THIS FACE

This is the face that I see everyday!
The one that says, 'Mommy! Come play with me!'
The one that says, 'Mommy! I need a snuggle!'
The one that says, 'Mommy! Love me!'

How could you not fall in love with this face???

Yep! She pretty much is spoiled!

I DECLARE A DO-OVER

After such a sad first day of school, I declare a do-over!

Here is Kate's first day of 1st grade!  She has gotten SO big!

I also took a picture of Dawson and Kate together in front of our tree.

So glad that Kate felt better to go to school!  Have a great day kids!  Love you!

1st DAY OF SCHOOL - FOR 2

I woke up in the middle of the night with a sick Kate.  So, with a bang, today marks the end of summer for us!  Traditional colored pancakes were served this morning.

Blue for Chubbuck Panthers

Green for Hawthorne Hawks

(I know it looks yellow... I only had neon green dye)

Dawson is in 4th grade

 Faith is in 7th grade

Their bus times were so different that I couldn't get them both together for a picture.  I was also supposed to host the Yahoo/Boo-Hoo Breakfast (2nd Annual) and I couldn't make it for that either because of an impromptu work meeting AND that Kate was sick.

Here is her first day of school picture. 

A special thank you to the Johnson family for bringing her by a special bag with goodies.  Our day was so much brighter due to your thoughtfulness!

Finally, I had made cookies the night before to give to the neighborhood kids at the bus stop.  It just so happened that about 2:00 pm it started raining cats and dogs again!  I couldn't believe it.  I drove to the bus stop with my umbrella and my cookies, thinking that it would 'break' for a minute so that I could hand them out to them.  No break would come.  I was left with 5 dozen cookies at my house!

Such a bummer first day of school!!!

WAY BACK WEDNESDAY - SPEECH WITH WADE

Speech has been a tricky thing for Miss Kate.  We had the opportunity over the summer of 2011 to go to ISU to work with a speech student for 8 weeks.

Wade was great with Kate!  And she absolutely LOVED every minute of their time together.  He could really relate to her stuttering, because he stutters himself.  They had a real connection and even 2 years later, she talks about him!!!

Blowing bubbles on the last day of class!

Thank you for your hard work with Kate!  We enjoyed working with you!!!

Kate and Wade

BACK TO SCHOOL NIGHT 2013

Back to school night already? These kids were ready to meet their teachers!

Dawson has Mrs. Stephens in 4th grade. We are excited for him to do his best and to have a great year!

Kate has Miss Winder in 1st grade. I think these 2 blondes will have a great time together, though Kate has already mentioned that it is hard!

We can't wait for all of the fun this year will bring!  

FLASH FLOODING GETS CLOSE - 2.64 INCHES

It was raining so hard Friday afternoon and I really didn't think anything of it as I ran to the car to drive home.  And then I remembered the aftermath of 2009.  We were out of town when there was a crazy storm. 3 days later, we still had hail in our front yard.

I ran inside and took these 2 pictures really quick.

By this time, I had got on the phone with my neighbor.  In the middle of our conversation, she says something like, "Your garbage can is floating down to the neighbors!"  I laughed.  It was TRUE!  She sent her boys to go get it for me!  Thank you Kade and Ian!

A little bit later.

Faith and I watched one of Kate's flipflops float out into the lake and disappear.  Faith couldn't contain herself.  She kept laughing this deep hearted belly laugh!!!  It was quite comical.

And it kept going!!!  At this point, I move stuff in the garage and swept out a bunch of water from it.  I had the kids grab all of the scrapbooks from downstairs just in case (the only real non replaceable items that we have down there.)  And we were set to wait it out.  As another side note, Brandon was out of town and didn't get back to see it in it's true beauty.  Super, super crazy!

Here is a video from my house shortly after I got home.

As an afterthought, we ran to check on our backyards.  This is my neighbor's.

Here is ours!  I had just hoped that the chickens moved to higher ground!!!

Finally, the police came and taped off our road because the flooding was quite bad.

Meanwhile, I got a picture text from a friend of the underpass on Center St.  As a side note, I have seen pictures with it much higher than this too!

And before going to bed, the city sent workers to make sure that our drains were working properly.  That was so nice of them.

This morning we are completely dried out, which is AWESOME!!!  The news reported 2.64 inches in Chubbuck in about 3 hours.  The drains couldn't keep up with it.  Crazy thing is that there was no rain out by Century, no rain at the airport either.  Very localized and crazy, intense storm that just 'stayed' for hours here!!!  Although we needed it, I am sure that there is a lot of basement damage and car damage for many people.  I do think that everyone is safe though.

This may be an every 3-5 year thing that occurs here in Chubbuck.  We are lucky that we did not have any flooding in our basement and I believe that our close neighbors are okay as well.

REGATTA #2 FOR DAWSON

This week was the annual Rain Gutter Regatta for Cub Scouts.  This Dawson's 2nd time doing it and he had an idea for his boat.  He wanted it to be blue and green with 'waves splashing up over it'.  We came up with a plan and painted it!

Here he is all ready to go at the church.

Short, small burst of blowing gets the job done!

And he really liked to check out the competition too!!!

We had a couple of things that we had to fix.  We are so lucky that Brandon was able to even have made the Regatta since his work has been so crazy!

But you can definitely tell that he had a wonderful time!!!

Thank you Brother Wolff for taking some of these pictures for me!!!  I can't believe that in less than 2 weeks, Dawson will be in Webelos!  Crazy!

WAY BACK WEDNESDAY - KATE AT GRANDMA'S 2008

Miss Kate E bug at Grandma's house, September 5th, 2008.  It looks like Grandma bribed her with candy and got a couple of cute pictures of our princess.

These 2 are my favorite.  Do you see that look?  That is a classic Kate look!

And of course, not sure about the puppy, Misha, either!!!

We love our baby!!!

ORIGINAL SONG BY KATE

Kate always hands me my phone and says, "Take a picture!" This time she asked if I could record her. She is SO sweet!

 So glad that I was able to get a video of my baby girl.  She is growing up way too fast!

THE CABIN - ISLAND PARK

Our trip to "the cabin" has been planned since about February of this year.  Amy and Justin graciously invited us to spend time together as a family and experience Island Park.  We had never been before, but it definitely gave us something to look forward to for our summer this year!

4 Wheeling!

Dawson

The good looking couple!

Justin & Amy

Our ride

Kate & Amy

Jony & Justin

Faith, Brandon & Kate

Justin & Grandma

Exploring Island Park!

The view

Faith

Andrew, Kate, Faith, Dawson, and Jony

The house of the first guy that lived in Island Park I believe 

Floating the river

We made it!  I have to say that it was incredible.  We saw 3 moose, ducks, birds, and fish.  Towards the end, we saw a bald eagle swoop down, grab a fish in his mouth and fly up into a tree where he preceded to eat the fish.  Since this river is slow moving, we watched the whole thing!  Amazing!

Kate and Jony

Brothers!

The cousins

Wearing Brandon's hat

Playing cards together

Fun dinner bell

Minute to win it games were a big hit!  Thank you Amy for putting such hard work into making such a fun last day!

Zoey, Amy, and Faith

Grandkids with Grandma!

  

Our family (just missing Grandpa)

Thank you Jolleys for having us for a great and memorable vacation!  It was SO awesome and we loved every minute of it.  We are blessed to call you family and hope we can do it again sometime!  Love you!!!