Today

Flag Football

Saturday was Lucas and Isaac's second flag football practice. What fun to watch. Lucas' age group plays first. They play a game called sharks and minnows. One shark tries to remove as many flags from the minnows as he can. If your flag is removed you go from being a minnow to a shark. Lucas is always one of the last minnows running. The same goes for Isaac. I crack up just watching how seriously they take it. My boys have the running and chasing part down. We just need some practice on the catching and throwing.
Ariel has a great time throwing the football or some rocks and then takes a break to carry around my purse or comfort and feed her baby doll. Looks like this fall we are spending 3 1/2 hours each Saturday on the playing field for some good laughs.

Looks like I got still shots of Lucas and live action movie of Isaac and his team.

Back on the saddle again

After a four month hiatus Lucas is back in action. It took bribing Lucas with a trip to Target to get a Star Wars toy to ride his bike. This past summer no amount of anything could get Lucas to ride. I do not remember any hard crash to create his fear or whatever it was. Last week Lucas spent a few days doing jobs to earn money for a Galactic Hero Luke Skywalker. Jobs included brushing his teeth, picking up toys, brushing his teeth, vacuuming his room, making his bed, brushing his teeth. He was on such a high earning his new toy and thinking of what he could do and get next. I thought I would capitalize on this and offer the bribe for riding his bike by himself. Yesterday and today he has wanted to ride his bike everywhere. I captured a few photos on the way to the farmer's market. I am sure it was motivational to see Isaac and friend riding their bike all the way there.

This photo is a lady returning the Lego Ariel was trying to feed her dog. Notice the buggy in the background. There is a large Amish and Mennonite population in our community.

Milwaukee

We spent last weekend in Milwaukee celebrating Mike's birthday. We did several fun things but my camera battery died so I have no documentation. I think one of the highlights would be the zoo.

Stewart Falls

David Hawkes and family met up with us to hike Stewart Falls at Sundance last month. We showed up in shorts and flip flops -- not the best hiking attire. My boys were great sports to hike the 1.5 miles up to the falls. Correction: I carried Lucas most of the way up after he tripped over his flip flops for the tenth time.

To add a little excitement to the hike, we decided to hike back down the steep terrain in the dark. After a close encounter with some big animal that was crushing and crunching the brush just to the right of me (Dave thinks it was a elk -- there were some guys up there calling the elk in), I let out a scared shrieeek. That took the fun out of it for Lucas for the rest of the hike. He figured it was too scary -- if Mama can't hold it together, ain't nobody can. I did my best to convince him I was only caught off guard and there was no real danger, but he didn't buy it. Although we understand that Sundance Search & Rescue came out looking for us, we had it all under control.

Mom's scrapbook page

My mom made this really cool srapbook page of me today and posted it on her blog. She is making all kinds of pages for a class she is taking. You can check out her pages here

First Day of School

The first day of school was like two weeks ago. This is how on top of it I am.

We had just got back from our vacation at 9pm the night before school started. I had my mail being held at the post office so I had no idea who Isaac's teacher was. Because of all our playing and changing time zones and the fact that Isaac's school starts too early (7:45) I had to wake Isaac up about 4 hours earlier than he had been getting up. We wandered the second grade hallway looking for his name somewhere to indicate where his class was. We saw his name on a locker and asked the nearest teacher if Isaac was in her class. She nodded in the affirmative and kind of gave me a weird look. I felt like some kind of crazy not with it mom then. As hectic as the first week was trying to get adjusted to school and being away from out house so long I still would not have come home a minute sooner from our vacation.

Lucas started 4k at the elementary school across town. He is in a reverse integration program with handicap and autistic kids. He is LOVING it.

Every day Ariel has a hard time saying good bye to big brother Lucas. This little backpack Lucas is wearing was a hand me down from Isaac 3 years ago when Lucas became obsessed with Dora. I can't tell you how many times Lucas has slept with it on.

Mike

This post is to balance out the previous post with pictures of all me.

Milwaukee

On our way home from our summer travels we stopped in Milwaukee to attend the big Harley Davidson 105th birthday bash. No we didn't. I so hate the Harley Davidson thing. There was a big bash but we were in town visiting Mike who was working in Milwaukee. We had a great time visiting museums. We were able to make waves in a tank and pet all sorts of fish. Mike was the one taking the pictures and I think I am in every one. I am feeling a little self conscious showing my face so much in one post. When we got home the motherboard and memory in our computer crashed and as of yesterday it was finally repaired. Hip hip hooray!

Hanging out at Grandma's

The water fight that started with a water gun from a kid's meal, ended . . .
. . . with a hose.

We Are Back

We are back from our rejuvenating summer vacation to Idaho and Utah. I feel a renewed sense of gratitude for the wonderful family and friends that we have and unfortunately seldom see.

Nate and Mandy took some great pictures of my kids. This is one of them. Half of my photos from our vacation were downloaded onto my mom's computer and then deleted from my memory card and the other half were downloaded onto Mike's laptop. I hope to get my photos soon so I can post our great trip.