Fall 2008

Fall always comes and goes pretty fast, it seems to me.  I love it.  It's a beautiful season.  We were able to get in one last camping trip with Jaron's brother's family.  We went up to Henrey's Lake in Island Park and on into Montana.  There is a lake called "Quake Lake" which was formed when an earthquake caused a dam in a river.  The earth quake also caused houses to slide into the existing reservoir (we are sitting on one).  My friend Millie and I took our older kids on a hike out in Kilgore to Aldous Lake, led by a friend from my ward.  It was beautiful.  Hudson Turned 2 in September.  That is a picture of his "Roarie cake" (you know, the dinosaur says "roar").  The last 2 pics are of a little nature trail I took my kids for a walk on last week.  It's about 3 miles from my house.  Earlier in the summer a friend of mine took me kayaking down the river you see in the background--something I'd like to get into a little more.  The kids and I had a little picnic after our walk.  It is such a blessing just to enjoy the precious moments of life.  I'm grateful to live in this free land of opportunity and I'm most thankful for the gospel that teaches me what the most important things in this life are.

Our Summer 2008

2008 has probably been the most fun-packed season we've had since we've had kids.  Now that our house is finished and we are settled, we've been able to do a little playing.  We went to Portland for the 4th of July.  We did a lot of swimming there and went to a really fun little local amusement park called "The Enchanted Forest."  We took our kids bowling for the first time and Savannah took swimming lessons while we were out there.  The 24th of July parade in Saint Anthony is always big.  There's a pic of my kids with Jaron's brother's kids (their only cousins) at the parade.  I put a couple of pictures of my kids with the beautiful "amber waves of grain."  This is what surrounds our house in the summer.  Jaron and I took the kids up to an old abandoned railway tunnel up above Ashton for a little "hike."  Did you see the pic of Hudson naked?  He reminds me of Adam in the Garden!  A very big part of the summer for my kids was catching frogs in our back yard.  That container was filled in about an hour's time!  Savannah did nothing else, but look for more frogs.  They were just hopping around in our grass!  I hope it is like that every year!  We were so lucky to be able to plant grass in our back yard this year and that made for such a nice summer.  The thing Hudson loved was the sand box Jaron made for the kids.  It was actually more of a gravel box (pea gravel is much cleaner and the cats don't poop in it).  Over all we had an awesome summer and we were sad to see it go!

East Coast girl's trip

I met Millie Hull through my husband.  Millie and her husband Don went to high school with Jaron.  Jaron and Don were snowmobiling buddies.  We would occasionally go to dinner as couples, but Millie and I didn't know each other that well.  Don and Millie moved to Hawaii for a few years for work.  While they were there, they called and said, "Hey, if you guys ever plan on coming to Hawaii, now is the time to do it because you can stay with us, we have cars, we have the local connections, we know all the hot spots, etc."  So we took them up on it (that was in 2005).  Ever since then, Millie and I have been great friends.  She was a nanny in Boston before she got married and has a little sister, Annie, who is living there now, but plans on moving home soon.  So Millie and her mom planned a trip out to see Annie.  In no time it became a huge girl's trip because I ended up going along and so did Millie's best friend from high school, Amber.  We had a trip of a lifetime!  Millie and I drove 12 hours to Portland to drop off my kids to my parents then hopped an almost 6 hour flight to Boston.  When we got there, we stayed with Annie and her roommates in this way old house turned into an apartment.  Our first day Millie, Amber, and I took a road trip up to the Maine Coast and had some lobster.  Next we toured Boston for a few days then the 5 of us hopped in Annie's teeny-tiny toyota tercel to make a 3 hour drive to New York.  We thought we could save money by staying outside of Manhattan, so we got a hotel in Queens.  I have to say, it was a very adventurous part of our trip.  The dingy hotel, the subway, the wrong bus we got on at 11 p.m., the creepy escort services trying to offer us a ride--yeah.  But, it was so amazing, like nothing I've ever done.  The shopping was sooo fun.  That huge city was like it's own world!  We went to two Broadways--"Wicked" and "The Little Mermaid."  Going to a Broadway is something I cannot describe.  I LOVED IT!!  I swear, if I lived in NYC (and had $$)  I would go to a Broadway at least once a week!  There is nothing like it.  The smell of the subway is disgusting.  We ate at Bubba Gump's on time square twice (my favorite restaurant.)  Our feet would just ache at the end of the night.  NYC is so perfect as a girl's trip.  I just don't think Jaron would get the same joy out of it.  A week of shopping and Broadway plays, who could ask for more?  I would go back every year if I could.  If we thought it was tight in Annie's car on the way up (I don't know why I always say "up," NY is down from Boston), we were definitely in for a sardine-packed commute back to Boston with the shopping of 5 women.  I was so car sick.  I have come to appreciate Dramamine the way I used to as a kid.  Boston has such a clean, friendly atmosphere compared to NYC.  Boston is such a cute, old, historic, beautiful city.  We would just walk the old brick-paved streets and admire the architecture.  We had awesome food while we were there.  We ate at an Indian Bistro, an authentic Spanish restaurant, and a quaint little Italian restaurant in the North End.  It was interesting to me, however, the amount of Dunkin Donuts that dot that coast.  During our whole trip, at any given time, I swear there were always at least 2 Dunkin Donuts in close quarters (and ya know, the donuts really weren't even that impressive).  But oh man, the ice cream.  We had the best ice cream sometimes 2 times a day! The most dreadful part of the trip was the 6 hour flight back to Portland, which we got in at like 11 pm, then packed up and were on the road home by 1 am.  We drove through the night and were home by 2 pm to enjoy at least a few hours of Mother's Day.

I just thought I would post our most recent family picture taken last September.  It's like 4:00 in the morning, but I can't sleep.  Yesterday was Father's Day.  I had planned to get up early and make Jaron this huge old breakfast with bacon, eggs, and pancakes (usually the best he gets is an Oddwalla bar on the way out the door (if you don't know what an oddwalla bar is, you must check it out.  I find them in the produce section of Winco for the cheapest, but I've also seen them in Super Walmart.  They are mostly organic and packed full of vitamins and other healthy stuff.)  Anyway, I woke up yesterday with a really nasty flu, so  instead of getting the royal treatment, he had to do everything.  He got Savannah ready for church, got Hudson's diaper changed, fed both the kids, and prepared an elder's quorum lesson (which was his own fault for procrastinating, but still...) while I went back and forth between the bed and the toilet.  So I slept a lot yesterday and now I can't sleep.  I really am lucky to have married such a good man.  He is a super father, the kids adore him!

Savannah and Hudson play so cute together (they also fight together, which isn't so cute).  This is a picture of a favorite place to play.  We have these 2 big windows in the corner of a little family room.  They love to climb up and down and look for the animals outside or watch dad in the tractor.

The other day we were in Broulims grocery store.  We were in the check out line.  Savannah and Hudson were sitting in one of those carts that looks like a car and has 2 little steering wheels.  As I was unloading groceries to be paid  for, this was the conversation that took place:

Savannah: Mom, let's wait for Hudson to take a really long nap so I can have a piece of gum.

Hudson: No

Savannah: Hudson, you need to take a really long nap you can get strong and grow up.

Hudson: No

Savannah: Don't you want to grow up?

Hudson: No

Savannah: But Hudson, it's very fun to grow up.  

Hudson: No

Savannah: If you don't grow up, you won't be a daddy.  Don't you want to be a daddy, so I can be a mommy and we can have kids?

Hudson: Otay.

I about died listening to this, it was the most precious thing!

Time to get to work

I'm taking a technology class for recertification in Rexburg. This is day two and we set up an educational blog this morning, but this is the part I've been waiting for. I knew we were going to be setting up a personal blog so I am excited. I think this will be my new form of journaling. Our teacher told of a friend who printed off all of her postings and put them in page protectors in binders. She had 3 fat journals to look back on and I am really excited to start doing the same thing.

I finally joined the blogging world

Becca made basically set this up for me, hence the reason why I have one!!!!