10 Years of Bliss

Aug 30 is our 10 year anniversary. Susan is the greatest person I've ever met in this world. She's kind to all, patient towards me, and amazingly steadfast in who she is. She makes me a better person every day I am with her. We've known each other for a lucky 13 years in September - and it's been great! We both can't wait until we can officially say we've known each other for more than half of our lives (only 5 more years)! I love you, honey!

Showing TJ and Heather how to go FAST!

Heather, Eric, Susan, Seth, and Brittany getting wet

Lake Views

An evening at the lake

We finally made it to the lake again. Today after work we loaded up the kids and Seth and Brittany Wildung came too. It was the first time on the jetskis for TJ, Toby and Susan. Heather is an old pro now. She even jumped off a few times to go for a swim (with her life jacket on). TJ drove the jetski while I just sat on back. Toby wasn't sure what to think about the whole experience - he just got used to the school bus today (Susan says he was smiling when he got off and waved bye-bye to the driver) so the jetski going fast wasn't cool just yet. He'll get there. Susan rode around for quite awhile trying to get used to all the power, she said :)

Back to Yellowstone

I found some more pics on my other camera - here we are at a river inside Yellowstone Park where we cooled off in the water

Catching up (on my blog and with reunions)

I love Arizona sunsets. I caught these pictures from our back balcony while I was home alone in the "middle" of our 1 big summer family vacation. I used to love Arizona sunrises during my paper route days (it was one of the few good things about that job) but I haven't seen one in awhile. So, the following 23 posts of mostly 4 pics each reflect part of the last month of our lives (amazingly there was work, some rest, and lots of driving that is all not represented). The posts are in reverse chronological order as you go down the page, I wasn't good enough to reverse everything like Susan did on her blog. She also writes more - so if you can't interpret the story from the pics . . .

One quick story though - TJ let Heather know that during the first week of school that the kindergartners get a tour of the school, including the principal's office. TJ remembered from his tour getting a gingerbread cookie from the principal and he noted where the principal got them from in his office. SOOOO - TJ told Heather what to expect and also told her which cabinet the cookies would be in - AND Heather snatched herself a cookie during the tour before the principal got them out to hand out - she stole a cookie during her first trip to the principal's office (and didn't get caught - she ate two cookies)!! This morning she made a ginger bread figure out of paper and came in to show it to me, so I snapped some pictures for she and TJ to remember this caper.

This is my dad with his brother and sisters. We went to my (1) mom's mom's family reunion and (2) my mom's dad's family (briefly) and then this pic is from my (3) dad's family reunion. I then drove Susan and kids to WA so they could hang out there with Susan's parents (while I flew home to work for a week) and then I drove them back down through Beaver for my (4) dad's mom's dad's extended family reunion.

Sorry for so many pictures - I finally got around to getting all of the pics off of the memory sticks and these are just a FEW of the many we took. By the way - if you like a picture, click on it. I've uploaded the full resolution versions and you will be able to get the original picture - if you want it as a background on your computer or you want to save it, just right click on the big version and choose "save as" or "set as background" - enjoy and feel free to leave comments!

Toby off to preschool - Mommy is free! (for a few hours anyway)

For some reason Toby was working really hard to make a "cool" face while having his picture taken with his new backpack before his first day of preschool. I caught him with a smile though.

Susan is pretty excited about her newfound freedom.

Heather was "it" for hide and go seek on her first day of school. She might have missed "thirteen" when counting, but that it was school is for!

Kindergarten watch out - here comes Heather!

Heather got a special escort to her first day of kindergarten - two distinguished members of the Stroller Brigade! Heather was careful to walk (slowly) on the curb for most of the way.




She politely posed for at least one picture before throwing her backpack in the line - and then she was off, she got a group of kids together to play hide and seek. She ran into a problem while trying to decide who would be 'it' first - she forgot the words to eenie, meenie, minie, mo . . . and asked "Daddy, how does it go??" One of the boys promptly filled in for her and finished the song. She also started a version of King of the Hill by climbing to the top of the climbing wall (the last pic), but a teacher asked her to get down and not stand on top. She had no qualms about getting in line to go off to class with her friends Whitney and Christina.

Heather has had some good days - on Tuesday evening she told me that she went to “EP” - I asked her what EP stood for and she looked to the ceiling to think about it and said “I think gymnastics”
She let us know that her friend Christina was put in time out and we asked why - she said “running . . . oh yeah, and hitting!”
Today on the way to school she was excited to show me that she was wearing socks and tennis shoes for “EP”!
Oh, and on Tuesday she embarrassed TJ by humming the Harry Potter theme song really loud in the school parking lot! And this morning (Saturday) she said - "I wish we had school every day!"

Back to AZ and Back to School!

This is at Lee's Ferry - we stopped quickly (because it was HOT outside!) on the final day of driving home.

Heather started kindergarten this week! She and TJ are pretty cute walking to and from school together. Toby is also in a preschool now and getting over his "have to be around my mommy ALL the time" issues.

Scenery

Quad Ride

My great uncle Phil is GREAT. He rounded up some quads and some gas and led us on a trail down and the back up the mountain. TJ rode with Andrew, I had Heather, and Phil took one of his grandsons, who obviously is used to some rough trails (he fell asleep).