be there.

Ryan spent most of the part calling the bingo numbers.

She wouldn't even acknowledge Santa was there, she was to busy messing with my phone.

Kennedy got a Twilight poster from Santa. Carter got a Webkinz (which I have no idea why he wanted it, he really hasn't touched it since), and Ryan got a new computer game called Bioshock.

And yes, I know that there are no pictures of Chris. But, there is a reason. Once he gets the camera from me, he refuses to give it back. If you look back at his birthday post, you can see, that even when I get the camera from him, he won't let me take any decent pictures anyway.

The last of Carter's Y-ball games

2009-01-10T11:55:00.001-07:00

We finished up the last of Carter's Y-ball season about the middle of December. I have to say that it was an enjoyable, fun time for him. He still asks if he has practice and wants to keep playing, which may motivate me to take him the Homecourt a few times a week to shoot some hoops. The backboards there are nice because they can lower them to the 7-foot mark that they play on at the elementary schools. After the last game Coach Thor (yes, that was his name) said something about each of the boys. He told Carter that he has the best and most accurate shot of anyone on the team. Carter felt really good about that. Now, if I can just get him to play some defense we'll be getting somewhere. Anyhow, here are some pictures of the last couple of his games, except for the final one because I forgot the camera and Chris had drill.

Holiday Concert

2009-01-07T08:02:00.001-07:00

Kennedy had her holiday band concert back on December 2nd. I know it's way past, but they did really well for a 6th grade band class. The orchestra also performed. It was really fun and only lasted about an hour, so you can't beat that. She's been playing the flute, and she's pretty good. And it's definitely not as annoying when she practices as when Ryan was playing the trumpet. Now that got pretty loud.

Kennedy with her friends Brooke and Megan after the concert.

On another note, Chris had to completely reformat the computer, so here's hoping that all of my previous problems with the computer have vanished and I'll be able to start posted on a regular basis. Fingers crossed.

Posting delays

2008-12-18T13:15:00.001-07:00

I know I've been really about about posting in the last month. My mom has made sure to let me know numerous times. But, here's the deal. My computer has just plain sucked lately. I hate that word, but I'm going to use it again. It SUCKS, SUCKS, SUCKS!!!!!!! Everything to do with the internet is going at a snail's pace, even Chris' laptop that's 3 years old moves faster. So, until my wonderful computer literate hubby can fix it for me, who knows how long it will be before I post again.

We had a bunch of birthday pop up right around Thanksgiving. Carter turned 6 on the 22nd, I turned 34 on the 23rd and Ryan turned the big 1-4 on the 25th. What I love about this situation is that my birthday is pretty much a moot point and everyone focuses on the two boys, which is completely fine by me. And, it was even better this year because my mom and sister came for the weekend, they got to watch a basketball game of Carter's and be their for his birthday, which was a treat. So, here's a few pictures from the birthdays.

I'll try to get up a post about the last of Carter's basketball games and Kennedy's Christmas band concert a little later. We'll just see how long it takes for this to post.

Thoughts on a change

2008-11-11T13:25:00.001-07:00

We had a pretty major change take place on Sunday in our Ward. To preface, I'll just say that Chris and I have been in the Franklin Ward since we moved into our home in August of 1995. That's quite awhile. We've been through two splits, staying in the same ward, just losing areas.

Well, Saturday we got an e-mail from our Bishop telling us that we weren't having 2nd or 3rd hour classes, but were instead asked to go to the Stake Center for a meeting. Of course, the speculation began. Were we being split, added to or taken from. For me, in Young Womens, with only two Mia Maids, I was really hoping to get some more young women.

Well, lo and behold, we have been moved to a whole new stake, with a couple of neighborhoods added to our ward. Our stake center is now the one next to the Temple. So, yep, we got moved to a Boise Stake. And we gained ONE new young woman with the move. So, I'm trying to find the positives in this move. Hopefully some will present themselves soon. As least we weren't the ward that got totally disbanded and split into 5, yep 5 different wards. I feel real bad for those folks.

So, whaddya think of this??

Weekend activities

2008-11-09T20:54:00.001-07:00

The kids had quite a bit going on this weekend. Ryan left on a scout campout Friday night. They were working on their shooting merit badge. It was kind of sad, every one of the boys in his troop wimped out except for him. He passed his shooting test. They had to hit the target a number of times. He said that he had a lot of fun. Kennedy and Carter spent the night at Chris' parents house Friday night so that we could go out to dinner for our anniversary, which was last week. We went to a really good restaurant in Nampa called the Mona Lisa. Very good. We got a little bit of shopping done for upcoming birthdays and Christmas during the week, so Chris went shopping for a new monitor for my computer. It's pretty nice. Which reminds me, I was able to get a new fridge and oven on Thursday. Finally. My old ones were 13 years old and looking pretty bad. The seal on the fridge was shot, the oven wasn't cooking real great. So, yay for me :)

Carter also had another basketball game on Saturday. He scored four points, which is really good. There were probably only about 12 points or so scored for his team. I don't think that the other team scored as many, but maybe. Here's a couple of pics (I'm trying not to feel guilty because the majority of the photos on my blog are of Carter, but I couldn't take pictures on Ryan's campout and Kennedy would through a fit if intruded on her friend time at her grandma's).

Doesn't it look like he is having the time of his life. Mom and Dad, I totally think that you two need to get over here to see this kid in action. We play four more games, only skipping Thanksgiving weekend.

And on another note :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY

BROTHER MICHAEL - isn't he a cutie.

Carter's first basketball game

2008-11-02T12:37:00.001-07:00

Yesterday Carter had his first Y-Ball game. It's a fun age to watch. They are just getting the basics down and both coaches are allowed on the court with the boys to guide them. They haven't quite got the idea of offense and defense down, so it can be entertaining to watch them trying to play offense while still trying to guard their boy they are assigned to. They will, I'm sure, get it in the next few weeks. It's fun to watch Carter play because this is the one sport he is aggressive in. He really wants to get the ball away from the other team and really wants to shoot the ball.

During warm-ups. He hardly ever missed. That's what happens when you've spent the last few years during your older brother's football practices playing hoops with your mom and dad. Two hours a night, five days a week until school starts and then 1 and 1/2 hours a night four nights a week after school starts.

That's him jumping at the tip-off. He got the concept, just needed to time it a little better.

Overdoing it on the defensive side, but he wasn't about to let that kid by him to score. I wonder where he got that from.

Between quarters. He was having a blast.

Racing the ref down the court. This guy was such a good ref. He had fun with the kids and really helped them out when they needed it.

Carter is the yellow player on the ground going after the loose ball. Every time there was a pile-up on the floor he would go diving in after the ball, even if he was across the gym. What a ham, and then he'd demonstrate for us how to slide across the floor after they got everybody up.

The grin after they scored. Every time his team scored he would do the double-handed fist pump and jump in the air. His coach would have to remind him to run down the floor and play defense.

What I love about this kid is that he was happy every time anyone on his team scored. He was a little bummed that none of his shots went in, but he was just so happy when his team did well. I just had to tell him that next week he'll get to play again and the grin was right back on his face and he was ready to go to practice, but that's not until Thursday night, so he'll ask everyday, can I go to practice tonight?

Also, he was so excited that his Uncle David and Aunt Rachel were here to watch him. It was fun to have them visit. I got to go baby shopping with them. It was fun and we had a great meal last night at the Olive Garden.

Halloween

2008-11-01T17:47:00.001-06:00

Just a few fun pics to show our Halloween fun. Carter had a party Thursday morning with a costume parade because there was no school on Friday. On Friday we went to Chris' office for a small party and then to our ward's trunk-or-treat in the school parking lot, which was fun because a bunch of people from my neighborhood showed up. And we finished up with some regular trick-or-treating in my in-laws neighborhood. Ryan spent most of the week setting up a Haunted Backyard at his friend Chase's house. We went through it after going to my in-laws, it was pretty scary. They did a great job.

Some of the yummy food at Carter's party.

Kennedy as a punk rocker girl. Her friend Brooklyn ended up spending the night. She got sick at about 3 a.m. and they didn't wake me up until almost 6:30. They were sitting in Kennedy's room that smelled like puke for almost three hours. I had to explain to them that when someone gets sick, you have to wake up your moms.

Finally doing Diane's tag

2008-10-29T11:27:00.001-06:00

5 things I was doing 10 years ago
1. Going to BSU.
2. Chasing around a 1year old and a three year old.
3. Meeting the Brown's, who are still our good friends.
4. Going to BSU men's basketball games.
5. Also, going to Maren and Serena's sports events.
5 things on my To do list today
1. Laundry
2. Picking kids up from school.
3. Going to Young Women's.
4. Watch Criminal Minds.
5. Celebrate my wedding anniversary.
5 things I would do if I were a millionaire
1. Pay tithing
2. Buy a new house.
3. Savings for kids college and missions.
4. Buy my husband the car of his dreams.
5. Go on a nice, long vacation.
5 places I have lived
1. Cedron, Idaho
2. Boise, Idaho (with Brad and Rosalie)
3. Boise, Idaho (in an apartment off Overland & Curtis).
4. Boise, Idaho (with my in-laws while our house was being built).
5. Boise, Idaho (in the house we built).
5 jobs I have had
1. Harvesting potatoes (with my dad and with Dustin's).
2. O'Rourke's
3. Sojourner Inn hotel maid in Teton Village, Wyoming.
4. Waitress at Pizza Hut.
5. In the newsroom at The Idaho Statesman.

End of soccer, beginning of basketball

2008-10-25T11:11:00.002-06:00

We finally finished with our last soccer game today. Carter played really well and scored another goal. It's made this season a little more fun to watch because he's been a bit more aggressive and wants to go after the ball. Of course, I don't have a picture, because I was too busy being the loud mom cheering. Chris was teaching classes at a merit badge fair for scouts, so he wasn't there to pick up the slack today. But, I did snap a few shots when I wasn't so excited.

Running off, right after he scored the goal to end the quarter :)

Definitely got the Green gene for the long tongue to touch the nose.

Carter also started Y-Ball this week. It's nice to have stuff to keep him busy and we practice across Cloverdale at his elementary school, so it's not a very far walk or drive.

And the pictures that Lyndsey Kunz took of the kids are up and ready to be looked at. It's www.kunzphotography.com . Check them out they are so cute. Go to gallery and look at the last page. I think it's 55, and click on the Kunz pictures. Very cute pictures.

Birthday weekend

2008-10-21T12:49:00.001-06:00

We left for eastern Idaho on Thursday to surprise my dad for his birthday. All of my siblings and I met up at my nephew Dyllan's football game in Shelley to surprise him and then we all went to my parents in Teton Valley to spend the weekend, help them out with a few projects and have a birthday bash Saturday night.

Friday the boys spent the day finishing painting the outside of my parents house while my mom, Jenny and I canned carrots and potatoes.We spent the night hanging out up at Jenny's eating chocolate fondue while my dad ran the chains for the varsity football game.

Saturday we had Lyndsey Kunz take pictures of the grandkids. They should be really cute. You can check out some of her pictures at www.kunzphotography.com . She's an awesome photography if you are ever up in Teton Valley and want some pictures taken.

That night we had a party for my dad, which was fun because he didn't know about it. There was quite an assortment of family and friends there, so it was pretty fun.

Here's a bunch of pictures from the weekend. The only bad part, Chris wasn't able to come with us because he was on a business trip to Las Vegas and Phoenix.

I think everyone had a great time and it was fun to see everyone. And Ann-Marie, my mom has a copy of all these pictures and more on her computer if you want them.

Guess who's turning 60

2008-10-16T08:17:00.001-06:00

I was looking through some old pictures the other day and found this GREAT picture of part of my family and thought it would be fun to share on this awesome day. It's my dad's 60th birthday today. So, in honor of that here we go, and....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!! LOVE YOU TONS!!!

This is my brother Michael, my mom, my dad and my brother Kaleb. I'm standing in the front. I'm wondering if Jenny was taking the picture and David wasn't around yet. Don't you love the hair and beard everyone :)

Was not expecting this yesterday :(

2008-10-11T12:09:00.001-06:00

We live in Boise. It is actually a desert, we have a few foothills surrounding the valley, but in reality we are a city built in a desert with a river running through it. If you head south of the Gowen Field (military base) and past the prison, that's when you really understand about the desert. So, yesterday, we were definitely not expecting this view from outside our front door.......

yep, that's SNOW on my Expedition....

and more SNOW on my grass and my poor

mums that are still blooming (well, probably not after the snow and cold the last few nights). On the plus side though, I was able to shut off my sprinklers a few weeks ago, so that will help with the water bill coming next month.

Lincoln's blessing

2008-10-11T12:00:00.001-06:00

A few Sunday's ago my cousin Serena and her husband Matt blessed their little boy Lincoln. Afterwards, Chris took Ryan, Kennedy and Carter to my Aunt Rosalie's for lunch and to hang out for awhile. I had Young Women meeting for most of the afternoon, so I missed the food and festivities, but here's a few pics of the kids hanging out in the backyard and Ryan with the baby.

GO ME!!

2008-10-07T10:59:00.001-06:00

Just got back from my doctor's

office and have to brag that

I've lost .... wait for it......

48....

yes, that is 48 pounds in the

last five months. So, yay, and

go me!!!

Saturday soccer

2008-09-30T11:26:00.001-06:00

I just have to brag that Carter scored a goal in his soccer game on Saturday. I am just completely bummed because I missed it. I was helping to give a friend a baby shower, which was fun, but, I really wasn't expecting him to score. He just doesn't play aggressive enough to score, he's usually more worried about the other team scoring so he plays back a little bit. So ....

AWESOME JOB CARTER

FOR SCORING YOUR FIRST

GOAL EVER!!!!

I know, you can't see him, but he's the one to the right of the coach. This is when he actually kicked it in. But, he's a really good kicker, so I'll show one of him kicking :)

And, this why I love to watch him play ....

because no matter how the game turns out, he's just happy to have been there and played. He's always so sad when it's over.

Birthday party pics

2008-09-29T08:00:00.001-06:00

After we went to dinner with Elli and Charlie Friday night we had a little family birthday party for Chris. We aren't real big cake eaters and he likes the sugar cookies from Albertsons, so that what we had ... sugar cookies and ice cream.

As you can see, Carter has to be involved in the opening of the presents ... anybodies presents. I think Chris had a good birthday. He got to eat at Goodwood and got a few presents with some cookies and ice cream.

Happy Birthday Chris

2008-09-26T08:10:00.001-06:00

My husband hates his birthday, a lot more since he hit the big four-o last year. I've actually got him talked into going to dinner with a few friends tonight which is in itself a miracle since he doesn't like his birthday even mentioned most of the time.

So, in honor of the big guy's birthday I found some cute pictures from when he was a kid. Sorry hon, hope that you have a great day :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

Go orange, go big blue ...

2008-09-22T08:09:00.001-06:00

My crazy week and weekend were topped off with a great BSU win over the No. 17 ranked Oregon Ducks. We played really great for about 2 1/2 quarters and then almost managed to lose it in the end. But, the guys played tough and our freshman quarterback had a great game in the air. Yeah. (Also got to give props to Kaleb's Utah State Aggies for actually winning a game this year, way to take it to the Idaho Vandals!!).

The best part is that Jeremy Childs actually caught this pass. Very nice.

I've been pretty busy since I posted last. Between the kids having different activities after school and having a joint Relief Society and Young Women's activity Wednesday night I also went to a party at Elli's house Thursday night. Her cousin makes these really cute bows and headbands for girls. They are really adorable. Since my daughter is 11, I got a couple for some baby girls I know. I'll have to see if I can find her card with her blog site on it so you guys can check it out.

I actually got to go out with Chris for dinner on Friday night. We haven't done that in awhile, it was pretty fun. The kids hung out at my in-laws for awhile, so when we picked them up we stayed and watched the end of another football game.

Carter's soccer game got canceled Saturday. It was raining like crazy here. It started around midnight Friday night and was flooding streets by morning. It let up for a few hours in the afternoon and then started up again and rained most of the night. I went to a birthday dinner for my friend Marilyn that night at On The Border by Edwards theater. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoy the women I was with, we always seem to have some great conversation when we get together.

Sunday's are tough right now. We are almost at the end of our 3-6 church schedule. It's a tough one, I can't wait to go to the 8:30 to 11:30 schedule in January. Carter has been falling asleep in Sacrament meeting and then having a hard time in Primary. Yesterday I had to sit by him through singing time trying to wake him up slowly so he wouldn't be upset. I had to leave to teach Young Women's and he looked up at me with teas in his eyes and said, "Mommy, I love you, don't leave." What do you do with that?? I know he's playing me, but I felt so bad leaving him there. I love being in Young Women's. It's been a real growing experience. I was fasting yesterday for a few different reasons, so when we got home at about 6:30 I promptly started stuffing my face before our home teachers could show up. It's a good thing they were late :)

Hopefully this week will be a little less busy, although I totally doubt it. This time of year always seems so crazy.

More soccer stuff

2008-09-16T19:40:00.001-06:00

Carter has been having a great time playing soccer. Two games down and four to go. I'm a little bummed because the coach only wants to practice one night a week. And that's just not enough to teach the boys enough for the games. On Saturday we played against a team with a boy who was super fast for that age and had great ball handling skills. He is either really gifted or has siblings or parents who have played. He was really good.

Tonight we had to take time out of practice for pictures because none of the other parents would show up early for our game last Saturday to get them done. I was a little ticked. Come on, make a commitment. I admit it. I am one of those parents that gets excited at sporting events. I don't even need to have a kid participating in the sporting event to get excited and yell a bit (I actually blame that one on my dad, JK). I know only about five kids on the Mountain View varsity football team and I'm still their screaming and cheering when they are playing.

Here's some more cute pictures of Carter from Saturday and tonight.

At a little OT info, Chris took Ryan home teaching for the first time tonight. That should be interesting. And I ended up canning about 20 quarts of peaches and froze about 3 gallon size bags of cut peaches for making smoothies and then blended up three pitchers of peaches to make jam with when I can stand the sight and smell of them again.

It's a first

2008-09-12T08:43:00.001-06:00

This is what I've spent the last few days doing and will probably spend the whole weekend working on.

Wednesday morning I went with my friend Kindra and her son Kaiden to pick peaches in Caldwell. I came home with a little over three 5-gallon buckets full of peaches. So, I am trying to can for my first time. My aunt Rosalie let me use her water bath canner and her dehydrater. So, I canned five whole quarts of peaches yesterday and made some fruit leather. I learned a few things and it was an interesting experience. I'll have to let you know if they actually taste good. And yes mom, I know I should have put more peaches in the jars, but at least the lids popped down, right??

9/11

2008-09-11T22:00:00.001-06:00

I wasn't going to make a post today. The events that happened 7 years ago are still fresh in my mind. As are the events that happened as a result of that day. I remember my friend Terri calling me that morning and telling me to turn on the t.v. I remember watching the second plane hit as I was getting ready to walk my kids to school. My neighbors coming outside of their homes as we walked by to express their sadness and disbelief at what was happening. Walking home and watching the towers fall, knowing that many, many people had been killed.

Two and a half years later I remember stopping at a gas station to fill up when my phone rang and it was my husband telling me that the alert had been given and they would be leaving in 3 months for training so they could be sent to Iraq. Operation Iraqi Freedom III, that is what it was called. My kids were 18 months, almost 7 and 9. They were 3, 8 and 10 when he returned. Parties were given, tears were shed and then they were gone.

He left for Iraq on Carter's 2nd birthday and arrived there on mine. The thing about deployments is that you don't get to know when these things happen until after. I got a call saying we wouldn't hear from him for a few days and a call saying he was in Kuwait. The same went with the convoy into Iraq and with any missions he went on. An IM saying he loved us and would be in contact in a few days. I finally figured out what that meant. It also meant that I spent days worrying when I didn't hear from him. I remember the phone call when the sirens went off warning of an attack and he hung up with an "I've got to go" and me praying that he would call back and be okay and then not sleeping until he did.

We spent 18 months apart. Ten months straight at one point between leave. It was an experience that I would love to forget, but also an experience of a lifetime. Four years later it almost fells like it never happened, but on days like today, I remember everything clearly. The day he left, the day he came home on leave, the day he came home, and the days that he missed events here at home.

So, today I remember those that died on 9/11, those that died while deployed with my husband (as well as all those others who have died), and I remember that I love my country and all those who serve to protect it.

I'm just going to post a few pictures that I look at from time to time when I am thinking about this day.

Look at how small they all were when he left.

An how big they were when he came home.

This is were he lived. The inside and outside. He shared it with his buddy Eric.

Where he worked. They put a big concrete mortar in front of the tent because the group before his had a mortar roll through the door when they got attacked one day. Good thing that it was a dud. They worked in a tent under a cement arch.

This actually shows the arch it's under.

And the inside.

Eric, Fred and Chris in Iraq. Back home the wives all kept eachother company. There were four of us that kept eachother going during this time. Christy, Diane, Tracey and I. We all still get together now and again. Not to relive the past, just to re-establish the contact.

And this is the photo I look at when I need to remind myself that it wasn't a vacation that he was on. When I need to remember that even though I was raising three kids alone during that 18 months, he was fulfilling a duty that he had made to his country before he knew me and before he had a family of his own. Love you tons hon, and here's hoping that we miss out on the next one.

Haircuts

2008-09-09T07:51:00.001-06:00

Yesterday after piano lessons I took Carter and Kennedy to get their hair cut. It hasn't been done since we were at my parents in July, so it was way past time to get them done. Ryan refused to get his cut yet. I'll have to hold him down to get it done in the next few weeks. Anyway, Ryan got hold of the camera in my purse and started taking pictures. Most of them didn't turn out, but they are getting put on here anyway.

This picture makes her look like she is really young. It reminds me of her face when she was probably 4 or 5.

This one he took of himself. I'm sure that he won't like that I put it on here, but you can see, he definitely needs a haircut.

Now, isn't this just really cute. The stylist did a fake mohawk, I'm sure that's not the name for it, but around our house, that's what we call it. I just love this kid to death.

I'm off to a doctors appointment. Here's hoping I'm down another 8-10 pounds or so. I'm being optimistic since I've been walking a little more than I had been.

Leadership

2008-09-07T18:42:00.001-06:00

Just a quick comment on that topic. How can we expect the young men and young women of today to become great leaders if we do not show them by example through our own leadership. Today has been extremely frustrating in that regard.

Fall soccer

2008-09-06T12:57:00.001-06:00

Carter started soccer last week and had his first game today. He's made huge improvements since he started this spring. He understands now what the game is about and really enjoys it. He's not into scoring goals, he likes to kick the ball down the field and stop the other team from scoring. Every team needs defenders, right??

Lets see, other news: Chris has been on a business trip to North Carolina. He got out of there before the hurricane hit and then managed to miss his connection from Denver to Boise. That really stinks because he has drill this weekend and will now have to make up a half-day and take time off of work for that. Yuck.

I took the kids to watch Mountain View play football against Post Falls last night. It was a fun game. We won 28-6 so that was fun. They should be pretty good this year. We've been to quite a few of their basketball games because my friends son Braden plays, but hadn't ever been to a football game. I think we will be going more often. I realized just how much fun high school football games are to go to. And in other football news, my nephew Dyllan plays for my alma mater Teton High in eastern Idaho on the JV team and they have won both of their football games this year against North Fremont and Jackson, Wyo. Go Redskins!! Great job Dyllan.

Am I prepared...

2008-09-05T11:37:00.001-06:00

I've had a hard time deciding whether or not to actually post about this because I've mainly used my blog to just update family and friends on what's going on with our family. I usually don't post anything serious and mainly stick to light-hearted family stuff with a few friends thrown in.

I have a friend, who is also in my ward, who found a lump in her neck about a month ago. Her family has been in the ward for about 5 years I think. We became friends through another sister in our ward, Tresa. Tresa and I have been friends since they moved into the ward about 11 years ago. It's an interesting friendship between us. We are all different ages and at different stages in our lives. I am the youngest, with kids that are still fairly young, Ryan and Kennedy and middle school and Carter just starting kindergarten. Tresa is in the middle, with kids ranging from a senior in high school to a third grader. Megan and Kennedy are the same age and are really good friends. My other friend is the oldest of us. She has 12 kids, the oldest are married and have families and the youngest is a junior in high school. We get along pretty well all of the time and can sit and talk for hours.

My friend went to the doctor to get the lump checked out and was told that she had cancer and that they needed to do more tests to figure out what they were going to do. I found out this week after our Labor Day camping excursion that she has Stage IV cancer. It is inoperable and terminal. With chemotherapy they are giving her 6-12 months. She's been very strong about this whole thing. Stronger than I would ever be. I've been able to watch three of her boys over the last five years grow up and they are all great boys. I've met a number of her other kids and they are all wonderful. I took brownies over to them one Sunday night and everyone that was home was gathered around the piano singing and hanging out. It reminded me so much of my family. Not the singing part, just the being able to be together part. I think that's why I am drawn to her so much. Her family reminds me a lot of my own.

So I've been thinking a lot about my own mortality lately. Wondering if I am doing everything I can to be where I want to be if something like this happened to me. Does that make sense? That's about a philosophical as I get. I don't think that she reads my blog, but, I just wanted to let her know that I love her and think that she is a brave woman.

Labor Day in McCall

2008-09-02T16:13:00.001-06:00

My family loves to go camping. Anytime, anywhere. But, if there is a bed nearby that I can sleep in, that's where I will be.

We have a group of friends that we go to McCall with every Labor Day weekend. It's grown quite a bit since we started this tradition a few years ago. In fact, I think we had over 70 people up there this weekend. Everybody camps at Ponderosa State Park except for our family. My in-laws bought a condo near the park when I was pregnant with Carter, so it's been about 5 years. I just can't justify the tent thing when there is a comfortable bed a couple miles away. So, we go into the park to join the other families for meals and to ride bikes and play in the lake. Then, when it gets cold at night we pack up the kids and head back to the warmth. I sit in a nice hot tub and swim with my kids in the pool, and then we head back the next day for more camping fun. Can you blame me?? Really, I don't think so. We had the Shane's stay with us this year. Elli's not much for the camping thing if there is a bed nearby either. It was fun for the boys to get to hang out together and Kennedy was really good with all of them.

Let's see if I can manage to name all the families. Feel free to let me know if I left you out:

Browns, Hodges, Nuttalls, Freemans, Larsons, Stauffers, Lines, Shreeves, Mechams, Wilkes and Walkers, Shanes, and of course, us, the Franz family. Quite a big group and the DeMonds joined us for dinner one night. Like I said, lots of fun.

It did get pretty cold the last couple of nights, with a couple of rain showers. The kids all seemed to have a great time, they ranged from baby Shelby (about 5 months) to teenagers just out of high school. They had a great time hanging around the fire playing games and just chatting.

Here's some pictures that Chris took up there and a few that I took on the way home.

One of the things I love about being at Ponderosa is that Carter can pretty much run around and be all boy without too many problems. I think we only caught him "watering" the trees a few times.

Michael Stauffer and his son Myles are into geocaching. He took Chris and Charlie along with all the little boys to do some searching. They found a few caches and were able to trade for some treasures. I think we might have found a new hobby.

Kennedy, Megan (from behind), Brooklyn and Kaiden in the Brown's trailer. It was warm.

The pictures above and below were taken at a lookout towards the back of the park. Ponderosa sits on a peninsula of Payette Lake. You can hike to the water and there are some fun beaches to hang out at.

These two pictures I took from my car while we were waiting for the flaggers at Banks to let us through the intersection. It can sometimes take awhile.

A view of the cars lined up ahead of us to get through Banks. I think we were stopped for about 15 minutes.

And a view of the cars lined up behind us from my sideview mirror. Both pictures are a little deceiving because you can see around the corners. There were ALOT more cars than you can see.

Ryan and Kennedy off to school again

2008-08-26T13:04:00.001-06:00

My two oldest started school yesterday. Ryan is in 8th grade and Kennedy is in 6th grade. Both are in middle school. Lewis & Clark is where they go. There are probably close to 1000 kids at that school. A good stepping stone to the probably close to 2500 kids or more that will be at Mountain View next year when Ryan goes to high school. Yes, next year I will have kids in high school, middle school and elementary school. That scheduling is going to be the death of me.

Ryan is going to have a fun year I think. He starts yearbook today after school, so that should be a good time for him. He's not so sure about his TA class with his PE teachers. Yesterday they made him sweep the gym and the weight room. He and all his friends met up at their regular table for lunch. I think he's got a few classes with Thomas and Chase, a couple of his friends.

Kennedy was really, really nervous yesterday. I think she got lost a couple of times and had a few issues opening her locker, but I think she had a great day. She was smiling when she came out to the car yesterday. Saw the boy she's got a crush on, so that would have been a great day anyway. She's got a few classes with her friends Megan and Kelsey. I think she knows somebody in every one of her classes, which is nice. She's getting a PE locker today, hopefully she'll be able to remember two combinations.

Where I went to middle school and high school there weren't any locks on the lockers. They were A LOT bigger and taller as well. The lockers at our schools here are tiny. My friend Tresa's son Braden is a senior this year and he didn't even get a locker assigned to him because the school is so huge and he doesn't have time to go back and forth between classes.

This is what stinks though, Kennedy and I get up at about 6 a.m., I get Ryan up at about 6:20 and Chris up at about 6:40 so that he can get the kids to school by about 7:30. Carter can get up by 8 and still get to school. It makes for a long morning, but it's good for me. I'm trying to convince myself that I should start walking while they are all getting ready, but haven't quite done it yet.

This is Ryan's "I can't believe you are taking pictures at my school" look yesterday.

Backpacking

2008-08-26T12:46:00.001-06:00

Ryan and Chris spent three days backpacking through the Sawtooths near Stanley last week with Ryan's scout troop. Only two of the boys ended up being able to go, so Kody, one of Ryan's leaders sons came along. That gave them three boys and three adults. Pretty good numbers I guess.

Chris and I followed Ryan and the rest of his group up to the Grand Jean trail head to drop off a vehicle and then I took everyone and their gear to the Iron Creek trail head where they were heading off on their trip. It was a nice 7.5 hours in the car for me that day.

They hiked for about a total of 17 miles during the three days. They camped at different lakes along the way. They did some fishing and had a pretty good time I think. One morning when they woke up there was frost on their packs. Good thing they took thermal underwear cause neither Chris nor Ryan took jackets. Their sleeping bags are pretty warm though, so that was good.

We've been slowly buying up some backpacking equipment, I think next summer we are going to attempt to go as a family. Definitely not 17 miles, but if I keep losing weight the way I have been the last three months I should be able to go without too much trouble.

They only came home with a few blisters and banged up toes between them. I did have to go and buy Ryan another new pair of shoes though because his feet have been growing like crazy and the ones he wore on the trip were pretty nasty when he got home.

Here are a pictures that Chris took along the way.

Brian, Gordon, Ryan, Kaden, Chris and Kody at the Iron Creek Trailhead.

Doesn't this look completely comfortable. There were actually snowbanks by some of the mountain lakes.

Isn't this a beautiful sight.

They took along some fishing gear (thanks Gordon) so they had fish for dinner one night. Lots of fun.

We love camping

2008-08-24T16:28:00.001-06:00

Chris was also able to get back some of the pictures that we took camping last weekend. Yeah. Ryan, Carter and I went up to Grimes Creek near Idaho City Friday afternoon to get a spot and set up our tent near the creek that runs along the road. We were able to get a spot a ways away from the road, but still pretty close to the creek. Ryan and I managed to get our two-room cabin tent put of by ourselves. Quite an accomplishment we thought.

When Chris got home from work we packed the food and headed back up for the night. It was a quick trip, but the kids seemed to have a great time. We did the basic camping fair. Hot dogs, chips, s'mores, bacon and cold cereal. We hung out by the fire and played in the water. I actually slept in quite awhile Saturday morning, which is good because I never sleep very well in a tent.

Looks like fun, doesn't it. The only downside is that there weren't any bathrooms around. That's the only roughing it part that I really, really didn't like.

Swimming lessons

2008-08-24T16:11:00.001-06:00

Chris was able to salvage a few of the pictures that I took at Carter's swimming lessons. I have no idea how, I am completely illiterate when it comes to trying to fix things when it comes to electronics.

He takes swimming lessons from the Williams family. They were in our ward before they split it the last time. They have four girls and a son that is Kennedy's age. They taught Ryan and Kennedy to swim when they were young, so it's fun to see how they've grown up now that Carter is old enough to take lessons.

Melissa is the youngest of the four girls. She taught Carter this year. Here's a few pictures that were salvaged. I'm just bummed that the ones I took of him going off the diving board couldn't be found.

Carter free diving for a diving rocket. He can go down about 7 feet to retrieve the diving rocket.

He's also learned his freestyle stroke really well. He actually passed the swim test at a local pool so that he could jump off the diving board at our ward party. He had to swim across the pool and back without using a doggy paddle. He was really excited.

When he dives down further than about 7 feet he has to get a push down from Melissa.

Crap

2008-08-19T11:10:00.001-06:00

I had taken a bunch of photos of Carter at swimming lessons and of our camping trip over the weekend to Grimes Creek near Idaho City and when I put the card into my computer to download it totally messed up and deleted all but about 5 of the pictures and those won't even open on my computer. I am majorly p.o.ed. Here's hoping that Chris can work some magic or something and get them back.

Carter's News

2008-08-13T11:07:00.001-06:00

Carter has had a few exciting things happen in the last few weeks since we got home from vacation. He lost his first tooth a few weeks ago. I had no idea it was even loose when he came and showed me how it was hanging loose. Ryan and Kennedy never lost teeth this early. He was really excited and couldn't wait for the Tooth Fairy to come and visit him. It's not a great picture, but you can definitely see the gap on the bottom teeth.

He also started Kindergarten this morning at Spalding. He was so excited. His teacher is Mrs. Longpre, she was his first preschool teacher in the MEI program at Spalding, so that was fun for him to see her. He gets to ride the bus home so that has added to the excitement. Hopefully he will still be excited about going after a few weeks.

Woohoo, my baby is finally going in school. The last time one of my kids started kindergarten I was pregnant with Carter. I'm not sure if I feel relief that this is the last time I will go through this or be a little sad about it.

Disneyland & DCA ... finally

2008-08-11T10:49:00.001-06:00

We had a really great time at Disneyland and California Adventure. We got 3-day park hopper passes. I wish we would have scheduled a rest day somewhere in there, cause dang, that's a lot of walking (which was good because I totally ate the fried food at the park and needed to walk a lot). We spent the first day completely at Disneyland and the next two days we spent half the day at each park. The kids had a great time, I think we hit almost every ride at Disneyland and quite a few at DCA. Carter went on all the rollercoasters except for California Screamin' and seemed to really enjoy them. I think everybody's favorite ride was Space Mountain and Kennedy and Ryan also really enjoyed the Hollywood Hotel's Tower of Terror.

The kids on the treasure on Tom Sawyer's Island and all of us in a cage. We actually saw Captain Jack on this island. It was fun because we were always running into people dressed up as cool characters. I think Chris saw Indiana Jones on Tarzan's tree house fighting somebody.

Chris and Carter on the flying Dumbo ride.

The only thing that Carter really wanted to do when we first got there was the Jedi Training Academy. He got chosen to go up, which was cool because then he didn't want to go through it again. He had to fight Darth Maul. I would have been a little scared of this guy. He kept coming up and getting right in our faces, it was a little intimidating. Way to go Carter.

Kennedy on the Rocket ride. This was actually Carter's favorite ride. I think he went on it about 4 times.

This was the submarine from the Finding Nemo ride. I only put it in because I stood in line for about 90 minutes for this ride. Definitely not worth a 90 minute wait. Maybe 5 or 10, but 90, heck no, won't do that again. (Notice I said "I" stood in line. I let Chris and the kids go on rides while I waited).

Autotopia ride. Carter had a great time. He could steer, but Chris had to push the gas. Kennedy had the same problem. Ryan went by himself and had a fun time.

The kids on front of the Tower of Terror ride. Below is a picture of the picture that was taken during the ride. Yeah, we don't buy the pictures they take, and we saw everyone else taking pictures of the screens showing the pics. Is that stealing??

Handy Manny!! The only character that Carter would even go near. We saw everybody there, Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, The Incredibles... and this was the only one that he didn't hide from.

OK, I admit it, I bought the kids mouse ears, had them embroidered, and made them wear them for awhile. I figured they would be fun souvenirs for them.

Us in front of the F at the DCA entrance. Don't I look enthused. This was the last day, my feet were killing me, and Chris was still taking pictures of everything.

Carter and I on the ladybug ride at Bug's Life in DCA. It's kind of like the spinning tea cups, only it doesn't spin around. It went pretty fast though.

A picture of Chris, Kennedy and Ryan on California Screamin'. I have to tell this though. The rollercoaster was broke down when we first got there, so Chris and the kids went on another ride. I took Carter on the Merry-Go-Round and then noticed that the coaster was going again. So, I left Carter with my in-laws and jumped in line assuming that Chris and the kids would be back before I got too far. Nope. I ended up going on it by myself. Yeah for me. It was pretty cool. Lots of drops and a loop.

Drenched from going on Splash Mountain.

Thunder Mountain Railroad. This was the first coaster that we went on. Carter was screaming AWESOME when we got done. Kennedy just screamed through the whole thing. Well, she did that on every coaster we went on.

The Caterpillar ride in Bug's Life. When you go under the watermelon is squirts water down on you.

This is what they did when we would get back from the park. Listen to their iPods.

And this is what Carter would do.

Carter got 2 light sabers in Disneyland. And guess what, they were both broke within 2 days of us getting home.

Sorry this is so long, but we had a great time and got along so well I just had to share :)

Hotel pools

2008-08-07T10:42:00.001-06:00

Since we spent 7 nights in hotels on our vacation and my kids love hotel pools there definitely had to be a separate post with pictures of my kids in hotel pools. I won't put anymore from the pool in Las Vegas, though. Pete, my father-in-law loves cameras and bought a new water-proof digital one to take on vacation.

I don't know if I ever explained that my in-laws were going to the same wedding that we were and when we decided to drive down and take a few extra days to go to Disneyland they decided to join us. That's about all I'm going to say about it. We are all still talking to one another, and I figure that's got to count for something.

This is how a lot of our days ended, sitting in various hot tubs and relaxing. My feet definitely needed to soak after three days walking around Disneyland and California Adventure.

More hot tubbing. We met another family at our hotel that had a son around Carter's age, so they were able to give us some pointers about what he would like to do.

I definitely have some posers for kids. They are complete fishes. And I can't believe how much Carter has his eyes open under water. I'm going to have to invest in a good pair of swim goggles for him.

Las Vegas

2008-08-04T15:06:00.001-06:00

So, we stayed in Las Vegas the first night of our trip to California and our last night before we came home. There is probably a shorter way to get to Anaheim, but Chris and his dad really like Las Vegas and thought that we all needed to experience it with them. The best part about the hotel was the pool. I don't care what kind of ventilation systems that they put in these hotel/casinos, they will never, ever be able to make them not smell like smoke. And every time you want to get from one place to another in the hotel, you have to walk right through the middle of the casino with your kids.

We also walked down the strip with our kids to check out the water show at the Bellagio. You know at the end of Ocean's 11, when they are all standing in front of the fountain, that's the Bellagio. It was an interesting walk down there. Lots of bright lights and cool stuff to look out. But, my favorite, favorite part ... get ready for it, were the men and women hanging out on the corners trying to give you little cards with almost naked women on them, wearing shirts that say HOT, HOT GIRLS with a number on them. I had Kennedy trying to hide her face and Ryan walking with his face in my back because neither of them wanted to look at the cards on the ground.

The fountain show was pretty cool though. Worth the walk, but we took a taxi back to the hotel we were staying at, which was worth the $10 is cost.

I have to share this, the only thing Ryan wanted to do in Las Vegas was call his old Young Men's advisor and say, "Guess where I am?? I'm in Vegas, baby." I had to laugh. Todd was a great advisor and still talks to the boys even though he's moved downtown.

Here's a bunch of pictures of when we were in Vegas.

Part of the pyramid that is the Luxor Hotel/Casino.

Kennedy petting a manta ray at the Shark Reef exhibit in Mandalay Bay Hotel/Casino. There was a huge tank at the end of the exhibit that had huge sharks and swordfish and sea turtles swimming around. It was pretty cool.

Carter at the edge of the Bellagio fountain pool. It's pretty cool, they do a water show set to music. Definitely one of the cooler things I've seen.

A replica of the Eiffel Tower, by the Paris Hotel/Casino I think.

The New York New York Casino next to our hotel. There is a roller coaster on it that you can see in the picture. The kids were dying to go on it when we got back from California, but it was like $12 a ride or something. Maybe next time.

This is the hotel we stayed at. It's the Excalibur. The kids thought it was cool because it looked like a castle.

The kids at one of the pools at the hotel. They spent the most time in this one because there was a slide to go down. Kennedy and Carter liked that. The pools were all only three feet deep, so Ryan was a little bummed about that.

More fun in the pool with Kennedy and Carter.

Kennedy on the slide.

This is how Carter goes down. He tried to skateboard down it once and got whistled at by the lifeguard.

The lion in front of the MGM Grand Casino.

Ryan touching a manta ray at the Shark Reef. There actually little sharks in the petting tank as well. But, they hid under the rocks at the top of the picture. You can see the tail of one of them sticking out.

This is me making Carter pet the manta ray. It was really soft and a little slimy. He really wanted to do it, but was a bit scared, so I just grabbed his hand and then he was okay with it.

We have lots of other pictures of the hotels and stuff, but before I can show them to anyone I'll have to edit out some of the signs that were advertising shows that I didn't think were appropriate for the blog.

Vacation stall

2008-08-01T09:51:00.001-06:00

We've been back from our family vacation since Monday night and I just can't seem to get my thoughts organized to blog about it. We packed a lot of driving and activity into 8 days. The kids were great travelers and there weren't too many arguments between everyone. I think I only sat on Ryan once during the whole trip, which is probably in itself a miracle.

We left home on Monday, July 21st for Las Vegas. It was an 11 hour drive. I have to say that there is absolutely nothing to see driving through the deserts of Nevada. They have all these signs to watch out for deer and stuff, and I actually scoured the flat grounds the whole way to make sure we didn't hit anything. Guess what, didn't see a darn thing. We stayed on the strip at Excalibur, which wasn't that great of a hotel, but for $60 bucks, it was great.

Tuesday we got up and took the kids swimming down in the pool, well, there were actually four pools, so that was fun for them. Then we hopped back in the car for another 4.5 hours to Anaheim. Then spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at Disneyland and California Adventure. Lots of fun was had, and we definitely learned a few things about how to do the parks.

Friday night we drove up to Valencia/Santa Clarita (I'm really not sure which city we were in) for Christy and Robert's wedding, which was our whole reason for going to California in the first place. My in-laws and Christy's parents are really good friends. They used to go on ski trips together when Chris, his brother Greg and Christy were younger. We hadn't seen her since our open house in Boise, so that was fun. Her parents Steve and Yolanda have come and visited a few times in the last year, so the kids were excited to see them again.

Next to our hotel was Six Flags Magic Mountain. The kids wanted to go soooo bad, but I was so tired of parks at that point, there was no way it was going to happen. It did look fun, though. Maybe next time.

After the wedding we headed back to Las Vegas and went to a show at the Excalibur. It was about King Arthur and the round table. They had horses and knights. Lots of fighting. Food you ate with your fingers. It was fun.

After time in the pool again we headed home. We made better time on the way home and were able to stop in Twin Falls to look at the new temple. I think it looks a lot like the one in Rexburg. It was good to see it with the kids. Hopefully we'll get back there in the next couple of weeks to go through the open house.

We had a great time, the kids seemed to have a great time. I'm still trying to get back into real life. I need to buy school supplies, take the kids shopping for school clothes and get Carter into swimming lessons before he starts Kindergarten on the 13th. I've also been trying to sort through over 800 pictures that Chris and his dad took on our trip so that I can post a few in the next few days, which I promise to do.

If you notice, there is a new family picture at the top. It was taken at Luxor, a casino/hotel on the Strip in Las Vegas. I figured it was time to update, the old photo was taken at Kennedy's baptism about three years ago.

Change in callings

2008-07-30T09:14:00.001-06:00

So, the day before we left on our family vacation I got another new calling. I'd only been the Laurel advisor in our ward for about a month when the President, my friend Amanda, and her family, decided to move to Utah. I'll miss you Amanda. So, we all knew a change was in the works, lots of speculation was flying around.

So, I guessed right on the new YW President, it was my friend Elli. They released us all and moved people around in the presidency and replaced a few sisters. So, I am now the new 1st Counselor in YW. I guess that means I'm the counselor over the Mia Maids. We just got back a few days ago, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I haven't even looked through my new binders or anything and we have an activity tonight (stake planned though, so that's nice). Sorry Elli, I'm not starting out that great am I, although I did agree to have our meeting here tomorrow night, that should count for something, right.

We also have four sisters that I don't know very well on the new board, so that should be interesting and fun to get to know them. I'm sure I'll learn a lot and grow tremendously through this calling. I'm feeling a little bit overwhelmed (I'm not sure if that is the right word) with some of the things that the Bishop said when he set me apart, but I'm working with some great girls and great ladies, so it will be fun.

Green Reunion

2008-07-30T08:31:00.001-06:00

The weekend I came home from my parents house we had a family reunion with my mom's family. My grandma turned 92 this year and she has 10 kids, who all came. So, from those 10 kids I have lots of cousins, who have lots of kids. I think someone said there were close to 90 people there. It was good to see everyone. I don't make it to these reunions every time. They are every couple of years. My Kunz family reunion was the next weekend, but we missed that because we were getting ready for our family vacation (I haven't mentioned that yet, but I'll get around to it). Anyhoo, here are some pictures, hopefully I'll remember everyone's names and who they belong to.

These are 3 of my mom's brothers: Greg, Eric, and Thayne. I think Eric is holding my cousin Karin's baby.

This is my cousin Damon's daughter (I can't remember her name right now) and my cousin MaryKate's daughter Lilianna.

My cousin Melissa's twins Jenna and Chloe and another of MaryKate's daughter Sophia.

My brother's David and Kaleb getting a little chummy during the talent show Saturday night.

Kennedy with her cousins Josh and Kyle. They spent a lot of time hanging out Saturday.

Here are just some fun candids of my kids and my sisters kids with a few cousins mixed in. The picture of Carter with his tongue touching his nose was a contest. It's something that most of the Green family can do, must be some sort of genetic trait or something.

Yellowstone

2008-07-14T17:34:00.001-06:00

I decided to be brave and take my kids through Yellowstone National Park while we were at my parents. So, Wednesday we took off at about 8 a.m. My mom came with me (Yeah!!) and we brought along my nephew Josh. Ryan was a little bummed because Dyllan couldn't come. He had to work with his dad that day.

It's almost a two hour drive to West Yellowstone, Montana and then we took about 8 hours to drive around the lower loop of the park and then another two hours home.

I had both my small pocket sized digital camera and Chris' nice Canon camera, so I gave Ryan and Kennedy both cameras and told them to go for it. As a result 202 pictures were taken of our drive through Yellowstone. Here they all are ... JK, I'll just post a few, but the kids had a great time taking pictures.

We saw everything we wanted to see except for a bear. My cousin Holly is a librarian in a library in Mammoth on the Northern loop, she told us that she has seen a lot of bears this summers, but us, not a one. Lots of bison, deer, elk and a few coyotes. Would have loved to have seen a bear though. Boo.

Here are some pictures of our long, fun day.

A quick look at the participants, excluding my mother and myself.

And now for some great scenery...

Just some random shots of hot pools and mud pots with a cool mountain and a bison mixed in. The thing about the hot pools and pots is that they definitely smell like sulfur.

More shots of hot pools and Ryan by the lake. The shot in the lower right corner is a geyser in the lake behind Ryan. I've seen it bubble before, just not while we were there.

Old Faithful. Need I say more. The kids posed in front of it when it started to settle down. The lodge is behind us and they had a nice cafeteria in it. You can get all sorts of different things to eat, which was nice with four kids and two adults.

Some close ups of some really deep, blue pools by the lake. And a few of a waterfall towards the end of our trip and a shot away from the waterfall. It's great to see how the trees have started coming back after the fire in 1988. I remember the smoke and ash coming to Teton Valley and going through the park in 1994 and 1997 with Chris and seeing the burnt trees. Definitely much greener now.

Pictures of the animals we saw. Coyotes (we saw two), bison (saw a lot), a lot of deer and elk and the boys (definitely animals). We also saw a moose near Island Park, but I couldn't slow down fast enough to take pictures of it.

Bar J fun

2008-07-14T16:55:00.001-06:00

On Monday, the 7th my parents and I took the kids to a place called the Bar J. It's a place near Teton Village, Wyoming (where I worked in high school, the town, not the Bar J). They serve BBQ chuckwagon style like when they used to go on cattle drives. Then after dinner they have a show. Five wranglers get on stage and sing and tell jokes for about an hour and a half. Before dinner you can look around and go on a train ride (a very small train). It was fun, I had never been. The older kids have gone with my parents before, so it wasn't new to them.

This picture and the one below were from the train ride. They also had a moose in a pond that I didn't get a picture of and a grizzly going after a couple of traders. Definitely interesting.

My kids and my parents. The fun thing about being behind the camera is that no pictures are ever taken of you.

I tried to take some of the stage, but the lighting was really low and they turned out terrible. I didn't have Chris' fancy camera with me that night, so I couldn't take them.

Blessing Lily

2008-07-14T16:26:00.001-06:00

On Saturday, July 5th we headed down to Logan to bless my brother Kaleb's daughter Lily. Whenever we get together as a family, things get kind of wild. After Sacrament Meeting, we headed to the club house at his town house to have lunch and hang out. We added the last few cousins, Case and Tallin to the mix and the fun began.

Carter holding Lily with Kaleb sitting right there helping out.

Kennedy, who was the only girl cousin, holding Lily.

Ryan holding Lily after her blessing.

My parents Mike and Marcia with all of their grandkids. From the left: Josh, Ryan, Dyllan, Kennedy, Tallin, Lily (held by my mom), Case, Brandon and Carter.

Grandpa Mike posing with the kids. Kennedy leaned out of the pictures, but her hand made it in.

My kids with their Great-grandma Davida.

My dad and Brandon doing their belly dance. Sorry dad, I couldn't resist.

My dad and Carter hanging out. Right before I took this picture Carter was actually smiling.

The grass fight that ensued after lunch. Uncle Tim was like a big kid and got right in on the action. The little kids had a great time.

Boating at the lake

2008-07-14T15:58:00.001-06:00

My sister Jenny and her husband Tim have a boat. We spent the night before the 4th of July at Palisades Reservoir. The kids had a great time tubing and then we roasted hot dogs around a fire and ate chips and made s'mores. We all had a great time, especially the kids.

It's fun because Jenny's kids are around my kids ages. Dyllan is about 18 months older that Ryan, Josh is about 6 months older than Kennedy and Brandon is about 5 months older that Carter.

Just a picture of the boat with my mom and sister after we found a place on shore to hang out.

My sister Jenny on the way across the lake. She's going to love this.

The six kids. Kennedy and Josh are the farthest out. Brandon is between Ryan and Dyllan. And Carter is to the right.

Carter and Brand seeing how far they dared to go out into the lake.

Tim, Josh and Kennedy around the fire.

My mom taking pictures of everyone at the lake.

On the road again, I can't wait to get on the road again

2008-07-14T15:43:00.001-06:00

If I had music on my blog, it'd definitely be playing Willie Nelson right now. The kids and I just got back from 11 nights on the road. All but one were spent in Cedron at my parents house, but that doesn't mean that we weren't on the road for a good part of the time we were gone. It was a lot of fun though, the kids only came home with me because they missed their dad so much. Carter started bawling when we were leaving because he wanted to stay longer.

I'm going to separate things into different posts, there are alot of pictures, and I'm going to post a bunch because my parents like to look at them, which reminds me, Mom, send me the pictures of that lake in Yellowstone that I didn't get because my batteries died in my cameras. Thanks.

My parents raise hay and grain on about 100 acres of land. Growing up we also raised potatoes, had sheep and dairy cows. I have a lot of good memories of that time, even though I felt like I worked really hard. It's good to take my kids back there and they get to experience a bit of what I did. They moved pipe (which I don't have any pictures of) and other things.

Here is the grainery where they store the grain from the harvest before it gets picked up by semi's.

Carter and his cousin Brandon on the swather with my dad while cutting hay. I think this is the first summer that Carter has been around to cut hay and bale it with my dad. He had a great time, they got to be pretty great buddies while we were there.

Aspens in my mom's front yard. I could only wish for a yard this big where we live. Lots of room for the kids to play. My brother David, his wife Rachel and Carter were hitting golf balls into the pasture in front of the house before we left. Lots of fun.

We were able to go on 4-wheeler rides every day that we were there. The kids could ride it to my Grandma Ruby's every day to see her. Just get on and drive through the field and there they were. No highways to drive on. We also used them to go to the garden. My parents and my sister Jenny plant a garden behind my Grandma's house. It's huge. A lot bigger than I would ever plant here. They have potatoes, raspberries, strawberries, onions, lettuce, peas, beans, squash, zucchini and carrots. I spent some time weeding and picking strawberries. Definitely sweeter fruit than you can get at Costco.

I took a slip-n-slide with us. Carter and Brandon spent a lot of time playing on it before the older kids destroyed it. They would play in the water for awhile and then swing to get dry.

And Ryan, Kennedy and I mowed the yard for my mom. Definitely took a little bit more time than mowing my yard at home. Good exercise, right??

Happy birthday Sis

2008-07-14T14:51:00.001-06:00

Yes, that is really what we call her. Every since Kennedy was a baby, she's always been Sissy or Sis at our house. Every once in awhile I call her Ken, but mostly it's Sis. Actually, all our kids have names we call them, but that could be a whole new post, so I'll keep it short. When Chris and I talk about the kids with each other, this is how we refer to them: Ryan has always been "The Boy"; Kennedy has always been "The Girl"; and Carter has always been "The Kid". I'm not sure what we would do if we had anymore kids.

On to the birthday. She had a friends party the night before they got out of school. Megan and Kelsey came to hang out. We had pizza, watched a movie and made vinyl signs for the girls to take home. They also had a great time with the cake and were very crazy as you can see by the pictures.

So, here they are looking all innocent. It's an act. Really, it is.

I made this "beautiful" cake for the girls to eat. And check out below what they did !!

They all had fun, but only Megan came away unscathed from the cake incident.

On her actually birthday on July 1st we had a family party for her. Her grandparents that live here, Pete and Polly came by and then we took her to her favorite Mexican place for dinner, then Chris took the kids miniature golfing at Boondocks while I packed for our trip. I think we ended up having cake and ice cream at about 10:30 that night.

Last day of school... finally

2008-07-14T14:25:00.001-06:00

Kennedy finally had her last day of school on June 27th. I know it's the middle of July, but like I said, I've been traveling and enjoying myself too much to post anything while I was gone.

It was her last year of elementary school. So, goodbye Spalding Elementary, and hello Lewis and Clark Middle School. Now, if I could just talk her out of joining the skateboarding club at school :(

This is Kennedy with her teacher, Miss Nigh. Kennedy is the shortest kid in class, and her teacher is pretty much her size. She was a great teacher. It was her first year and she always had the kids doing something fun and interesting. She was really good for Kennedy because Kennedy is normally quiet in school and this year she really came out of her shell. And yes, her shirt actually has a "Team Edward" iron on. I just had to include the picture of Carter, he's really quite a poser for the camera.

Field day

2008-07-14T14:14:00.001-06:00

Where my daughter Kennedy goes to school they have a "field day" at the end of the year. When I went to elementary school at good old Victor Elementary we also had a field day. The two are completely different in every way. I had actual track events at my field day, as well as a softball throw. Kennedy's elementary school does it different. The kids go through various stations and activities, mostly centered around water. Probably because it is so hot at the end of June when they get out of school, water is a great idea. The kids have a blast. There are no winners or ribbons, just a lot of fun had by all.

They roll out big rolls of black plastic, cover it with VO5 shampoo and spray water down it for a very long slip-n-slide. They played bocce ball and had a sponge war. I only stayed for part of the day, so here are some pictures of Kennedy's field day.

Megan, Kennedy and Brenna getting ready to play bocce ball.

Kennedy hanging out on the bouncy ball with Kelsey.

Getting up after going down the slip-n-slide.

Kennedy is going to kill me, but I had to put this picture in. Kennedy has a crush on this boy in her class. I think he's pretty cute. He's probably the tallest boy in class and she is definitely the shortest girl. Good for her, I say :) Hopefully he never finds this blog.

Gone, gone, gone

2008-07-14T13:50:00.001-06:00

So, I took my kids out of town for a couple of weeks, so needless to say, I haven't updated in quite awhile. We drove for miles and miles and had many adventures. Caught up with some family we haven't seen in years and had a great time.

There will be lots of pictures, so hopefully everyone enjoys them :)

Primary activity

2008-06-27T17:19:00.001-06:00

The kids had a Primary activity on Tuesday. I'm not sure either of the kids had a great time. It was a water activity and Carter and another kid ran into each other when they were running through the sprinkler. He was pretty pouty after that. Kennedy and the other girls her age were pretty much regulated to helping out with the younger kids, so I'm not sure how much fun she actually had. But, most of the kids seemed to thing it was a lot of fun. Again, the pictures aren't too great. I'm a novice at using Chris' nice Canon camera, so I didn't have it on the right settings, the pictures all had a blue tint and looked washed out. I'll figure it out someday.

They had an obstacle course for the kids. They had to sing primary songs as they went along.

The best part, the popcicles at the end.

And I just had to include this cute picture of my friend Amanda's daughter Becca. Hope you don't care Amanda, if you do I can change it to the one I took of you :)

Kennedy's a performer

2008-06-27T17:08:00.001-06:00

Kennedy is just finishing up her last year of elementary school. She goes year round, so we are just getting to the end of the school year here. Her fifth grade teacher, Miss Nigh, has been pretty creative this year and the kids are always putting on a performance of some kind or another.

Miss Nigh and the kids put together a compilation of what they have done this year. All the academic projects and all the "specials". Specials are things like music, PE, library, health, that they go to other teachers for. It was really entertaining, although I couldn't get too many good pictures. The parents are always stuck behind about 500 kids (no, I'm not kidding, the school actually has about 650 to 700 I thing, but there is always one track off).

Megan, Kelsey and Kennedy did a dance about health and staying drug free to a Hannah Montana song. It was pretty cute.

And then the whole class did another dance to the High School Musical song about summer. They did the performance three times on Monday and again on Wednesday.

My little builder

2008-06-16T11:30:00.001-06:00

My husband took pity on me because I've been home with the boys during the week while Kennedy is still in school. They have been driving me a little crazy. This is Ryan, everyday, "Mom, what are we doing today that's fun?" This is me, "Nothing, I'm not your entertainment, now go clean your room." And this is Carter, everyday, "I want to play the Wii," and this is me, "Get off the Wii right now and find something else to do." Yeah, I know, I'm not a fun mom. But, gas prices are high, I don't want to be driving a lot. Especially when I've got a couple of high mileage trips coming up soon. I need to be saving some money (and I've been doing a good job, I haven't filled up my Expedition in over 17 days).

So, Saturday Chris commandeered Carter for the morning while I took Ryan and Kennedy shopping (did I really get the best end of this stick??). And this is what they came home with ...

They went to Lowe's and did a kids build and grow workshop. Carter built this cool wooden tape measure. He also got the apron and glasses and a patch you can sew on. He was very excited. He then followed Chris around the rest of the day. They changed the oil on Chris' motorcycle, rototilled the garden and spent the day outside together. I think they had so much fun that they will be going back in a couple of weeks to build a wooden baseball game.

WAY TO GO CARTER!! And thanks hon, for giving me a little break.

Young women's (Bishop, are you sure that you got the right person??)

2008-06-16T11:16:00.001-06:00

That's right. I received a new calling two Sunday's ago. I knew that I was riding on borrowed time with no calling, since I was released from being Relief Society secretary at the end of April. But, I was really enjoying the no stress of just going to church and enjoying the lessons (and yes mom, I actually do go to Sunday School sometimes).

And then, I just had to go the my friend Tresa's house to check out her new patio and pergola (that's a cool patio covering with slats and openings, I know, not described well, but really, that's not what the post is about). Guess who her husband is?? The Bishop, who I still call Bill outside of church, because it's just weird calling him the Bishop in his house when I'm just hanging out. And bang, new calling. Laurel advisor in Young Women's. I'm actually quite excited, I've been in pretty much every organization except YW. So, it's going to be a new experience, I'm sure a growing one. I'm sure I'll learn a lot, and hopefully impart some life knowledge to some of the girls I'll be with. And as a plus, Kennedy will be turning 12 next year, so maybe I'll get to be with her for a little bit.

We've only got a few Laurels right now, so we are meeting with the Mia Maids through the summer, which means, since we are going to be gone most of July, I don't even have to teach until August . And another plus, our Young Women's president is Amanda of the blogging world whose link is on the side of my blog. She's awesome. One of my really good friends, and one of the best visiting teachers that I've ever had (she actually gave us pedicures one day!!).

We (that would be Elli, the YW secretary and me) are driving up to girls camp on Thursday night for dinner. I'm excited, I only went to a couple years of girls camp when I was growing up, definitely wish I had gone to more, so this will be a fun trip. The girls are really excited, the first year girls are nervous, but I think it will be fun. It's the Bishop's night and testimony meeting, I think. It will be a good way to get to know the girls better.

Who goes on business trips like this?!?!

2008-06-16T10:57:00.001-06:00

Apparently my husband does. But really, when does a business trip include a day here??

This would be Disney World in Orlando, Florida. And a night here??

Yes, that's Sea World in Orlando. And another night here??

Yep, another fun night. This one at Universal Studios Florida in Orlando.

I'm trying to decide if Chris was really actually on a business trip. Or, maybe he just conned his bosses into paying for a vacation. All kidding aside, I know it was a business trip, but really, me home, alone with three kids?? Definitely not a fair trade off. Maybe I should start taking "business trips" to fun places and leave him home with the kids :) Anyway, this was me at the end of his week in Orlando...

But I got payback. Chris had to connect to a flight through Chicago. If you know anything about his travels, you know that he never has anything but bad luck flying through Chicago :) As the phone rang and I checked the caller ID, saw it was him, when he should have been on a plane, I knew he would be spending the night in Chicago again. He's spent a few nights on a cot in the airport before. But, just my luck, he's decided that's not OK anymore, and he booked a room here ...

DANG HIM

And then he had to fly home Saturday morning and go straight to Gowen Field for his Drill Weekend. At that point I kind of felt sorry for him because he had to get up early Sunday morning to have his parents at the airport by about 4:30 am and then go to drill again.

His business trips aren't usually this fun, although they do try to find some good restaurants to eat at and will sometimes get to go to a baseball game or something, it just depends on the cities they are in. And it's always nice when he gets home, cause we all miss him when he's gone.

Last day of school

2008-06-04T15:32:00.001-06:00

For Ryan at least. Poor Kennedy is going through the end of June. Ryan finished 7th grade this year. They got out early today, do you think he and his friends could come up with something fun to do outside?? No, he comes home and all he wants to do is this ...

Play the WII. They got it for Christmas, but after about three months they were fighting so bad over it, that the Wii Remotes got taken away until last week. We'll see how long the peace lasts. He's really into his Call of Duty 3 game right now. I'm thinking that I should get the new Wii Fit game that just came out.

Anyway, Ryan has a pretty busy summer planned. He's got a journalism camp in two weeks since he's going to be on the yearbook staff next year. He's really excited about that. Also he has scout camp the last week of June. That's always a fun time. Then we are off on our travels for the summer. A couple weeks in Teton Valley and then off to California on our Fabulous Family Summer Vacation (with a wedding thrown in).

I still can't believe that I am the mother of an 8th grader. And, I just found out that my high school reunion is going to be over Labor Day weekend. FIFTEEN YEARS, crazy, crazy, crazy!!

Carter graduates from preschool

2008-05-29T15:16:00.001-06:00

We have a preschool graduate!! My baby graduated from preschool today. It was pretty cool. He has been going to a preschool at Spalding Elementary where his older brother and sister both went to elementary school. It's been a really good program for him and definitely helped him with his speech delay. We've had some really great teachers. Miss Rainee, who missed the graduation today because she had a baby yesterday. Miss Amie, who is from the YMCA, Mr. Gene and Miss Wendy. We've been at the school for almost three years, so we've gotten pretty close to all of them and the kids in the class. The kids are all heading to different schools, and even if they go to Spalding with Carter, they won't be on the same track as he is (Spalding is year round). So here are some pictures to commemorate the big day.

He insisted on a mohawk. It's been a common hairstyle for him the last few weeks. Thankfully it falls down pretty quick!

Spencer P. and his mom Jenae. We've been good friends since the boys started school about the same time and have been in the same class for all three years.

This is Amanda. She's in our ward. Just had to add this because she checks the blog (her links on the side). Her daughter Becca has been in Carter's class before. Sorry Amanda, I'm putting it on, you can get me later.

Playing catch with his friend Ryan before we got started.

Carter getting his award and little diploma from Miss Wendy.

I had to show both pictures. He was pouting in the first one because he wanted to go play at the playground after he got his diploma, but we made him take pictures and wait til everyone was done. The second one is his forced smile. He gets it from his Grandpa Pete and his dad. We call it their military smile.

Chris' mom Polly was able to come.

Chris was able to make it from work for a couple of hours and I got to steal the camera so I wasn't in any shots. Yeah.

Here is the group of boys that Carter hangs out with. Going around the spinny thing starting with the boy in the black. Zach, Kevin, Ryan, Jason G., Jordan and Carter. About the only ones missing are Gavin and Jason R.

Carter and Mr. Gene. He's a cool guy. Goes out with the boys and plays soccer and football. It kind of takes you aback when you realize that there is a man in the preschool, but he's been so awesome with the boys. Definitely going to miss Mr. Gene.

Carter with Miss Wendy. She's been a constant with Carter at the preschool. We are excited because her mares have had two babies in the last week and we are going to get to go to her ranch in Melba and check out them and her husband's plane. Yeah!!

what was I thinking

2008-05-28T19:44:00.001-06:00

So yes, I promised some pictures from our Memorial weekend in McCall, but I messed up. When I posted the day we left, I had put the card from the camera in the computer to download the picture of Kennedy's pot that she made. Guess what I forgot to do?? Take the card out of the computer and put it back in the camera. We were down at the lake and Chris went to the Expedition to get the camera and lo and behold, no card in the camera. He did have a smaller card in the bag, but it doesn't hold many pictures, so there aren't alot. Needless to say, he wasn't very happy with me.

The weather wasn't too bad. It rained off and on, but not for long periods of time. My in-laws belong to a church that runs a camp in McCall called Pilgrim's Cove. They were up there with us, and it was the weekend that they do clean-up from the winter, so we went down there for awhile so the kids and Nick the pug could run around.

Here is a picture of the main lodge at the camp. There are a bunch of smaller cabins around and since it is by the lake, there is a boathouse. The other cabins, not so nice. If you've ever been to the girl's camp up Darby Canyon you know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm assuming they are still filled with spring beds and stuff, since I haven't been up there since I was probably 14 or 15.

Here are just a few pictures from the banks of Payette Lake in McCall.

And a few of Carter riding his scooter and throwing a Frisbee one of the times it wasn't raining.

And this is a picture of Chris. When we leave town, he always lets his facial hair grow. He's in the National Guard, so he is usually clean shaven all the time. I think it's his way of rebelling against the man.

And just to share, Carter's last day of preschool was today. He is convinced that he will be starting Kindergarten any day now. The concept of a summer vacation has completely gone over his head. It's so cute :)

Indiana Jones and I wish I was crafty

2008-05-23T10:28:00.001-06:00

Who doesn't love Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones?!? Who just plain doesn't love Harrison Ford?? It's a running joke at our house that the only man I would ever leave my husband for is Harrison Ford (who cares about the 30 year age difference). We pulled the bad parent routine last night at took our kids to the 8:45 PM showing of the new Indiana Jones movie. ALL of our kids, including Carter (that's our 5-year-old). Can I just say that we all loved the movie, but here's a warning, if you expect everything to be completely believable, you will be disappointed. It was a typical Indie movie, lots of action, crazy stunts and bad guys. Kennedy hid her head through parts and Carter succumbed to sleep about half way though (once the candy was gone anyway). Definitely a buyer in our opinion.

Kennedy came home from Activity Day's at Jennifer P's house with this cute flower pot that they had modgepodged paper onto and planted sunflower seeds in. We are all pretty sad that Jennifer was released at Kennedy's primary teacher and activity day leader. But, on to bigger and better things she goes, if you can call teaching the 12-13 year olds Sunday School class bigger and better. Good luck with that. Should I admit that my biggest fear is being called to teach Sunday School for any age group?? That could be because I didn't go to my own Sunday School class when I was young, or pay much attention in Seminary. Wish I could change that now when my kids ask questions I don't know the answer to.

Back to the crafty stuff. I wish I could come up with crafty things for my kids to do. My sister Jenny scrapbooks, she does some pretty cool stuff with it. I just can't seem to come up with the ideas. And, I just can't seem to come up with the time (yet I can sit here and blog for an hour). Anyhow, as I am complaining about not being crafty and having time to be crafty, this is what Carter is doing ...

WATCHING THE BACKYARDIGANS AND OTHER CARTOONS!!! It's 10:30 am and he's still in his pajamas (he did get breakfast though). And so am I. I threw on a jacket to take Kennedy to school this morning.

Well, I'm off to pack for a short little trip out of the big city of Boise. Off to the cold and rainy town of McCall. Maybe I'll post some landscape pictures this time instead of just the kids swimming.

Field trip

2008-05-16T16:38:00.001-06:00

Carter's preschool class at Spalding went on a field trip to Conyan Aviation on Wednesday morning. Miss Wendy's husband Howard is a pilot and flies jets and prop planes for them. We learned that you can rent a private jet from them for $2500 an hour. I think we'll be heading out for an extended vacation anytime now. It was fun for the kids. They got to get in the private jet, walk through the hangars and see people working on other airplanes.

Carter definitely had a great time. We are counting down days til the end of school. Carter only has two more weeks, Ryan has about 2 1/2 weeks, but poor Kennedy will be going until the end of June :(

Mother's Day Weekend

2008-05-12T19:20:00.001-06:00

We decided at the last minute on Friday to go to McCall for a couple of nights. My in-laws have a place near the public golf course, there is a fitness club in the area with an indoor pool and hot tub. During the summer there are outdoor pools and tennis courts to play on. I had decided that I needed to get out of Dodge for a couple of days, so this was the solution. I packed the clothes and food Friday afternoon and as soon as Chris got home from work we were on our way (into major traffic because of all the road work going on, which completely reinforced my need to escape). The kids, of course had a great time, they went swimming twice and we got to hang out and watch the three Indiana Jones movies, which is great preparation for the new one coming out. What kind of parents are we? Our kids had never seen Indiana Jones before this weekend. Sunday morning after breakfast we loaded up, cleaned a bit and headed home for church, which starts at 3 PM right now. We also had dinner with Chris' mom, dad and grandma after church. Happy Mother's Day everyone.

We play cards. Go Fish is a favorite!!

We go swimming and for walks!!

We go swimming again!!

And Carter builds forts in the living room!!

And we have a dog that we take along on all our mini-vacations. I don't think that I've every posted a picture of Nick the pug. We've had him for almost 7 years. We joke that we are just waiting for him to die, but we'd all be pretty upset if something happened to him (at least we think we would :)).

Cinco de Mayo

2008-05-12T18:25:00.001-06:00

We have friends that hold a Cinco de Mayo party every year when the weather is good. This year it was a toss-up as to whether or not it was going to happen. The Stacks have turned into really good friends of ours. They have a son, Skyler, that is a year younger than Ryan, and a daughter Samantha, that is about Kennedy's age. We've known the Stacks since before Carter was born and became pretty good friends about the time that I had Carter and they got Samantha from Haiti. LeeAnn loves babies, and I am more than willing to let her love mine. Anyway, we always have a great time. It was no different this year. Lots of good food and Tim always makes the best churros that he gets the kit from a Hispanic food store downtown. We always meet new people and this year it was no different.

So we have Ryan, then Tim cooking churros, Carter pouting (there weren't any kids his age to play with), Emmy, Kennedy and Samantha, Kennedy and Samantha by the stream, the girls posing, Kennedy in the stream, the party, and the food.

Baby update

2008-05-12T09:28:00.001-06:00

Sorry, no update on Kaleb and Jen's baby til now. We spent the weekend in McCall being bums for Mother's Day. They finally named her on Friday and got to take her home. Her name is Lilian, no middle name, and they are going to call her Lily. She is healthy and both her and Jen are doing great. Here are a couple of pics.

New baby

2008-05-07T21:49:00.001-06:00

No, not me, are you crazy. I just got a call from Kaleb in Logan. He and Jen had a baby girl just a bit ago. She weighed in at 5 lbs. 13 oz. and was about 18 inches long. No news on a name yet as this was a surprise, she wasn't supposed to be here for another 5 weeks. Jen's due date was June 9th. Her water broke earlier today and my mom called on her way to Logan with my dad. Kaleb says that both Jen and the baby are doing great and will give another update tomorrow. So, congratulations Kaleb and Jen. You guys will be great parents. I'm so proud of Jen (and you too Kaleb)!!

Apostle song

2008-05-06T15:11:00.001-06:00

My friend Tresa told us about this Youtube video about the apostles. Her son's seminary teacher showed them it at school. It's pretty cool, I think anyway.

soccer, sometimes it never ends

2008-05-05T13:25:00.001-06:00

We had three games this weekend. Kennedy played a double-header, which is frustrating because they only have seven girls on their team and are supposed to be playing 8 on 8. We always have to borrow players from the other teams. My biggest gripe, this is a recreation league, not competitive, and they can't give us enough girls for a full team (we have been playing against teams with 10-16 girls on their teams). So, I'm not real happy with Idaho Rush right now (there I mentioned their names, maybe they will see this and get it in gear). We are definitely switching soccer leagues next year. How it works here is that there are a lot of soccer groups that run programs at all levels. Within each soccer group, there is Rec, Select, and Premiere. So, basically you decide with group you want to play with depending on where you live and then you have to decide which level to have your kids play in. Kennedy hasn't been into the competitiveness of the whole thing until now, so in the fall she'll try out for a harder team. Carter is playing 3 on 3, with no goalies, so it's a free-for-all, which is just fine for him. He just wants to kick the ball. Anyway, here's some pictures from this weekend.

Grandma Ruth

2008-05-05T13:08:00.001-06:00

Chris' grandmother, Ruth Hemingway turned 90 on April 11th. They don't have a lot of family around Boise, just Chris and I, the kids and his parents. Ruth grew up back east, they have lived in Vermont, as well as Indiana and Michigan. So, Polly, my mother-in-law decided to have a big blow-out and have a family barbeque on April 11th and then an open house on the 12th. She invited all the family that we've met over the years, and a lot that we've never met. Ruth only has one sisters left (Aunt Ida), who is a real character. If she doesn't like your point of view she pretends she can't hear you. It's interesting. Well, normally Chris is hear to entertain her, they argue like crazy. Guess what, not for this party (it was held while he was in Europe). So, there's nothing like helping to entertain many out of town family members, that you've either never met, or only met a couple of times. I just thought I would share some pictures.

This is Chris' cousin Valeria from Dallas, Texas with Ruth's sister Ida from Florida. Valeria is Polly's (my mother-in-law) only sister, Shirley's daughter.

This pictures of Carter and his cousin Valeria (it's a name that is common in the family, in fact there were 4 women with that name in town for the party). She is Ida's daughter Valeria's daughter. We all call her Ya-Ya.

This is my sister-in-law Kathy (she is married to Chris' brother Greg) and his cousin Andreas. He is Shirley's son. He and his sister were born in Greece and have a very long last name, which I can never remember.

From the left, Ida's daughter Valeria, Ruth, the birthday girl, a family friend from Indiana (I want to say Amy, but I'm not sure) and Ruth's great-niece Melanie.

I have to say that it was an interesting experience. The kids had a great time playing with their cousins and meeting new people. Carter only had one meltdown during the party. He came into the house, while I was refilling all the food and screamed at the top of his lungs that he hated all these people and wanted them to go home RIGHT NOW!! I found out later that he is not a fan of one of the women that was there (she was trying to tell him what to do at his Grandpa Pete's house, and he wasn't going to put up with that).

Piano recital

2008-05-03T16:15:00.001-06:00

Ryan and Kennedy had a piano recital on Thursday, May 1st. Their Aunt Rosalie has been teaching them for the past 6 years or so (at least Ryan that long). She always does a great job with it and the kids get to perform. They always do a great job as well. It was great this year because Chris was able to be home. I think he's only been to 2 recitals every and my Grandma Green was there. She will be 92 in July and we don't get to see her very often. It was a special night. Here's some pictures of her with the kids.

Stealing a tag from Morgan

2008-05-01T15:35:00.001-06:00

I though this looked fun on Morgan's blog, so I ~~stole~~ borrowed it from her :)

One Word
Answer in one word
1. Where is your cell phone? pocket
2. Your significant other? FoodNetwork (this is besides Chris)
3. Your hair? short
4. Your mother? working
5. Your father? driving
6. Your favorite thing? cookiedough
7. Your dream last night? none
8. Your favorite drink? Pepsi (but haven't had any in a week)
9. Your dream/goal? retired
10. The room you're in? family
11. Your ex? Brent
12. Your fear? sick
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? skinny
14. Where were you last night? soccer
15. What you're not? crafty
16. Muffins? poppyseed
17. One of your wish list items? house(bigger)
18. Where you grew up? Cedron
19. The last thing you did? drove
20. What are you wearing? clothes
21. Your TV? HD
22. Your pet? Nick
23. Your computer? new
24. Your life? crazy
25. Your mood? up
26. Missing someone? Terri
27. Your car? SUV
28. Something you're not wearing? socks
29. Favorite store? Target (Costco, cheating I know)
30. Your summer? travelling
31. Like someone? Sure
32. Your favorite color? blue
33. When is the last time you laughed? today
34. Last time you cried? Sunday

Come on people, participate if you are reading this. Also hop on over to Jennifer Peterson's blog and see how you do on the candy bar and pasta quizzes. I completely flunked both, so that means I don't eat either, or am just stuck on my favorites.

what's been happening?!?

2008-05-01T14:01:00.001-06:00

OK, so I know I've been bad, as I've been told, about the whole blogging thing. I updated the layout a few days ago and then didn't do a new post (and yes, I know it's an old family picture, about 2.5 years ago when Kennedy was baptized). What can I tell you, I've been busy. With what, you may ask? I have been perfecting my skills as a blog-stalker. What is that you may ask? I am sure you can figure it out. Amanda, you know exactly what that is. I had to explain it to my sister, Jenny. So, the other day, I pulled out my ward list and just started plugging in names on Google with the word blog. I scored with one name (Kim, you and Todd are so cute). So, from there I moved on to my old high school yearbooks. Go Teton Redskins (I'm sure that is completely non PC anymore). I found the Nead family (Kaleb you need to tell Kelly to update more often). I then noticed on Serena's blog (what a cute prego belly) that someone named Jessica posted a message about knowing Matt in high school (again go Redskins). So what do I do then, I click on her name, find her blog, realize she still lives in Teton Valley (where I grew up) and start clicking on her links. I found a few people that I recognized. But, really, come on Teton Valley, Idaho, start blogging. Those of us that have moved away, would really like to know what's happening in the wonderful place. So, in reality, while I am now a stalker of people I knew years ago, Jenny was very impressed with me, she didn't realize that there were so many people she knew that had blogs.

We've been crazy with soccer and Young Men's still. Only a few more weeks of soccer for Kennedy and Carter, but YM's will still go on forever (and the scout stuff that goes along with it). I have also solidified my place as the meanest mom on earth because I made Chris take Carter's training wheels off his bike and made him learn to ride it on Saturday. Chris gave in after about five minutes and let him quick, but I marched him right back out to the street and made him try a few more times. (Although Chris has been home from Iraq since November 2005, he is still FUN DAD, and I am still MEAN MOM). So here's a few pictures from the last few soccer games and the bike-riding.

Ryan has news as well. He was asked to be the Deacon's Quorum president in our ward. He is really excited, but a little nervous. I think he'll be great. He is just a really good kid, with a good heart. So, congrats Ryan.

This is Ryan on the ground with Kennedy, Carter and his cousin Sydney of his back during a birthday party for their great-grandmother Ruth, who turned 90 on April 11th.

Not much new stuff with me, I was just released from my calling at church. I had been the Relief Society secretary for the last 26 months for Franklin Ward here in Boise. I had served with 2 presidents and 4 different counselors. Who knows what's in store for me, but I am excited to maybe have just a few weeks to myself before being called to something else.

Chris and I have also been doing a few home improvement projects in order to get the house on the market. We'll see how that goes. We aren't leaving Boise, just need more room for our growing family. We aren't growing in numbers, just in age and seem to all need our own space.

The kids have their piano recital tonight. Maybe we'll get some video up, but who knows if I can figure that out or not. I'll probably get some pictures posted later. Thanks Aunt Rosalie. You've been teaching my kids piano for the last five years. And we are excited because Grandma Green (my mom's mom) will be here for the recital.

Chris has been traveling a bit lately. He spent about 10 days in London and Kassel, Germany in April. He's got a blog that he posted all the pictures on. I might try to steal some to post here. His blog is private, maybe if you all bother him enough he'll unlock it for the world to see (although maybe he's just embarrassed by us, JK).

Snow, soccer and glasses

2008-04-14T12:53:00.001-06:00

We've been pretty busy over the last month or so. I decided to take my kids up to my in-laws place in McCall for the last part of our Spring Break. I got caught in a white out snow storm for the last 15 miles of the trip. It really sucked. Chris met us up there on Friday and we stayed til Sunday morning.

There was snow pushed up all over the place. It probably won't be gone til after Memorial Day when we usually can go swim in the outdoor pools and Payette Lake.

We also started spring soccer the last week in March. I've got kids practicing four nights a week and games on Saturdays. The kids have a great time, so I don't mind it so much. It's Carter's first year playing, but Kennedy's been playing awhile.

And finally, I took Carter to the eye doctor a few weeks ago. We have vision coverage and I thought I would just get him checked out before he starts kindergarten this fall. Imagine my surprise when the eye doctor says the kid is not just far-sighted, but majorly far-sighted. No wonder he hates doing paper work at pre-school. He can't see anything up close. But, that totally doesn't explain why he feels the need to stand 2 feet from the TV while playing Guitar Hero (which I now have to admit he can play some songs on medium).

He's pretty cute in them. This picture has a glare on it a bit. He loves wearing them. So, I think as long as nobody says anything mean to him about them we won't have any problems.

Picture search

2008-04-01T12:51:00.001-06:00

So as I've searched through the digital photos that I have, I found some from the Kunz family reunion last summer. Morgan ought to get a kick out the ones of the boys in their underwear. I always laugh when I see the pics of your kids because Carter would live in his underwear if I let him. I remember my brothers always used to hang out in their's as well. So, here are a few from last summer.

And here are the great pics of the boys as Jenny's house.

Late Easter pics and more

2008-04-01T10:41:00.001-06:00

We had a busy Eater weekend and then went out of town for Spring Break. I could blame that on the lateness of the Easter pictures, but in reality I couldn't figure out where Chris had stashed them on the computer. Of course, it was in a folder called Easter, what was he thinking, actually naming the folder after the holiday.

Kennedy's Easter started on Saturday, when she went on an Easter Egg Hunt with her friend Brooklyn in their neighborhood. They seemed to have had a pretty good time. She found quite a few eggs, as you can tell, there wasn't a shortage.

Sunday after church we went to my in-laws for dinner and then had another Easter Egg Hunt. Ryan even participated. Carter was so excited. Kennedy not so much. She's kind of like me and makes faces in all the pictures.

These last three pictures are the dance of victory as Carter came away with more eggs than anyone.

The Wednesday after this I took the kids to McCall for part of Spring Break. I'll get have to get that stuff up when I discover where Chris stashed those photos. (JK, I don't think we've even put them on the computer yet).

Shameless Nanner Nanner Post to Kaleb

2008-03-18T17:57:00.001-06:00

I wouldn't be one of Kaleb's favorite sisters if I didn't give him crap about the WAC tournament over the weekend. So here it goes, nanner, nanner, nanner. In case you are wondering I am a Boise State alumna and Kaleb is a Utah State alumni (I think that's the correct wordage). BSU ended up winning the WAC tournament by beating Hawaii, Utah State and New Mexico State. They are going to the NCAA tournament on Friday and playing Louisville. Love you Kaleb. Go orange, go big blue, fight, fight, BSU.

Also, to my friend Amanda, I'm thinking of you. Take care. Love you.

What a weekend

2008-03-18T17:48:00.001-06:00

I spent the weekend traveling to Utah with Kennedy, my friend Tresa, and her two kids, Megan and Derrick. We left Thursday morning and spent a couple of nights in Kaysville with some friends before heading to Park City for her other daughter Chelsea's volleyball tournament. We spent Friday going to a pioneer museum, the Hogle Zoo, on a Conference Center tour and going to the Gateway Mall. Aunt Mel, it was good to talk to you, sorry that we didn't get to stop by, it was late by the time we got back to Kaysville Friday night.