Sailing…. takes me away …..

My sweet hubby wanted me to experience sailing.  This was a fine idea but the calendar was getting very full with all our other summer  “fun-ness”.  We finally found an open Saturday and planned it about a month ago.  Little did we know that it would be one of the HOTTEST days of the summer!!!
We had a great time being together and that is never dependent on the weather – right?!  I have posted some pictures here but when we do combined stuff with Ashley and John you can get even more of our fun day on her blog as well.  Click HERE

Cameron had done this before with our good friend and Sea Scout Leader Dom Bee so he showed us how to drive and all the kids tried their hand at it.  Cameron at the end even “parked” the boat.  It was awesome!!!!  Looking forward to going again sometime when it is a bit cooler and there is actually wind :)

Fourth of July visit

We had a relaxing celebration over the July 4th holiday.  Maureen aka Grandma Scott and Bob came for a visit from North Carolina.  It has been a few years since we had last seen the Scott’s so this was a wonderful treat for us.  Grandma Scott and her family have been such support to us for so many years.  Maureen became “Grandma Scott” and Bob always stayed Bob to my Ashley and Jason when they were very little and we were stationed in Jacksonville, NC.  Jeff was new as an Infantry Officer and he was either training to go on deployment.  The Scotts were my “other hands” and total support when I was a very young mom.  We love them and their family!!! 

The girls got to see the movie Brave and the boys watched some Indiana Jones.  We grilled and had a great visit.  On the 5th we went to Ashley’s house to have lunch and so she could see them and John could join us.  The Scott’s had come up for a wedding as well and we made sure they made it to the temple.  It was a very fun visit for all of us.

Grilling yummy swiss mushroom burgers!!!

Even Chauncey came for the visit

Scott’s with the kids

Bob and Jennifer love to mess around – and try and get each other in “trouble” ;) I think here they are trying to step on each other’s toes. 

Tractor Drama and STORM

We thought June would end with a nice weekend since we got all our mowing done earlier in the week.  Side note on lawn – we now have 3 acres that come with our fancy new house and the lawn is massive to mow.  We have HIS and HER lawn tractors just to help speed up the process. However over the past month we seem to have had several tractor issues which just adds to the mowing time.  My tractor was used is it has had more issues than Jeff’s which is now one year old. I mention this age as we can’t believe what happed this week.  The front metal axel BROKE!  on the front wheel.  A couple hundred $$ later we are back in business – really???? 

The lawn is very uneven and very hard on our tractors.  One theory is from a repair on the wheels after Jeff  (with tractor) fell into a HUGE gopher hole.  This weakened the axel and was a matter of time before it broke.

Very sad but thankful it could be repaired AND Jeff was not hurt in the incident. 



If that wasn’t enough excitement for the week  - we did not know we were in line for a massive storm Friday night.  Lightning like a disco club in our house, hail, wind and rain.  It was so intense and we lost power for the night and again for a few hours in the morning.  Again so thankful that we are fine and have power once again.  It really took a toll in our area with so much power outage and trees down. 
 
Before storm we had a Rubbermaid storage box and a grill on our patio. 



In the morning it was all over the yard.  Box could be be saved and found outside play equipment a new home in garage. 





A few tress down in backyard.  Project for today was filling in gopher holes. 




Hidden gopher holes – beware!!!

June Recap

Very exciting month for our family!!  So I must mention a few things.  I was the first one in the family to finish school for the summer – yay for me!  The kids still had a week of school so I went back to Jennifer’s middle school library to help with the end of year inventory.  Cameron surprised us by totally rocking this semester and did not have to take any finals whoo hoo!!  So he was done and helped me at the library.  The weekend came and we had a visit from Jeff’s mom – grandma Vicki from Boise.  We got Jennifer ready for girls camp, ate yogurt at Sweet Frog, and went to DC for some museums. 

Ashley met us downtown and we had a great time at the Natural History and American History Museum. 

 

The butterflies really liked my shirt.

Here are a few pictures of Jennifer – she found some awesome pants in the dress up box (left from Jason) and took them to camp.

She was totally beat after a week of camp and heat but had a great first year.

 

 

 

 

 

June is Cameron’s birthday month.  He is now 15!!!!

Yay for June and school getting done for kids and parents!!  Jennifer went to girls camp and survived the heat.  Lots of fun guests came for our friend’s retirement ceremony.  The month just flew by and it officially starts our summer fun!!!!!

In my “new” life

That is how I feel after almost two years of going to school.  It has been a full time job being a mom and a student, so some things had to go by the way side during this time.  It was all I could do at times to meet the demands of both major areas in my life.  Let’s just say it could be a bit overwhelming.  But here I am with 18 classes behind me now.  Let’s also add a year of 8th grade homeschooling Cameron then a rough but successful 9th grade year at high school.  Sending Jason on a mission and a move.  Jeff too was going to school for his MBA and Jennifer was hanging on for the ride while the parents went to school and in her words “weren’t too fun”. 

So it has been a few years since even thinking about working on my blog.  But I have entered a new phase of my life with only my student teaching left to finish and then I will have something I never dreamed of accomplishing – a MLIS =  Master of Library Science, with a School Media Specialist concentration.  I thank the Lord first for carrying me in times when I just didn’t think I could do school or deal with family issues.  I thank my sweet family for their love and encouragement and eating the most simplest of dinners.  Also thank you to my extended family and dear friends for your support in this journey.  I am excited for the next phase and “fun things” to do!!!

Me with Maile Garfield and Tjiske Skankey.  Celebrating my end of school and Maile’s (hubby) retirement of 30 years in USMC. 

Christmas Vacation

We couldn't wait for Christmas vacation. We were so excited for Ashley to be home with us and all the fun activities and good food to eat. We have gone to see the Washington DC Temple Festival of Light, sleeping in, getting matching PJ's, and eating lots of good food to include a trip to Famous Dave's. We spent a day in DC at the Newseum and I hope to post their news report. There was lots of shopping done at the after Christmas sales with gift cards and a science project to start - hmmm not so fun there. Some movies to watch like Bolt and Bedtime Stories and now we are just a few days away from sending Ashley back - that sounds like what you do when you catch a little fish. It has been fun and has gone by way to quickly. It is one of my goals to get this blog up and going if you don't already see this on my Facebook. I hope to keep up with all this technology.