End of Summer Update

Haven't been to the ol' blog in a while. I still read all my friends' blogs, even though I don't often comment, so I don't feel completely out of the loop. When I first started blogging I thought of events and things that happened in my life from the viewpoint of "I could blog about that." Now I'm so out of the habit of blogging I don't even know where to start. So I'll post a bunch of pictures that I've accumulated over the summer and describe them a little. That should do the trick as far as keeping a record for posterity...

What kind of summer would it be without plenty of ice cream and Popsicles?

We had a family reunion at my house, but not everyone was able to make it (including myself) so we had a second reunion at Bear Lake. It was loads of fun, and the kids had a blast playing with their cousins!

My kids are suddenly fearless when it comes to water (compared to last summer when they would hardly go near it). Drew is especially brave when he has his life jacket on.

Owen, Drew and cousin Ellie on a merry-go-round. If I remember correctly, they all bailed before the ride was finished, which made for some tricky kid-juggling.

We also went to American Falls Reservoir. I don't know why we keep going back there. I guess because it's free and it's close to our house--just 20 minutes away. But the water is always so filthy!

Samantha didn't want to go in the water, so she sat on the shore chucking rocks into the water the whole time.

After we go to the reservoir, we go visit David's grandma. She always brings out this little car garage, which has been around forever and which the kids absolutely love.

I found this bug while cleaning the BLM building one evening. I have no clue what it was. It's body was shaped like an ant's, and it had six legs that it actually used, plus two appendages that just sort of did nothing, and two long antennae on its head. Its head and legs were reddish-brown, and its body was gray. Legs and all, it was about two and a half inches diameter. Huge! I couldn't bring myself to squish it, so I just took pictures, cleaned around it and left the room as quickly as possible.

I had some time off so I took the kids to visit my sister Roz. Roz lives not far from my Grandma Archibald, so we went to visit her, too. Drew was being a pill and wouldn't look at the camera. Oh, well.

The day after we visited my Grandma, we went wakeboarding. Our friend's boat is super nice; even I can wakeboard successfully behind it. (By "successfully" I mean that I can get up and ride. I can't do any tricks or anything.) This is just a picture of the full moon that rose as we were cleaning the boat at the end of the day. It made me think of James' Giant Peach. It was gorgeous and this picture does it no justice whatsoever.

Yesterday we went to a Railroad picnic. They had a firetruck there, which was the boys' favorite part.

Owen hopping down from the firetruck.

Drew sitting in the truck.

Samantha's favorite part was the playground. That girl is fearless! She'll shimmy up all the steps and ladders, and go down all the slides. The bigger the better! This little slide is surprisingly fast, but she seemed disappointed at how short it was.

We had the scare of the summer yesterday. Samantha and the boys were playing on the playground while I helped out with the Railroad picnic. I turned around to check on the kids and none of them were where I left them. A few seconds later I saw Drew and Owen. I asked them where Samantha was. Drew said, "That man taked her." Panic!! My heart almost stopped. I started running around trying to find her. Finally I saw my friend's mom holding her. My friend's brother had seen her on the playground crying and bleeding from the forehead, so he "taked" her to his mom who is a nurse. The mom was on her way to the announcer station when I found them. I'm just glad that the kid who found her happened to be someone we knew, and we got her back safe and sound (if a little bloody from the playground).

Samantha turns two this coming Thursday. I can't believe it! My baby is not a baby anymore! We're going to make a Samantha cake, and I got her some really cute clothes (which she helped pick out) for her birthday. I'll make sure to post some pictures before she turns three!

Oh, I almost forgot to even write about this: I got a new job. Yay! I started working as a Dental Assistant last week. In Idaho, you don't have to be certified to be a Dental Assistant, and a lot of dentists like to hire people with little to no experience (that's me!) so they can train them to do things a particular way. I love my new schedule: it's Tues-Fri, with varying hours depending on when the first and last appointments of the day are. Also, the dentist takes days off every so often, so I have days off dispersed here and there, including an entire week in October (too bad it's without pay). I like the work, too. It's pediatric dentistry, and it's fun to work with kids. A lot of them are scared, which can be tricky, especially with their parents hovering around, but they're all so cute. And it's fun to talk to them about keeping their teeth clean and healthy. I think this will be the start of a good career. I still want to do Dental Hygiene, but it will probably be a while before I get back to school since David's job still doesn't feel very secure yet. But at least working at the dentist office, I know that I'll be dumping all that tuition money into a field I enjoy.

Some Pictures (In No Particular Order)

I planted some wildflowers (a nice word for weeds) in my yard last summer. We got a few new ones that didn't pop up last year. Can't wait to see what next year brings!

This is one of my beautiful nieces that came along this summer--we were lucky enough to get two; one on each side of the family! This sweet girl is my brother Andy's third kid. Dave's sister Amy had her first kid, a little girl, who is also adorable. I can't wait to meet her in person!

I like to get pictures of all the kids jumping on the trampoline every year and compare them. These kids get braver and braver every year!

Our neighbors had this little play house on their front lawn with a sign that said Free! so we called them up right away. They even hauled it over to our place for us. It needs a new roof, and maybe some paint, but the kids love it as is.

Samantha gets bored riding the bikes normally. Here she's doing the Superman.

Crazy kids.

Drew is the only one who will run amok through the sprinklers with no hesitation. He loves it!

Owen loves to jump from the top step and over the flowers (usually he lands on the flowers).

Three Kids and a Molting Dog.

Twinkie, Twinkie, Candy Bar

I've started a couple posts the last few days, but haven't actually finished one. I also wanted to post some pictures, but I got a new camera and I can't figure out where my pictures are being saved to after I upload them. My old camera just saved things automatically in "My Documents," but the software program with my new camera is trickier. Maybe someday I'll get a chance to sit down and figure it out.

We've been having a pretty good summer. I'm still working at Teleperformance, which I'm not crazy about, but it's nice to have some backup income in case David gets laid off from the Railroad again. The thing that bugs me the most is that I feel like I'm missing out on a lot. On days that I'm working and David is home, he gets to spend more time with the kids, which is good, but on days we're both gone, the babysitter gets to witness all the fun things they do and say. (She also gets to witness the tantrums, which is not something I feel at all wistful about. On the other hand, the kids are a lot better behaved for other people than they are for David and me.)

Samantha is learning at such a fast rate. She says new words every day. She doesn't enunciate very clearly, but I can generally get the jist of what she's saying. She has learned to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," and it's very cute because most of the words don't even sound like words, but she's got the tune right on. I'll try to get a video of that one of these days.

Drew and Owen are learning like crazy, too. Their imaginations are getting pretty wild. They're getting good at rhyming things, playing with language and making up silly words. Owen likes to repeat things I say with different letters at the front of the word. For example, if I say something like, "Please bring me that cup," he'll say, "Ming mou mat mup?"

They also enjoy changing words to common songs. The other day Drew started singing, "Twinkie, Twinkie, candy bar! How I wonder where you are!" Then he laughed and said, "My dad taught me that."

And my boys often surprise me by saying things like, "I'm just teasing you." (Then in the next breath Drew will ask, "Mom? What's teasing?")

And there are always lots of questions. One day we got a little key chain for SafePlace--letting kids know where they can go if they need help--from the ladies at Lunch in the Park. It brought about the following conversation which is a prime example of what a question/answer session with Drew might sound like:

Drew: Mom? What does this say?

Me: It says "Safe Place."

Drew: What's a safe place?

Me: It's somewhere kids can go if they need help.

Drew: What's if they need help?

Me: Well, a kid might go there if someone is trying to hurt them.

Drew: Like a bad person?

Me: Yes.

Drew: What's a bad person?

Me: Someone who tries to hurt other people.

Drew: What's hurt other people?

Owen: [looking at the key chain] Is this bad person giving the kid a hug?

Me: Go ask your dad. [to self:] Where do we keep the liquor? Oh, yeah. We don't drink... Dang.

A Good Day

Today is my birthday! I've got aproximately 35 minutes to go, even. It has been a good day. Lots of people sent me good-wishes via Facebook. I also got phone calls from family members. Drew popped up by the side of my bed this morning and said, "Happy Birthday, Mom!" Samantha has been running around saying, "Bappy Birbay!" all day. Some of the waiters and one of the chefs sang to me at Red Lobster and gave me a little ice cream sundae with a candle in it. And at work, my friend brought cupcakes for me and treated me to a wrap at Schlotsky's for dinner. Thanks, everbody!

Being 28 isn't too bad. Not that it's much different than being 27, but I've always had something against even numbers. So we'll see how this year goes. So far, so good!

In unrelated news, I've been taking the kids to Lunch at the Park. They love to run around and play, and I love to not have to fix lunch (not like it's hard, I'd just rather have someone else do it for me). It's been really good for Drew and Owen to learn how to take turns and share with kids who aren't their siblings. One day last week, Drew tried to climb into one of the tunnels on the playgroud, but a little kid (maybe about 2 years old) with coke-bottle glasses popped out of the tunnel and yelled, "Raaarrrr!" Drew came running back to me screaming. I had to try so hard not to laugh, and just told Drew, "If you want to play in the tunnel, just go ask that boy." Drew decided he didn't really want to play in the tunnel anymore. The mental image of Drew running away from that cute little boy with those huge glasses still makes me chuckle.

Park City

I guess it's time for another update on the ol' blog.

Work has been keeping me pretty busy (or at least away from the house for 9 hours a day--we don't actually do a whole lot at work). I'm liking the job so far, though.

We had a great July 4th weekend. David took me to Park City, UT, for an early birthday present. My mom watched the kids for us (thank you, thank you!). We went down Friday afternoon and checked into our hotel. We stayed at the April Inn on Main. It was a cute little room with a kitchen/front room and a separate bedroom. Friday evening, we drove into Salt Lake City to watch a MLS game: Real Salt Lake vs. San Jose Earthquakes. It was an exciting game, with a tied score 1-1. I would love to go to more MLS games. There was also a bonus fireworks show after the game, which made it even more fun.

Saturday, we watched Park City's Independence Day Parade from our balcony, then we went to Olympic Park to play around. We saw the aerial show put on by the freestyle ski team, then we toured the museum and park. We rode the Alpine Slide, which is like a luge for the summertime. We also rode the zip line, but wish we had forked out more cash and rode the bigger one. When we get more moolah, we'd like to go back and ride the bobsled. It's pretty expensive though, for about a 1 minute ride. Makes places like Six Flags and Disney Land seem cheap!

After spending a while at Olympic Park, we went to the outlet mall (which was sort of disappointing because I had been under the impression that outlet malls were supposed to be cheap when really almost everything was regular department store prices. I did score a couple $5 shirts for myself and a couple $3 shirts for Samantha, though, so it wasn't a total waste of time).

When we got bored of shopping (David got bored long before I did), we stopped by the grocery store to pick up some steaks. We took them back to our hotel and cooked them there, which was fun. Then we watched Park City's fireworks display. It was pretty decent for a small town show.

We checked out Sunday morning and headed back to Pocatello, arriving home just as my mom and the kids got home from church. Perfect timing! The trip was a blast; a much better birthday present than the vacuum I had originally asked for (I still need a new one, though). I only wish I had remembered my camera! Here's a picture of the outside of our hotel that I stole from hotels.com. Our room was the room on the upper right in the yellow building.