My Profile

So I finally created my blogger profile. You can put a photo of yourself on it (it is on the right.) I started looking through photos, trying to find one to post. They never said it had to be a current photo, so I picked this one of me in 6th grade. As I remember, life was pretty good back then. I was just getting into the whole middle school thing and I had not yet started doing really scary, tall, things to my hair.

A Very Merry Un-Birthday

Andrew's sweet teacher, Mrs. Willihan, set up a schedule to celebrate all of the summer birthdays. Andrew's day was Tuesday. He gets SO excited over stuff like this. He spent several days deciding what treat he wanted to take, finally deciding on ice cream sandwiches. The morning of the un-birthday, I went to get out his clothes and he stopped me. He said that he wanted "fancy clothes" for his big day. Initially he chose his church suit, but after consulting with me about the whole recess and heat issues, he decided on a polo shirt (which I guess he considers semi-fancy.)

In other news, the people buying our home will not let us rent it back. So, I am now starting to pack. We found a furnished apartment nearby that we can rent month-to-month--we should only be there about 4 weeks. The building of the new house is really moving along, but one can never tell just how long it will really take.

Memorial Day

Growing up, my Grandma B had several snowball bushes. I loved them. I remember every Memorial Day she would cut bunches of the flowers and put them in jars and vases and take them to the cemetary. Yesterday Mike cut some and I put them in the house. It made me sad that we are leaving this behind when we move. We will be planting another as soon as the yard is in.

Capitol Reef

We had a great weekend with my family in Capitol Reef. The weather was actually perfect. I am such a baby in hot weather. I would rather have it on the cold side than at all too hot. We were not planning on going anywhere, then my mom suggested Capitol Reef. It ended up being really fun.

There were tons of caterpillars around. Bev is a bug-lover. She has no fear. She helped Jessica get used to them.
I know--this is kind of a mean picture. There is an old school house that is all set up like it would have been back in the day. In the corner is a chair with a dunce hat. Andrew, Bev and Kiki all tried it on.
The cousins all had a blast hiking and running around together.
On the back of a tractor.

The whole gang.
In front of Chimney Rock.
Kiki and Jess hiked most of the time. Occasionally they asked to be carried. It looks like Uncle Ryan drew the short end of the stick with this one. We have so many National Parks so close to home--we have made it a goal to see as many as possible. The kids love being in the great outdoors hiking, exploring and running around.

David won!

Last night Bev and I watched the end of Idol together. When they announced Cook the winner, she was distraught. Seriously distraught. Her eyes got teary and she asked why more people didn't vote for him. I didn't think she liked him THAT much.

Here is my other favorite Idol performance--Carrie on Idol Gives Back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY6ziVcfRvM

It made me remember how much I liked George Michael back in the day.

Billie Jean and Benadryl

We are enjoying a little American Idol finale right now. The kids--especially Bev--really like David Archuleta. My favorite performance of the season was Billie Jean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_aiawC-9aM

Things are busy around here. Bev got sick last night. I went with Andrew on his field trip to the Planetarium today. Last night I ended up with Andrew at instacare. He had a horrible rash all over his body. The diagnosis was hives. The doctor got quite a kick out of him. She asked to see the rash and he said, "Okay, I have America on my leg and Canada on my back." The doctor then asked what that was on his arm. He said that he hadn't decided yet, but that it was probably China. A little Benadryl and he is as good as new.

One Year Ago

This week last year we received this picture of Jessica. She had not smiled in any of the photos the agency had sent us, so I was so relieved to see that the girl could smile. It was this time last year that we were anxiously preparing for the call saying that we could schedule travel to Liberia. Initially we were told we would be traveling in March. We didn't travel until July. I remember looking at this picture wondering what she was really like. How much did she really speak? What was her personality like? What did she think was going on? I could hardly wait to finally get to hold her (little did I know she would want nothing to do with me for our entire time in Liberia.) More on that to come.