Drops 2010

Looking at my camera, I noticed that I hadn't blogged about our trip to the Drops this year. Last year when we went I took the kids by myself. Thankfully Shawn came with us. I don't know if it was still the safety talk from Uncle Blake last year or just my anxiety getting the best of me, but my anxiety level was to the freaking out level when we got there. I finally jumped in with Shawn and Garret. By the time I got I had calmed down a little. Then we decided to take Brady down, it rose a little, but when my Dad said he was going down it went back to the freaking out level again. We all jumped in several more times and slowly my anxiety level mellowed out. At the end of the night the older cousins decided to jump off the cliffs right after the rapid section. Uncle Blake and Uncle Brian jumped in with them thankfully. They would have continued to jump in if we would have not called it a night. We returned to the Shoshone church parking lot and had a nice picnic with the family before saying good night.

School 2010-2011

No matter what we do, time does not slow down. So school is here again. I started at the beginning of August in my classroom trying to put it together. I headed to Boise for meetings for a team I am on. It was weird being by myself(staying at a hotel by myself, eating myself,etc.)Actually it was nice at times.
This school year we start with 8 less days because of budget cuts. I had a full week of meetings before the kids started to school. School started Sept. 30th. Blakely is now in 8th grade and loves everything about school. This year she gets to be an librarian aidefor the first semester. Katelyn is in 5th grade and in Ms. Matthews. Katelyn started out the year next to my classroom, because her classroom wasn't finished being built yet. She of course loves school and loves that Bekha is in her class. Garret is in 1st grade and has Mrs. Haugeberg. He loves school, but has to be threatened to get all his homework done. He already has been kicked out of his mom's classroom when I walked in to my class and he was handed out peppermint candies to all my students.(I keep peppermint candies in clase of upset tummies) Brady is being watched by another wonderful lady named Christy. He loves it there even though the week before school started I kept telling him that it was school time again and he was going to a new babysitter. He would say I not going, she has no babies. Turns out she has 2 babies that come and some of his friends from Tara's also come. He seems to enjoy being there. I also teach Christy's daughter. I have 22 students; 14 of them being boys. I think it will be a good year. I don't like the extra stress in my life, but we will fake it till we get it. We did start out the year with three out four children with ear infections. Once again, Shawn has to step up and help take my place and take kids to the doctor. Which he had to wait a hour to see the doctor with kids being silly in the room. Which I replied been there, done that. He takes up the extra slack beautifully. I sure love him for that. I hope we have a great year and very little sickness. Go Declo!!!

5K with the girls

I have wanted to try a 5K for about a year now. So I talked and bribed the girls into doing one in Declo over Labor Day weekend. I started running one minute and walking two minutes; now I know some of you are running experts,but this was my training. The girls didn't want to train as well. Blakely said I wouldn't have signed for this if I knew I had to train. So with some pushing we got a few runs with each other. My favorite saying was "You are not going to let your 34 year old mother beat you, are you?" One night running a coyote ran right out in front of us running away from our dogs. I then proceded to tell Blakely that the momma coyote was probably not far behind so she better start running fast. I said you only have to run faster then the slowest person. I know not nice. Saturday we got up and headed to Declo and got our shirts and took off running. Katelyn had found a friend to run with. So it was just Blakely and I running and walking together. Mom coaxed and encouraged. We pulled each other along. I ran back and got Blakely and walked with her. I loved doing the 5K. I will try and keep running so I can find another 5K and do it. (I have only ran twice this week:( Blakely vows not to do it again, but maybe I can get a friend to run with her she would change her mind!

Yellowstone

One of my goals for the summer was for our family to go somewhere together. As the summer dwindled down; it was now or never. We had decided to go to Yellowstone. We had just put carpet in our livingrooms and were preparing to put carpet in the bedrooms, so amiss the mess we left Saturday morning. After too many stops we got up to West Yellowstone in the afternoon. We checked into our hotel; which on seeing the swimming pool with the water slide the kids only wanted to stay there. We headed in the gate and headed up to Mammoth Springs. We stopped to see the hot spots along the way. We did see some elk and one moesing buffalo headed somewhere down the middle of the road. As the day wore on the kids desire for the swimming pool grew greater. We looped around and by the time we got back it was 9:00pm. So in a very hurried manner, we ran off to the swimming pool. We swam until closing. The kids and I found some dinner and returned to the hotel room to eat. Sleeping wasn't too bad, but I have discovered it is time for two rooms. We got up and got ready for church. Church in West Yellowstone has a lot of visitors has you can imagine. We then headed back into the park for the south loop. Being the smart parent I am to not have the fussing of Saturday night, I bribed. If they could not fuss; when we got to Old Faithful we would buy a pop for them. For the most of the children, it worked. Sunday we enjoyed stopping and wading through a stream. We loved walking the Old Faithful loop and seeing the tail end of her explosive show. We stopped by Yellowstone Lake and dipped our toes(some of us dipped our bodies). We drove out through the Grand Targhee Park and as we left low and behold there it was.... A Bear. We slowly drove past and gawked like all the other tourists as the park rangers directed traffic. We enjoyed the beauty of the Grand Targhee mountains and quickly drove through Jackson Hole. I finally got to see the Palisade Resvoir(which Shawn always talks about). We decided it would be fun next year to take Grandpa's boat(if he would let us) and go camping up at Palisades. We finished our vacation race through Idaho Falls and home at 10 o'clock at night. I enjoy this time together even how short it was and wish for opportunities for family get aways.