Quick Bit

Alright, so I know that it has been so long since I have posted, but I guess we have been busy! And I had misplaced the camera for a few weeks. But now I have it back, and am taking pictures and getting things posted. So I will try to keep updating, because I know there are several things that I want to share!

We are slowly settling into a routine now that our first has gone to school. We are going to get a preschool program figured out for Rachel, and we will be even more set.

Well Thomas is awake, so I guess it is time to end. Leave messages! I love to hear from you all!

My Kindergartner!

Keith entered Kindergarten this year! Does he look old enough? The first two pictures are from the Back to School night when we got to meet his teacher before school started. He was so excited to play on the playground, can you tell? He can do the monkey bars and swing on the swings!


This is the night before the big day! I told Keith he is going to have to make his lunch every night after dinner so he will be ready for school the next day. Well that hasn't worked out as well as I thought it was going to, and it turns out we have plenty of time in the morning because he is still so excited about going to school he gets ready all by himself and needs hardly any prompting from me at all! So this is him making his lunch. He got to pick out what he wanted. He wanted Ham and Turkey sandwhich.

Then this is him all ready to head out the door! We drive him, because the bus stop is 3/4 of a mile from our home. The school is only a few more minutes drive. So we are carpooling with neighbors and they are taking him and we are bringing the kids home. I drove him and picked him up the first week though, just to get the routine established.

Can you see how excited he is! He still loves school, and it has been going for over a week now. We are glad he likes it and is so excited to go. It sure makes it easier on me when he gets himself all ready. And since I don't have to get Thomas and Rachel ready, it is really nice! Because it is usually just him and me as he gets ready!

He's my big boy, all grown up and going to school and everything!

Benihana Date Night

While Sarah and Chris were here the end of July, my parents took all us couples out on a date night to celebrate Sarah and Chris graduating from college. Sarah chose Benihana because she hadn't ever been there before. I got pictures of all the happy couples. We did miss Becca and Shawn though! And Jonathon!

Dude Ranch Hike

With our little hiking group during the summer, we started at the Baldy parking lot and the hiked to the abandoned dude ranch at the end of the road. There is a spring that sprung up during the big earthquake in the 60's, and so now a lake has formed. So I stood on one side, and took pictures as some people (Carolyn, Sarah, and Natalie) came around the other side.

Look at my studly husband! Carrying the baby and everything!

Here is the group of all the kids and a few adults, up on a pile of old railroad ties.

There was a little stream of water that all the kids liked jumping over. I tried to get them in the air. Some pictures were better than others.

Tyson helping Winnie over the river.

It was so fun to go on all these hikes this summer. It helped us get out of the house, even though the weather wasn't all that sunny and summery. But if we waited for the perfect weather, we would never get to go anywhere!

Babies on Moving Day

We spent some time helping Carolyn and Curtis move into their bigger apartment. Catheryn and Thomas got to play and I got some cute pictures, don't you think?

South Fork Hike

Here are some pictures from our hike to South Fork. We had a good turnout and lots of fun. This was in July, and you can see some "Termination Dust" in the background. That's snow for those of you that aren't familiar with our nickname for the first snow that hits the tops of the mountains. The kids always like finding fun rocks to climb, so we had to get a picture!

We didn't make it all the way to our destination (the bridge) because some of us had to get back early. But this next picture was taken from towards the end of our hike. It is looking back up the valley that we had driven down (Hiland) to get to the trail head. I thought it was quite breathtaking.

And we needed a picture of our family (minus Tyson who was at work). When others are around to take pictures, I try to take advantage, because I am taking the pictures more often than being in them.

This is the last hill on the way back to the cars.

My beautiful Rachel!

Kids In Action!

This picture was taken during Bear Paw Festival. I love the movement in it! Keith was playing tag games and runing around!

There were a few trees there that the kids got to climb on as well. This is Rachel waiting her turn to climb the tree!

My sister, Becca, bought this little outfit for Thomas before she took off for the summer. It didn't fit that well before she left, so I had him wear it recently and took pictures for her so she could see it. Not the best picture, I think he had just woken up.

The kids are like little monkies! They like to climb on the treadmill. It's a good thing that it gives some exercise, huh?


Just some fun pictures of our crazy kids lately!

Thomas' Photo Shoot

When Thomas was younger than he is now (about 2 months old), my sister, Becca, came over and did a "photo shoot." These are two of the pictures that she took. She said that she is still working on them in her photo editing program, but she sent them to me today, and I wanted to share them with you! Aren't they so precious?!


I can't wait to see all the rest that she took!

Smilebox

Okay, I had seen my cousin Dana post a Smilebox creation on her site, and told myself that I was going to have to go back and look at it, and then someone else sent me a link to check it out, so I did, and I LOVE IT! It is so easy to create a fast easy picture whatever to post on here or send in email. I still love doing the traditional scrapbooking, I love the hands on feel, but for a quick and nice result, this is the way to go. And that way I can get more pictures out to you all quickly on what we are doing here! I did both of these slideshows in maybe 30 minutes, just because I was learning the program more. But next time it will be even easier! So if you like these and wanted to know how you can do them on your blog, just click on the link from one of my slideshows and it will take you there. Enjoy!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Memories Tag

Here is a "tag" for you to all play!

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses.

If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

A Fun Giveaway!

I found a link on a friend's blog, for a giveaway, and thought some of you might like to participate. It has to do with dresses on http://mikarose.com/index.html. However the giveaway is on http://brholloway.blogspot.com/ (this blog). You'll have to scroll down a bit to find the actual post, but I'm sure you all will be able to do it! There are some beautiful, modest dresses there to see. Good Luck!

PS- This dress is the Allison dress, and one of my favorites!

More Fun in the Sun!

So, we had another beautiful day, and this time we were able to invite friends over to play in the water with us! This was the day that Tyson left, so we had to do something to distract ourselves from the sadness that always comes when he leaves. We called at noon to invite people over around 2 or so. It was sunny when we called, but then it got cloudy and overcast. We got ready anyway, and it was a good thing we did, because the sun came back out and it was nice out!

Thomas really likes being outside. We ended up with 5 babies there, and we had all the walkers outside for them to talk turns in. Isn't Thomas cute? I think so!
We had our little pool filled up with water- sort of. I didn't plan that well, and there was more slope than I realized, but by the time I noticed it, it was too late to move it. The kids had fun anyway, and by the time they were done playing, they had emptied it out for me!

We also put the sprinkler under the trampoline for a bit. Because we have well water, and I don't want to run out, we did it in about 30 minute intervals. But the kids really had fun playing in the water on the trampoline. The trampoline makes the water not feel as cold by the time it hits the kids.

Our friend, Natalie, surprised us by showing up in the same swimming suit that Rachel was wearing! She didn't have any idea that Rachel had this suit either, but I thought it was pretty cute, so I had to get a picture of the twinners.

This is me at the end of the day. Do you see the pink? My sister told me it looked like I was going to be in lots of pain. My arms got pretty pink too. It was pink, but wasn't too sore, just when Thomas catches me off guard with his little finger nails. I am all better now though!

Alaskan Wildlife in our Own Backyard!

We were up at my parents house, getting dinner ready, while my mom was in her room napping, and she came running out saying there was a bear. So of course we all had to go and see it and take pictures.
It was in their garden, and this picture is of it on their mulch pile. It didn't destory the greenhouse, just dug around in the plastic bags a little.
This next one is a closer up view of the bear. Can you tell if it is black or brown (grizzly)?

It's a brown bear, also known as grizzly.

Here it is in the greenery up above the garden and road area, but still in their backyard. It hung around for about 30-45 minutes.

After it finished hanging out in the backyard, it headed to the flower garden in the front yard. Then our intrepid attack dog, Raisin, started barking to warn us of danger! The bear didn't even flinch. It finally headed up the hill and out of the area...for right now! I didn't get any pictures of that, because we were eating dinner at that point, and didn't want to go get my camera. I know, lazy, but what can I say, dinner was delicious!

Like Father, Like Son

See that long thatch of hair on top? When Tyson was a baby he was a premie and he had to have most of his head shaved off, except for that thatch on the top of his head. His mom liked to put a curl in it- much to Tyson's dismay today. This is the best picture I could find of that. Kind of wavy, not too curly, but I am told that it was pretty curly!

Fast forward about 30 years and see our little boy. He has hair on the top of his head and today, after he had been under a blanket and sweating, his hair was curly. My mom was playing with it and got into one big curl, so I had to take a picture to compare the two. What do you think? Like father, like son?

I only left it that way for the picture, so now it is all fixed.
The things we do for the sake of a picture!
I think they are both pretty cute though!

A Beautiful Day In the Neighborhood!

So we finally had a beautiful day here in Alaska! Can you see the sun? Can you see the brilliant blue sky? It wasn't overly hot, but it was warm and nice. It might have gotten into the low 60s. I decided that it was high time the lawn got mowed (where were you Sarah and Jonathon? Okay, I guess college and a mission are good excuses!), and told Tyson if he got the mower started up, I would mow while he did homework. His allergies make mowing the yard a nightmare for him and I dont mind mowing, so it worked out okay....for a little while! I took the exersaucer out and Thomas was so happy to just be in it and watching all the things move around outside. Our grass was pretty long, and I didn't want to have to empty the bag all the time, so we were just leaving the grass on the ground. At first I had Thomas in the Snugly, but when I had to keep restarting the mower, having a baby on my front impeded my pull starts. The mower was having some difficulty, and kept dieing on me. I got a blister from having to keep starting it again and again and again and again and.... well you get the idea! So I got some of the yard mowed, but am going to wait for another day to work on it some more. Tyson says he thinks there may be some water in the fuel line from winter, but I don't know. I just know it was really annoying to have it keep dieing on me! So after I decided to call it quits, I told Keith and Rachel we could put a sprinkler under the trampoline so they could play in it. They had fun. Thomas and I sat on the blanket and watched them have fun.

See, don't we look like we are having fun? The sun was shining, I was outside, we had green grass....what more could I have asked for!

Keith and Rachel had lots of fun. I didn't think they would last as long as they did, about 30 minutes or so, but they did! Having the water come through the trampoline made it warm up a bit, instead of just being freezing.

Rachel drying out on her towel. If you can't tell, this is an unmowed section- didn't want grass clippings all over them!

This is Keith drying out. He was the most excited to be outside with the water. I had told them we would try to have a water party outside before Tyson came home this last time, but it was just never warm enough. And this was like at 4 in the evening. That has been the trend. It seems to get nice in the evening. So we want to invite others over to play, but usually it is around dinner time, so that makes it hard to get together with others. If tomorrow is as nice as today was, we might be having a water party! So give us a call and come over!

Keith and Rachel really wanted to do something outside after I turned the water off and they had dried off. I was heading in to make dinner, and had a hard time coming up with something. I saw some rakes leaning against the house and told them they could rake. They were excited and raked quite a pile of clippings. I was just going to leave them on the lawn to provide mulch- right? So then they wanted Tyson to come outside and rake with them, and being the good daddy he is, he agreed. So they all got to rake together outside, and I figured I would get some pictures, but the shadow wasn't in the best location to get all of them, and this was the best picture anyway. Don't you think my honey is handsome?

And speaking of my honey, he is off for life on the north slope soon. So give me a call and stop on by, keep me busy until he gets home! He is going to be gone all of July :( So hopefully it will go quickly until he is home with me again!