This old highway's gettin' longer...

Rose knew just what I wanted this year for my birthday.

I can't wait for April.

Or September.

Thanks, Rose.

8th Birthday

Tyler gave Chris a hug after he opened his present. I thought that it was really nice.


Brooklyn gave him a Magic 8 Ball. He took it to school for show and tell and when he came home he told me that three of his classmates were going to invite him to their birthday parties (in March and April btw) just so that he could get them a Magic 8 Ball.

This is the cake that I made for Tyler. It is 5 layers at the tallest point! I was so proud of myself, because it looked just like it did in the magazine that I copied it out of! And it wasn't that hard to do. I would also like to thank my mom and her cake frosting expertise. She suggested that I freeze the cakes before I frosted so that it didn't tear the cake apart. It worked like a charm!

This was my idea. An 8 on the back so that I could remember that I made it for Tyler's 8th birthday.

Getting ready to start the present opening.

The day after the party, he declared that this was his new favorite present! The snowball maker/thrower. I told him to call Chelsey and thank her for it again, I don't think that we've got around to that yet...

He's wanted a bathrobe for as long as I can remember. He puts on his fleece jammies and then the fleece robe over them, and can hardly get it tied around all that fleece. But he likes it, and that is the important thing.

Chris helped with the clean-up. I finished up the rest of it today.

The cake almost didn't make it to the finish line. It wasn't tipping over so much as smashing the bottom layers.

Happy Birthday Tyler! #8!

Yellowstone...Prepare to Be Amazed!

This year Shane and I celebrated out 10th Anniversary! Can you believe that it has been 10 YEARS? Well I wanted to go somewhere great, just the two of us, on a romantic second honeymoon. The closer that it got to our anniversary, the more that I realized that that was just not going to happen for us, and I started to worry that Shane didn't want to celebrate at all. :( So when my dad came to me and said that they wanted to go to Yellowstone the weekend of September 16th, and would Shane and I like to go with them, I said "YES!" At that point, I would take anything I could get. So we called "Dorit" at the Rustic Wagon campground and made us some reservations. Then we hooked on to our trailers and pulled them up to Montana. We made good time getting there. (Dad thought that we might have been going a little too fast.) Anyway, we didn't pull in until around 9:00 pm, but we made it safely. The next day, we went to see the Park. Minutes after we entered, and after driving by several (hundred) signs that say that the animals are wild and you shouldn't get too close, we came across the first animals of the day. How close is too close?

Some people just don't get it. There is a big bull elk and the rest of the herd up the hill on the left, but my pictures are a little out of order, and I didn't post them all.

Later we went and saw the geysers. I liked the Dragon's mouth best next to Old Faithful, and the blue-ish ones. It was pretty cool.

Here's the opening of Dragon's Mouth. I should have taken a video, so you could hear it "growling."

We went and saw the upper and lower falls. I'm trying out a new hairstyle...how does it look?

Here's Mom and Dad. They had a pretty good time camping with us.

Here's a picture of some elk out by the river. Can we say "SUPER ZOOM?" Sometime, when I get lots of money, I'd like to get a bigger lens for my camera so that I can take pictures of things far away.

These Buffalo weren't far away. They were just off the side of the road.

This guy was close enough that we could have touched him. We didn't though because we like to follow the rules:)

Remember how I said that the pictures were out of order. Here's the big bull and some of the rest of his herd, that goes along with the first picture.

We made it to Mammoth Hot Springs around lunch time and were happy to find that there was lots of elk there. They were just coolin' it in the shade. There were two really big bulls there, and lots of rangers keeping people back. Apparently there are a lot of really stupid people who go to Yellowstone and don't know how to stay back.

At the Upper Falls Overlook, Tyler and Brooklyn found some rocks to climb on and had a pretty good time.

I thought that this picture of Chris was SO CUTE! I love his little face. This is hiking down to the Upper Falls overlook.

Brooklyn LOVES to go on hikes! Who would have thought? Anyway, we found out in Yellowstone that Baby Erica also loves to hike, and doesn't like to miss out on anything.

Here's Grandpa and the kids waving at Nanny Nancy and Aunt Suz. Did I mention that Suz and the girls came too? Well they did, it was lots of fun.

That first day was pretty rough on the little kids. They totally crashed in the car sometime on our way back through the park.

The next day we went and saw Old Faithful. We walked around the trails there and took LOTS of pictures. This one is Castle Geyser.

Here is Old Faithful! I'm glad that we went later in the season, because it was plenty warm for us to be outside, and yet there was not quite as many people to have to deal with. We had a great view of Old Faithful going off and that's all that really matters.

I think that this one is called Depression Geyser. I love the blue ones because the color is so pretty.

Dad needed a drink bad and all we had was Dora sippy cup. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Dad and Chris were playing Hide and Seek. They're pretty good, I bet you have a hard time spotting them.

At lunch Dad got a phone call and wandered off to take it. I thought that it was fun that he just happened to lean up against this sign.

After Old Faithful, we had to head out. We left via the South Entrance and headed for Jackson Hole. I love driving past the TETONS. They have to be the most beautiful mountains in the USA.

After we arrived we found that we were there the same weekend as Ben Franklin. Lucky.

Here's our Family Picture by the Antlers. Everybody's got to have one of these.

Here's Suz and the Girls. I've got one of my mom and dad too, but it wasn't that great. They like to close their eyes when they smile, and the flash goes off.

So that was our trip to Yellowstone. We had so much fun. And even though it wasn't really the romantic second honeymoon that I had planned I was glad that we got to go. And that we got to take such great company. One more thing that I'd like to remember. I mentioned Dorit earlier. When Shane was on the phone with her making our reservations, she told him her name was "Dorit. You know like Doritos, without the O's" She actually said that. I wish that we could have met her.

If you've never been to Yellowstone, but you'd like to see Old Faithful go off, here's the video that I shot with my ipod, it's not great, but it's all I've got.

One week, two days

When I finished reading the Hunger Games Series, I mentioned to my sister Rose that I didn't know what exactly I was going to do with myself anymore. (This is something that I always feel when I finish reading something.) I told her that I was so bored that I was even starting to consider reading the Twilight book, just to see if it was a stupid as I thought that it would be. She talked me into it. I went to the Library and picked it up. I was so embarrassed to even have it in my hands, that I turned it around so that the back of the book was showing and it wouldn't be so easily recognized. When I brought it home, I decided to read the first couple of pages so that I could get it over with, call Rose and tell her that it was to dumb and I couldn't read it, and take it back to the library. Two hours later, I was a ways into the book and realized that there was some commitment to the book going on. Well, last night I finished the last book. I spent ONE WEEK, and TWO DAYS reading the series, all four books. I had to go to work on Friday and I was exhausted (think dark circles under my eyes, it was obvious) I hadn't officially slept in two nights. I couldn't get my brain to shut down, and eventually ended up climbing out of bed around 3 in the morning so that I could read the book. My work friends, curious as to why I looked so haggard...called me a twilight nerd when they found out what was going on. Well, it is what it is folks. That's all I can say. However, I will also say that I loved every minute of every book. And that's saying something, I didn't think that they were for me, I didn't enjoy this kind of subject. I was wrong. I might even read them again someday. I was so glad that it had such a happy ending. I am so glad that Bella never got so whiney that she was annoying me. And I am so glad that I finally gave in and read these books, because now I know what I was missing.

Overdue

Shel Silverstein writes a poem about a library book that he found. It is so old that "he can't pay the fine, I'm sure that it's mine" I wish that I had the book so I could get the whole thing down. Bottom line...I've lost a library book. It's not even one of the kid's library books. It is something that I checked out. I've never felt so guilty in my whole life. I know that all I have to do is go down there and admit what I did, pay for the book and that's the end of it. But I keep looking for it, hoping that it will turn up and everything will be okay. I know exactly what I did with it too: I put it in a really special place. I was done reading it and I put it in my special spot so that I would know right where it was when I went to the library again, and I wouldn't forget to take it back. Why do I do things like this?
I lost my checkbook too. I didn't put this in a special spot. I might have to close my account for this one. I can't even remember when the last time I had it was. Did it fall out when I dumped my purse out (on accident) in the parking lot at the outlet mall? I don't know.
Today is the day to resolve both of these issues. One good clean of the house left. If they don't turn up today, I have to own up to my problems.

Something to Remember

Brooklyn just said to me: "When it was Aunt Rose's birthday, I LOVED her birthday cake. I loved it so much, and I was like mmm."
Just wanted to remember that.

Preschool

Yesterday Brook and Chris started preschool. This year they are going to the Head Start preschool down at the Elementary. This means that they will ride the school bus with Tyler in the mornings, and then come home on the Kindergarten bus around lunch time. Yesterday, I drove them to school, but I tried to have everyone ready to go by the time the bus came. We would have missed the bus.

Luckily, we did have a few minutes for some first day of school pictures. (Tyler has been in school for about a week and a half already.)

Here they are getting off the bus. They LOVE riding the bus. I asked them how they liked school and they said "MEL WAS THERE!" Mel was in their class last year at Mrs. Natalie's. Brook may or may not have a little crush on him. Chris said "I got to use the snippers and the glue stick. I was snippin and snippin and gluin." When he showed me his picture that he made with the snippers and the glue, it made me laugh a little bit, because it is about a quarter sheet of construction paper (blue of course). You can tell that he had cut of the rest of the paper off, but on the back is a couple of silvery stripes where he has swiped the glue stick down it. That's it. He was pretty proud of it though.

This morning went a little smoother. I got up about 6:05 and started to get everyone dressed, and breakfast, and teeth brushed. We made it with a couple of minutes to spare. I walked the kids out to the bus, because I wasn't sure if I would have to lift them onto the bus or not. Thankfully, they were able to get on the bus without any help.

Then I wandered back in the house all alone. I'm going to have to get a hobby or something, because it is pretty quiet around here lately.