Camping Trip

We took a quick campout trip this weekend just outside of McCammon. It was beautiful! The kids loved the creek.

Our friends joined us for the evening campfire but couldn't stay the night. We are so glad we found this place! It's only 30 minutes from our home and it had firepits, picnic tables, a shallow stream. Ian wants to go back as soon as possible.

I even saw ferns and moss! Two of the thing that I miss most from Oregon. I love greenery and wetness. We will try and get one more trip in before winter sets in, but will have to go more next year. Anybody want to join us?

By the way Ian is doing great in Kindergarten. Every day we ask him what he did in school and he says snack time and recess. I guess he only remembers the important things!

Kindergarten here we come!

Sniff Sniff. We sure love the kid but are glad to see him go!

Chubbuck Days

We had a local town celebration today, with freezing cold weather and lots of rain. There was a parade, a Police vs Fire softball game, and music and food. This was the third parade me and the kids have attended this year. The Newton parade had a great candy to float ratio. The Pocatello parade had no candy and was really short for the amount of time we spent waiting for it to start. Every single business in town particpated in this parade. Me and the kids huddled under a raincoat waiting for it to start (check out the Idaho State Journal tomorrow, a photographer took about 20 pictures of us huddled on the side of the street!) The softball game was fun to watch and Mike did great. I forgot to take any pictures of the parade, the kids loved seeing Mike drive the fire truck in the parade and the people around us were suitably impressed. What's the best parade you have attended?

p.s. our picture didn't get into the paper but it did get onto the newspaper's webpage .... http://journalnet.com/galleries/chubbuckdays/

I Can't Believe Ian is 5!

It doesn't seem like 5 years ago I had Ian. In some ways it seems 25 years ago and in some ways it seems like yesterday. It all started back in July of 2004. Mike, Jan and I drove from Fairbanks to Denali National Park on July 31st. We stayed the night in the White Moose Lodge and Sunday August 1st we took an 8 hour bus ride into the Park to see the sights. We saw some wolves, Dall sheep, a bear. It was a LONG and BUMPY ride. I wasn't due until the 15th of August. But it was LONG and BUMPY ride. That evening we drove back to Fairbanks. My contractions started about 1 am, my mother-in-law flew home about 6 am. At 10 am I sent Mike to go buy a car seat. I went into the clinic around noon or one. I labored there until about 10-11 pm when it was decided he was stuck. We then relocated to the hospital about 1 block away where they also decided that he was stuck. Then about 1:30 in the morning on August 3rd, I had a C-section to get the stubborn kid out. I still remembered the first time I heard his cry, the overwhelming happiness and astonishing thought of "oh no, what did we do..."

Ian has been begging me, I mean BEGGING me for He-Man pajamas. Since they don't exist anymore and my time machine was broken, I had to get creative with my printer and iron.

Ian is such a nice brother, he let Eliza open one of his presents! I don't think I would have ever been so generous!

To top off the day we invited some neighbors over to eat Ian's cake with us. I didn't realize the frosting had melted in the heat and pooled all to the sides! We ate it anyways. Ian loves to decorate his own cake and he went crazy with the sprinkles.

We are lucky to have such a great kid. I had to add in this picture of Ian and SO rock climbing in Newton. Didn't they do a fantastic job?