Every day I have best intentions of sitting down to write something and there is always something else to do!

I have been working over 30 hours a week.  They have us on an unlimited supply, so figured I need to make hay while the sun shines.  Not sure how long we will be unlimited, but hoping at least through the end of October.

Some changes around here these days.  It sounds ridiculous, but with JR's work and him always moving client's cars to and from the airport, it is easiest if we have 4 vehicles.  One of our vehicles recently died and we have replaced it with a 2011 Subaru Outback.  It is the nicest/newest of our 4 vehicles and that is partly because we are considering it as a car for Benjamin when he starts driving.  That is still about 18 months away, but hard to believe it is already on our radar.

We also moved some things around in the house.  We have had a 3 bedroom and all the boys have shared a room.  It was getting a little too close for comfort, so I cleared out the extra bedroom (was my office/sewing/sanity room).  Benjamin has moved into that room and it has made a world of difference!  It is interesting to see though, that none of the rooms are any cleaner!

Several weekends ago we took a Sunday drive to a nearby ghost town. 

Doesn't he look thrilled!

Joseph loved panning for gold!  He actually had a speck of gold one time.

Joseph behind bars.

He thought the desks were something cool.

I can't imagine this on a playground these days.

Yesterday Jacob had his first football game.  There was a rather large kid on the opposing team that got in quite a few hits on Jacob.  It wore him out.  There were a few illegal hits and hits from behind.  An eye opener for that kid.


It is probably hard to tell in this picture, but this is Joseph's bed.  He has about 20 stuffed animals that encircle him and 3 blankets.  (His head is in the lower left corner).  He has some barnwood on the side, so he has an awesome, cozy spot that he hunkers down in.

Fall is quickly arriving!  My favorite time of the year is jeans, sweatshirts and flip flops!

And they are off!!

Can you see the excitement on their faces????    The first two days have been good!  Ben seems to be settling into high school okay, he really enjoys open campus for lunch.

Quiet Labor Day coming up.  Jacob is leaving with a friend for the weekend and JR is going backpacking with a co worker.  Not sure what the bookends (Ben and Joseph) and I will do.  Hopefully some fun stuff and no cooking!!!!

Summer is over!  The last month has flown by and I realized it has been almost 2 months without a post.

A quick recap of the summer. 

We spent 2 weeks in Texas.  Lots of family/extended family time and very hot temperatures (we saw 109).  Thankfully, it was not super humid on the really hot days

We came back from Texas and I hit the ground running.  I have been working quite a bit.  I have gone in to the warehouse (with my assembly job) and helped them get caught up, as well as finally getting unlimited hours to work at home.  So, I have been very focused and busy.

We got in a quick camping trip with our Friday night group.  Had a great two nights out, and the weather was really nice!  The boys had a great time exploring and playing in the freezing cold river.

We celebrated Joseph's 9th birthday!  Hard to believe.

Other than a trip to an indoor nerf arena, we were very low key the last 4 weeks of summer.

Jacob starts tackle football tomorrow.  Looks like it is only appropriate that we are looking at mountain snow tonight!

Benjamin decided he wanted to join a gym.  JR has membership at a 24/7 gym, so we signed Benjamin up and myself.  It was only 10 more dollars.  He has been pretty consistent this first week.  I think the school plan is for him and JR to go in mornings before school/work and then Ben and I will go a few days a week after school.  I will probably still do Crossfit a few times a week. 

School starts on Wednesday.  Hopefully I will get a first day of school picture!

Summer has finally arrived!  The last several weeks have been cooler and very wet!  Everything is so green, which is awesome. 

One of the perks of JRs job is that we get 'hand me downs' from his clients.  Seems like whenever they want to upgrade, or change out things, we get first dibs on the items.  Well, one client did not have room for this, so JR brought it home.

I am loving it.  There is just a perfect spot under the trees and it is mostly shaded all afternoon.  I envision lots of naps and quiet times reading books!  Laying in it, we discovered that we are going to have a ton of plums in our tree later this summer...so excited!

Some random pictures I found on my phone that I thought I had downloaded, but can't seem to find on the blog.

This one just makes me smile...obviously taken last December.

I love it when JR is gone and one of the boys sleeps in our room.  However, this kid is a wild sleeper!

On Jacob's birthday, he said he wanted straw glasses, so that is what I got.  He looked so cute in them!

Some photos taken out on the land where JR rattlesnake hunts.  This boy loves horses.

This one was probably about year and half ago, but never realized the huge smile on his face.  Love it.  Not often I get a smile from this kid when camera is out.

Ben is at camp right now!  The other 2 boys have cycled through their camps and loved it!  So glad they have something to look forward to each year!  The memories are priceless.  Ben gets back on Saturday and then we are making a trip down to Texas.  We scored some awesome tickets, so will be flying versus driving...yay!!! 

Not sure how much I will be posting over the next 2 1/2 weeks!

We are finishing up our first full week and summer and it has gone well.

On Wednesday we drove Joseph over to camp...he is now old enough for their 3 night camp. It is always weird when one of the boys is gone...the dynamic is so different! I sure miss this guy.

We will pick him up on Saturday, tomorrow.


I am way behind in posting pictures from my camera. We celebrated Kristine's 23rd birthday a few weeks ago.

Benjamin 'graduated' from 8th grade and will be off to high school. They had a 'ceremony' for all 256 kids. It is the largest class to ever enter the high school.

he looks so grown up in this picture

It was fun having my mom here for both graduation and Kristine's bday.

With summer here, I have decided to do Crossfit at 6:30 in the mornings, three days a week. Although I don't like getting up and out of the house early, I sure enjoy the earlier workouts. A lot less people and cooler temps for when we are outside. Today's workout, I had been dreading for several weeks. I even went to bed last night trying to think of a legit excuse not to go. I woke up several times in the middle of the night and wondered if I was gonna get out of bed this morning or skip the workout all together. I got out of bed this morning and went to the gym. Turned out the only other one working out was a guy that tends to crush all the workouts. As the coach asked me if I was ready, I had to swallow hard and force the tears back. I did not want to do this workout because this workout was running. I do not like to run, I am one of the slowest and of late, I have really struggled with my breathing and then I feel like I almost hyperventilate and have to stop to walk. I was not looking forward to the 1 mile run, 2000 meter row and then another 1 mile run, all while being timed. My goal was 40 minutes. Matt and I started the run and with the first step, his lead grew greater and greater. After about 200 meters, I was struggling to breath. I dug down deep and really focused on my breathing and then got into a slow, steady pace. (I am doing a running clinic right now, focused on form, so I had lots to think about besides how much I did not want to be running). I put my head down, ran, rowed and ran some more. I finished in 35:57! I was so stoked. That was 12 min miles, and I even walked a few stretches. I am so glad I got out of my comfort zone and faced my fear! I think I have turned a corner in my attitude with running! Not that I will ever be a runner, but hopefully I won't dread it going forward. The gym's June challenge is to walk/run/hike 50 miles. I have been walking 2 miles most days. Joseph rides his bike alongside me, and off we go. Well, when he returns from camp, I can run with him now!

Joseph recently had a field day at school, as well as a dance party for reading 2,000 pages.

I had never seen these cool big stacking cups, but they had relay to move the stacks to the other end of the field.

Dance party..not sure why he looks so unimpressed, but he had a great time.

line dancing

doing the limbo

The lady holding the right side of the rope is the principal.  She unfortunately has resigned after 2 years.  It is more like the school board forced her resignation.  There are huge issues with our school board right now and a lot of distrust with the community.  It has only been recently that community members have been taking notice and showing up in droves to the monthly meetings.  One board member was recently voted out after 15 years of serving.  The Superintendent was also forced out, or should I say his contract was not renewed by the board!  Will be very interesting to see the direction things go in the coming months as more pressure is being put on the school board for some answers.  In the recent election, 4 levies failed, that would have added more staff/resources and expanded technology.  As it is, Joseph's elementary school has 2 computer carts (i pads) that are shared among the whole school.  We are so far behind but can't seem to get the levies passed that we need for our quickly growing district (we are the fastest growing county right now)

This is a terrible picture, but look at Jacob pogo sticking without any hands!!!

The construction in the field continues. The road directly behind our house is basically done, minus the paving. I assume they are waiting for other roads to be done so they can pave everything at once? It is nice to get out there and have non traveled roads to walk on.

Joseph, Kristine and I recently hiked to Storm Castle.  A beautiful day for a hike.  We started at 8am, hoping to avoid the intense sun mid day.  So glad we started earlier.  I never anticipated all the people we would see on the trail as we came down.  We climbed 2500 feet in under 2.5 miles.  A lot of long traversing and almost always slow, gradual climb, but amazing views from the top.

There are not a lot of pics of myself that I like, not sure why, but I really like this one!!

I love this picture...great view of the drive up the canyon.

Bree did pretty good.  We were a little worried up top because there were some drop offs.  The river was also really fast at the bottom, so once we neared the trailhead we tied a shirt around her collar so she would not run ahead of us and get swept away.  We are now at 6.7 miles for the summer!

I have bought a nice glass pitcher with a spout on it for my kitchen sink.  I have started drinking a gallon of lemon water every day (about 1/2 cup lemon juice per gallon).  I am amazed how much more I sweat now, especially at Cross fit.  I have always considered myself pretty hydrated, since water is my favorite beverage, but obviously not!  I can tell some significant differences when I don't get all the water in.  So important to get plenty of water.  There are even a few days I have hit closer to 1.5 gallons.  My body seems to be adjusting and I don't go to the bathroom as frequently as I expected.

Our neighbors finally got their townhouse under contract!  Will be sad to have Jerry and Heidi leave.  All of our neighbors (4 units) are all great.  Very nice and respectful.  Fortunately we have never had, say a roofing issue, where we might have needed to split costs for something.  Hopefully the new person(s) moving in will be just as easy to live next too.

Joseph is done with baseball and he really enjoyed it.  This is Jacob's last week of football.  Then starting next week, the boys will be heading off to summer camp!  Can't believe school ends Thursday and summer is here!

We headed to a pump track the other day.  A pump track is a bike track that, if you ride it correctly, you don't need to pedal, as I understand it.

Look at Ben go!

Look at this, some great air....

but a little too much for that short jump!!

This was a pond just next to the track!

Jacob has always had very bad seasonal allergies (pollen).  To the point where he is miserable and his eyes get really swollen.  A friend of mine told me about a naturopath that has great success in getting rid of allergies.  I have taken both of the younger boys to her.  If you have never seen muscle response testing, it is crazy how it works.  Anyway, she found out that Jacob is allergic to pollen, but not bees.  She did her muscle response testing and lasers on him.  So far, Jacob has done really well.  He has sneezed a little and had a little bit of a runny nose but nothing consistent!!  She determined that Joseph had an issue with cheese.  He has also had some bumps on his foot for a while we could not get rid of.  She tested him and everything was pointing to a virus.  She did her cheese stuff on him and some virus stuff.  Dr. Jill also gave both of them some naturopathic drops to take.  Joseph's bumps are still there, but appear to be getting smaller (he has had them for probably 9 months).  Just fascinating how other things than modern medicine can work on the body. 

As I headed to one of Joseph's baseball games, the National Anthem started on the main field.  It was so cool to even see the kids get off the swings and stand for the national anthem.

Joseph is really enjoying baseball.  During a recent game he was at bat 3 different times.  He hit two to right field and one to left field.

The way their age group league works, is that every team gets three outs, but you can only bat once an inning.  So if the outfield team has not gotten three outs when the last batter gets up, then when the ball is hit, every one base runs home.  The kids love it.  Joseph was last batter and look at that smile as he heads home.  Never mind that the catcher has been at home plate with the ball long before he rounded third base.

Love this shot...

I wish I had gotten this shot closer to first base line.  He slid into home and not even sure if he slid under the glove or not.

This ball rolled to the left field fence!

There he is in right field...a beautiful night for baseball.