Show 'N Tell

In Mikayla's class they only get to have show n tell when it is their "Handy Helper" week. Mikayla was the handy helper this past week so she got to bring in her dogs for show n tell. Jeff had to go home from work, get the dogs, bring them to her class at 2:45, take the dogs back home and then go back to work. (Oh, and Scooby, who sometimes gets car sick, proceeded to throw up on the way to school!-so Jeff had to clean that up too!) Mikayla was on cloud nine though so the trouble was worth it. I snuck out of my class and took some pictures.


I am very glad the week is over. It went so much faster than last week, which lasted an eternity, but by Friday night I am just so exhausted. I have decided that as much as I look forward to the weekend, I don't like Friday night. I get home and just want to go to bed! Jeff wants to rent a movie or something and I just want to go to bed. His busy nights are Sat. nights as he does his final prep for Sundays, so then Sat. nights are shot. The weekend evenings are pretty much boring.

Today in school one of my kids made it clear to me that I have to go into detail about every little thing that is said, and written. On their back to school supply list they were to buy "red pens", ok, seems easy enough. So today as the kids were going through their corrected assignments in their "Friday Folders" a boy came up to my desk and I could just tell that he wanted to "prove" me wrong on something by the way he thrust a paper in my face. At the top of his paper I had written, "Please use a red pen!" (we correct their assignments in class sometimes and they need to use a red pen to do that) And he brought his pen up and said, "I did use a red pen!" I scanned the paper and saw that the ink was blue. Hmmm...??? It hit me, he and his parents thought that the color of the outside of the pen needed to be red, not the ink!!! Sure enough, the outside of his pen was red, but it had blue ink. So I tried to explain this to him. He finally understood it. Sigh...it's going to be a long year.

Well, that 's all for now. I hope you have a great weekend and Labor Day!

We've got the blues!

Jenna has decided to play the saxaphone for the school band! Can anyone say, "earplugs". I think that my neice Madison did a Science Experiment on which brand of ear plugs blocked the most noise. I will have to get the results from her! Can you send those to me Madison??

New Saxaphones retail for $2,ooo.oo. Jeff looked and looked for used ones and they were still $500-$700! He was moaning to his friend Tom from Prudential that he was trying to find a Sax but they were all so expensive, and Tom said, "Hey, I think we have one that we'll sell you!" Imagine that! Yep, Alice, Tom's wife, was just about to put an ad in the newspaper trying to sell this sax that her daughter had played in High School. So she brought it to Prudential and said she would sell it for $300! It's a deal! We took it to the music store to get reeds and have it checked over and the man there said it was in GREAT condition and if they were selling it, they would sell it for $700! Thank you God for a great deal!

p.s.- do you get the pun in the title?

p.s.- since publishing... I have heard from The Scientist. (ok-so actually her mother) She said that the experiment showed that mini-marshmallows blocked the sound just as well as name brand ear plugs. But...she warned me not to try and eat the marshmallows after I used them! Thanks for the warning!!!

Have a good one!

Hot Iowa

Hello from HOT and HUMID HUMID HUMID Iowa. Today, Mikayla's teacher kept track of the temp. in her room because they are studying "temperature" in Math, she said that the thermometer in her room read 90! And that is with the AC running. Obviously the AC can't keep up with all these hot and sweaty bodies all day. Ewwww....the odor of sweaty kids after coming in from recess!!

After school today we had volleyball practice. For some reason I was so tired. I kept yawning and didn't have much energy. I was a pretty bad example of "hustling" for the girls.

After school we came home and had supper, which Jeff had made. It was not the most well-balanced meal, meaning we had quite a bit of fried and starchy things, but who am I to complain, I didn't have to cook it!!!! :)

We watched the Cubs win, I did school work, and now am going to bed.
No news on selling the house.

Pictures of our "lot" on Poplar Lane

A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SISTER, LEAH!! Her birthday was yesterday, the 26th, wish we were together to celebrate!


Here are 2 pictures of our new "lot". The first picture is from the street. The second picture is looking out our future backyard. The flat brown area would be the backyard. We have had 2 very interested couples look at our house. On Sat. we had a man look and then on Sunday he brought his family back, we found out today from their realtor that they are very serious and would like to put in an offer. Jeff also got an email from a lady this afternoon who wanted to see it today. So she and her husband came at 4:30 and REALLY liked it and are going to bring their teenage daughter back to look and probably want to put an offer on it. So, we'll see.

Iowa volleyball game- Go Hawks!

Hi, I wanted to share some photos of our weekend, we went to the Iowa women's volleyball game. Jenna's volleyball team from school went, along with a lot of the families. It was very exciting and they ended up losing by 2 points in the 5th game. This weekend we also dog sat for "Taz." This was our bed on Sat. morning around 8:00. All 3 dogs, all 3 kids and Jeff and I. The last three pictures are of my classroom. My sister Leah just wanted a few more pictures because she saw it when it was a mess!

Computer problems

Jeff finally got the internet going last night! By then it was too late for me to post since I had lesson plans to do. I am having a blog withdrawal. I will for sure post tonight! :)

Update on the house. We had 2 showings over the weekend. One on Sat. morning, and then the same guy came back with his family on Sunday morning to show them. So there must be some interest there. We will see. I am not getting my hopes up!

Steppin' on Pancakes

Ok- so last evening a very funny event happened. (at least to me- I found it very humorous) After school I took the girls and had to run some errands. We ran to the mall and were walking on the sidewalk around Target. I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking because I was trying to make sure that Haley and Mikayla and a friend of hers, Lexi, didn't get too close to the curb. (they were driving me crazy because they wanted to walk the curb like a tightrope and it was too close to the cars buzzing by...anyway...) As I was walking along Haley said to me, "MOM!!! You just stepped on a pancake!!!" Well, now kids say funny things, especially Haley, that just come from nowhere. She will just come up with the strangest things out of the blue just to make us look and then say "tricked you!" So I laughed and said, "I did not, you're trying to trick me!" She said, " NO, Mom, you really did step on a pancake!!!" And lo and behold I look back and about 10 feet back there was a PANCAKE laying on the ground!! I guess I stepped right on it. That struck me as SO funny. How many times can you say, or someone say to you, "you just stepped on a pancake," and it be actually true?!?! Probably it has never happened before! Until Now.

Hope that brightened your day!
p.s. the pictures that I promised you last night of our "lot", well I got all ready to add them and then our internet was down. I will try again tonight.

Back to the Grind!

Yes, It's Thursday. And I haven't posted since Monday. The week has been extremely busy, as you can probably guess. It has been extremely s-l-o-w also. All the teachers are just exhausted and each day really just seems to take an eternity. Probably because everything is so new to the kids that you feel like everything has to been explained in such details that it takes forever to get anything done and we can't teach anything fun, it is just a week of pounding out the routines etc. It's boring. I am ready to get in there and assign fun projects etc. ( I know, I know, most of you are boo-hooing because you feel soooo sorry that I haven't had to work all summer and you feel sorry for me now that I do...when you have had to get up every day and work all summer!)

To add to all the hoop-la of a new school year our family has decided to move again!!!!!! Can you believe it!? Well, we are going on 3 years in the same house, so ya know we need to get moving. We have bought a "lot"(otherwise known as a parcel of land) back in "town".(The name of the town is not going to be exposed since I don't want to be a "weak link" in the safety of my family) But most of you will know what "town" I am talking about. We have bought a lot, a wooded lot. It is beautiful. We will have neighbors across the street from us, but not on the sides because our lot is pretty spread out. We are anxious to have neighbors a little closer again. Like I told my sister, we are looking for another Ray and Carri. ( Ray & Carri, we don't want to replace you!-we just want another one of you!:) ) I can't wait to hear all your responses to this latest news! :) You can leave me a comment and tell me how crazy we are, but we already know crazy we are, so you wouldn't be telling us anything we don't know! :)

Well, I should go- I have staff meeting in 10 mins. and haven't done a think to prepare for my day. Pray I get through this day/week. I have been staying up rather late to write curriculum and am exhausted.

I will add some pictures tonight of our new land and also some pictures! Thanks for being faithful readers!! Love you all! Amy

First Day of School

Well, today was the big day. I was up around 5:30 and left by myself this morning and got to school before 7. I will soon take the girls with me so it was nice to get only myself ready. It was a very busy but overall good day. We are all just exhausted tonight. I caught Haley nodding off on the couch tonight around 6 so I asked her if she wanted to ride along with me to go back to my school because I had forgotten my camera on my desk. She was then ready for bed at 7 and I fell asleep with her for awhile, I woke up around 7:50. That will give me a second wind to get some stuff done this evening. We had a staff meeting after work and I am just overwhelmed with all the stuff to do. Our school is going through accredidation, and this school year is the end of a 3 year project to get that done, and as we near the end the fire heats up. There are 6 huge projects that we have to get done, all individually by grade level, by the end of the year. We were given those deadlines today! So, my response to that is to lay down and take a nap!!!

Ok- to back up and tell you about the day. Jeff got the girls to school around 8:00 this a.m. I was pretty impressed, as school doesn't start until 8:25. It was great because I got to see the girls and take pics. before all my students got into my classroom. Jeff got them ready and out the door. He was very nervous about their clothes and hair. I told him that I just have too many other things to worry about things like that and if they were happy with what they wore and what their hair looked like than I was too! Boy have I changed!!! Haley did great early on and then when it was actually time for Jeff to leave her with her teacher she got teary. But tonight at dinner she told me that I did not need to keep coming into her room to check on her because she was doing fine!! (I in there taking pictures)

I asked all three of them at dinner tonight, a gourmet meal of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, what their favorite part of the day was. Here are their answers: Haley said, "Going out onto the playgroud." Jenna said she loved going to her locker between classes, and Mikayla said, "Lunchtime!!! Because I was starved!" :)

I consider it such a HUGE blessing that I do not take for granted to be able to see all three of my kids now several times during the day. I snuck into Haley's room a few times and snapped pictures. I promised the teacher I wouldn't do it again. Mikayla's room is diagonally across the hall from me and she ran up and gave me a couple hugs today. And then Jenna, who this summer told me I could NOT talk to her in the hallway, actually stopped me a couple times as I passed by her to talk to me!!! Good old mom is still needed on the first day of school! :)

Well, I have tons of stuff to do tomight so I had better close. Have a great day tomorrow!
(I snuck in a picture of my students. I will not do that often as I do not have premission to post their pictures on my blog for all to see. So you will probably not see them again)

High School Musical 2/Back to School Party

Today started out with me sleeping in to the late hour of 7 a.m. I have decided that I am getting old since I can't sleep in late anymore. (forgive me if I have typos and don't make much sense tonight, I am trying to watch High School Musical 2 and type at the same time!:)- hey I've been waiting for this movie all summer too!)

The girls and I ran errands quite a bit today. Jenna had to get the HSM2 cd for her party tonight. The girls played volleyball, sat in the hot tub, went on the water slide and I made spaghetti for supper and then we had root beer floats while we watched the movie. I of course worked on school stuff through most of it, only watching with one eye. I am pretty much ready for Monday except that I have no idea what I am doing with a roomful of eager fresh new 4th graders at 8:25 Monday morning. My room is ready but thats it, you know what I will be doing all tomorrow.

Enjoy the pics of the girls. They were making me nervous doing front flips and back flips down it!!!

Conference in Des Moines

Today, all day, I was at a conference in Des Moines called "Passing the Baton". It was about mentoring and coaching our students. It was pretty good, but all of us were making our long "to-do" lists that we need to do in our rooms yet before Monday!!! We are feeling crunched! I wanted to introduce you to all my co-workers. They are a great group of ladies, and I can honestly say that with them an 8 hour conference was actually fun. Here they are:

Front row: Jenna-3rd grade, Rachel- Pre-K(Haley's teacher for this year), Tami- middle school Math and Computer, Joy- Kindergarten(Mikki's teacher last year)

Back row: Nichole-2nd grade, Jen-1st grade (Mikki's teacher this year), Rhonda-Pre-K, Diana-Middle School Science and Bible(Jenna's 5th grade home-room teacher), JoDee-Middle School Language Arts and History, and myself, 4th grade. I think we are a pretty good looking bunch.

I am exhausted, I woke up at 4a.m. with Haley crawling into bed with us, and my alarm was set for 4:30a.m. so I just stayed up. It has been a long day. We are babysitting a little boy tonight. He is actually Jenna's teacher from last year that had a baby and then I took her place in 4th grade. She and her husband wanted to go out so we are watching him, he is about 7 months, soooo cute. I miss that age! He is a doll and went right to sleep in the pack n play when I put him down to bed.

Tomorrow is my last weekday to work in my room. I will probably have to go in on Sat. to finish up. I will try and post pictures of my room tomorrow night for you to see. I am heading to bed now...it's 8:25! Oh well, it's going to be another busy day tomorrow!

Last Day of Summer!

Today is the last day of summer for me! The girls have until Monday but I go back tomorrow. I am ready!!!! Maybe not physically, like my house is a pit, but mentally!!! I need a little structure and "purpose" in my life again. The girls' summer has lasted long enough for all of us and it is just continuous bickering around the house. They need to be able to play with some other kids!

Today we went to Hu Hot for lunch. Not my first choice but the girls LOVE it. After that we ran some errands, Jenna has guitar lessons and Haley had Pre-K orientation this evening. Jeff tried to help Mikayla ride her bike without training wheels. It is frankly very frustrating because we have been working on this all summer and she screams if we let go at all. I think we will stop for now and work on it next year, before Jeff and scream! (In the picture we are on the neighbors flat driveway, and their Lab, Gracie, follows them around. She is actually hoping that Jeff will throw their ball again.)

Well, I am going to watch the Cubs tonight, and relax! Soon I will be grading papers all evening. YUCK!

Pictures of Herman

This is "Herman", isn't he cute!? :) (read below)

Sunday in Iowa

Today was a busy day. I am feeling like we are getting back into a fall schedule. This morning we went to church. I taught Sunday School since both teachers were gone today. I enjoyed it. I taught them that saying hurtful things to others causes a bruise on their hearts. And we colored black and blue bruises on paper hearts, and then we practiced saying kind things to each other so that we wouldn't bruise each other. After church we went out to dinner with Troy and Angela Lyons, great leaders in our church that have been with us since day one. She is expecting their first child in November, a boy. We are thrilled for them. On the way to the restaurant, Mikayla and Haley were arguing about something and I heard Haley say, "Mikayla, that put a bruise on my heart!" :)

We went home for a few hours in the afternoon and rested. Jenna had gone to the beach with some friends. Jeff left about 3 to go back to the church and the girls and I then left to go back to the church around 5:15. We were having organizational meetings about a huge fall "kick-off" Sunday on Sept. 9th. We are totally revamping the kids dept. into "Heartland Ranch" and are going to decorate with that theme. After that we all went home exhausted.

Did you enjoy the pictures of "Herman." (Named by Troy and Haley) Herman is HUGE, the hugest I have ever seen, caterpillar in the church parking lot. We stood out there and watched him for awhile this morning. All I could think was what a huge messy squish it would be if he got squished! EWWWWWW!

Tomorrow is full of work in my classroom, cleaning my house, and haircuts. More later!

Workday at my school

Haley and Dayna glue chocolate chips onto my "cookies", they were such big helpers. I think Haley snuck one chip to eat, but Dayna resisted and didn't eat any!

Jenna, Eva(on floor in front) and Ellie took all the books off my bookshelf and alphabetized them by the authors last name, it was quite the job!

Today was a school workday. Meaning that "all" 5th-8th grade parents were to show up and get the school ready for the new year. We all went. While Jeff worked around the building, I worked in my class. There were several students from my 4th grade class last year there ,with their parents, so I put them to work for me! Eva, Ellie, and Kia put up a couple bulletin boards for me, put name tags on my desks, and organized my library. Kia had to leave before the above picture was taken, sorry Kia! I even put the little ones to work. Haley and Dayna, who will be in Pre-K together, had a job of gluing chocolate chips onto "cookies". There are a part of my bulletin board that says, "A New Batch of 4th Graders!" I will post that bulletin board when it is done, I need to take the students pictures on the first day of school and put them in the middle of the cookies, it is really cute. I am feeling pretty good about my room. I am going to go one more time either Monday and Tuesday to work a couple more hours before in service starts on Wednesday.

Jeff and I went out for our anniversary (by ourselves this time :) ) tonight. We had our trusted babysitter, Vanessa, over to watch the girls. It is so nice to have a babysitter that the girls just love and when we come home, they tell us to leave again! We went to the movie Hot Rod. THE DUMBEST MOVIE EVER MADE! Jeff really likes comedies, I like more suspense and drama, but I let him choose this time. Even he deemed it the worst movie ever. We then went to Olive Garden and had a yummy meal. On the way home we decided to drive around and look at all the new sub-divisions being built etc. With Jeff being a realtor, he can get into any house with a lock-box. We went into several, they are gorgeous. I found a house I absolutely love! (didn't know I was looking!) The backyard is wooded and 5 deer were in the clearing. Jeff didn't really like it because the backyard was sloped, which is true. There were some other lots that would be gorgeous to build on. We have always batted around the idea of building. (This is probably news to my family!) We sometimes wonder if we are "too far out" of the loop, with not much of a neighborhood and no friends for the girls to play with. I guess that is how I grew up, and I turned out "ok." Anyway...we'll see what happens.

Pictures

Picture 1-My kids and Leah's kids gather around grandma/great-grandma for a picture.
Picture 2- Grandma and her sister hold hands and don't want to let go.
Picture 3- Grandma and me. She is one of the most beautiful 92 year olds there is!
Picture 4- Leah and Haley play slap-jack!

Dog Days of Summer

Hey all- today(Thurs.) was Leah and the kids last day here in Iowa. It has just flown by. The kids just keep us hopping. They never want to really go anywhere like the mall/movies etc. they just want to be out at my parents house in the country and jump on the trampoline, ride the 4-wheeler, ride the horse. It is about a 1/2 hr. trip out there and although that is close I feel like I have hardly been home at all this week. I leave early for volleyball camp and take off right away to go to the country and spend until 9 or 10. I have been doing that same routine since last Sat. night. It is starting to wear, and I am feeling very tired. Today after volleyball we (all the kids and Leah) ate a quick lunch at my house, then we went out for ice-cream. I then sent Leah out to my parents house with all the kids (except Haley who can't leave my side) and she and I went grocery shopping and to the post office. We got down to my parents and then left again to go visit my grandma who lives about 20 mins. away. We had such a nice visit with her. I told Leah when we were leaving her assisted living home that when I am 92 I hope I have such a sweet spirit like her. She is just always laughing and not even having 5 kids crammed into her room seems to ruffle her. I have decided that my students this year are going to write her letters. One student per week will write her a letter and let her know what the class did that week. (What her "mean" grand-daugher made them do that week!) I am also going to tape myself reading to the class. I read to them at least 15 mins. a day and there is no reason why I can't tape myself reading to them and then I will send it to her so she can listen to it. She LOVED to read but because of wanning eye-sight she can't read anymore and she made the comment that she really misses it. So why not send her some books on tape! She said she didn't even mind if they were at a 4th grade level! My mom went over to the other side of the nursing home and my great-aunt lives there. She is my grandma's sister. She is another grandmother to me because she and my grandmother lived together for as long as I can remember. My grandpa died when I was very young. Anyway, her sister, Lydia, is 97 years old. My mom is a saint and always checks in on and takes care of both of them. She wheeled my great aunt down to my grandma's room, they haven't seen each other in a very long time and it brought a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes to see them hold hands like they didn't want to let go. It was very very moving.

After that we went out for a quick bite for supper and went back to my parents house. We, of course, waited for the Cubs to come on and they won. Mom made funnel cakes for that party. Yum!

That about wraps up our week. It has been a busy, fun one. A great way to end the summer. School starts in 1 week from Monday. I am NOT ready!!!!

Celebrating Good times!

Jeff and I count the years off on our fingers.


Well today, (Wednesday) is our 15 year anniversary! I can hardly believe it, time has flown. It has been great and I can honestly say it has gotten better as time has gone on. We were talking the other day and we decided that a huge part in making our marriage so "successful" has been humor. We stopped taking ourselves so seriously and learned to just laugh at each other and even the stresses of life. Sometimes we just lay in bed and laugh at each other and the dumb things we have done or said or did recently. Jeff is a WONDERFUL husband and I do not regret marrying him for one second! I would marry him all over again! He bought us a flat screen t.v. to put up in our bedroom because for years now I have had a big nasty clunker of a t.v. sitting up on my dresser. When I came home from volleyball camp he had it up and installed! It's awesome!

How did we spend our anniversary you ask: Jeff worked while I played. Jenna and I had volleyball camp all morning. After that we met my sister and parents at the mall. We got there around 12:30 when we left the mall my sister and I looked at our watches and it was 7:15. We couldn't believe it. We only went in like 5 stores but we must have spent a lot of time in those stores. My dad took the youngest 3 to the children's museum at the mall for about 3.5 hours so we got to really get some shopping done. The major portion of the shopping was school supply shopping. There is a picture below of all the school supplies we bought for 5 kids, we calc. that we spent over $200 on glue and paper and markers! Jeff met us for dinner and for our anniversary we had a dinner with 9 other people at Bennigans. It was a fun time. We then all went back to our house for yet another "Cubs Party". The first Cubs party we had pizza, the second 2 huge batches of popcorn, last night was lame and for our anniversary/cubs party I bought Nutter Butter cookies to munch on. During the game (the Cubs were losing) Jeff drug out our wedding video tape and made us allowed us to watch almost the whole thing. Oh boy did we laugh at how people used to look, the style of glasses and hair was the main amusement! (So Rose, Laura, Kim, Lia, if any of you are reading this, yes...we laughed at all of you, my beautiful bridesmaids!)

Haley said a VERY special thing to me. She came up to me while she was watching it and said, "Mom, you were so pretty you make my heart dance!!!" Isn' t that the sweetest thing you have ever heard? It was a really fun, but tiring, 15 year anniversary. Jeff and I got a babysitter for Sat. night so we can go out for a nice quiet dinner by ourselves.

All of us at Bennigans.
Pictures of all the kids and their school supplies.
A tired "bride". Haley and Mikki were playing "wedding" during the video. Here Haley fell asleep on my lap. It was a late night!!!

It's a scorcher!

Hi all- It is sure hot today!!! When I complained about the heat today, Leah said that she thought it was a "beautiful day because she was choosing to look on the bright side of things!" Touche' Leah, you got me back. (read yesterday's blog) It really was hot. It was around 95 with a zillion % humidity. The second you stepped outside you were dripping wet. That didn't stop the kids from having a blast out at grandma and grandpa's. Grandpa got a pony, decided to rent again, instead of buy since the summer is almost over, he will buy next summer. He is renting "Taffy" from an Amish family. Taffy is small, kind of like a Shetland pony, she had a baby recently and they are weening her from her colt so the Amish family is glad to have her gone from their farm for awhile. She is a very gentle pony and the kids are loving her. Of course the 4 wheeler went through a couple tanks of gas again. Scooby and Oreo got haircuts today and are looking spiffy. Jenna took a shower at G & G's house and is wearing one of grandpa's t-shirts and then thought she would be funny and borrow a pair of his underwear!!! A little too big. Jenna and I have volleyball camp again tomorrow morning from 9-11:30. It was a whole lot of fun today, but I will be sore tomorrow. Everyone is tucked in bed now. Mikayla and Haley fell asleep on the way back in to our house, we got home around 9 p.m. Madison is sleeping over tonight so she can go and watch Jenna at camp tomorrow. They have their alarm set for 6:15 tomorrow morning so they can do some things before camp at 9. Can't they just sleep?? Those 2 are 2 peas in a pod and just have a blast together. Well, it's been a long day so I will sign out. I have a few blogs to catch up on myself so I will read those before bed. Good night!

Sunday

Today was a beautiful Sunday in Iowa, in my opinion. My sister is sitting right beside me reading as I write this and she said, "beautiful?, personally I thought it was hot, humid and yucky!!!" Well, it really was pretty oppressive today but I chose to look on the bright side Leah!!! Leah and her 2 kids, Madison and Quinn are here for the week. They are staying at my parents but will spend a lot of time here. They came over after church today, around noon, and are still here at 9 p.m. We can't get rid of them! :) The Cubs are playing right now and we have been waiting all day to have a "cubs party". We ordered pizza and THE CUBS ARE LOSING! They are threatening to leave and give up on them, fair weather fans they are!

The kids had an awesome day playing. They played on the water slide for about 4 hours this afternoon! Jeff let Madison and Jenna drive the 4-wheeler all by themselves so they were quite thrilled. Jenna gave us a concert on her guitar, she is quite good. And Haley, after I picked a cucumber from the garden, said that she needed slices on her eyes so she could "relax". Our question was, "why does a 4 year old need to relax anyway?!"

Jenna and I start volleyball camp tomorrow at 9, and then we are going to my parents house. My dad is getting a pony tomorrow so we will spend the day out there. It will be a fun week. I am also recruiting my sister and mom to help in my classroom so we will spend time there, and we have waited to go school supply shopping until this week so that the cousins could go together. Check back in for more fun pictures of this week.

Yellowstone Pictures

These are more pictures of Yellowstone. These first 4 pictures are of the girls at Sylvan Lake. It was featured in Family Fun magazine when when they were doing a story on Yellowstone. It is absolutely gorgeous. After we took these pictures we headed out of Y. to Cody, Wyoming where we ate supper and then headed to Sheridan, Wyoming where we got stuck in the Big Horn Mountains. (previous blog) The drive was beautiful but scary as you can see from the cliff in the middle picture. The next few pics are out of order so I will skip to the water and the steam, this is called the Dragon's Mouth and it is a cave where steam and water blow out all the time and it really sounds like a dragon, breathing smoke out of its mouth. It was loud. It was really cool, but almost a little scary. On the way home across flat S.D. Jeff and I got so bored we played Uno. And here is a picture of our LAST unloading of the van at our last hotel in Mitchell, S.D. on Tues. night. Well, this wraps up our trip. Aren't you sad?

Now that we are home there is nothing exciting happening. We are trying to get ourselves back into the central time zone as our bodies have been a little "jet-lagged" from crossing 2 time zones.

School starts the 20th for the girls but I go back the 15th-17th for in service meetings, that means that my summer is just about over. We have school shopping to do, dentist appts. to cram in, (yes, I know I've had all summer!). I have tons to do in my classroom yet! My sister is coming with her kids this next week and she has volunteered to help me! Jenna has volleyball camp this next Monday-Thursday and I am volunteering as an assistant coach so I will be there for that. My dad is going to buy a pony at the Sale-Barn on Monday so we will go down right after volleyball camp to meet this new member of the family. The girls can't wait.

Thanks for tuning in and reading about our vacation. I wish you would have all been there to enjoy it with us. It was memorable!

Pictures of Yellowstone

More pictures of Yellowstone on Sunday and Monday. We packed so much into 2 days, but we could have spent a week. These pictures are of some geyser type things called Paint pots, basically the water under the ground is so hot it bubbles and steams all the time, it was incredible. We saw elk, and Old Faithful. Old Faithful goes off every 20-90 minutes, but they give you an estimate inside a gift shop type thing of when it last went off and when they estimate it to go off again. We ate some lunch and then had about 20 mins. so we wandered over to it, took our picture in front of the sign. There were hundreds of people waiting to see it, they have bleachers there, this pic. is of our family waiting, and then Jeff trying to get the crowd to do the wave, (yes, he really did!). Only a few did it with him but we all had a good laugh. As we were getting ready to leave the park on Monday we rounded a bend and there was a HUGE buffalo on the road with a LONG line of cars after him just waiting for him to decide to move off the road, he probably walked on the road for over a mile, very slowly, it was very neat. He walked right by our car. We had the best view! More pictures follow.

Pictures of Yellowstone

Hi folks, I am trying to catch up on a few things that I wasn't able to write about and post pictures for in Yellowstone. These pictures are of Sunday and Monday in Yellowstone. There were lots of waterfalls, geysers, bears, creeks you could play in, and a petrified tree. The picture of Haley with no pants on is cute. She had taken her pants off to play in the creek and then wanted to look at some buffalo with the binoculars. More pictures follow.

Cabin in Yellowstone

These pictures are of the cabin we stayed in at Yellowstone. It was absolutely gorgeous! It was a house. A full kitchen, 2 full bathrooms, washer and dryer, hot tub, wrap around porch, 4 bedrooms. We got here Sunday night later than we wanted and hauled all our stuff in. (by the way, we calculated how many times we dragged our suitcases etc. in and out of hotels/cabins and it was 11 times!, so 11 x's in and 11x's out!=22 times) I went upstairs to put our suitcases there and I noticed something out of the corner of my eye run across the room, my first thought was MOUSE! I stood there a moment and it ran out from underneath the bed, it wasn't a mouse it was a baby chipmunk!!! I yelled down to Jeff and the girls, and to make a LONG story short...Jeff was sitting on the kitchen counter with the girls while I was up jumping up and down on the bed trying to get it to run out, down the steps, and out the door. I heard Jenna say, "man, mom sure is brave!" Please note...Jeff is on the kitchen counter with the girls! He says later that he was just trying to help them feel secure and not scared. Yeah, right! Anyway, we couldn't get the critter to go out so we had to call somebody, we didn't think that we would get anybody to come help us b/c at this time it is around 10p.m. and this cabin area is out in the middle of nowhere, but a man did come, (the man on the floor looking under the bed), now scroll down to the next picture....



This is Jeff..."helping" the man get the chipmunk out from under the bed! Notice he is hugging a Barbie pillow! We (meaning the man and I-not Jeff) did get the chipmunk out, who by the way was very cute, and all was well, but it was quite humorous. Later Jeff said..."ya know, I just get really tired of having to protect all of you girls all the time, it gets really weary!" I gave him a look...... and laughed!