Happy Birthday Father o' Mine

Some of you might know that mom had planned an awsome surprise birthday party for my dad. However, dad decided that he would become sick and wasn't able to come. Did that stop us from having the party? No, it did not. Leann and I decided to do the thing right and dress up as dad so that he could feel that his spirit was still part of the party.

Here is the awsomeness of us. Needless to say (But I will say it) our husbands were both very disturbed about us dressing up as men. It was fun and the cake was good. Next time I think that dad might want to check out his party. =) Have a wonderful birthday dad! Love you!

Happy Birthday Jacob

Happy Birthday Jacob! We celebrated Jacob's birthday this year by going to All-Star Sports. It was great because he got pizza and soda, lots of tokens, and got to do outdoor activites. We had the cousins come and Jacob's friend from school. The kids had an awesome time playing outside. Then we bought a cake on his real birthday so that he could officially turn 8!

First Day of School

Well it is true. I am finally able to download pictures on the internet again. So now you will see the pics from the first day of school. I am a little late getting these on here since we have been in school for 3 weeks now. Oh well.

Rebekah has started High School. She really loves it. I can't believe that she is in it. I see her every once in a while. Apparently she does not want to acknowledge me, so of course I have to make a big deal about it in the hallway in front of her friends. =) So I think that she is learning it is better to say "hi" the first time. =)

Alyssa is now in the 6th grade. She has been doing really well in it. She is in intermediate school, which is only for 5th and 6th grade. Then she will go to middle school that is only 7th and 8th. I like the way that it is divided up. I think that it better prepares the kids. She decided that she doesn't want to play band this year. Choir here we come! =) I am a little partial to choir myself.

Aaron is in the 4th grade. This is his last year for elementary school. *sniff*. He is also doing well. This is the first year he has had a male teacher. It has been a great experience for him. Of course, he still would prefer to stay home instead of go to school =)

Here is Jacob. The brand new 2nd grader. His favorite class is PE. He is very athletic, a natural ability. I don't think that he got it from me! =) His birthday is this month so he has been praying about it every night. Apparently he really wants to go to Chuck E. Cheese. *groan*.

This is obviously just the bare minimum of what the kids are doing. Richard is now teaching 3rd grade. He really is liking it. It is much different than 5th grade. Richard is getting out of the National Guard so that he can be home with us now. He just finished his masters in education last month. I am so jealous. I still have until May before I am done with my masters in psychology. I am still a vocational para at the high school. It is my 3rd year there. We have been having computer issues lately so hopefully we are on the right track and I can stay online for a while. Everyone have a wonderful day!

Summertime

The kids went to Mom and Dad's house for 5 days. They had a lot of fun. They did a lot of cooking, feeding cows, and messing with the chickens. I got to feed the cows. Richard wasn't there to pick up the kids so he didn't get to experience the messiness!The cows are so cute! Thanks Mom and Dad for taking the kids. We love you!

After the 4th

This year it rained pretty much the whole fourth of July weekend. So instead of doing fireworks we had the kid throw pop-its from the garage and played a lot of family games. It was good fun. So yesterday I took the kids to the Y. What else can you do when it is rainy outside? Apparently alot of other people had that idea too because I think half of Wichita was there. However, the kids were all very good and loved swimming and climbing on the rock.

This is Naaman. He is Rebekah's boyfriend. He was able to come and hang out with us for a little while at the Y. They mostly played ping-pong and took pictures of each other on their cell phone. =) Hope you all had a great fourth of July.

Eclipse is Tomorrow!

For those of you who don't know, the movie Eclipse is coming out tomorrow. It is the third book/movie in the twilight series. Leann, Rebekah, and I are going at midnight tomorrow night, which I suppose is really Wednesday morning if you want to get technical about it. We are all super excited. It is a fun girls night. We did this last time the second movie came out. Of course I had work the next day and was sooooo tired. Good thing there is vivran that helped me through! =) So I will probably not be conscious til about church time on Wednesday. It will be awesome!

Zoo in the Summer

Today was the first time that we could all really go to the zoo. Of course it was only 90 degrees when we went today. =) We stayed only 2 hours. That is the nice thing about a zoo pass, you can just hit the highlights and then if you get too hot you can go home. Before we went home we did have to stop and get some ice cream. How else can you recover from heat exhaustion? =)

Day With the Cousins

The cousins came over Saturday. It has been a while since we have all seen each other, so there was lots of screaming for joy! =) The hit of the party was Truffles, our kitten. Since Leann and Ryan cannot have animals at their home the kids love on our animals. Our animals are all over that. They love it, for the most part. =)


Richard and I enjoy that our kids are finally old enough to take pictures. We can both be in a picture together! Yahoo!

All the cousins together. It was pretty painless getting them all to smile, which I gotta say is very impressive since there are 7 of them. Who knew that my parents would end up with 7 grandchildren just from Leann and I! =)

The boys were busy playing star wars almost the whole time. They ran around like maniacs. Such a difference between boys and girls. It cracks me up.

The girls were playing very calmly with each other. Much of the time they were playing with the animals. Good times were had by all!

Grandma Visits

My Grandma came with Mom and Dad from Oregon and just left this past Saturday. She was in Nebraska for about 2 weeks. Ryan and Leann went up to visit her and then we went up to visit her. We got a whole bunch of free strawberries that we had to go through and freeze. So it was a really long process, but totally worth it. The kids had a great time. Richard, Dad, and the boys all went fishing. They found a new camping spot so we are all super excited to try it out. We had a super great time.

Family Camp Spells FUN

As most of you know, we have been gone all weekend at family camp with our church. It was so great. Jasmine did not appreciate being left outside all weekend. Apparently she thinks that she is an inside dog. Right when we got home and she greeted us she went to her pillow and refused to move from there. Today she has gotten up to go outside, so I think we are on the path to forgiveness. =)

So we stayed at a place in Junction City, KS. It is about two hours from here, not bad. It reminded me so much of Camp Yamhill and Oregon, it makes me a little homesick. Anyway, our cabin was air conditioned (thank you God). It was totally worth it. It was really warm on Saturday. I am sure it was easily 90 out there plus the humidity. However, that did not stop us from venturing out. There was a turkey out in the woods that kept gobbling at us and ran in front of us. It was so bizarre. You would not see that in Oregon. I am always amazed at how many wild turkeys there are in KS.

The first night I was walking and it was dark with Alyssa and there was a man in front of me from our cabin. All of the sudden we heard a kind of large animal in the woods. I don't know what it was, but it was scary. The man in front of me (I forgot his name) said maybe it was a dog, but he had a racket with him just in case. =) So we all walked together after that. =)

Saturday we went to Archery. Richard helped Jacob and I helped Aaron and Alyssa. Aaron is a natural at it. Rebekah took pictures of us. It was a lot of fun. Then we went horseback riding. Alyssa promptly got sunscreen in her eye and started crying. She decided that she would never be able to see again. =) So she did not go riding. Aaron was on the horse, but said that it "kept looking at him" so he got down. So I got pictures of Rebekah and Jacob riding a horse. It is always an adventure for us! Then we went canoeing. I was with Aaron, Richard with Jacob, and Rebekah with Alyssa. Do you know how hard it is to canoe when only one of you is doing the paddling? let me tell you, very difficult. It was so much fun though. The girls finally got the hang of it, after all their arguing.

We had absolutely awesome lessons. It was so great to get to spend time with the family and we got to meet new people. The kids had separate classes so they got to hear about God on their own level. Rebekah got to hang out with some friends a little bit and she loved it.

Sunday we actually made it through horseback riding. Richard, Alyssa, and I went. Aaron, Rebekah, and Jacob stayed back to watch us. Alyssa's horse, Sandy, took off away from the trail and they had to go chase her down. It was so funny. My horse kept trying to pass the horse in front of me. Of course, that might be because the other horse was being lazy not wanting to walk up the hill. =) We tried to go canoeing again, but there was a storm coming and there was lightning, so we went swimming instead. =) How's that for safety?

I saw many animals there like snakes, a turkey, possibly a dog in the forest =), a doe, turtle, fish, ticks (do we count these as animals?)and of course spiders. We really want to go again next year. I cannot express how great it was for our family. The storm did come and we didn't get to have smores, well we did finish getting smores before we went to the cabin, but we didn't get to stick around. We were blessed that there wasn't any hail. So I didn't take that many pictures. But you will get the idea. On Thursday we leave to go to Mom and Dad's house. My grandma is up there, so expect that there will be even more pictures. Have a great summer everyone!

Finally!! The Last Day of School

Yes, it is true! For those of us that live in Wichita, it is our last day of school today! You can tell by our faces that we were all ready to see the end of the school year. Richard does have to still go until Friday, but today is his last day with his kids. My last day was yesterday. So today I am going to have lunch with Jacob at school. He has been begging me to do this all school year. On Friday we leave to go to family camp with the church. I know it is going to be a great time. If I don't forget the camera I will take pictures. Have a great week everyone!

Concert and More

Alyssa dressed up as Amelia Earhart for her school wax museum. They each wear a sticker and stay very still. Then the parents go and push the sticker and the "wax art" starts to speak about who they are. It was very cool. Savannah was Shirley Temple. It was so cute. Aaron made a peep hole box for his book that he read. He worked very hard on it. He made the characters out of clay. Rebekah was in her choir shirt that she made. It was her last pop concert this year. It was very good. She didn't want me to take any pictures while she was doing the concert. She is such a teenager. So I forced her to have a picture before hand. Ha! I just took a picture of Jacob because I didn't have one of him on here. It has been a very busy month. We only have 10 more days and then we are out of school! Yahoooooo! Summer is almost here!

Alyssa 11th Birthday

Well, Alyssa's 11th birthday was on the 29th of April. I am a little behind on the times obviously. We went roller skating with Alyssa's friend Savannah. It was fun, but I forgot how difficult it was to skate when I haven't done it in a while. Richard and Jacob kept their skates on for about 5 minutes and then decided it was not for them. I was brave and kept it on almost the whole time, but almost fell several times and once almost fell into the garbage can. Aaron really got into skating, until he went out on the smooth floor and fell. Then he decided to put the skates away. However, Alyssa and Savannah had an awesome time. Alyssa made a pinata that she got to smash for her birthday, she loved that. Also, we had cheese cake instead of a real cake. It was super yummy. It went very well and my daughter is one year older! Have a great day everyone!

Easter Time

We were going to go to the YMCA for an Easter egg hunt, but it started to rain. So we went inside and played games. It was so much fun. I have discovered that I am a horrible Foosball player and my husband has no pity on me! =) It was hilarious! There was lots of yelling at the table, I think that we embarrassed Rebekah by our behavior. She is such a teenager! =) Then mom and dad came down for Easter weekend. We had the cousins over here decorating eggs. That was fun. On Sunday instead of Easter baskets we gave the kids a chocolate bunny with some money. They are really eager to spend it, but I haven't taken them to walmart yet. Mom and Dad also brought them chocolate bunnies and we had them hunt for them. Hilarious! It was a short weekend, but full of fun.