Here are some pictures of the field trip I went on with Zack's preschool to the pumpkin patch last Friday, I was so happy it was actually on a Friday so I could come. We had a great time going on a tractor ride and picking out a pumpkin for him and sissy. He has so many little friends at preschool and insisted we hang out with Ben and his mom while we were there.

I am such a slacker and I really have no excuse other than that I have been too busy at work to sit down and update this thing and I hate using my computer at home to do so because it is so dang slow. I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying what we have left of decent weather. I am so not excited for winter this year, The idea of being cold does not appeal to me at all and the tastes of winter weather that we have had thus far have just upset me to the point of refusing to leave my house. It has been crazy at school this year. I love the new schedule and having a few days off each week to get my chores done but I hate working all day and all that goes with it, I am so burnt out by the time I get home in the afternoon I have a hard time being patient with my own kids on Monday and Tuesday so that is hard. Jason has been doing lots of stuff as well both at work and on the side. The mighty hunter got a deer during the bow hunt, don't know if I have mentioned that yet, and 50 punds of fish from Alaska. We haven't had to buy anything but chicken in a while. Cassidy is working hard in second grade and her biggest challenge is probably the spelling tests she has each Friday. She usually only misses one or two, if any, but it really stresses her out. She has been busy with soccer and dance but that will slow down as her last soccer practice is today and her last game is on Saturday, until the spring. She will continue to have dance practice every Tuesday evening though. She danced in the halftime show of a local football game, in the freezing rain might I add, and had a ball (I will blog some pics of it). Zack keeps me running all the time. He and I get to hang out on Thursday and Friday while sissy is at school. We get to lunch with daddy, have play dates, go shopping, take naps, etc. It has been fun to have some time alone with him. Cassidy and I have tickets to the much anticipated Hannah Montana concert on Saturday, October 27th so we have a countdown going for that. That pretty much catches everyone up to date with us. I guess I will blog some pics for everyone to take a peek at!

Here are some pictures of Zack's birthday party that we had on a Sunday afternoon. Captain "Zack" Sparrow had a treasure hunt to find his birthday treasure, a pinata, and played pin the eye patch on the pirate. He got some really cool gifts, thanks everyone, including a new bike from mom and dad! The pirate wanna be is Uncle (Cousin) Jeff. Arg Matties!

I just have a minute to post some pictures so here are a few. The first two are of Cassidy and Zack's first day of school, Cassidy was on August 25th and Zack was today. The other two are of Lake Powell and my niece Kaydence playing at the beach. Everytime I go there I forget how beautiful it really is! I had a great time hanging out with my lil' big sis in Page. I really miss spending time with her.

Here I am in Page, Arizona chilling with my big lil' sis (she is like a foot taller than me now I swear). I'll have to take a picture of her so everyone can see how hot she is! She has a rocking body going on, from all of the running she has been doing, and is sporting a very cute hairstyle these days. My mom took my kids to the mountain camping with her and my dad and Kaydence is with her dad for the weekend so it is just sister time, Jason is in Alaska with his brother. We have already been to Strombolli's for lunch, the best Italian place EVER, done a bit of shopping, and watched a movie. Tonight we are getting massages so it should prove to be a great day! Hope everyone else is having a great holiday weekend.

Well, yesterday was the first day of school for Cassidy and I. She was a bit nervous but came home loving her first day back. My first day was hectic, as always. Trying to get the kids where they are supposed to be and ready to sit and listen after a long summer break. I feel their pain, really I do, but the longer it takes me to get them all organized and taught all of thr rules and procedure the worse it is. I think I am going to love my new schedule though. I work Monday and Tuesday all day then a half a day Wednesday. I am off on Thursday and Friday. Today Zack and I had lunch with Jason then I went and spent $50 on some new pants. All of my old jeans are too big and after all of the time my mom spent fixing all of my shorts so they would drown me I didn't want to ask her to do my pants too. I sold three pair to a store called "Platos Closet" That buys old clothes and resells them but only got $22.55, what a rip off. I should have just given them to the DI. Oh well, at least I have new pants, a size smaller, always a happy thing.
Jason went deer hunting this past weekend, archery, and gor a deer. I was really happy because this means two things, he came home happy and he filled his tag so he doesn't need to go rifle hunting this year! YEA!
I have been way busy in my classroom, I think I put in like 50 hours setting things up last week, CRAZY! I even worked on Saturday, since Jason was gone hunting, and I brought the kids in with me. Cassidy and I went on the computer that day and got ourself tickets to the Hannah Montana concert in Salt Lake City in October. She is so excited, between Hannah Montana and High School Musical her life is full.
I just finished reading two Stephanie Meyer books, Twilight and New Moon, I guess the new book by her comes out this month sometime. I am totally addicted so I can't wait to read it. Who knows where I find the time for that, I think I have read about 7 books this summer (the Shopaholic series, Twilight and New Moon and the new book by the traveling pants author, The Last Summer Of You and Me).
Zack turns 4 on Tuesday, can you believe that? We are having a family BBQ/Pirate Party to celebrate on Sunday. Jason leaves for Alaska to visit his brother on Wednesday and is so excited for that. I am going to take my kids and head to my mom and dad's for the long weekend so I am not all alone. I might even head over to St. George with my sister a day for some shopping, kid free, YEA!

WOW!!! I am a slacker! You would think that I have the summer off or something! :) We have had the best summer. Lots of boating, of course, traveling to Montana for weeks at a time, and camping. I am back at work now and it has been so hard to transition back to the swing of things. In fact I had to wake up both of my kids this morning to make it to the school on time, so sad when I have to do that. The students don't come back until the 22nd but I have PLENTY to do until then. I thought I would let everyone know I am still alive and hope you all had a wonderful summer. I will blog again soon and maybe actually include some pictures, imagine that!

I played hookie, well I took a personal day, and went on a field trip with Zack's preschool class to the Dinosaur Park in Ogden. It is large concrete dinosaurs that you wander around on an asphalt path while dinosaur growls play on strategically placed speakers. The kids absolutely love it! It was so fun to spend a day just me and Zack, but he kept saying how he wanted to bring daddy and sissy next time. Only 6 more school days left, I think I am more excited than the students.

Here are a few pictures of Cassidy playing soccer a few weeks ago. She is playing goalie in one of them, she looks a bit bored, and doing some running and kicking in the other ones. She really loves playing soccer and asked me to sign her up for another season. I wanted to sign Zack up too but he missed the birthday deadline by less than a month. Oh well, next year.

We did it! We're done! That's right, the basement is completely finished! RC Willey came to install the carpet yesterday, so besides doing a little touch up painting, we are finally done. I took a few pictures last night and hope you can tell what they are of, the lighting is weird. There is one picture of the stairs, two of the laundry room and two different views of the new playroom. Zack loved talking to the gentleman that came to lay the carpet, luckily he was a nice guy. He kept following him around and wanted to help him. He also kept asking him if he brought the toys too. We told Zack that there would be toys in the finished room so him and sissy could have their own playroom. He wants it to be ready now. He kept telling us to move the toys down there so he could play. I think we will try to get it done this weekend. We have a guy coming over tonight to show us some beanbags, like a generic Lovesack, I think that we will just buy two of those to furnish the room. I plan on decorating it in an outdoor theme. Jason has a few prints that he purchased from a friend of animals and then I will purchase a few things from my friend that sells Home Interiors. It should turn out nice. Now we just have to hope the kids actually stay down there to play. :)

Things are CRAZY here. It is end of level tesing time for the school district so we have a two week window to get all of our testing done. I finished today, YEA ME! All of my students were here so I tested like mad to get it done, lets just hope my approach works and I pass "No Child Left Behind". Stupid George W. Anyways, we are also very busy finishing the basement. We had Uncle Dale, Jason's dad's brother that lives near us, come and spray the basement with primer then with the color we chose for the walls, burnt almond. On Sunday, Jason and his friend Mike tiled the laundry room. It is the same tile we used in the bathroom we will just fill it with a brown grout instead of the gray we used to accent the blue walls in the bathroom. We have been painting baseboards, coconut brown (Cassidy picked that out because she loves coconut), like crazy so Dale can come back and halp us install them on Saturday and Jason is planning on doing the grout tonight. My new washer and drier get delivered on Saturday sometime as well. We bought stackable pair so we could finally have room somewhere in the house for a deep freezer, we will put in the laundry room next to the washer and drier. I am so excited to be able to do one load of laundry in the time it used to take me to do two. I promise to include pictures of the finished basement with the next blog entry.

Here are a few more pictures to finish off my blog. Two are of my sister's little girl, Kaydence. In one of the pictures Cassidy is feeding her rice at the Mexican retaurant we went to for my parents anniversary dinner. It was so funny, she couldn't get enough rice. In the other she is doing "Happy Feet". She saw the movie so now whenever you tell her to do "Happy Feet" she dances all around. She got her cast off yesterday, Tuesday, and can't stop jabbering about her arm (my sister told me on the phone). The last picture is a cheesy one of me, I am always the photographer so there is never a picture of me, my dad took with my camera at dinner. He thought it was fasinating how little my camera was. So he had to play with it for a minute.

I want to include as many pictutres from Easter that I can so here is another group of them. These are of the kids, Cassidy, Zack, and Megan, on their Easter Egg hunt and with their baskets on Sunday morning.

Here are the pictures that I promised of Easter, I am going to have to post a few blogs to be able to include all of the pictures from the weekend that I want to. Easter was so fun! We all really had a great time and the drive really wasn't all that bad. We got there Friday evening and all went for a nice walk on the golf course then back to my mom and dad's for a yummy dinner and relaxing evening. Saturday we went for a walk to a local coffee shop and decorated Easter eggs, these pictures are of egg decorating. My mom scheduled professional pictures at Foto Quick so we did that Saturday afternoon and it went really well. The kids were all behaving nicely and even my dad smiled a few times. Then it was back to my parent's house to eat again, we did a lot of that. Kim, Jason and I took a trip to the local clothing store, Beal's. It is kind of like a Ross. It is going out of business so Jason says there is no reason to go to Page anymore, he loves to shop there whenever we are in town, except RD's Drive Inn that is. Saturday night my mom and dad babysat the sleeping kids while we went and saw "Road Hogs" at the local theater, so funny. On Sunday the kids looked through their Easter baskets and found all of the eggs that the Easter Bunny hid. Then we went to church, napped, and went for a walk. Sunday night Kim and I took my parents to dinner to celebrate their anniversary, it was so delicious! Jason, Cassidy and I got up to leave on Monday morning and left Zack with grandma. He didn't cry like I thought he would and has had a really good time so far. My mom says he misses Cassidy more than anyone and I think the same is true for her, she is so bored with out her brother. Hopefully she will remember taht the next time she feels like fighting with him. I hope everyone had as happy and wonderful of an Easter as we did. I loved seeing my whole family and having such an enjoyable visit.

No pictures today but I thought I would wish everyone a Happy Easter! We are heading to Page, Arizona to see me family, it is my Spring Break so Cassidy and I have Friday and Monday off and Jason just gets to take a few days off. My entire family will be in Page for Easter so my mom is planning on having family pictures taken, I think the last one we have of all of us was at my wedding. We all haven't been together since last June so it should be a really good time. It is also my mom and dad's 36th anniversary on the 10th of April so I am sure we will all go out and celebrate that while we are there as well.
It is going to fun to watch the kids play and interact. Megan, Monte and Crista's daughter, is almost 2 and Kaydence, Kim and Elias' daughter, is 1 1/2. They are going to be so fun to watch, and I am sure Cassidy will be the little mother and Zack will be right in the middle of it all. I am not excited for the drive but the visit and fun will be worth it. My mom wants to keep just Zack for a week after Easter so we will see how that goes. I hope everyone has a very fabulous Easter and I should have some pictures of the trip to share with you all when I get back, if I remember to bring my camera that is.

Just wanted to blog a few more pictures from the weekend. Jason and I cleaned out the pantry on Saturday afternoon and Cassidy remembered that she has an Easy Bake oven. So Sunday afternoon Zack and Cassidy decided they wanted to bake some cakes in her oven, chef's hats and all. They actually turned out really well, crazy to believe a lightbulb can bake a cake. The other picture is of Cassidy practicing her Heelies. She got a pair for Christmas and still is having a hard time figuring out how they work. Now that it is warm outside we have her go out there to practice instead of on the kitchen floor. She seems to be getting the hang of it, Wal-Mart look out!

What a fun weekend! Short, but fun. My little big sister, if you saw how tall she is you will understand that, and her family came to visit. It was another beautiful weekend weather wise so we were able to spend a lot of time outside, you all know how much I love that. We jumped on the tramp and Zack gave Kaydence a ride on his new Vroom, Vroom (that is another story). She broke her arm a few weeks ago so she has a cast on her left arm. My mom invented something that if she doesn't patent she is missing out on her small fortune, a "cast cozy". Kaydence is too little to understand that when you hit someone with a cast it hurts so they are to cover it and protect everyone from her cast while making her arm look so cute, less odor too!

She is so adorable, it has really been too long since I saw her last. She can count to three and loves it when anyone sings the alphabet song to her. It was so nice to see Elias, Kim, and Kaydence but way too short of a visit for my liking. Thanks for coming, we love you and hope to see you again soon.

I am going to be so sad when the weather changes this week. I was reading the newspaper yesterday and it said that it will be 70 degrees for the next few days, like it has been for the last week, then on Wednesday it will go back down to the 40's with possible snow. It makes me want to cry. The kids were outside so much on Saturday they had little sun kissed cheeks when they went to bed that night. We took them to a park Saturday afternoon and they played in the nieighborhood all day. I forget how many kids we have on our block until the weather gets nice and they all come out of their houses to play. At one point yesterday we had 8 kids on the tramp in our backyard, so fun! I love wearing spring clothes. My winter wardrobe is so boring because I hate winter, but my spring/summer wardrobe is so much more exciting. I would love to live somewhere where it is 75 degrees all of the time. Not too hot, not too cold. Jason said that it would need to be warmer than that so we can take our boat out. He has a one track mind, but I am looking forward to boating this year too. I bought myself a wakeboard at a boat show and I have two new awesome swimsuits to wear this summer, YEA!

Happy late birthday to Jen! I hope you had a great birthday on Tuesday. Is this the big 30? For those of you who don't know Jen she was my college roommate back at Dixie College. She has been one of my best friends for a long time and probably knows me better than most anyone. We had a great time in St. George and I really miss our carefree and wild days sometimes. Two years ago I flew out to Washington D.C. to spend my Spring Break with her. She lives there and works for the state department, probably one of the most scholastic people I know. I envy her for her love of learning and history. She knew everything there was to know about historical facts of D.C. and was the best tour guide ever. I hope your day was special and love you so much Jen.
We have been having the most wonderful weather here the past few days. That coupled with the day light saving time change is making it hard for me to get the kids to come inside and go to bed. I have to drag them out of bed every morning while they ask me why I am waking them up when it is still dark outside. It is so sad. I love this time of year. The anticipation of summer is so much fun. I love pulling out the light jackets and capri pants. Unfortunately, Utah weather changes so frequently I know that we are in no way done with winter. I know it will snow at least one or two more times before it warms up for good.
Jason, the kids and I have been busy lately. Even though Jason got me the best compact camera for taking pictures I regret to say that I forget to bring it with me almost every time. Last Friday Jason and I used the free passes that we got back in October at a Warren Miller movie to go skiing at The Canyons. It was so fun to play hookie from work, leave the kids at school/sitter and have a day to ourselves. Jason is really good on the snow but since I get out like once every two-three years it took me a while to relax my "V" and go fast at all. Jason was such a gentleman and would wait for me as he would go down the hill so as not to leave me in his powder dust. The Canyons is obviously where the more upscale people go skiing. It was so beautiful. There were a ton of kids taking lessons that day. It is a bit overwhelming to be going down a ski hill in my "V", trying not to fall when a three year old flies by me. Oh well. We need to take our kids while they are still fearless. It was a beautiful day and tons of fun! Yesterday we finally took Cassidy to Chuck E. Cheese's for earning all green's in February. It is in South Salt Lake so it is quite a drive but the pizza was good and the games were fun. Zack was so worried about running out of tokens, it was so funny. We had a great time and made it home just in time for bed. I wonder what prize she will choose for March?
Hope everyone is doing as well as we are. I am excited for Spring to get into full swing and for summer to get here. I bought two new swim suits and am so excited to break them in. YEA!

Here it is, almost three weeks later and I still haven't updated my blog. I guess it is because I don't want to bore anyone, there really isn't much to tell. We have been having a lot of winter weather which just depresses me. The only good thing about the cold is that this time there is actually snow too. We have had one of the coldest winters on record but also one of the driest, it is just plain sad. We had enough snow to go sledding a couple of times with the kids. The school I taught at a few years ago has some great hills behind it perfect for seldding so we hiked up there the Monday of President's Day weekend then again that following Saturday. Now everytime it snows the kids think we need to go sledding. They were so awesome at it. Cassidy wanted to go by herself and loved it after she did and Zack started down on his own when he was just sitting on a sled and screamed all the way down. When he got to the bottom though he was so excited he only wanted to go by himself. It was so funny. The pictures are of Rex and Linda's (Jason's dad and step-mom) visit with us over President's Day weekend. It got up to 60 degrees while they were here then snowed the day they left. Anyways, we went to a place in Lehi called Thanksgiving Point with them. We saw an Imax 3-D movie about African animals then went to a farm that they have there to pet and feed some animals. They had a life-sized plastic cow with rubber nipples that you could try to milk. All of us tried but the only one that could actually milk the cow was Rex, I guess all that time on the dairy in Rexburg paid off. We had to go to Cabella's because we were in the area where it is located. It is like a landmark in Utah now. We also took them to a Japanese steakhouse called Tepanyaki. It is my favorite place to eat because everything is so fresh and good for you. They cook your food on a grill right in front of you and always put on a good show. In fact it was the first time we have taken the kids there, and Zack was in tears at the display of fire the chef did at the beginning then was fasinated the rest of the time. He kept asking if there was going to be more fire and telling the chef he was a good "maker". So funny! We played outside an afternoon because the weather was so beautiful. We jumped on the tramp, played soccer and a game that Rex and Linda made Jason for his birthday. I can't remember what it is called but it is the funnest yard game ever, so addicting. Anyways, nothing much exciting since then. Just the daily grind. I am so looking forward to a weekend and hope everyone has a great one.