First week of school

It was a good first week. The boys are very tired by the end of the day, but we've been getting used to that with each school year. There's definitely a transition.

Nate would still like school to be half-day, but I guess that's to be expected from a kid who always rises at 6am. He's my early bird. The first day of school, he was dressed by 6am and had his lunch made by 6:30. I've always made their lunches. Anyway, here's their first-day-of-school pics.


First ones to the bus stop. Nate our big second grader and Mac, a third grader.


Here's all their buddies!


This cracked Sam and I up, as we read it after the kids went to bed. Nate was filling this out for his teacher, and notice what he put for needing help with? The boys do not go to a bilingual school and no, they don't take a foreign language as second graders. :)

This week is starting off a bit rough. Elly has had croup since Thursday and has slept horribly the past couple nights. Tonight her coughing is keeping everyone up. Nate finally fell asleep at 9 and Mac is still up (it's 9:45)...only 2 hours past their bedtimes. Arghhhh! Tomorrow is a new day. :)

A Summer to remember...

This is a little more like an album than a post, lots of Summer fun. Here we go...


Sam built a zipline from our house to the neighbors that started at the treehouse and ended when you dropped in the pool. The boys loved it!


Nate's turn


We didn't let Elly do the zipline, but she did get great at the monkey bars. Did them every chance she got!


Sam and I caught the Zac Brown Band at Cheyenne Frontier Days. We actually had a great time there at rodeos and such with the whole family including the Ballard cousins, but unfortunately I lost all my pictures from my camera. I think I'm finally done crying about it!

After spending time with the Eliason family in Cheyenne, we headed to North Carolina to spend time with the Glasers. We took our time getting there, spent a week in a beach house, then hustled back. Our first stop was St. Louis.


Here the kids are at the Gateway Arch.


Sweet shades!


Enjoying the view from the top of the arch...


Snug as a bug!


We stopped in Chattanooga, TN after spending the night in Nashville and visiting some caves.




After Chattanooga, we hit Gatlinburg for some crazy fun. We started off with ice cream...


then stayed up late playing mini-golf and lasertag. I think the kids appreciated a fun place after all the driving and touristy adult stuff they'd previously done.


Look at this beautiful place we got to stay at in Kure Beach NC! A perfect place to relax and spend time with family for a week.


Our view and walk to the beach...


Time on the beach. The boys loved boogie boarding, wearing themselves out every day in the water.


Nate and Katie Ann working on some sand castles.


Elly loved jumping the waves and riding them on the boogie board. Definitely a fish like her brothers!


My mom scheduled us for some family pictures, which I can't wait to see! These are some pictures taken while we were all dressed up. Nate and Morgyn waiting patiently for their turn...


Mac with Papa...


I'm not totally sure this was helping the photographer...


Taking some time to check out his shells before heading down to the beach for more pics.


cousins playing on the beach...




What a great place for pictures!


This kids first time playing monopoly. It's been a favorite past time the past couple weeks!


We hit some coasters one night at the Carolina Beach Boardwalk.


Elly even rode some!


All the cousins, Katie Ann, Gracelyn, Morgyn, Gus, Elly, Harrison, Mac, Carter and Nate

We had great week and loved the time we spent with the Glasers! I did a terrible time taking pictures of everyone together, but will have to pass along more when I get the professional pics!


We hustled back in 3 days, the scenery through Kentucky was beautiful!


The kids were only a little crazy by the time we got home!



...but the only thing that made them endure 3 days in the car, was them knowing they were coming home to see Aunt Lizzy and Uncle Ben visiting from Africa! We hadn't seen them for a year, so they were pretty excited. They stayed with us Thursday, we joined them in Denver for a wedding Lizzy was in on Saturday, then they were back to Zambia Sunday morning. This is the last trip here until they're done with the Peace Corp next October, so we cherished our time with them.


Elly and her Aunt Lizzy (the first Elizabeth Eliason :))


Since we've been back from NC, the boys and friends have been working on the treehouse, adding shelves and today...this emergency exit.


I'm pretty sure it's not to code...


One more cute pic of Elly reading to her babies.

Those are the highlights! We also had lots of baseball with both boys playing, each 2 nights a week, but I lost those pictures along with the ones from Cheyenne Frontier Days. Major bummer. Anyway, the kids met their teachers today and start school tomorrow, so their Summer is officially over. It's been a good one and now we're looking ahead to a great school year!

Wildfire next door!

As of this morning, this wild fire is 0% contained and burned 37,000 acres. For those of you out-of-town, this fire is in our county just West of us about 15 miles. We're hoping for a reprieve in the weather. The wind was bad yesterday, so the smoke was worse at some times than others depending on which way the wind was blowing. We were sure we would be heading to Cheyenne to stay with Jim and Debbie this morning since our house (minus the basement) seemed full of smoke last night, but it's not too bad this morning. We'll see how the day goes and whether the boys' games are cancelled due to bad air quality. Anyway, pray for the fire to contained, the people who have lost their homes or been evacuated, and the firefighters.


This was the view last night from our tree house.


Above our house...


Pretty ominous looking cloud of smoke!

Last day of school!

It's here...the last day of school. We decided to plan a surprise for the kids. Starting with a message on our chalkboard...


a banner for a theme...with some dollar store Hawaiian decor on our table.


It's our last day! Mac's teacher took some stats at the beginning and end of the school year and he's grown 2 inches and gained 9 pounds. Seems like a lot for a school year. The boys are excited for Summer.


So for our second surprise, we waited for the kids to get off the bus with water balloons in hand...


We don't usually pick them up from the bus stop, so they were already wondering what was up.


Then we started to pummel them.


We expected the kids to all have smiles like this...


but I think they were mostly confused and shocked. The bus driver gave us some honks though! They'll be more prepared next year...


Afterwards we invited the neighbors over for hotdogs and a balloon fight.




More kids showed up as their schools got let out...but I only got pictures of the Bauder kids

The kids in our neighborhood go to three different schools, so this was a fun way to get the kids all together before the Summer. We hope to make it a "Last day of School" tradition.