Summer comes to an end

Well after a LONG & trying summer we finished it off with a few fun activities. Near our house here is a fun lake called Eagle Island. I took the kids one afternoon it was a great HOT day!

We just LOVE our new neighborhood. It has walking and biking trails all around. All the kids ride bikes everywhere. Jason surprised me with a new cruiser bike to ride in style around the neighborhood. I can even ride my bike to Target. Each of our schools are with in walking distance, so everyone needed a bike to get around. Sunday seems to be the evening when all the neighbors ride around as families and then meet at the Hobble Creek Park. It is really fun to have so many great families so close. We are really loving it here in the Hobble Creek neighborhood!

How can you not go to as many Fairs as possible. Yes we tortured the teens again and took them to the Boise State Fair. This was the real thing. The boys actually had a great time riding all the sketchie fair rides. Camilla and Clara got to meet Miss Idaho, and Isaac loved the petting zoo!

We love being able to see our families more. We went down to Park City and met the Buehner Cousins for a very fun week. We went boating, played at the Ranch on the 4 wheelers, fished, mountain biked and even made it to Lagoon! It was such a great time.

A day at the country fair!

We took a ride about 25 minutes away to Emmit, ID. They were having their annual country fair and Jason thought it would be fun for the kids to see the fair where their Grandma Slatter use to take pigs & banana bread each year and enter them in the fair. When we arrived we quickly realized that we would be the only family at the fair that was NOT participating (or entering livestock). Dylan was quick to point out how "lame" it was that he had to sacrifice his Saturday and come to a fair. As we pulled up he shouted out" this is a crap fiesta." To which we laughed so hard. It was so small and quaint. As we got our of the car he told Jason "you guys are just trying to piss me off" "I just don't like country stuff."
Right when we pulled up this cut little boy around 7 or 8 was walking his sheep back to its stall. He looked at Isaac and said "do you want to pet my sheep?" It was so cute. All the kids stood by and talked to this little boy who knew just about everything there is to know about sheep and goats.

The kids showing their animals were sure cute to open the cages and let all the kids pet their animals. Clara, Isaac and Camilla really wanted to come home with a "pet"

We loved that this prize winning chicken had a KFC bucket on the top of her cage!

We spent $1.00 per person to enter the Emmit County Country Fair and it was worth every penny to see the looks on the kids faces. We will be back next year! Maybe with a goat entry ourselves.. haha

We then drove up to Sweet, ID to visit Jason's Muma. It will be so fun to be so much closer and be able to come up and visit her often.

When we arrived we were greeted by her 2 new roosters. The kids loved to see them. Muma said that they follow her around all day. At night they peck at the door. Wanting her to put them to bed. She shoo's them off to the shed to sleep. She also has 2 new kittens which were totally malled while we were there.

Saturday is Muma's day to have her yard irrigated, so as we sat in her beautiful yard and visited we took off our shoes and let the cold water comfort our feet! Clara could not take it and had to take off her clothes and splash and play in the water. Isaac explored the barn and picked carrots out of the garden. The boys held the cats and Camilla wondered all over playing and looking at all the fun things. It was a great afternoon.

Muma can't sit long before she feels like she needs to make us some sort of a treat. So she made us fresh strawberry shakes.

We then picked flowers from her beautiful garden and made a nice bouquet to take to Papa's grave site.

It was an end to a beautiful day. Jason lost his dear papa Butler last fall. So it was very nice to have the kids stop and see his grave site and hear stories that they have heard over and over again about their great Papa Butler from Jason.

Skyline High 20 year reunion

This weekend I flew down to SLC to my 20th High School reunion. I was so glad that I did. I was great. It was really fun to see friends that I have not seen in years. I caught a flight and rented a car for the night. To my surprise this beauty was waiting for me. I looked like an undercover cop heading to my reunion in this car. It was hilarious!

Here are my great friends, some I have had all the way back to elementary school! We laughed until the wee hours of the night. It was great fun!

IDAHO...here we go!

We made our trip out west this summer. We have lived in Virginia for about 12 years. Virginia was the only home that most of our children know. Isaac was born there and we brought Clara home from China to Virginia. It is a beautiful wonderful place. But our new home is now Boise. We took the 4 day drive across the country with the 5 kids, Joey the dog and our trailer. It was quite an adventure. We must say that we were very surprised at how well the kids did. As Jason said I was the worst one on the drive. We stayed at RV campgrounds as we made our way west.
It was an adventure our family will not forget. It was so hard to say "goodbye" to all our amazing friends. Over the years we have come to love so many wonderful families. We know that we need to be in Boise now and that our east coast friendships will continue for years to come. Since law school we have lived in the East. It will be great for our family to experience the west. We are going to LOVE being closer to family!
Here is documentation that we actually made the trek from Virginia to Idaho!

Camilla decorated the car with IDAHO HERE WE GO! painted on the side of the car

The 1st 2 days Dylan and Zach slept about 6 of the 8 or 9 hours in the car!

Our tradition at each KOA we visit we rent the bikes. The kids just love to ride around the camp ground on these cool bikes each night.

On day 2 we came across a huge traffic jam. As we got closer we new it was a really bad accident. We could see that a semi truck had slide off the road and crashed.

As we got closer we noticed weird stuff all over the interstate. It was not until a few miles later on the radio that they reported the accident. No one was hurt and it was a semi truck full of potatoes. How funny to be moving to the state of Spuds! Here we go Idaho!

We stopped only twice a day (it seemed)! Jason had us on such a tight schedule. SO when we saw this sign we just had to stop for lunch!

Every day I had a strict car schedule. After lunch we had mandatory nap time. It was so funny that everyday the kids would actually ALL fall asleep for about an hour or so. I was so impressed with myself.

At our 2nd KOA we were all feeling a little punchy. Check out the video at the end of the bog post. Dylan getting beat-up by his dad...and dog!

We saw so many really cool things as we drove state to state. Through Iowa and Nebraska the windmills were amazing.

Eating breakfast in the trailer. I think Clara was checking herself out in the mirror of the DS

How can you possibly drive across the country and NOT stop and enjoy a Walmart?

After about $300.00 on groceries and CRAP this is what your 5 year old daughter will look like.

We could not drive almost 40 hours without watching Twilight in the car!

Here we are in IDAHO!

Arriving Sunday evening we were all SOOO exhausted. We ate a huge meal at a rib joint.

We spent that night at the Spring Hill Suites in Boise. Joey thought it was cool to spend the night in a Hotel. We were so proud of all the kids. They were very helpful the entire trip. Each Night Dylan and Zach helped Jason unhook the trailer. Camilla and Ike took Clara to ride bikes so that I could start getting dinner ready. It was a great trip.

A few classic statements that were made:

Clara- "when will we get to Costa Rica?" she somehow thought that is where we were moving?

Isaac- "I will just freak out if I see another corn plant"

Camilla- " Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona" how many time could she sing the 50 states song?

Mom- "Oh S*%#!" as the trailer came unhooked and lurched forward into the back of the car.

Dad- "I need to find a new friend" about finding a fast semi to drive behind so he could convoy.

Zach- "this is lame"

Dylan-pretty much had his ipod or cell phone in his possession the entire trip