February Fun

I have some pictures from Emily's birthday dinner the night before I left. Mikey suggested I post many of our pictures from our gatherings to show you how much fun we are having to better lure you all up here to Boise!! This is my first attempt at coercion. Heather and Emily hid a baby inside the cake, and it was an epic event waiting to see who had it...Lucy was literally stressed out over it! Here is a funny series of pictures depicting Grandma Karen's exuberance upon finding the doll in her piece. FUN TIMES!!!
































In other news...I just returned from my trip to Bagdad, AZ to visit Morgan, Christa, Cassidy, Lund, Sarah, and Will. Christa had chemo on monday, and I stayed until saturday. Other than sleeping in until noonish, her bad days, she acted just like me on a good day! She even played a round of dodgeball on thursday night. She is amazing, her family is amazing, the valley was amazing, and IT was amazing! I loved coming home to my family and getting back into the groove here, but it was soooo much fun. Notice the pictures of me with their turtle, Dot. I love that turtle!! She is the cutest, she was nice enough to come out of hibernation for a day so I could see her in action. Thanks Dot.































I have some sad new. I will need to give you some background info first. Elliott has an imaginary preschool...Spiderman preschool. for about the last year and a half, he has told us all sorts of things about this school. The bus has a spiderman on top, his teachers are only girls. They take him out to lunch at restaraunts, but he isn't allowed to tell us where. If you ask him where he learned something, it was always at Spiderman preschool. The other day, he walked up to me and told me that his spiderman preschool isn't real, he was just teasing us. HOW SAD!!! I know this must mark some kind of developmental stage...he has burned down his imaginary school! I hope his innocence and sense of humor remain...it is an end of an era!


















Finally, here are some shots from the kids' swimming lessons at the Y. Lucy is backstroking by herself, and Elliott is getting used to having water in his face. Only 18 years of training away from Olympic golds!

"This is the best day of my life!"

That's what the kids said today on our little adventure. Bonnie and I took a stroll and the kids rode their bikes on a neat little trail not too far from home.



The trail crossed the river in a couple places and there were these neat little bridges that made the perfect photo op!


Did you spot the geocache? We did a little of that on our trail, in fact we each found at least one!



This is one Lucy found



The kids loved riding their bikes on the trail





And we found a fuzzy little guy enjoying the trail too! This is Lucy holding a caterpillar we found.



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Day five

Day five started at the Y, Lucy had the day off school, so she was pretty happy to get to play in the big kids room at the Y. Elliott was able to ride scooters today, which he loves, and Lucy played soccer with some of the bigger kids. The above pic is the Mohawk I gave Elliott for fun before we went out to Chuck E Cheese's.






The kids had a great week, were very helpful to me, and were very obedient, so we celebrated by going to play at one of their fav playgrounds.





That was after we went to Dad's fav playground, the Harley dealer, where I finally got to spend my Christmas and bday gift cards I've been saving and I bought the jacket I wanted. While there we also grabbed a quick cache by the dealer. After Chuck's, we went and found two nearby caches, then we hung out with the Wilsons for a bit.






We ended the day at harmy's place for dinner again.

I want to say thanks to Christa for the kind words about my previous post. It's good to know you have appreciated Bonnie being there, and it brought tears to my eyes because the things you wrote are some of the exact things we miss the most about mom being here. Bonnie definitely brings a brighter, more positive attitude to our lives, and she even made things easier on me by planning out our week. I couldn't have put my finger on it when we were first together, but I realize now one of the reasons I fell in love with Bonnie, and continue to fall in love with her, is that she is the most amazing mother I can imagine. It is definitely reflected in our kids' attitudes and personalities and having this week to focus on my kids has been a wonderful blessing and has left a mark on me, and hopefully leaves a mark on my kids, that won't soon be forgotten. Get well soon Christa, thanks for the kind words, and thanks for this wonderful opportunity!

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Day four (but who is counting?)

Lucy had her pizza party (her class bought the most pizzas from papa johns during a school fundraiser) and valentines party. I was pretty excited, because it was a landmark to me that Lucy had to buy, give away, and also received valentines.






3 parks and 3 caches today.












Then off to the Y for the climbing wall. Lucy rang the bell on two different sections of the wall and also the rope ladder! Elliott got just above my head, but he did it 3 times!


















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Day three

Elliott got to be a superhero at the Y today, but the rocketships were broken, so he didn't get to ride those. Harmony came over for lunch, then joined us as we checked out a couple of new parks, but first Elliott convinced her to play Wii Mario until Lucy got home, the boy is an addict


















This is a pic of Lucy while her and I were geocaching. We found 3 out of 4 today, but the kids weren't into it today, so mostly I found them while they played on the jungle gyms and swings



















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Last pic is from swimming lessons at the Y, which they love. But neither of them us too fond of getting their faces under water, so we are going to have to invest in some goggles. Finally, we ended the day at Harmy and Habe's house (grandma and grandpa for those of you lacking pigment) where we had a yummy dinner. Is it Saturday yet?




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Day two

Well, day two is pretty much done, and nobody was set on fire, stabbed, shot, or starved. We are missing Bonnie, but we got a chance to talk to her a bit in bagdad. We are proud of her for stepping up to help Christa, and we're glad we could do our part, as well. Papa and Gramma left us today to head back to Pokey, but they've been a big help, and a sponsor, so that meant a lot to us, Thanks! We started the day at the Y again, then had to run an errand to my work. Elliott is such a good sport. When Lucy got off the bus, we wolfed down lunch then headed out to Elliott's class at The Little Gym. They are doing hockey now, and Elliott is pretty good. Parents got invited in to play against the kids for the last few minutes, and Lucy and I had fun with that. Then we went off to "the tunnel park" to play and geocache.



We got to play on the swings a bit, then went off to find another cache. Then we went for a bike ride to the trout pond/park near our home (and another cache). We only logged one find, missed one, had one ruined because muggles were camped out on it, and one narrowed down to a specific spot but traffic was too high so we couldn't check it. All in all a pretty decent day.



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