ALOHA!!!

GOOD-BYE COLD AND CRISPY!




HELLO WARM AND BREEZY!!

Nine glorious days in Kona, Hawaii with my husband, Kelsey and Jacob! We are all really looking forward to it.

See ya ...........

Kelsey's Homecoming Dance - October 3, 2009

Kelsey and her cute date Nick ~
He is a really sweet guy!

Here are some of her girl friends that went, also. Just she and Erin (in the middle) had dates. Some of these guys in High School think that if you ask a girl on a date that then you have to be "going out" with them and possibly even marry them!!!

Here's the whole group -- Desiree's orange dress kept getting stuck on Kelsey's sparkles!

Here's a picture of the pretty flowers that Nick brought Kelsey.

THEN there is the picture of Nick looking sad because Kelsey (and Mom) forgot HIS flowers! We just completely spaced it out!! I don't see how, because for Prom we had so much fun making all the guys flowers. Nick said he wasn't really bummed -- they just fall off anyway. But I think Kelsey needs to surprise him on a date with a nice boutonniere and go to dinner!

I still thought they were the best looking of the whole bunch!

Fall at it's Finest

My friend Libby had this quote on her blog and I thought it was perfect. This year seems to be exceptionally beautiful!

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower" ~ Albert Camus

After Trying on a Million ... She Found It!

We spent most of the day at the mall yesterday (there was no school), tried on a million dresses (along with all the other teenage girls in Douglas County that are going to homecoming) and we finally found Kelsey's Homecoming dress. It is a really pretty "teal" color that she looks great in and loves! (Had to get a lacy bandeau bra so it wasn't so low and she has a little satin bolero jacket to wear over it.) Very pretty! We'll blog pictures of her in it next weekend.

We're Cashing It In ...

This is the "change" that I find on my dresser and in the bottom of the washer after Kraig returns from a business trip. Doesn't do us much good here in the US but has been fun to collect over the years. The kids have taken it for show-n-tell and to include in reports they have done in school. Kraig got the "jar" out the other day to see if there were any "Pounds" for him to take to London and Jacob decided to divide it all into individual categories, look up the exchange rates for each, and give us a grand total. $193.00! He was so excited --we're going to cash it in and use the money on our vacation in three weeks.

WE'RE RICH!!

These are the countries that the pile represents:

Australia --- Great Brittan ---Hong Kong --- Singapore ---
New Zealand --- Poland ---Mexico --- Canada --- Malta --- Korea --- Israel --- China --- United Arab Emirates --- France --- Euros

(We also found a Glen Ivy Hot Springs locker token, a cruise ship token and a silver foil wrapped chocolate coin!)

Fun Canoeing -- Even If It Was Backwards!

Jessica and Nate flew out to Denver to celebrate Jessica's Birthday and for the Labor Day holiday. We decided to take the scout's canoe up north to a little reservoir near Boulder. As we boarded the canoe, we should have known from the beginning that something wasn't quite right!

Check out Jessica's knees! No wonder all we could do was to go in circles! Jessica and I were having major difficulty trying to "steer". The wind is blowing, Jacob is trying to help us out and little did we know but we had the thing backwards!

We must have looked like idiots going round and round and back an forth with Jacob trying to get us synchronized. At one point Jessica drops her sunglasses over the edge and then with quick reflexes reaches over to grab them in the water -- nearly sinking us and causing a huge wave of water to gush in on Jacob! It was really hysterical!

This picture just cracks me up!!



It was a fun day just relaxing by the lake!

Of course, Nate and Jessica got it right and went
clear around the lake!

It was a fun day!

Jacob Joined the Band -- Surprised Us All!!

Jacob came home from school one day and announced that he was asked to play the xylophone and marimbas in the school marching band. He has been taking a Percussion Tech class that he loves at school and that teacher is also the band teacher. Jacob can read music and loves to drum on anything that is anywhere near him, soooooo ...... we have an official Castle View High School Band member! He played at his first game on Friday night and it was really fun to watch. That kid continually shows us a different side of him! We love the Star Trek-looking uniforms too!

Way to go Jacob!

Here he is playing the xylophone -- couldn't get the whole song or it wouldn't load on the blog! He did really well for his first big performance.