A Birthday and a "Big Lake"

So, Sam decided that he wanted a Thomas the Train Birthday cake for his 5th birthday, and had very specific ideas as to what it should look like. I tried my best, and he was happy so I guess it turned out ok. He was also sure that he wanted to go to Chuckie Cheese for his party. Which was perfect since it was just "immediate" family in attendance this year. All the kids had lots of fun, and Blake and I even managed to squeeze in a basketball throwing competition (which I won, of course).

There was very little dilemma in Sam's mind when it came to choosing a gift. He knew exactly what he wanted, and he has literally not stopped playing with it yet! It is a really cool ship that has all kinds of bells and whistles. I love the new Imaginex line of toys. They are very creative and sturdy toys. A hard thing to come by in my humble opinion.

The weekend after Sam's birthday we finally took the kids to the "BIG LAKE" as we had been calling it. Better known as Lake Michigan. I was surprised at how clear the water was! It was so clean. I guess I just expected mass pollution because it is a lake near large metro areas. I was pleasantly surprised. The kids were in the water immediately. I don't know why we are not smart enough to put suits on before we actually introduce them to the water, but it has been a trend this summer. But I can tell you that we are not taking them anywhere wet with out a suit on from the start again. Anyway, we got everyone changed into appropriate swim attire, and all they wanted to do was get wet, and then roll in the sand until they had sand in every crease of their body. It sooo did not look like fun, but they were having a ball.

Since they were so excited about getting sandy, Blake and I decided to bury them in the sand. They enjoyed every second of it. After that we walked to a lighthouse at the end of a pier and got the yummiest milkshake called a "Lavender Lady". I have been craving another ever since.

Chaos continued....

The day after arriving in Michigan we had to register the kids in school. We also signed a lease on a duplex, but we couldn't move in for another 9 days!!! So we decided to get in the car, YET AGAIN, and drive to Kentucky to visit with Blake's oldest brother Brad and his family for a few days(yes, we are insane, thanks for asking). The kids did good, all things considered, and the visit was nice. That is until I got this crazy sinus infection, cold something that knocked me flat. Up until that point I was holding it together pretty good if I do say so myself. But once that cold set in I was so miserable, and add being at someone elses house, not having a home to speak of ourselves, and being sick, it took the last ounce of glue holding me together and through it out the window. We headed back to hang out in the hotel for a few more days before the house was ready, I hit Craig's List pretty hard looking for furniture, and got some great deals (picture me patting myself on the back here). But that is another post, with pictures! Anyway, we finally got into the house. Added a little furniture, and got the kids into school the day after Labor Day. They were surprisingly not very nervous. Below is a picture of them before they went to school the first day. Sam and Emily were more nervous to ride the bus than anything else. None of our kids have ever ridden the bus because the bus ride was an hour ride each way where we were before.

But they survived the bus ride and all came home with smiles on their faces. Well, everyone except Emily, who had skinned her knee getting on the bus home. It didn't endear her to the bus that day, but she has since learned to like riding the bus. Especially since it is literally a 5 minute trip from the school to our house.

More to come!

Chaos, the beginning...

I promised I would post about the "chaos" and so I have had it on my to-do list all week. So I am not letting myself go to bed tonight without getting, at least part of it written tonight. The end of July was when the chaos really started to get momentum. I was scheduled quite a bit more than usual at work to cover other Nurse's vacations. But I had also been called up for jury duty for the month of July. So far, I had been called off every week, but I was not so lucky the last week of July. Not only did I have to go in, but I actually got called to be on a jury for a criminal trial. That in an of it self is a long story, but it gave me an entirely new perspective of bringing 12 diverse members of a community together to try and come to a decision about other members of the communities lives. Let's just say, I am not anxious to be called up again anytime soon. Anyway, that ended up taking two days to get through, and it just happened to be two days that I was working at the Cancer center. They were very understanding about it though.

After that I had the opportunity to got the Girls Camp. I had not been to Girl's Camp since I was a "girl", so I felt like the first year beehive trying to figure everything out. I was asked to be the "Camp Nurse" and a YCL advisor. I was also the 1st counselor in our wards YW at the time, so I was also trying to keep track of the 14 girls we had up there from our ward. Needless to say, they kept me busy all week, and I came home thankful for the experience, and better for it, but VERRRRRY TIRRRED!!!! ( the above picture is of the cute welcome gifts we gave to each girl in our ward the first night we were at camp. Blake was appalled at the amount of "fluff and stuff" that goes on at camp. He found out that girls camp is definitely not scout camp)

So I mentioned how exhausted coming home from camp, but I knew that I didn't have more that a moment to rest because of the impending news we were waiting for from Blake's Company regarding a possible move too..........Michigan. I knew he would most likely get the "yeah or nay" while I was at camp. And I was unable to contact him until I was all the way down off the mountain at the end of the week of Girls Camp. So you can bet I was on the phone as soon as I had service on the way home. He confirmed that we had the green light to go to Michigan, and that we had exactly 2 weeks to get packed up and go, so that we could get the kids registered for school. To say that I was overwhelmed is a gross understatement. But when it was all said and done, we had so many people helping us that we were more than ready to go at the end of 2 weeks. It helped a lot that we kept our home in Twin Falls mostly intact. We only took the essentials. No large furniture (we would get what we needed when we got there) and were prepared to be "minimalists" for the next little while. The above picture is of the truck and the van all loaded up. Leave it to Blake to make our chaos look so neat and tidy. What a guy!

Here are the kids in front of our house in Twin Falls, the morning we left for Grand Rapids, Michigan. It took us three days of driving to get there. The kids were trooper through it all. It help a little that they got to eat out for every meal, and go swimming in the hotel every night. Blake kept asking them what it was like to live like "Zach and Cody" on the Disney Channel show. (don't pretend like you don't know who they are... and if you don't, I wouldn't loose any sleep about it.) So by Aug. 27th we were in Michigan, where the real "fun" was yet to come....

Soooo, it's been a while since my last post. It was a little intimidating to follow up after Blake's creative post. (He was quite proud of that by the way)Anyway, life has been quite eventful as of late, but I wanted to catch up on a trip we took in July before I move on to the chaos. Blake was able to take a few days off so we headed to Hebgen Lake for some camping, fishing, and bike riding trough Yellowstone with Grandpa Kern. Of course, it wouldn't be a post by me if I didn't upload the pictures backwards. So, we will begin with the end of the trip. We were able to do some really fun bike rides through Yellowstone Park with my dad. It was fun to do as a family. It is nice that the kids are getting old enough that we can do things like this as a family.

The one thing that made it all do-able was this contraption. Sam still has a hard time keeping up with everyone else on a bike, so we rented this great trailer that made it possible for him to keep up. He loved it, and loved whizzing by everybody else and saying "See yah, slow poke". He did get a little tired by the end of the day as you can see.


The day before (remember, we started at the end) We had gone to Virginia City. It was a fun old mining town in Montana. There were so many old "authentic" artifacts and antiques to look at. Jack and Sam both got a bow and arrow as a souvenir and had lots of fun practicing their aim.
And that brings us to the start of our journey, Hebgen Lake (I have got to remember how to post my pictures correctly!). We got a campsite right on the water. Which was great for water access, not so great for misquitoes. When we got there the kids couldn't wait to get their feet wet in the lake. It started out with just getting feet wet and quickly turned into full on swimming. Clothes and all. After we got back from this trip Jack had an unusual lump in his lower abdomen we were concerned about so we got it checked out. The next day he had hernia surgery. The doctor's originally thought that it was strangulating his bowel, but that did not end up being the case. Jack was a champ through it all, and so Brave! I couldn't believe how fast his body healed. The biggest downer was that he had to miss swimming lessons because of it. But he is back to his old self, and has a great story to tell anyone who will listen.

Freedom

So lately I have being failing in the fun date category and the Josie's love tank was running on low as I was informed. Especially after Sara told Josie about all the fun dates her and Jay have been going on. Thanks a lot Jay I am still waiting to hear the end of that one.

So I kept hearing what a romantic place the Independence Lakes were up South of Burley. I know too couples that actually propose marriage at this wonderful location. So I thought there had to be something magical in the water up there and to make the hike on the 4th of July eve. This would get me out of the dog house for sure and Jay would be calling me for pointers. So I arranged for Becky my sister to watch the kid so Josie and I could make this romantic trek.

It was a wonderful hike and saw beautiful country. Please refer to the pictures. Josie was even able to shoot a tree. Josie got a good laugh as I was trying to set the timer on the camera and run to get in the picture also. She said it was like the good old days when her father would do the samething. The highligt for Josie I sure was we dropped down the other side of the mountain and went to the Albion Cafe and ordered our favorite scones with rasbery butter. They are out of this world.

I hope in the end Josie had and wonderful time and she knowes that I love her very much.


A funny story on the way up the mountain. (Josie's did not think so)

As we were walking up I saw a family coming down that are members of our ward that I have been trying to reactivate. (Now Josie says I have put back their progression until I leave). This is nothing new I think it is most of the ward that is counting down the day until I am releassed or leave.

Anyway as I reconized them I yelled out "I finally found you I have hiked all this way to come hometeach you now sit down and listen". I think I got a smile out of the husband. Pretty funny maybe I will sent the story into the Ensign. What a great Idea. I will call it "High on a Mountain Top"

The Mystery of Stinging Nettle at Phantom Falls

Scooby Doo where are you??

Last week-end Josie went to youth conference up in the South Hills. We hatch this great plan to meet her up there Saturday afternoon and hike into a water fall that just out the side of a cliff from a underground spring. So the kids and I hopped into the Mystery Machine and headed up to meet up with Daphne AKA(Josie). The first mystery of the day was to find the trail head which was challenge in it self. We missed the sign the first time and end up almost all the way to Burly then we ran into "Clampits Family" which straighten us out and told us that the sign at the road was knocked down and you had to look back into the grass to see the sign. So we finally found the trail head strapped up and set out on the "Mystery of Stinging Nettle at Phantom Falls" The tail was a bit overgrow but after we handed out a few scooby snacks the team was good to go. As instructed by Daphne I took the lead to fend off any wild beast that might jump us. But don't you worry I had my loaded 9mm the only problem was I left it in the truck. As the adventure continued I started noticing a plant along the trail that has cause me some pain in the past so I thought being the leader and assuming that Josie knew what stinging nettle looked like (especially being the camp nurse for girls camp this year) I would yell to the rear watch out for the stinging nettle. Half way in on the hike there was a mutiny Daphne and Velma shutdown and decided that a calamine lotion bath was not going to be in their future any time soon. So after carrying a crying Velma up the hill. Being the diplomatic person I am no yelling of course. The mystery was solved. Along this same trail was another plant that kind of look like stinging nettle but was not. So both Daphne and Velma kept thinking they were surounded by stinging nettle. Once it was properly identified Velma was able to stop the goal of not to let a blade of grass touch her. Which was quite the challenge on the over grown trail in shorts as you can see from the pictures. In the end it was a wonderful hike and a fun family adventure. I have attached a picture of sting nettle so next time you to can solve the Mystery of the Stinging Nettle.

Sincerely,

Scooby Doo

Past the Scooby Snacks ( Bottle Caps)

You know an update is way over due when your husband asks if you are ever going to update your blog. So I am catching up. Expect great things to come. But for now, here is a small taste of what we have been up to the last couple of months. How 'bout that first picture as an attention getter, heh?! I work very part time at the MSTI here in Twin Falls, and they were having a fundraiser auction to go along with the "Relay for Life". So they asked people to decorate a bra with a "Breast Cancer Awareness" theme, to be auctioned off at the dinner. So the is my contrabution. The "treasure chest" or "treasure your chest" if you will. It didn't come out perfect by any means, but I was kind of proud of the final out come. Blake and I had fun coming up with runners up ideas. If anyone has a great one for next year, I am open to suggestions!

I love this next picture! It was on one of the first nice days this spring and the boys were playing super hero's in the back yard. When they got the brilliant idea to jump on the trampoline like they were flying through the air. They got some good "flying" in, I thought it was a cute idea that they came up with all on their own. I love the simple joys of youth!!!!

Here are some very belated pictures of Easter. We went down to Sara's for the MS Walk in Salt Lake, then back to here house to dye eggs and the big hunt. It was a nice weekend, and nice weather too. More to come later, I PROMISE! (if you look close at the bottom picture you get a glimpse of Jack's "Hulk Hand". He didn't feel the need to use the "dipper" apparently.)