Hello Idaho...

We had such a nice visit in Idaho this past week. I haven't blogged about my plans because it was all a surprise for my mom, who just retired. As a surprise for her retirement we drove there and met Tracy and her kids, and Josh and Kristie and we rented a cabin in West Yellowstone. My mom thought my dad was just taking her there for a retirement getaway. She was very surprised to see us all jump up and surprise her when she walked into the cabin. We went to the Playmill to see the Secret Garden that night, and the next day we went to chuch in West, then we took a drive through the park. It was great.

Goofy Kids at Old Faithful

After a 2 day stay in Yellowstone, we spent a couple days in Blackfoot. We enjoyed being with Tracy and her kids and Isabella (Sandy's daughter).

My parents have been trying to sell their house and move to Boise. They had a showing last week and it went so well. They got a full price offer. We are so happy for them. They are going to be looking for a home in Boise. I hope to go back to Idaho in a few weeks to help them get moved.

We then went to Rupert and spent some time with Jason's family and visiting Grandma Lindsay. Jason's mom had this gorgeous rose bush in her yard. I just had to get a picture. I love roses. We enjoyed being in Rupert. The kids loved it when Grandpa Allen watered his lawn by irrigating the whole thing.

The girls had fun climbing the cherry tree. Kate loves to have her picture taken. She always tells me to take her picture.

We took a trip to the Shoshone Ice Caves and to the Shoshone Falls. Beautiful. Lots of water coming over the falls right now.

The night before we left Rupert, we were inside playing a game of Phase 10 with Jason's parents. The boys and Kate were outside playing in the yard and the windows were open. A great night, then we heard a horrible, scary screeching sound and rocks flying and metal and lots of frightening screeching and my heart just stopped. I followed Jason out the front door afraid of what I might see. A car had ripped through the corner of their yard and run right over a Dead end sign that was in the corner of their yard. Kate was 50 yards away, watching the from one angle, and the boys were in the cherry tree watching from 50 yards away in the other direction. The kids had been all over that yard, and Kate was just starting over toward the boys across the yard. I was so grateful to Heavenly Father for protecting my children that day. I know he was watching over them. The man was arrensted for DUI and wreckless driving. This was his third DUI, so he is in jail. What a scary experience. A good reminder for me of how precious and fragile life is and how much my children mean to me.

When I got home, I found even more pretty flowers popping up all over the yard. Of course I took some pictures...

Smart Little Graduate

Kate graduated from preschool last week. She is so excited to start kindergarten in the fall.

She made some very nice friends at school this year. Some of them will be with her in kindergarten next year. Kate got along extremely well with the boys. When the little boy on the right was making out his birthday invitations he told his mom he only wanted all boys to come to his party. "And Kate", he added. They have fun together. I love this picture. They had so much fun spinning on this tire swing and they kept refusing to get off and take a break. All of a sudden we noticed the look on the girls face, (she is directly across from the camera in this pic). We quickly stopped the swing and her dad (pictured in background) helped her off to a secluded place to puke. A little too much spinning. It was so funny.

One more thing. Jason says that he feels like we live in a tree house because the backyard is dug out a bit and the trees are so tall up by our house. There are trees and branches everywhere we look. I love it. I took these pictures from our bedroom, overlooking the view from up there. I really love this house. It is my favorite house we have ever lived in. I feel so lucky to have found it at a time when it was priced so affordable. Feels like Swiss Family Robinson.

I always wanted to live in a treehouse.

Spring has Sprung

I am so excited about my yard. I have always wanted to do more gardening and Jas and I always somehow end up in new homes and never stay long enough to establish a garden, or flowers, trees nothing. So this home is 20 years old and the previous owners planted so many beautiful flowers, bushes, trees, plants, etc. I am loving it. It is so exciting to see new things popping up. I just had to take some pictures...

We are also not use to having to deal with all the leaves and work that goes with a yard, but we enjoy being outside and we bought a trampoline recently for the kids, and it's fun to be out there together. We are hoping to plant some veggies in a little garden this weekend. Just warning the few people who do read my blog, you are definately going to get annoyed at my rambling about my yard and gardening this summer. This is just all so new to me... Sorry...

I had a nice mothers day. I usually get breakfast in bed for mothers day, but I waited and waited and my breakfast didn't come. Finally one of the kids woke me up and told me I needed to come down for breakfast, and I was thinking, What? No breakfast in bed? What is this world coming to? Then I came down and Jason and the kids surprised me with a new patio set, and they had breakfast all set up out on the deck. I was very excited. I have been asking for a patio set for a long time. I am really looking forward to this summer, with dinners outside on the deck.

We are getting the outside of our house painted this week. It was starting to peel and look pretty bad. It looks much better now. We have also been busy with baseball and volleyball. I have been coaching Ky's volleyball team this spring and we are starting our tournament this week. We have had so much fun with volleyball. AND now baseball is starting and we are enjoying spending our evenings at the Baseball diamond. Will gets to play some pretty cool positions that he has never tried before. Last week he played catcher for 3 innings, and got hit by the ball a couple of times. It is kid pitch, so the pitches are a little dodgey. He got hit in the back last week by one of the pitches. Left a pretty good welt on his back. He loves it though. At tonights game he gets to play first base and pitcher. He is pretty excited.

Jason's work was getting crazy. He was having to go out of town nearly every weekend for trade shows, but they hired someone to cover those now and things are really improving for him at work. Still a crazy amount of stuff going on, but we get to keep him on the weekends now. This weekend he is taking the boys to the Stake Father/Son campout, if the weather holds out.

I pulled the mothers day card on Sunday and guilted the kids into posing for some pictures for me...

And before I go, a quick shoutout to my mom. I am so thankful for my mom. I don't tell her thanks nearly enough. I hope she knows how much I love her and how grateful I am for her in my life. For teaching me right from wrong, for teaching me how to be happy and for teaching me how to be a good mom, for trying to teach me how to cook and sew (Ugg..Sorry mom...) and for teaching me patience and unconditional love. I love you mom. I am so glad to have you in my life. Happy Mothers Day.

Sunny Florida

We had a fantastic Spring Break last week. We took the kids to Florida. The weather was perfect, and we visited each of the Disney parks, spent a day at the beach and a couple days, just lounging in the pools at the resort. This vacation, as you can see in the pictures, was all about Kate. Jason and I took the kids to Disney World before Kate was born and when Kate (who is a huge Mickey fan) found our photo album of Disney World a few years ago, she asked with a sweet little sad voice, while staring betrayed at the picture, "Where's Katie?" So since that question we have been telling her that we will someday take her to Disney. Last year, she got smart and asked her daddy when he would take her to meet Mickey. He told her he would take her when she is 6. Well, we decided that since we had a good tax return (Thanks to the relocation) we better do it now while we have the money. There are many vacations I would much rather do, but we figured we better get this trip out of the way. Next time is my turn to choose the vacation, as I am not a huge fan of Disney World. But we enjoyed being together and mostly, we enjoyed that my parents were able to come spend some time with us in the sun. Here are some of our favorite pictures. I know they are mostly of Kate. She wanted to meet every character we saw, and she wanted her picture taken constantly. This is the place where dreams really do come true. For Kate, anyway... Just look at that huge smile in every picture. It was well worth it.

Okay, the part of this trip Kate was looking forward to the most, (other than meeting Mickey, that is), was the visit to Epcot where she could visit a mini Japan. She has been fascinated by Japan every since they studied it in school and she kept asking to go there. Jason told her that at Epcot there is a mini Japan and he would take her there. Well, while walking through one of the shops in "Japan" these sweet ladies asked Kate if she would like to try on a Kimono. She was thrilled and they were so sweet and took so much time with her, even fixing her hair up in a flower. That was very fun for Kate. She was so excited to tell Grandma about it.

Well, the rest of us had some fun at Disney too...

Now I can start saving for MY dream Vacation...