Addy's Soccer Debut

Addison is trying her hand at soccer this fall. She has very few skills but lots of heart and is having a great time doing it. She was put in as the defender for the first time the other night and I can't help but chuckle at the resulting conversation:

Dad: "Addy, you did awesome at defender. You made a great save out there at the end."

Addison: "Thanks dad, and I wasn't even playing with my cute hair."

(She's such a girly girl!!! Did she really come from me????) :)

Kamiak Butte

Armed with pretzels, apples and my gps I dragged the kids up Kamiak Butte this summer. I carefully kept the carrot dangling in front of them--bribing them with the finding of a geo-cache at the top of the "mtn." It was a beautiful little hike and the kids did great most of the way. Sadly though, I hadn't researched my cache well enough. Instead of a real cache of treasure this particular one was an "earthcache"--no treasure to be found except the gorgeous view from the top and a geological survey plaque. Not exactly what the kids were anticipating. Will they ever trust me again???

Nauvoo, MO, and AR

We had a great trip to the midwest a couple weeks ago. We flew into St. Louis and then went to see the kids great-grandmother who is now in an assisted Living facility. I think she enjoyed meeting them and getting to know them a little in person. She had not met Andrew before and it has been about 4 years since she met the girls. The next morning we woke up and drove up to Carthage and Nauvoo. We had a really great visit there. They have really done a lot to fix up Nauvoo. We could have stayed 2 or 3 more days and had plenty to do and see. As it was our time was limited but we sure enjoyed what we did get to do. I loved going on the carriage ride all around the area and hearing the missionaries tell stories about this pioneer or that pioneer--Pointing out their land or what was significant about that particular spot. We went to a performance that night by the BYU accapella group "Vocal Point". They were great! Highly entertaining and fun to watch. I also was able to get some really great pictures of the Nauvoo Temple during the sunset and at night with this great big full moon behind it. We STUFFED ourselves at the best buffet that we have ever been to. It was at the Nauvoo Hotel. --Seriously the best ever! We stayed in little cabin on the outskirts of town. Very cute.
The next morning we jumped back in the car and headed south to Cape Girardeau. Mimi-Jeff's grandma is still alive and doing great for being 98 years old. Her mind is not as sharp as it used to be--she tends to repeat herself quite frequently--We now know that, "Andrew sure is a pretty boy." She must have told us that 50 times. But for all of that she is doing pretty well. We were really happy that the kids could all meet her and will hopefully be old enough to remember her somewhat.
Jeff's aunt and uncle and cousins have several horses and the kids were thrilled to be able to ride them. We went to a church fundraising dinner that night. It's definitly the bible belt and quite an experience to have 900 people waiting for hours to get the chicken and dumplings and roast beef that they served. I can't imagine that happening anywhere else except there. The next day we went swimming in the pool for most of the day. It was nice to be able to swim in the pool all day without getting cold like we do here. They have a beautiful piece of property with a lake and gazebo and woods. It's really gorgeous. Andrew had fun chasing the kitties and exploring down by the lake and the woods.
Anyway, after a few days playing in Cape, we drove further south to Little Rock and had some fun days with Jeff's mom and dad and brothers and sister. We went to a waterpark there and the kids had a blast shooting down all of the slides and playing in the wave pool and stuff. Even Andrew went down the big slides with us. It was great. He loved it. We got to play at the park in the rain, picked up a couple AR and MO geocaches and repainted Jeff's mom's bathroom. (just a few of the highlights) All in all it was a pretty good vacation. We flew home without any issues and made it home for the kids to start school the day after we got there. They seem to be settling in pretty well and I am enjoying my one-on-one time with Andrew. We usually have a blast with each other.
We are now just excited about the prospect of a visit from "grandma and grandpa". The kids have all sorts of plans for them!
--See you guys later

First things first: a few introductions

We decided to join the ranks of all the bloggers out there in internet land. This is a family project and will therefore contain input from every member of our family. I hope that you enjoy it and will laugh with us as we embark on this fun way to better keep in touch with all of you that we love.

Big Daddy:
You are looking at the Championship team from the 1st annual Moscow Lions Club Charity Golf Tournament. I was the chairman for putting this tournament together. It was a lot of work and effort but everyone seemed to have a really good time and it was worth all of the time and effort. I'm just trying to figure out how our team ended up winning. I guess it's true--even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally.

Mama Mia: I love summertime here. The weather is PERFECT! The scenery is beautiful. I'm not deluged with paperwork from school every day. I get to leave the windows open and send the kids outside all day long. Ahhh what Bliss! I am actually really excited about this blog. I have a feeling that I will be a lot better blogger than I am journal writer. Even if no one else except myself looks at this it will probably be worthwhile. I do however hope that others will enjoy it too. The kids are growing up so fast and I am not all that good at keeping you all up to date on their progress in life. I hope that this helps. I also know that because we have chosen to live far away from most of our family and friends you don't have as much chance to get to know the kids as well as we would like. They are bold and fun and full of life and I really hope that this will help you to feel like you are getting to know them a little bit better. So... Here goes! We hope you have fun keeping tabs on our little family blog. --J

(In their own words)

KB: (K-Bear)

Hello! one of my favorite things to do is go to the pool because at our pool we have cool water slides and we have cool things to do there like the lazy river, two pools one deep one shallow,deep end of the shallow pool, diving board. I just learned how to do front flips and back flips in the water. I like going down the slides especially when I go down with a friend. Hopefully daddy will come home early from work today and we can all go to the pool together.

AB: (Addy-Belle)
I love my boat. I love riding on it because it goes very fast. We've been to lake Couer D'Alene and to McCall and to Boyer Park. My favorite was down by McCall--Lake Cascade because I had fun with a new friend, Kamryn and we got to play at a little beach and because we didn't have to make our own food. We could just go to a tent and eat. And I had fun because we got our own little cabin and a hot tub. I love riding on the tube with my mom. I'm not scared on the tube anymore. My favorite thing on the tube is to go over the wake.

DB: (Drew-Bone)

"Hey that's me, mom--that's me"

"I want Gampa and Manda and Dan to go to there with me"

"I was going down the dot (dock) and I had my swimmy shoes on. I was swimming and splashing in there. I caught two fish--uhhh pogo fish" (whatever those are???)