Scott Family Journal

easter 2009

2009-11-02T12:00:00.002-07:00

it is very interesting watching my kids color easter eggs! kinley's usually turn out somewhat black:) and she is happy as a clam with however they turn out. riley is much more specific and wants his to look a certain way - smudges and mishaps bother him a lot more. i can say i completely understand how he feels!! there must be a better way to color eggs than to have your hands touch the eggs:) either way we have very colorful eggs and we have a blast hiding and rehiding them

i didn't have an easter dress for kinley this year, so i just thought i could go to the store and get one - well i was wrong! i haven't been to a normal store in so long that i about fell over when i saw the prices of girls dresses. i was looking at the 70% off rack at sears - i thought great, i should be able to get a deal here. well, even at 70% off the dresses were still $25. so i ended up buying a skirt at walmart. mom & renee, i need you to start shopping for an easter dress for kinley:)

happy birthday riley!! 8 years old

2009-11-01T09:47:00.003-07:00

just as we were getting settled into our house it was riley's birthday!! he is growing up to be such a handsome caring young man. we are proud of you riley!

his friends, isaac, adam and kayla were at his party (along with little clara):)

he wanted a cake with snow covered mountains, a river and moose:) i have never made icing moose before!

2009-11-01T09:30:00.002-07:00

we quickly got settled into our new house. it was great to see our friends again and they were all so welcoming!!! it was really a wonderful welcome and great to see them again.
i spent about 10 minutes tearing out the carpet of the house - it was ugh! then about 3 days scrubbing the floor from the adhesive - one room was carpeted with little squares of carpet and each square had 2 strips of adhesive on it - the strips had to be scraped off then the adhesive had to be taken off - i think i went through 4 bottles of orange adhesive stripper - our whole house smelled like oranges for a few days. then we took out a wall that was in the kids room so they could have a bigger room. then we were ready to have fun! so we went skiing!

there is a little hill at hatchers pass so we went skiing there. oh my goodness! i never know what i'm thinking when i think of skiing with kinley! this ski hill is not really one to ski behind a little girl on. i'm just too out of shape to be doing that. but she loves it, so i'm sure i'll do it many times again this winter:)

we let here ski by herself on the sledding hill. she can't turn so we would just aim her across the hill and the deep powder on the side of the sledding hill would stop her. she wants to ski just like riley but doesn't quite understand that she doesn't know how to turn (she's our little girl who knows everything!)

on the ferry

2009-11-01T09:06:00.002-07:00

we stopped in washington to see our friends, kara & scott & kinley and riley corley, and thad mccracken and his wife. it was great to see all of them and i have no pictures!!! i guess i wasn't in the frame of mind to take pictures. we hadn't seen these friends in a long time (except kara:)) and it was wonderful to see them.

then it was off to the ferry.

when we left denver it was warm - i don't remember exactly how warm, but i remember i had already gotten out my flip flops and had been wearing them before we left. then it just got colder and colder and colder as we went north. i knew it would be cold so i had our bag packed of hats, gloves, snowboots and snow suits, but it was hard to imagine wearing it all - it was too warm! well i imagined it real soon! we hit snow somewhere in washington, then on the ferry it just got colder and nastier until we got to haines and it was WINTER!! there was a couple feet of snow on the ground, it was snowing and freezing!!!!
jud had planned on meeting us in palmer but decided to meet us in haines and drive with us - it was a good thing he did. when we got the canadian/american border they asked where kinley's dad was (riley was in the truck with jud) and i told them he was with me in that truck. well, i thought that was a weird question and i started asking them questions. it turns out that if jud hadn't have been with me i would have needed a letter saying i could take his kids across the border!!! it never says that when they list the items you need to cross the border!!! if he hadn't have been there i would have been stuck waiting for a letter of consent from him. so, i'm glad we weren't stuck in haines!
we drove on the haines junction that night. when we woke up the next morning it was -35 deg!!! that is cold!! they had just had an ice storm a few days earlier and the roads were covered with 2-3 in of pure ice!! we heard they had closed a lot of the roads so they could scrape them (they scrape grooves in the ice). so all the way from haines to palmer we drove on 2-3 in of ice (but it was scraped and that made it not so slick).
when we left haines junction we let the car warm up for 30 minutes and when kinley and i got in we still had to wear our down coats! we shivered in our down coats for a couple hours until the sun came up and started warming us up. kinley got in the car and said "i don't like alaska!!" - it was toooo cold for us. well it stayed cold for the whole trip!

trip to alaska

2009-11-01T09:00:00.002-07:00

the kids and i had a few day drive to get to the ferry. we stopped at a few hotels and swam for awhile, then were bored and what's there to do in a hotel room but jump on the bed!

it was a tiring trip:)

kinley is 6!

2009-10-30T10:35:00.002-06:00

my little baby turned 6!!

2009-10-30T10:24:00.002-06:00

stock show 2009 - this is right before we left denver

the kids got scraps of fur and riley made a mohawk out of his.

ALCAN HIGHWAY

2009-03-12T22:44:00.014-06:00

A couple days after we arrived, we went and watched the start of the iditarod sled dog race to Nome. The start is just north of Palmer, where we live.

68 teams of 16 dogs each! This area will need plenty of pooper scoopers come spring!

Somewhere in Canada?

Approaching St. Elias National Park

Buffalo grazing in 3 feet of snow just off the highway

Camping spot in Haines AK.

Icy Road on pass into Haines, AK from Haines Junction Canada.

British Columbia

Get off the road please!

The 3500 mile trip up the Alcan in February was a lot of fun, even considering some major plan changes mid trip that caused some delays. The scenery was incredible, the wildlife abundant, the knuckles almost always white, and the conversation dull (since I was alone this trip)! I would do it again in a heartbeat given the opportunity, although next time without an over loaded trailer if in the winter, and preferably with a co pilot! This way the trip could be done in as little as two days with three drivers, or three days with two drivers. The winter time road was surprisingly in good condition, and the only traffic was around the major cities of Edmonton and Calgary, and occasionally in other areas where oil truck traffic was heavy.

This was entering British Columbia

Wild Wood Bison were all over the place in BC. The first one I saw was at night, right on the road and I could barely make out his eyes and a large dark shape, taller than my truck! There was a couple feet of new snow, and the bison were using their heads swinging back and forth to clear away snow to get to some grass to feed on.

About 800 miles of the trip were on entirely solid ice roads, but the highway department cut grooves in the ice about 1 inch apart, that provided for surprisingly good traction. I began staying at hotels, but got tired of paying for 7-8 hours of sleep, the same I got on the mattress in my truck for free, so I quit using hotels and took advantage of the 25 below sleeping bag I purchased for the trip. A wise investment, and some of the best sleep I have ever had! Each night when I quit driving, I would usually pick a parking spot at a hotel to sleep for a few hours, if it was super cold, I would plug in the truck, and hope I wouldn't get caught. I never did, I don't think any hotel managers ever knew who's car belonged there and who's didn't. A substantial amount of mental preparation was required to make the big move from inside the sleeping bag to inside of the truck cab each morning, especially one morning when I woke up to -40 degrees farenheit in Dawson Creek Canada! Long story short, we all made it to Alaska just fine, only one alternator went out along the way, and we ended up having the trailer brought up on a flatbed from Edmonton Canada because it was too heavy, and it's brakes were ineffective on the ice you see in the pictures. Summertime would have been fine. We will post picts of the house soon. Another adventure in itself!

snowmobiling

2009-02-13T07:39:00.001-07:00

shoveling out the snowmobiles!

snowmachining

2009-02-13T07:26:00.003-07:00

snowmachining with gramps. mom and dad have the perfect yard for the kids to drive around on the snowmobiles! the boys were driving the machines by themselves and loving it!! it was nice because all their yard is contained in fences so their was no traffic for the kids to have to worry about. by the end of two days there was no powder left anywhere!!! the kids just rode around and around and around!! their routine for the few days we were there was this: wake up and ask to go outside - then look at the thermometer and see that it was below zero and that no adult was going out with them until it warmed up a little bit:) then around 10:00 we'd go out and sled for awhile. then eat lunch and go snowmobiling. the kids had a blast!! thanks grandpa and grandma! oh, and all of this wouldn't have happened if we didn't have jud to start the machines for us:) thanks jud!

oh, and quinn's basket! quinn loves sitting the basket on the back of the wide track. if she was in her basket she was content all day! but she did not like to get out of it! she was ok sharing it - so sometimes fiona or kinley got to sit back there too:)

more sledding pics

2009-02-13T07:06:00.003-07:00

sledding

2009-02-13T07:02:00.000-07:00

here are more sledding pics - kinley, fiona, and riley

jumpin on the bed

2009-02-13T06:43:00.002-07:00

riley got a camera for christmas and has been loving taking pictures. :)

christmas pics

2009-02-13T06:31:00.002-07:00

here are some christmas pics taken outside at mom and dad's house. renee made the dresses for the girls - you are awesome renee! it was freezing when we took these pics - can you tell:)

more sledding pics

2009-02-10T20:43:00.000-07:00

here are aj and riley sledding

sledding at grandpa's and grandmas'

2009-02-10T20:35:00.003-07:00

around christmas we went to grandpa and grandma's house and they have a wonderful sledding hill right in their front yard. the horse (that you can see in the picture of kinley) stands right next to the top of the hill, and once he bit kinley's hat right off her head:) the first day we got to the hill it was all powder and by the third day it was all packed and very very hard:)

christmas 2008

2009-02-02T09:44:00.001-07:00

christmas morning:)

cousins

2009-02-02T09:29:00.002-07:00

these are renee's kids and ours:) it's always interesting when the three girls "sleep" together! they finally get to sleep after a couple of hours - after quinn settles down and kinley quits kicking the covers off (she's always in the middle so when she kicks them off fiona and quinn aren't happy about it)! then it's a few hours of sleep until quinn wakes up and then it's HELLO WORLD!!!!!! Quinn does not wake up with a morning voice:) oh my goodness, quinn is a fireball!

i'm sure renee could write a book about quinn. one morning she wanted an apple but she would never just ask for one. i was seeing how long she could talk (of course it's non stop talk) before she would just ask for an apple. she never did just ask - it was hilarious! here's how the conversation went: quinn - "ya sometimes i like apples in the morning. me and mom have apples in the morning. my mom lets me have apples. sometimes fiona and i eat apples in the morning. i like to eat apples. my mom gives me apples. (she goes and gets one out of the fridge) oh look, here's an apple. i found an apple. i like to eat these apples in the morning ..." i could barely hold back my laughter. she talked like this for 10 minutes!!!!! and it is non stop! i can't believe how she can think of so much to say:)

one day she was at our house and she was a yapping dog! and when's she a yapping dog you don't want to be around:) it was driving riley crazy so i told quinn that she was an inside dog and she needed to yap a little quiter. well, she didn't want to be an inside yapping dog so she just became a very loud cat! oh, she makes me laugh.

pics of kiddos

2009-02-02T09:19:00.002-07:00

here are some pics of the kids from this winter.
there is a little sledding hill in the field between our house and the school. so when it snows the kids always go out there and sled. i love it because i can watch them from the window of our house!

one night i was playing with kinleys hair - twisting it around - and she said she wanted me to twist it for school. she looked very cute:)

it's official - we're moving

2009-02-02T08:56:00.004-07:00

in case everyone hasn't heard yet - yes, we are moving back to alaska!
we will be leaving denver february 22. jud will be driving up and the kids and will take the ferry.

these are some pics of the kids and their christmas concert. the kindergartner's did a little concert and the rest of the kids did a "holiday hoedown"

jump rope for heart

2008-11-26T15:33:00.006-07:00

the kids had a "jump rope for heart" day at their school awhile ago. here are some pictures and videos from that day

toothless

2008-11-16T14:23:00.006-07:00

we have a lot of teeth missing in our house!!! this year riley can sing "all i want for christmas is my two front teeth"!:)

speaking of teeth ... i have decided, once again, to try to get kinley to stop sucking her thumb. it's so automatic for her she doesn't even realize she does it in her sleep. she says "i just wake up and it's in my mouth" :) i guess when you've been doing something ALL your life (including your life in your mom's belly) it's really hard to stop. so i've told her "kinley i want your teeth pretty, so you have to stop" and i've been taping her thumb each night to stop her from sucking it. after i told her i wanted her teeth pretty she said "i don't like my teeth pretty" as she's crying. then she said even more emphatically, "I hate my teeth pretty" i wish i didn't have to make her stop but i have to. hopefully i'll only have to tape her thumb for a few weeks and then she'll forget what it's like to suck her thumb.

modifications

2008-10-30T05:17:00.003-06:00

the other day i was looking at my friend, kristi's, blog and it was so neat! so she told me where to get the backgrounds (thecutestblogsontheblock.com)and slide show. i love the slide shows! but i've learned that if i turn the music on automatically, all the music will be playing. so to listen to the music while looking at the slide show, you now have to click on the speaker button. that way you just get the music for the one slide show.
i put my background on that i liked (my first one)and i kept thinking i had seen that background somewhere, then i looked at tammie baker's blog and it's the same background as she has. i guess i had subconsciously remembered that background from hers:) tammie, we must think alike in some ways - and then i think "oh, my i could never be as calm as tammie!" :) i think of her as always having her tea set out and ready with some nice cookies or cake. and when i do tea it's just not as calm:)

lost teeth

2008-10-30T04:40:00.001-06:00

kinley lost her first tooth

costumes

2008-10-30T03:46:00.006-06:00

my mom and sister like to get together and make costumes for the kids, so this year i did it with them. they are so talented! riley really wanted to be darth vader this year and i told him that was just too hard of a costume for me to make - i didn't know how i would make the helmet. so we get to renee's house and that night after the kids went to bed she said aj was going to be darth vader!! i said "oh, anything but darth vader!":) she is very creative and loves challenges! her and mom found a darth vader trick or treat pail and she cut it up and used that! and i told riley i would get him a darth vader light saber - that is why is dragon has a light saber:) my mom did the dragon hat - isnt' that awesome! she is so talented. she also helped with the rest of the costume, but the hat is her creation:)

riley painted the eyes - aren't they awesome!
and kinley is so cute - she just wanted to be a butterfly ... again. for the 3rd year in a row; but this time she wanted to be a spotted butterfly:)

here are the things i learned about costume making this year:
1. always buy a pattern for the basic part of the costume - it takes too much time to make a pattern for the suit and it's more fun spending the time on the details of the costume
2. make all "pieces" detachable. it's better to have feet, heads, and hands detachable so they can play with them all the time without putting on the whole suit. and they can take them off it they get too much while playing games.
3. make the shoes no bigger than the kids feet! i saw some cool birds feet so i modeled the dragons feet after them and they were awesome, but riley couldn't walk with them on:) so i just shaped them around his crocs
4. don't put a gusset in the pants - just do a normal seam so it can be adjusted easily!
5. allow more than one day to make two costumes!!!!! i don't know why i even imagine that i can get it all done in one day:)

football

2008-10-30T03:34:00.003-06:00

kinley has been playing flag football and loving it!! she is so cute - and aggressive! i will post more pictures when i get some from my friends; it never seemed to work out to get pictures of her! once i got all loaded up ready to go to the game riding my bike (because my car was out of gas) - camera, video camera, chair, riley's balls and frisbee - and we rode our bikes to the park. we got there and kinley wanted nothing to do with playing! she just wanted to sit in my lap:) so no pictures that day. then the next week i was ready with my camera and it started raining. so the next week i was ready again and to get a good shot and my batteries were dead! i'm thankful for prepared moms:)

kinley is so cute! it was fun watching her - she just loves playing and i'm not even sure if she knows what a touchdown is - she just has fun:) once when dad wasn't at her game afterwards we told him that kinley made a touchdown and she was so excited and said "ya! and we got snacks!"

candace spencer's wedding

2008-10-18T08:59:00.002-06:00

question of the century

2008-09-26T17:18:00.003-06:00

the other day i was running on the treadmill - i was doing a hard workout barely breathing with sweat dripping off me and kinley asked me "why do you always run on the treadmill and not lose weight?" oh!!! if i only knew!!!! and i don't just jog on the treadmill - i run and i run hard! and i lift weight every other day and my legs and arms are always sore and my body will not even give up one single pound!! it is just amazing! but i've decided that i'm no longer excercising for weight loss but for my mind and just to feel better. but, oh how i wish i knew why i can't lose a pound:)

love my kids

2008-09-09T22:52:00.003-06:00

kinley's teacher's name is mrs. petit. and everytime i hear that name it reminds me of kinley when she was little and makes me smile! when she was little she would always say what was going on and then who it applied to. things like: go upstairs, me. or hold it, me. and when we moved into the kim drive house she didn't like sleeping in her room and was scared and i would ask her what she was scared of and she would say "moose bite it, me". it was so cute. so when i think of mrs. petit, i think of "moose, bite it me" :)

and then i think of all the cute things kinley says and i remembered this summer we were hiking in boulder and we were talking about how it was a college town and how there are a lot of smart people in boulder. and kinley said "that remembers me of that boy" i started laughing to myself thinking 'oh ya, that boy!' having no idea who she was talking about. then she told us that boy who was a good basketball player because he ate his peas. we always told our kids that if they wanted to be good in sports they needed to eat their vegetables like miah - i guess that lesson stuck :)

and she still says all her verbs in the future tense with a "ed" added to them: i goed to the park, i taked the trash out. i just love her simple mind. she still prays for "thank you for ... to get better" she'll say "thank for wend'ys belly to get better" and tonight she prayed "thank you for lukes legs to get back together" we always pray for our divorced friends to get back together, so she combined that with lukes legs getting better:)

riley on the other hand is very analyzing and understand of what is going on. when we were praying the other night he stopped and thought a minute and said (we were praying for our divorced friends and their ex spouses and for god to heal their marriages) "it's kind of like a slinky, it moves apart and comes back together except when the slinky gets kinked and then it can't come back together. we need to pray that god fixes that kink so they can come back together" pretty insightful for a 7 year old!!

oh, and the other night we were laughing because kinley was being a prissy little girl and jud commented that she is going to make a good sorority girl! i laughed and thought "ya, our kids will do good in college" - kinley will be a good sorority girl and riley a good student! it's just amazing to me that kids from the same parents can be so different. but then again jud and i are very different:)

kinley's pictures

2008-08-21T16:35:00.002-06:00

here are pictures that kinley took:) it was so cute how she posed her toys

i don't know why, but i always have this look on my face - my mouth is always scrunched up - i dont' even realize i do it until i see pictures! oh well, it makes for some good laughs.

my precious kinley!

2008-08-21T15:21:00.002-06:00

here is kinley in her newly finished sweater! so, now that she can't wear this sweater at school i need to make a navy blue one! so far i've knit the whole bottom and and half way up the front. this will be the fastest sweater i have ever knitted. the crazy thing is ... because their uniforms are light blue and white shirts i assumed they would need light blue sweaters, so i went to the yarn store and got light blue yarn and started knitting. well, i was about 6 inches into riley's sweater when i happened to look at the dress code to see what color socks they needed and i sawy they needed navy blue sweaters! so back to the yarn store i went and exchanged my yarn for navy blue yarn:)
here is my princess with her "stuff"
the day after her first day at school she played so well! she just went into the toy room and got her toys and played and played and played! usually she doesn't play like that - but i think she just needed some down time after school the first day
my little baby is growing up!! i have a book that kara gave me titled "let me hold you longer". it talks about how we celebrate our children's firsts - first words, first steps, first day at kindergarten ... but we never know when something will be their lasts and the author is saying "let me hold on to these moments because they may be your last" it is a real tear jerker! the first time i read it i got through the first page before tears were streaming down my face. for the first 10 times i completely cried when i read it. then one day when i was reading to the kids riley brought that book down to read. i was thinking oh, great i hope i get through this book. well, i did good until the last page when it has the boy leaving for college, and during that page i started crying. kinley was sitting on my lap and she turned around and just looked at my like i was crazy and riley asked why i was crying. i told him that someday by two little kids would be gone and i will miss them. he said "well, can't you just have more kids" and i told him ya, but we probably wouldn't. but i told them that that was ok because someday they would grow up and have families and have babies that i could hold. immediately kinley turned around again and looked at me and said "no! they'll be our kids and we are going to hold them!" well, well!!! my dear sensitive loving daughter! oh, she makes me laugh. she loves to hold babies - but what girl doesn't love to hold babies.

then one day when i was tucking her in i told her someday she was going to be a good mom and she immediately said "you don't get to tell me what to do when i grow up ... i get to choose!". oh! i thought. so i just layed there then she looked at me and asked in an authoritative voice "is being a mommy of two kids fun" i almost laughed out loud - i felt like i was being interrogated and if i said the wrong thing i would be doomed. i asked her if she thought i liked being a mommy of two kids. and she said yes! so i told her again she was going to be a good mommy.
then she wants hugs from me and always wants me to sleep in her room. i tell her i'll check on her and she asks "soon?" and i say in 20 minutes. we always go through that dialogue every night - even though she has no idea how long 20 minutes is and she is always asleep before 20 minutes and i never go back to check on her. it's just reassuring to her! she is truly my little princess who still sucks her thumb!

2nd day of school

2008-08-21T15:12:00.002-06:00

on the second day of school it was 50 degrees and raining!! it felt cold! i never thought 50 degrees would feel cold, but it feld cold that morning. i know you people in alaska are laughing at the thought of feeling cold in 50 deg - but i did feel cold. i'm getting spoiled with all this warm weather.
this summer denver broke the record for most days over 90 deg in a row - i think we had 25 days over 90 deg - mostly between 97 and 103. so for one day to be 97 and the next 50 was a shock. but that meant the kids got to wear their sweaters to school. it took me two years to finish kinley's sweater!! and now she can't even wear it to school because of the dress code! riley at his desk
what a handsome awesome 2nd grader!!

first day of school

2008-08-21T15:03:00.002-06:00

here are the kiddos on their first day of school - august 14th kinley in front of the school
kinley at her desk
what a beautiful precious 5 year old kindergartner!!

first day of school!

2008-08-21T14:28:00.002-06:00

oh, the first day of school!! the kids go to a charter school across a field from our house. they have uniforms and it is a very structured academic oriented school. even though i don't care about pushing the kids academically at a young age, i do appreciate the moral values and structure that they expect from the kids. oh, these kids are so precious! they both did great on their first day - kinley goes in the afternoon from 12:30 to 3:30 and is enjoying school. she had no problem with me leaving her in class! so i had to drop her off, then i saw riley at recess and he was ready to go play so i had to walk home by myself crying! i didn't have my little baby with me anymore!! she's a big girl now! i felt so alone without them! thank goodness she only goes half a day for this first year.

kiddos

2008-08-21T14:18:00.002-06:00

the other day the kids asked me to come out and take a picture of them. it just made me laugh the poses they were in - riley the tough macho boy and kinley was the pampered little girl sitting in her chair reading her book. i'm not sure why she was under a towel - it was probably about 100 degrees that day. (in the background of this picture is their school - landmark academy) oh, i love this picture.
after their picture posing they came in and made some sandwiches.
we have a local pool in our neighborhood and we have spent most of our summer at the pool. riley looks like an little indian boy and kinley is pretty tan too. because we live in the neighborhood we can go to the pool for free so we can go for a couple hours a day and not feel like we have to stay all day long.

kiddos

2008-08-21T14:05:00.002-06:00

fiona the princess ... and kinley and aj the clowns! it is so funny - fiona and riley have the same personalities - smart, analyzing, serious, and sensitive. and kinley, aj and quinn have the same personalities - know it all, watch out here i come, whatever attitudes!

the other day, renee said she made up a song and quinn came along and told her "that's not how you sing that song!" :) oh that makes me laugh. and the other day we were in the car and we saw some trees in a tree lot and some were one color and some were another color and jud told the kids why they were that way and kinley said "no it's because ..." (i can't remember what she said). she is just so confident - it doesn't matter if she knows anything or not, she just pretends she does.

sometimes riley will ask me a question and kinley will answer it with all confidence without a clue as to what the real answer is. then when i answer riley she parrots what i say and says "ya..." just as if that is what she thought all along!

it reminds me of a professor at o.c. - he was an elec engineering prof so i didn't have him, but in his class he would write equations on the board wildly and be talking the whole time and with the other hand he would be erasing to make room for more equations. he would erase so quickly that he would leave a lot of the equation on the board. his students knew someday he would leave a portion of an equation and then write a new equation with the old portion in and they would catch him and he'd have to explain it. he was very good at speaking and convincing people of his opinion- so when he did overlap equations the students called him on it and asked him to explain how that one part fit it. and he did it! - they all said that if they hadn't watched him mistakenly put it in that they would have all believed him!! even though he was absolutely wrong. it doesn't matter what you know, but what you think you know!

dressing up

2008-08-21T07:08:00.005-06:00

grandma has a bunch of dress up clothes that the kids love to put on. renee's girls are always wearing dress up dresses!! kinley sometimes like to dress up, but not like fiona and quinn!
fiona is the little princess!

sylvan lake

2008-08-21T06:42:00.002-06:00

oh ... i just love photos of myself!! i wish i could crop myself out of every photo, but i can't, so i just post them. here is kinley and fiona - two very sweet precious girls. and aj ...
and quinn.

once while the boys were on the boat the girls went fishing in the stream near our campsite. it was so cute because they just had a swivel on the end of their line and they were perfectly happy and ready to catch a fish:)

camping at sylvan lake

2008-08-21T05:58:00.002-06:00

riley caught a fish!! we went camping with grandpa and gramps and our cousins at sylvan lake this summer. gramps had a boat so we got to go boating and fishing.
here's renee, quinn, aj, gramps and riley coming in from fishing

our durango friends

2008-08-21T05:45:00.002-06:00

our friends from durango came and visited us this summer! Kim and her kids rex and olivia came and we all went to water world. (the blur on kinley's face was a smear on my lens). kinley and riley play so good with rex and olivia! they were our neighbors in durango and it was fun to see them again. we were at water world from open to close and we were exhausted afterwards! jud and kim's husband met us there too so that was really fun to have them there. our kids liked water world but i think they like the pool just as much! we were in the wave pool and we were near the end of the pool where we thought it would be just a bump of a wave - kinley and olivia were each on a tube and we were standing next to them. well - it wasn't a bump of a wave - it was right where the wave crashed and all the people on the wave crashed - it plumeled all of us - i got smashed to the bottom, the girls got flipped off their tubes and smashed to the bottom! it was not good!
so then i thought "ok, i dont' want kinley to have a bad experience - i'll sit with her on the tube way far back and it will be fun" so we did that ... but i guess i wasn't far enough back and most of our weight was near the back side of the tube and when the wave touched us it immediately flipped us over! enough! the girls went to the very edge of the pool and sat on the ledge:) by this time jud and the boys were right at the beginning of the wave - where it is deep - having a blast - that's where the wave is just a bump:) i'll remember that for next time:)
the rides my kids liked most were the river rides - where you ride down on a tube.

lady bugs

2008-08-21T05:39:00.003-06:00

the kids made lady bugs this summer following an idea from one of the magazines they get. riley took about 20 pictures of his bug:) I love digital cameras! - the kids can snap away as much as they want

4th of july

2008-08-21T05:22:00.002-06:00

our subdivision had a bike ride for the kids on july 4th - so they decorated their bikes and rode in it.

2nd place!!! wahoo!

2008-08-18T07:22:00.002-06:00

Riley's baseball team got second place in their league!!! when they first started playing they were having fun, but most definitely not winning. then the coaches really transformed them! by the end it was fun to watch them and they were making great plays. Good job Vipers!

baseball

2008-08-17T16:58:00.003-06:00

riley played machine pitch baseball this summer. at first his team never won a game, and then they started winning and they won 7 or 8 games in a row and ended up taking 2nd place in the tournament. this is the last game of the tournament.

i missed the first game that they won - they won 20 -0!!

then the 2nd to last game riley caught a fly ball at 3rd and threw it to first and got a double (the kid didn't tag up). he got the mvp for the game and the "game ball".

when he caught the ball he had the biggest smile on his face. then after the inning when he was walking to the dug out he had a huge smile and was looking right at me (jud wasn't there - bummer!!) and it was such a wonderful moment! i had to cherish it because it won't be long until he's too cool to look at mom when he makes a great play!
in the last game, riley caught a fly ball as well, and played a great game.
ok this is hilarious! there was one kid on the team who was so cute! once he played catcher. but he didn't want anything to do with catching the ball! as you can see from the picture he was not exactly in the catchers place! :) he was way off to the side. and he just sat on his knees, most of the time with his glove aimed down sitting in front of him. in this picture he has gotten excited and sat up on his knees!:) most of the time he didn't even flinch when the ball was thrown - he just sat there with his glove down, eyes forward - not even looking at the ball. then after the ball was thrown he would just look at the ump until the ump picked it up and threw it back to the pitcher! oh, i was laughing so hard - i can't remember the last time i laughed so hard - it was so cute! you can see the ball in the picture. riley played catcher a lot - he liked it, but i dont' have any pics of him.

vbs

2008-08-17T16:43:00.004-06:00

this year's vbs had the kids going to different bible villages, and my room was the village of bethany.

it was really wonderful teaching the story of jesus raising lazarus from the dead. i know pieces of stories hit different people at different times and it was really strong to me that jesus let mary and martha go through a very hard time in losing their brother. even though he knew it would be ok, he didn't spare them from the pain they were going through. it made me realize the same is true for us - even though we are hurting and going through hard things he is still there with us.

this is my classroom . first we acted the story out, then the kids got to wrap each other up and put oil each other and get put in the tomb, then the stone was rolled in front of it. riley and kinley are in the cave in this picture. this year i decided to make palm leaves that can be used for many times - they are sewn and will last more than one vbs. and i designed to tomb to be taken down and put up very easily. it's in our basement now and the kids play in it. i also made a whole bunch of paper mache rocks - they were fun to make - at least for awhile!

i missed doing vbs with all my friends from alaska! but my sister happened to be down the day i was decorating and she helped - thank goodness!! thanks renee:)

more pics of giboney visit

2008-08-17T16:36:00.003-06:00

here are some more pictures of paula and her family. we loved having you guys here!

the Giboney's visit

2008-07-06T20:52:00.003-06:00

we were blessed to have Paula Giboney and her family visit us for a day a few weeks ago!

It was so fun to see all of them.
I am so thankful for all of our wonderful friends!

black widows part 2

2008-06-03T12:37:00.002-06:00

ok, i'm really sick of black widows!!! i have killed 5 juvenille black widows since we moved in, but today i killed a full size female! i was out taking pictures of the yard and i noticed a web and thought oh no, they are out here. so i turned over a mat and there the big black widow was, right next to the kids toy bin. oh, those things creep me out.

i have learned a lot about black widows in the past year. i learned that the juevenilles aren't black - they have different patterns. all the ones we have have striped brown legs. i knew they were black widows because they have the exact same shape as a full grown black widow, but didn't know why they were brown and striped. but now i do!!

we must have brought them from durango. i know at least one was on our freezer because i saw a dead one in the apartment after we moved out of the apartment. i wish there were something that i could use to kill them . i need to research herbs or essential oils that might kill them. if anyone knows of such a solution please let me know.

our yard - continued

2008-06-03T12:19:00.002-06:00

jud seeded the yard - the parts that we had just put topsoil on, and also laid some sod next to the sidewalk. as you can see in this picture, the grass is really starting to grow.

then after he seeded the yard one day i came home and he had half the yard torn up - he had been turning over all the dead grass (80% of our yard!). it was totally lumpy and i was thinking "oh my goodness" i didn't know how we were ever going to get it level again. he said that raking it several times would make it smooth:)
so, after raking what seemed like an eternity (actually it was only 4 hours) i finally got all the sod clumps out and all bagged ready for the trash man to take them. but when he came
he told the kids that he couldn't take dirt (i had my kids hauling the last bags as the trash truck was coming), so i told the kids to tell him that it wasn't dirt - it was dead grass:) he said he wasnt' suppose to take it, but he would do it this time:) i was thankful. maybe it's because he knows me that he took it - i'm always racing out at the last minute when i hear the truck coming to get the garbage cans out in time. then after i got all the sod out i was ready to start making the ground smooth (i had done a rough job of smoothing it as i took the clumps out). but the next thing i know jud was seeding it! i told him i thought we needed to get it smooth - and he told me that it was smoother than any golf course he did. i just have to laugh - it's the epitome of our differences. i would have smoothed it over two or three more times and had it "perfect" and jud gets it done, knowing that it will level out as the grass grows.

when we laid the pavers on each side of the yard to extend the grass to the sidewalk, he just put his in and i got a string line to make mine straight:) i'm sure they are both the same amount of straight, but i made "sure" mine was. oh, it just makes me laugh!! now the whole yard is seeded and the grass is beginning to grow.

jud really knows grass! he is making our yard look awesome. the other day he brought home the edger!! i love the edger - it makes a perfect cut along the edge of sidewalks. now all of our yard - in front and side is edged and looks soooooooooo good. i always tell jud that i couldn't maintain a golf course because i would be too obsessed with edging the cart paths and bunkers that i wouldn't get much else done:)

day at the rockies

2008-06-03T12:11:00.002-06:00

riley's baseball teams (along with about 1000 other kids) got discount tickets to go to the rockies baseball game and they all got to walk around the field before the game.

i thought the tickets were a good deal, then when we got our tickets i realized they weren't that much of a discount because we were seating in the very, very top of the stadium - 2 rows from the top!!!

it was great though, because we had renee's kids there and jud's mom and my mom and dad. so we could spread all of our food and stuff out and the kids could climb around and not
disturb the other people.

it was a fun night!

riley's last day of school play

2008-06-03T11:57:00.002-06:00

on riley's last day of school his 1st grade class did a play and he was the narrator - an owl.

he went to school one day a week with these kids and we loved it. i was so thankful for this program as part of our homeschooling

our yard

2008-06-03T11:46:00.002-06:00

i don't have before pictures, but the edge of our yard use to have rocks around the edge. well, some rocks - that looked horrible. so i shoveled the rocks off to the side and pulled up the tarp from under them. so, i was ready to put some top soil on it. then, i had my appendix surgery!! so i was out for a week and a half, but i still had this project to do. so a 2 weeks after my surgery i was back shoveling dirt. jud loaded the dirt into the pickup for me with his loader at work. so i just had to unload it from the truck and wheelbarrow it to the back. jud does like like to do these projects after he has worked on the golf course all day... so i was shoveling and hauling dirt by myself in howling cold wind. after a few hours i understood why jud doesn't like these projects on his time offf!!!!!! he was very helpful in helping me level off the dirt and put in some pavers. then we went to the golf course and got some sand and made the kids a sand box. i'm so happy they have a sand box!

riley's bday party

2008-06-03T11:42:00.002-06:00

we had a wonderful birthday party for riley with his friends davis and emma and all his cousins (the usual birthday party bunch):)
i always do my long runs on saturday mornings and that morning i ran 11 miles and i just wanted to come home and sleep, but i couldn't - i couldn't even sit down. i still had the cake to make, the food to make and a lot to do (imagine that!) but everyone (my mom and dad, jud, jud's mom & brother, and emma and davis' mom) pitched in and we had a super fun party.

thank you to all that helped - it would not have been near as fun if i had to do it all myself!

riley is 7 years old!

2008-06-03T11:35:00.002-06:00

riley turned 7 on april 6!! he's getting so big! we had a special day for him, starting with a special breakfast. he wanted silly face pancakes:)

he's getting so big and handsome! i love you riley!

easter

2008-06-03T11:21:00.002-06:00

ok, i know this is a little late, but i'm finally getting some more pictures on this blog:) these are pictures from the easter egg "hunt" in our neighborhood. riley said it wasnt' really a hunt but a run - he was right! i think a couple thousand eggs were picked up within a two minutes.

our cousins got to come up for the day so it was fun!

friends from alaska!!

2008-05-11T18:26:00.002-06:00

we were so blessed a while back when some friends from alaska had a layover in denver!! we got to spend the whole day with Jeff, Chris, and Maria.

suckers

2008-05-11T18:07:00.002-06:00

I have found this little sucker to be very useful! my sister had one and i was using it one time and was very amazed that it worked really well, so i bought one. it has come in very handy. i loved having it when i cooked a turkey and could very easily suck the juice out of the bag. also, i have found that it is wonderful to pull the cream off of our milk (we get raw milk straight from the cow so the cream rises to top ) for my coffee each morning.

but one use that i'm sure most of you have not thought of is ...

a nose sucker!! oh, this picture makes me laugh every time i see it. this is renee's youngest girl quinn! she definitely knows what "suckers" are used for!

pics of the kids

2008-05-11T18:03:00.004-06:00

oh my goodness it has been a long time since i blogged! here's some pics of the kids.

riley did his speed stacking routine at his school's talent show.

2008-03-05T08:09:00.005-07:00

the other day we went to the state capital. this is a pic of the kids in the dome.

sledding

2008-03-05T07:26:00.008-07:00

we went sledding the other day on a hill in renee's subdivision and it was awesome!

notice how the girls "pose" for their picture. when i tell them i'm going to take a picture they put their heads together and smile. however, when i tell the boys i'm going to take a picture they barely look up!

dog pile on quinn!!! (the littlest one!)

unique thrift store

2008-02-19T20:02:00.002-07:00

there is a thrift store here - unique thrift store - where we buy all our clothes, and most everything else:) and every holiday they have 50% off. it's a madhouse - a complete madhouse! this time i got there early, so i could get a cart - they get taken within the first 30 seconds of the door opening. so this last monday i got a cart - and it's much nicer shopping with a cart:) and i got a lot of deals! i am so excited about the deals i got i had to blog about them. i enjoy shopping at unique because i get really nice quality good clothes that are in excellent shape for really really cheap

ann taylor shirt with tags still on (retail $58) , for $5
silk shirt with tags on , $5
new patagonia boys ski pants for $1.75
lands end reversible down coat for me for $3.50
speedo swimsuit for me with tags still on it for $5
and a speedo swimsuit for kinley for $2
a nice black dress with tags still on it (L 40) for $5
a really nice silk shirt for $.75
a really neat boutique shirt with tags still on ($89!) for $5
wool vest $2
a down comforter for $5
a few shirts for jud - all $1-$2 (ralph lauren, eddie bauer, tommy hilfiger)
a couple pants for me -$3 each (old navy, lands end)
riley some pants and shorts - $.50-$2

30 pieces of clothes!!! plus a little bench with 2 drawers (for kinley's room) and some toys, easter bunnies, belts for jud and miscellaneous stuff for $130

what is so great is most of the clothes look brand new. you know me - i'm not a "name brand" person - but i do know what the "name brands" cost and i just can't believe we can buy them for what we do. i also buy the brand names because they are the ones that wear really nice, and the ones that fit (at least me).

man, i love the unique thrift store! especially on holidays. i'm still looking for the wad of money in a pocket:)

hospital

2008-02-11T07:10:00.000-07:00

the other day we were driving in colorado springs and we drove by the hospital i was at when i hurt my foot and i pointed it out to the kids. i told them that i was kinley's age when i was in there. then it hit me exactly how small i was when i was in there! i have driven by the hospital a lot and it has never caused so much emotion as it did when i drove by with my little 5 year old. i just couldn't imagine what my mom was feeling! i think feelings like that can never really be put in words. i told the kids i was in there for 3 months and kinley jumped forward and quickly and with shock said "without a doctor!!!!" it was so funny.

here's some other cute things she has said.
the other day we were driving and she said "there's a shoveler with a car" - of course i had no idea what she was talking about. then i saw a snowplow coming toward us :)

then she was talking about a girl with cowboy boots standing on cattle on a horse. i wasn't really listening to hear because i was driving, and i said "oh really" and she said emphatically "you were there!" oh! so i was pretty curious how these all fit together so i asked her to explain it to me. and she said 'that girl with the boots standed on the cattle on the horse!" then i realized - the cattle is the saddle!

then we were walking by a car with a sun shade in the front window and she said "the sun doesn't want to get in that car!" it is just so cute how she says things. then riley of course says "that's not really right, huh?" - he's the analyzer and never says anything that isn't exactly right:) so riley and i just smile at each other and i tell him that it's fun to listen to kinley and he agrees!

christmas

2008-01-25T07:25:00.000-07:00

here are some christmas pics. my sister made dresses for the girls (her two and kinley). she is so talented and wonderful! we are very blessed to be near her again. she came up several times during the holidays and the girls all wore their dresses together at church and they looked so precious!! kianna, this is the closest that we got to a family picture for christmas:)

stock show

2008-01-25T07:22:00.000-07:00

every January the National Western Stock Show is held in denver - it's a huge cowboy event and we've been going with the kids (our kids and my sister's kids) for a few years. here are some pics -

we've moved - again!

2008-01-25T06:50:00.000-07:00

we have moved again and now are in our house in commerce city. i have to say that i am FINISHED! moving for awhile. we went back to durango last weekend to get the rest of our stuff and couldn't believe how much snow they had. my friend's husband had been snowblowing our driveway and thank goodness he had been doing that or else we would have had to shovel a lot of snow! there was a 15' high snowpile in our front yard and snowpiles all over the subdivision. so ... we loaded our truck up on saturday and shoveled snow, and shoveled snow, and shoveled snow - off of our deck, our roof, around our windows. we had to haul a lot of heavy stuff up the stairs - like the dryer, couch, bookshelves and treadmill. even though we had a dolly it was still very hard for me. as i was dragging the treadmill up the stairs (and jud was pushing) and using every muscle i had i was thinking "isn't this thing suppose to make me strong so it's easy to move!" i guess i haven't been using it enough:) by the end of the day i was exhausted. i haven't been that tired in a long time. i told jud that i never remember being that tired - even after my long mountain runs that i use to do i was never that tired. at the end of the day i just layed down on the wood floor and ate an apple, then we went out to eat and i could hardly keep my head off the bar while waiting to get seated. i was thankful that some food gave me some energy because when we got back to the house i still had some touch up painting to do. so, we slept at the durango house that night - on the hard, hard floor! yes, it was a rough night - being exhausted and sore i was really wishing there was a bed to sleep on. then the next morning we drove back to denver (7 hours).
now, we almost have all the boxes unpacked and i'm ready for things to settle down a little bit. i think moving gets harder as the kids get older because normal life - like having clean clothes and eating - still has to go on despite everything going on.
i realized just how much this move affected me when i was cleaning our apt and found a dead black widow - it was near where our freezer had been. i started crying and realized that i was just sick of black widows and then i realized that i'm sure there was a lot more going on than just black widows:)
so, when we went back to durango to get the rest of our stuff i killed 3 brown recluse spiders and one black widow. i know God made those little creatures, but i sure don't like them!!

here is our new address and new phone numbers - hopefully not to change for awhile!

16708 e 106th place
commerce city co 80022

js cell: 303.947.5411
ts cell: 720.891.3936

we still live 10 minutes from the airport, so if anyone ever has a layover in denver we would love to see you:)

2007-11-28T17:08:00.000-07:00

here are some more pics - there are hundreds of balloons lifting off at once. and you can walk around watching the balloons being blown up and lifting off. when i think of the balloon fest i think of our little princess kinley! she wanted to be carried the whole time. once i was holding her and getting tired and i told her i needed to put her down and she said that she wanted daddy to hold her. i told her that daddy was carrying his drink so she'd need to walk for awhile and she immediately said "ok" i was amazed at her willingness to accept my solution, but it was short lived because immediately after saying "ok" she said "i can carry daddy's drink and he can carry me" (that is often her solution!). then as we were carrying he she'd say "daddy, i can't see!" - she would want daddy to turn away from what he was looking at so she could see! her personality is so cute - i think she truly thinks she is a princess.
also we got to stay at the David and Alisha's house - Alisha was a friend from college and i kind of knew David during college. I hadn't seen this couple since college, so it was wonderful to catch up. Alisha's sister, Tara, was a roommate of mine at OC and we got to see their parents too. Tara's husband was there on business (what a coincidence)so we got to visit with him also - it was so nice to see old friends - friends that even thought you've never talked in 10+ years they are still wonderful friends. and they gave us a very good idea - to tie our kids to us. there are so many people at the festival and everyone is looking up at the balloons and it's hard to keep track of your kids. it was the best tip! we could enjoy the balloons and the kids could walk themselves without us always having to hold hands

balloon festival

2007-11-28T17:02:00.000-07:00

this fall we went to the balloon festival (hot air balloons) in albuquerque new mexico (durango is about 3 hours from alb.). it's pretty amazing how many balloons are there and the shapes. we were there the first weekend and only saw a few of the "shape" balloons. but the ones we saw were amazing. they lift off at 7:00 (from 7-8), and we got there very early, 4:30! and the place was bustling - it was amazing. here are a few of the balloons. we all agreed that darth vader was our favorite.

christmas decorating

2007-11-28T16:57:00.000-07:00

terry and mary dean ditmore gave us this little christmas village and the kids love setting it up each year. usually i put the snow down and they put the pieces on, but ... this year you can tell it was a little different!:) this village got hit by a BIG snowstorm!

we've moved

2007-11-28T16:49:00.000-07:00

we've moved back to denver!! jud got a job as the superintendent at the course he was at before we went to durango (before he was the assistant). he's excited about being the super again and being in charge. he learned a lot in durango and we are glad we went to durango, but we are also glad to be close to family again. so that means that we've moved 4 times in 4 years, and i have to say that i'm getting fairly good at packing - at least a lot better than 4 times ago! usually i like to pack all items of a certain type in a box (like all the computer stuff in a box, or several boxes), and don't like mixing items from different rooms in the same box. however, this move was very different!! i was packing while remodeling and all my pickiness somehow got to be a little less - i packed the computer monitor with kitchen items, with toilet paper, with some kids toys!! i was very, very amazed at myself. i think God is making me do things fast, like this remodel and packing, to force me to do things that i don't like to do. usually it drives me crazy when there are cracks or problems with a project i'm doing (like flooring), but when i've been working for 20 hours and it's 2:00 in the morning all of the sudden it doesn't sound that appealing to pull out the flooring and fix a little crack. :)

our new address is :
18888 e. baltic place #612
aurora, co 80013
our phones are the same for now.

we are living in apt until our house in durango sells.

riley lost a tooth

2007-11-28T16:40:00.001-07:00

riley lost his first tooth! he came home from school and wanted me to pull and it out and i did - it came out easy! that night he and jud went hunting (yes, this was a couple days into our remodel and i was left home to work!:)) riley is very analytical and knows there is no tooth fairy. even though the tooth fairy left him some money he says "mom, just tell me where my tooth is, i know you are the one that gave me the money" he wont' even go as far as saying i'm the tooth fairy! he just says i'm the one that left the money!- you know we also don't have santa in our house! riley very quickly analyzed that situation and determined there is no way that a santa could do what santa does. kinley on the other hand, i'm sure will never even question the possibility of santa doing what santa does! he's almost to lose his second tooth - it will be about 1 month between when he lost his first one and when his second one falls out

bathroom

2007-11-28T15:03:00.000-07:00

and here is our bathroom remodel - out with the ocean blue and the gold seashell accents!! and what i learned with this project is that i love the Habitat Home Supply store! it's where people drop off used home stuff that is sold and the money goes to build houses for habitat for humanity. we bought our toilet, sink with attached faucet and light and the home supply store! you have go to the store often as contractors drop stuff off all the time and a lot of it is nice! i got the light brand new because they were over stock from a supplier. this was definitely a budget bathroom and you can't even tell! the only things that are new are the countertop, linoleum tiles, mirror and shower curtain. i also learned that if you buy the prefab countertops available in a few colors in limited lengths that home depot and lowes carry, that they are about $10/linear foot as compared to the same product that is ordered to a specific length and in an array of available colors at $20/sq ft! so for the bathrooms i just buy the kitchen counterops, cut the back off and install custom tile (very cheap).

remodel

2007-11-28T14:56:00.001-07:00

i let the kids texture behind the fridge!
we installed new laminate flooring ...
and wholah! a new living room and kitchen. we did plus the bathroom remodel [on another blog] in 1.5 weeks! and while we were doing it we didnt' have a stove (it had conked out a couple months earlier) and during the remodel we had it fixed. through all of this the kids were troopers, but i know it was taking a toll on the kids - riley told me, after they had to eat cold cereal a couple mornings "mom, i just want you to make me some hot food like oatmeal":) i was absolutely tired by the end of this remodel! i wish we had done all this when we moved in so we could enjoy it! the kids loved having the open floor to slide on. AND while we were doing all this we also had to pack!

upstairs remodel

2007-11-28T14:48:00.001-07:00

these blogs are out of order because i always forget to blog my "latest" blog first - so you have to read the earlier blog first:) so then, a couple weeks later we learned we were moving to denver so we started the remodel of the upstairs. this is how the house looked when we first moved in and this is the kitchen ...
and this is the dirt that was under the pad of the carpet!! it was so nasty! there was about a 1/16" x 4' swath of dirt that began where the tile ended and went through the main corridor to the deck door! yuck! we pulled up the carpet, linoleum, and tile.

then i retextured two walls, taped them off and painted them - each 3 times! we put in new countertops and sink

remodel

2007-11-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

at about the middle of october i started painting the downstairs of our house - this is a before and after picture. i learned a lot about painting with red! the first coat we had was more of an orange color and when riley saw it he said "hey it looks like a bronco stadium, [because of the blue painters tape and orange wall] now all we need is football players and chairs!" and kinley said 'i'm the cheerleader!" then when i was painting it red kinley said "now it doesn't look like a pumpkin" - that made me realize how orange it had been! it was amazing what a difference what paint and roman shades made. it took quite a bit to get the color mixed for the "tan" walls, but i learned a lot through that process too! and i learned (from my neighbor who is a painter) that when you want a "perfect" line on a curved edge that has texture on it you run a tiny bead of silicone along your tape line and that fills in the gaps in the texture and you end up with a a good line. i also painted the hallway and had to fix some texture damage and what i learned from that (from my other neighbor who is a drywaller) is that to blend the new mud with the existing texture you use a sponge (instead of a sander) to blend it. he said they never sand anymore - they smoothe the texture out with sponges and water - what a concept! i loved that little tip. my lines blended good, but i still can't get the texture to blend perfectly - i'm still working on that one:)

black widows

2007-09-24T11:45:00.000-06:00

the other night i went in to give riley a hug good night and he told me "dad just killed a black widow" - oh! he said it so casually and i asked him where - and he pointed right above his head! i was kind of freaking out about it and jud just tried to downplay it. so, the next day i saw a black spider and i shouted "jud, come and get this black widow!" i didn't even know what a black widow looked like but i was scared of black widows now and was sure any black spider was a black widow. so jud came and killed it and yes, it was another black widow - this one was on the top step of our stairs! so, by then i was really getting scared of black widows and began cleaning - i mean really cleaning my house! i have known that spider webs that lack any geometric shape are from "bad" spiders, and i have seen a lot of those in the house but really didn't think much of them - i just figured they were "old" webs. well, not anymore - i know they are "new" webs! then we were talking to our neighbor and he said "ya, they come in in the fall and usually do a good job of hiding through the winter, then leave the house in the spring. and as i got to thinking about it (and after i had seen what a black widow looked like) i realized that i had killed quite a few when we moved in - i just thought they were big black spiders. i was a lot less freaked out when i didn't know what i was killing. needless to say, i am constantly on the lookout for spiders now - constantly scanning rooms and being very careful when i pick something up. and my other neighbor said she too just found some big black spiders in her house (she didn't know what they were either, but now she is freaked out as well!) the good thing is that i found out (from a website) that they rarely kill humans - although their venom is very deadly they usually don't inject enough to kill you. and we found another spider a few days ago when we replaced our dishwasher - when we pulled our old one out it was on it. i know they must be all over the house and i am just praying they stay hidden! yuck! and i read on the website that they are "rampant" in arizona - and durango is located in the four corners area - right next to arizona. so i'm sure they are very active in this region as well.

tour de fat

2007-09-19T11:23:00.000-06:00

here are some more pics of the funny bikes. then we notice that there are a lot of weird costumes!!!! it was the most bizarre festival - it was called the "tour de fat" - put on my a brewing company from fort collins that makes a beer called fat tire. then we heard everyone cheering wildy so we went to see what it was all about - it was a slow bike rice - the person to ride the slowest won. it was a very bizzare festival, but funny to watch. it was a festival to promote riding your bike more and driving less.

they also had a jousting contest on these bikes!

tour de fat

2007-09-19T11:15:00.000-06:00

the other day we were in town and saw that main street was closed off for some celebration so we went to see what was going on (here in durango, main street is closed about 10 or more times during the summer - they have more celebrations than you can think of!). and first we see this arena with a lot of weird bikes! these bikes were hilarious! some of them look normal, but the ones that look normal are the ones that a dynamic joint where it is normally a fixed joint. it was so funny to watch these people ride.

little baby

2007-09-19T11:11:00.000-06:00

here is kinley with the little baby that we are babysitting. kinley is such a good "mommy" - she loves to feed the little baby and is very good at it.

1st day of 1st grade!

2007-08-30T11:21:00.000-06:00

riley rode the bus the first day of school! here he is getting off the bus.

it is weird not having him here all day - i miss him! he has a good teacher and he likes school. he does very well with the school work, but being there for 7 hours (including the bus ride) is quite an adjustment and he's very tired at the end of the day.

and ... i fixed his sweater and he loves wearing it to school - it's perfect because it's very cool here in the mornings. and since i have started knitting sweaters by picking up the sleeve stiches at the armhole and knitting down, i can just take out the sleeve and reknit it if there is a problem.

hiking

2007-08-30T11:12:00.000-06:00

the other day we drove up a rode near our house and took a little hike. it was up high and it was really pretty up there. i guess a lot of this area use to be ute indian territory and it was amazing to think that those indians traveled over all these mountains - all i was thinking was that those ute indian women must have been tough! i know around where i grew up there were ute indians in that area too.

riley's first triathalon

2007-08-30T10:57:00.000-06:00

riley did his first triathalon a couple weeks ago - it was one lap swim, 1 mile bike ride and 1/4 mile run. they got a swim cap at the race, and they put numbers on the kids' arms and legs just like in the real triathalons. the first picture is riley warming up in the hottub before the race. the lap pool is cold and riley just shivers so bad when he gets in it - ya know, no fat!
this is olivia, rex, and riley - olivia and rex are some of our neigbhors. olivia is 5 and rex 7 - the both did awesome in the race. olivia is a little power kicker and she was the first one out of the pool (boys & girls) in the 5-6 year old race. she just layed on her back and kicked!

this is rex & riley before the race.
riley getting his certificate. he got second in his age group. when they were handing out the awards (everyone got a ribbon) riley told us that the kid who won had cheated because he saw him turn around on his bike where you were suppose to turn around on the run. and then riley was just so sad because he thought he could have won if the kid had run the course right. but we told riley that it was just how life is. (i talked to the lady organizing it and she said the her officials had told that kid to turn around there - so he didn't purposefully cheat - and he hadn't been at the practices to know where the turn around was.) where, oh where does he get his competiveness - maybe uncle riley! actually his uncle riley is very very very competitive and talented and jud told me that his brother riley won the 8 yr old triathalon in denver when he was a kid.

i dont' have any video of the race because i took the video with my big non digital camera and can't (or wont' take the time to figure out how) put it on the computer.

pics of the kids

2007-08-30T09:05:00.000-06:00

wow, it's been a long time since i blogged. here is a cute picture of the kids, and one of riley skateboarding. and ... wow! i just saw that i can again upload videos to this blog - and now i don't have to go through youtube to do it.

big boy riley!

2007-08-17T21:45:00.000-06:00

i'm losing my little baby! riley now has his room downstairs by himself, and his own bathroom downstairs! he has his own water jug down there. and now he doesn't want to take baths - he wants to take showers in his own shower! and he uses daddy's soap (that grosses me out!). i finally convinced him that he could use shampoo on his hair - that he would still be a big tough boy even if he used shampoo instead of using the soap on his hair! he's becoming a little independent boy! but ... he still needs mommy to help him build all his ramps!

him and the neighbor boys always are building some ramp! first it was just bike jump ramps. now it's skateboard ramps. i let them stand in the garage for a long time, then i go out and help them with all the cutting and screwing. we have a skate park here that they like going to, and they need their own ramps to practice on at home! we bought riley a skateboard at walmart, but it's really slow, then the other day at the thrift store we were dropping stuff off in the back and riley saw a skateboard and sooooooooo excited. i asked the lady if she was going to sell it (dumb question because i knew she was, but...) and she looked at it and said "hmm, it's pretty trashed you can just have it" - riley was so excited - it has good wheels on it that go way faster than his other one. i have to say, though, as a mom that is one sport that i really don't like, so we told riley that we may not be doing it for long - skateboarders aren't the brightest bunch, and they get hurt a lot!

he has two good friends here in our neighborhood - one next door and one just up the street, and they will ride the bus to school with him. i'm glad that he has friends this year to ride with because he didn't like riding it last year and he only rode it a couple times because he got teased. so i'm thankful that he's formed these friendships - the kids are older than him so he wont' see them at school much, but he'll get to ride with them on the bus

i just love you riley! oh ... and i always told myself that i would try to be active with my kids, so now that riley loves to go off the high dive i told myself that i had to do it to - that was scary! i know as a kid we used to go off the high dive all the time, but now it seems a lot scarier.

riley starts school next wednesday, so it will just be me and kinley at home! it's always hard at the beginning of school after having him home all summer long!

funny things kinley says

2007-08-17T21:29:00.000-06:00

here are some funny things kinley has been saying (and doing):) we have been swimming and since riley learned to swim in the lap lanes she has been excited about learning to swim herself. so she always tells me "learn me". we were swimming in the play/lane area and i asked if she could swim the whole way herself (one length) and she said "ya, but if my goggles get 'soggy' it doesn't count ... it doesn't count as a point ... ok" - it was so cute - i'm not sure what she was thinking about points, but ... so we were swimming and half way through she started really doggy paddling and gasping for air and instead of just swimming to the side she blurted out " soggy!!" - so i got her and wiped her goggles and she said "that doesn't count" - it was so funny! i guess that's how you can say you swam a whole length - just not count the times you stop to clear your goggles! she always says "my goggles are soggy" or "they're all sogged up". it's so cute, i dont' correct her.

when she wants me turn something right side out for her she says "can you inside out this?" and when she's upside down she says "i'm downside up!"

the other day riley was looking for a wallet at the thrift store and kinley was looking for one too. i told her she couldnt' get one because she already has 20 purses. she was looking for any reason to buy one, and she found one that was just a little bag with a zipper and she said "but this one is sacky!" - i still laugh when i think about how she said it - like well, it's sacky i need to get it! - she didn't get a purse. but riley found one and it was 50% off, so he only had to pay 25 cents for it:)

riley is saving his money for a bike, so he gets a quarter for every chore he does (so does kinley) - it is sooooo wonderful! they do so many chores! i don't put riley's clothes away now, unload or load the dishwasher, take out the trash, gather all the laundry! this new system is very nice! and ... when we go to the thrift store they buy their toys:) - of course kinley is oblivious to what her money means at all, but that's ok, because riley keeps it all sorted out for her:)

so, i think that's about all i can think of that kinley says - she is such a cutie - oh ya ... one night i was doing something and jud put both the kids to bed (i usually put kinley to bed and jud puts riley to bed), so kinley didn't get to see me before she went to bed. when jud and i were going to sleep kinley called "daddy" - she never, never calls for daddy (she is a total mommy's girl) and jud i just looked at each other, shocked. jud said, 'oh my i better go immediately since she's calling me!" so he went in her room then came back and said "false alarm - she just wanted to tell me that she wanted you!"

who's girl is this?

2007-07-24T09:20:00.000-06:00

grandma bought the kids some clothes and this is one of the dresses she bought. kinley loves wearing her "grandma" clothes. but, everytime i see kinley in this dress i think "is that MY little girl?, she's not wearing pink":) kinley looks like a little southern country girl in this dress

our friends left last monday morning to live in alabama. we went out to eat with them and the kids played one last game of minature golf together before they left riley and kinley are completely opposite when it comes to competition - riley gets so frustrated if he doesn't do good on a hole and wants to redo a hole if he didn't do good. kinley on the other hand, is completely oblivious to the idea that the goal is to get the ball in the hole in the least amount of strokes - she's so happy even if it takes her 20 strokes:)
which ... reminds me of the last time we all went golfing on jud's course - riley always wants to go to "daddy's course". on the first tee, riley tee'd off first and actually hit the ball pretty good. then after i teed off jud made a very fair but sad comment - "hmm, your 6 year old hit the ball farther than you!" and yes, riley did hit it farther than i had! and i never keep score when golfing - i don't like remembering all 20 of my strokes each hole! i guess kinley and i will have fun golfing together:) riley can play with his dad, aunt nae and uncle riley. jud hit one ball that landed on the highway and i saw it bounce 3 times - good thing a car wasnt' there!

older pics

2007-07-22T19:55:00.000-06:00

sometimes when it would snow i would pull the kids on sled behind the 4 wheeler and go to the kuenning house. this time kinley kind of got buried! she didnt' care, though, she just went to sleep:) she was so cute

pics of kids with friends in alaska

2007-07-22T19:44:00.000-06:00

our screen saver is all of our pictures scrolling randomly, and once in awhile these pics of the kids when they were little come up. i love seeing them, so i thought i would post a few. this picture of riley, caleb, and kinley is one of my favorites:) riley was suppose to be holding kinley but i guess he got distracted, and caleb wasnt' too happy about holding her either:) lol! this was in january - caleb was about a month old and kinley was 6 days old.

this is riley in caleb's car seat
riley and adam! aren't they cute!
riley and kinley at thanksgiving with grace and susanah. i think this picute is so cute!

swimming

2007-07-22T19:32:00.000-06:00

i am so excited to share with everyone that riley swam one length of the pool without stopping, stopped at the wall, then swam back without stopping! he is "training" for a triathalon in august, and i figured he had one month to learn to swim. and on his fourth day of practicing he did it!!! now i know he wont' have to hold on to the ropes and he can do the triathalon! i was so proud of him:)

then because riley was swimming kinley wanted to learn. she kept telling me "learn with me" and now she can swim around the whole river by herself!!!!!!!!! that's amazing. she would swim but wouldn't take a breath. and now she can swim! i couldn't believe it! sometimes the river (at the rec center) is going slow, but the last time we were there it was going fast. when we first got in i was trying to get kinley to swim to me taking breaths and she wouldn't - she kept saying "no mom, there's a snorkel there" and she kept saying the snorkel was scaring her - i told her there wasn't a snorkel. then i realized what she was saying ... i took her by a jet and asked her if that was snorkel and she said yes:) after a few rounds in the river she wasnt' scared of the snorkels, and by the end of the day she was swimming by herself!! i think i'm still amazed that she did that!

so, riley's triathalon is on aug 18th - he'll swim one lap, bike 1 mile, and run 1/4 mile. his friend is doing it, so he wanted to do it too. i think it will be fun for him.

jud's family visit

2007-07-22T19:17:00.000-06:00

jud's family came to visit a few weeks ago. here are some pics of the kids with their cousing Tes.

cute little puppy

2007-07-22T19:03:00.000-06:00

we dog sat for some of our friends a couple weeks ago. the puppy was sooooo cute and the kids had a lot of fun playing with him. she slept in riley's room and he liked that. kinley loved carrying the puppy around - i'm not sure the puppy liked it ... but she tolerated it:)

camping last weekend

2007-07-22T05:42:00.000-06:00

we went camping near a river last weekend and had mostly a good time. the kids & i swam in the river and jud tried to fish. and riley practiced shooting his gun. he also made a trap (like man vs wild does) to try and catch a squirrel. he really wanted to cook up a squirrel - i'm glad he didn't catch one.
i had a headache almost all day, and when we laid down i thought it was going away, but it didn't. i just kept getting worse and i never slept - and about 1:30 it was so bad i was just crying. i have never had a headache that bad. it was so bad i knew that i couldnt' stay the night - so jud packed up camp for us. it hurt so bad i couldn't help at all - he took down the tent and packed up the kids and all the gear by himself while i just walked aroudn and cried. by the time we got home it was feeling better - i think sitting up and letting the blood drain out of my head helped - or something. i was glad jud was there or else i think i would have just left all of our stuff and had to go back and get it - i'm usually not such a wimp, but i was really hurting.
here are the links to some videos of the kids playing in the water
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y66MOrNODdM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry_4Nf9H9pA

when jud woke the kids up in the middle of the night to leave the first thing riley did was check his trap:) no squirrel, but there was a grasshopper sitting on the bread and he thought that was funny.

riley's back

2007-07-06T10:07:00.000-06:00

the other night, riley was riding his scooter in our street - going really fast down the culdesac then trying to jump off before our drive way. well, i guess he fell down (jud was out there and i was inside) and got a good scrape. so he came in and told me - "i'm putting on my pads because i'm trying to do a trick!" then a couple days ago his shoulders really started peeling. his back looks hilarious! i'm thinking "what else could happen to his back!"

we have wonderful neighbors, and one of them is a first grade teacher at riley's school and her husband. they are so good with the kids - i'll go outside and riley and kinley will just be over there chatting with them. once riley was sitting in the back of her subaru with her (in the hatch back) just telling her about something?? then the other day the kids were over there with their bug catcher trying to catch all the grasshoppers:) she is a gardener and the bugs are eating her plants - so the kids were helping out:) she is pregnant and due at the end of september. she's not going to be riley's teacher, but she said the one that riley has is wonderful - she said she is very consistent and organized - i think that will be perfect for riley. she has a peach tree and riley was looking at the peaches and she asked riley to describe what he felt. (you could tell she was a teacher!) and she said the first graders have a hard time with the word "describe" she said that once she was helping the kids understand the word and asked one of her kids to describe her and he said "beautiful"! :)

and our other neighbor who just moved in has nephews who come over and play so she has a room of just toys - leggos and trains. and the kids always want to go play in that room:) she is a knitter and a sewer ( i just reread what i wrote, wondering if that's even a word, and i realized i wrote "sewer - as in waste!" - she's a seamstress is what i mean)- a very sweet lady. we have been watering her plants while she is gone - riley waters the outside plants, and while i water the inside plants the kids play in her toy room

4th of july parade and fireworks

2007-07-06T09:55:00.001-06:00

in the evening we went with our friends to a parade downtown, then to a park to watch the fireworks. the parade was at 6:00, so we stayed at the park and let the kids play until the fireworks. they were sooooo excited to see the fireworks! riley said "i've never seen fireworks like this!"

4th of july fun run

2007-07-06T09:30:00.001-06:00

we did a 4th of july fun run - a 5k on the morning of the 4th. i had borrowed a friends stroller to push kinley in, then jud said he had that day off ( a real shocker! he said he hasn't had the 4th of july off in 20 years - and since i've known him he hasn't had it off!) so he said he'd push kinley! what fun! riley did so good! he ran (jogged) almost the whole way out (it was a course that went out and back), then jogged part of the way back. jud left earlier than us, so we would catch him and we could be at the finish together, so we caught up to him close to the finish (he and kinley were waiting, resting in the shade for us) and we all finished together. riley was soooooooooooooooo tired and i told him that if he finished i'd get him a treat and kinley heard it and yelled "and me too" and i said ya, you too. riley wasnt' happy about that - he said "that's not fair! i did all this work, and she got to ride in the stroller!" and he did work hard! it was getting hot, and he did a great job! he finished in 55 min. and after the run we were talking to our friends and they said it wasn't a true 5K (3.1 miles), it was more around 3.6 -4 miles. riley said next time he wants to do a shorter race - and i don't blame him. i think him running 3 miles and walking 1 is probably equivalent to me running 10 miles. riley was so hot, about 1/2 way through the run he had to take his shirt off. and as we were running some people went by on bikes and the lady grumbling scowled to me "you missed some spots with your sunscreen" i just had to laugh! it's amazing how some people find the negative in everything! if i had truly "missed a few spots" i would have to say that i would have to be the worst sunscreen applier ever:) so after the run we went to sonic and i got the kids a cranberry juice slush - and the big treat was that they each got their own!:) then we went home and took a nap (and yes, i didn't put a pullup on riley and so i had more soaked clothes and sheets:)) he gets so embarrassed about peeing, and i'm so thankful that i have something to compare it to for him - i always tell him that God just made him that way just like he made aunt nae to need glasses - and i ask him if he thinks she's embarrassed about her glasses and he says no, and it makes him feel good about himself, because he likes aunt nae so much:) they had a great nap, and i'm thankful because we had a long night ahead:)

camping

2007-07-06T09:09:00.000-06:00

a couple weekends ago we went camping at a lake near durango. we got there around 3:00 on saturday and it was super hot, so riley and i went swimming. it felt so good and as i got out of the water i was pulling at my shorts wishing i had a swimsuit on and i felt my phone! oops! i remembered what my friend thad had told me - that if electronics get wet, don't use them until they are dry - it's using them when they are wet that ruins them. so i immediately took the battery out and set it in the sun. the next day it still didn't work - but i remembered that when i put my other phone through the wash that it didn't work until i charged the battery, then it worked fine (except for the #9 button). so, when i plugged my phone in and charged it, it worked! yeah!!!!!!!! i was very happy about that:) and so was jud!!! so back to camping ... after riley and i swam for awhile i went back to the camp to get changed. i asked jud where our suitcase was (with all my and the kids clothes) and he said "what suitcase?" - yep, it was still at home! so i just laid in the tent for awhile waiting for my clothes to dry out. it's a good thing that jud had brought a jacket because i wore his shirt the rest of the trip:) so, that meant that riley didnt' have a pullup! i knew he would pee because he was tired and sure enough he was soaked in the morning (he had some extra pants, so he wore those at night so he could wear his shorts the next day). and he was cold in the morning and wanted to climb into bed (sleeping bag) with me - soaked shirt and all. after awhile i couldn't take it and had him take his shirt off and put on a jacket that i had found. i think i'll stick a pullup in the car for emergency camping:) kinley can't remember the word "sleeping bag", so all night she kept talking about us sleeping in our suitcases:) it was hilarious. the next day riley and jud went fishing and caught a few small fish, and then riley's back started itching and he had a whole bunch of bites that were swelling up really bad. i'm not sure what he got into, but it was really itching him. - i think when i put the jacket on him there must have been some bugs in the jacket and they just kept stinging him?? anyway, jud went to a nearby store and got some of that pink stuff to put on bug bites, so riley has blotches of white on his back. then later that day we went swimming again, and we took our sleeping pads on the water and riley loved floating on them - riding the waves from when the boats went by. i didnt' put sunscreen on us because i didnt' think we would be out there long enough to get burned, but we were - and we learned that the lotion jud got had zinc ozide in it - a perfect sunscreen. isn't his back hilarious!

pee, poop and pee

2007-06-27T17:25:00.000-06:00

today was the official pee day! first riley woke be up by saying he peed the bed - this is nothing new - he wears a pull up and probably once every two weeks he soaks the bed. he's such a deep sleeper and when he's exhausted i know i'm going to be washing sheets (and a mattress cover). well, today kinley tried to poop all day. and because she has a hard time pooping it takes her awhile and today she went through 3 pairs of underwear and shorts - and yep, i had to clean them all:) then my friend dropped her 3 kids of for me to watch for a few hours and the youngest one (3 yrs old) was asleep so she laid him down. i check on him about 10 minutes after he laid down and he'd soaked all his clothes and the bed (that one didn't have a mattress cover on it - our bed). so when i brought him downstairs to get some of riley's clothes for him i smelled something awful - kinley had got her poop out! most was in the toilet but once again i was washing out underwear and shorts! actually - i had just put the previous underwear in the toilet to "soak" so it would be easier to get clean - well they were still in there when she pooped! so i was cleaning 2 pairs:) all while the other one was crying naked waiting for some clothes. i think i'm going to invest in one more mattress cover because i'm tired of cleaning mattresses - i keep thinking that "well, i'll just put it on the kids bed" - but it's never good enough. one night riley peed his bed so i told him he could sleep with me until morning (jud had already gone to work) and in the 3 hours he slept with me he soaked my bed too! he must have been exhausted that night! i'm glad kinley doesn't pee - well - she has only peed once in about 2 years and it was once when she was taking a nap with me - snuggled right close to me and i felt something very warm and i couldnt' figure out what was going on - then i realized what was happening:) and of course that was before the mattress ccover was on. you know, my kids are 6 and 4 and i just this year put covers on the beds - on at least two of them! and that was only a few months ago! i think this pee problem is getting worse - it must be because they are getting older so if something does happen it's way worse!

smart!

2007-06-27T17:17:00.000-06:00

when kinley sucks her thumb it is quite a production. she sucks her right thumb then with her right fingers she rubs her right cheek, then her left cheek. while she's doing that her left fingers rub her right forearm, up past her elbow and she sticks her elbow in the air so she can rub all the way to her arm pit. then she uses her right hand (all while her right thumb is in her mouth) to rub her left arm - sticking her left elbow in the air so she can rub her whole arm. so ... one day we were sitting on the couch and she was sucking her thumb and i told her no thumb (like a i do 20 times a day) and she said "how did you know" i laughed out loud - how could i not know! i told her i was smart. and without skipping a beat she said "ya, like a caterpillar" then she asked if the green one would turn into a butterfly before the yellow one. i'm not sure what green and yellow caterpillars she was talking about, but it was very cute.

little miss priss

2007-06-27T11:58:00.000-06:00

kinley's cousin, Tes (jud's brother's daughter), was visiting last weekend and had a purse with a little cat in it. kinley loved the cat! kinley had gotten birthday money from her great aunt and had been wanting to go to a little jewelry store in the mall to let her spend it but i never did it - and that's the store that tes had got her cat at - so ... kinley got a cat:)

then one nigth we went on a bike ride and kinley had her purse with the cat in it, with a cell phone stuck behind the cat on one handle bar and another pink purse on the other handle bar. every so often she would stop and call someone on her cell phone. their cousin tes, is also quite a girly girl:) it was a lot of fun having jud's family visit. kinley always tells me "i love embermation" (information) she likes to get pieces of paper with words (information) on them, then get on her cell phone and talk - or she like to get in front of the computer with her "embermation" and her cell phone. one day she had the computer talking to her:) i'm sure you can imagine how many settings she changes:)

day out with thomas

2007-06-27T11:39:00.000-06:00

the narrow guage durango silverton railroad had a "day out with thomas" where you could ride on thomas and then they had a bunch of fun activities for the kids. the train ride was 30 minutes and i asked kinley if she like it and she said "no, all we did was just go straight":). they loved seeing thomas and playing on the jumpy blowup things. they also had a petting zoo, thomas tattoos, a bunch of thomas play trains to play with and a juggling show. they also got to see sir topham hat. it was a fun day!

it was fri-mon. and after we paid to ride thomas on fri, we went back with one of riley's friends on monday and just did all the free things (everything except ride the train). that is definitely the way to do it!!

tball

2007-06-27T11:30:00.000-06:00

riley just finished tball, but he doesn't like me to call it tball because he never uses the t:) he had a great team with wonderful coaches and helpers.