Full of Surprises!

There are two things I have done as an adult that have REALLY surprised my friends from childhood.  The first is giving birth naturally.  Alot of jaws dropped after I had Bronwyn.  Apparently, I am not viewed as very tough...  :)  The second is I have taken my kids camping.  Here's the proof.

(We are smiling so big because our kids are all asleep!)

Two weekends ago we spent a night at Bruneau with two other families.  It was SO fun.  There were 10 kids in all, so needless to say, we didn't exactly have any time to socialize with our friends.  But none-the-less, it was great.  We spent the first part of the night at the observatory.  I have always loved star gazing, and wanted to be an astronomer until I learned that you don't just get to look at stars all the time.  Seriously, Astronomy was my second hardest class in all of college.  But I absolutely loved looking through telescopes with my girls, and sharing my love of the night sky with them.  We got to see Saturn's rings, a nebula, and watch the full moon rise.  It was amazing.  (Poor Todd missed half of it because Ty was soooo tired.  They had to moonlight in the van...)

We spent Saturday morning at the sand dunes, which was a real highlight.  There's something about running down a sand dune that just makes you feel like a kid again.  Then you climb back up and remember how old you are!  Yikes, that was a workout!  So much fun though, and totally worth having to vacuum my van out the second we got home.  :)

The kids crashed hard on the drive home.  Aren't they so cute all sleeping the same way?  Added bonus: Bronwyn is holding a sucker in her mouth!  Less than a week later, we loaded them up again and headed to McCall to camp with Todd's family.

McCall has become mine and Todd's special place.  We said "I love you" for the first time while we were there, and since then we have enjoyed visiting McCall with our kids, family, and friends.  This was our first camping trip there, and it was great.  I think the main highlight for the kids was getting to stay for 2 nights instead of just 1.  While they fell asleep, I taught them how to play "would you rather".  They thought it was hilarious.  And it was pretty unanimous that having green hair would be better than black teeth.  :)

Not only did uncle Brett cook most of the food (which was delicious!), he also got all 5 kids to stay in one place for more than 2 minutes.  A true miracle worker!

Bronwyn went off pouting, and luckily I was able to turn her mood around with a little mommy-daughter hike.  She loved finding tree stumps and bugs.

The hardest part of the weekend was keeping Ty alive.  He spent alot of time in his bike seat, attached to his leash, or in the tent.

There are no pictures of us biking, even though we spent a huge amount of time riding!  I kept forgetting my camera, and the picture of all of us that my mother in law emailed me won't upload to the blog!  But we really enjoyed riding our bikes together!

We pounded a lot of smores!  My father in law loves to get unflattering pictures of me, lol!

On the drive home we pretended it wasn't Sunday, and hit our favorite McCall restaurant, the Pancake House.  Bronwyn was really excited to get this huge cinnamon roll.  I was even more excited to eat about 90% of it when we got home.  :)

Summer Sadness

I knew it would hit this summer.  Just how much I miss my friend, Emily.  You all already know that her husband got some hoity toity job in Washington DC, so they left us!  They moved in January?  February?  It's kind of a blur.  My family was sooooo sick at the time.  Plus, I was just really busy.  And even though I knew it would be horrible for her to leave, somehow I knew summer would be so much worse.

You have to understand that Emily's husband (Tom) and my husband have been best friends since they were preschoolers.  So when we started dating the boys, it was imperative that she and I got along.  And we did more than get along.  We became family.  I even dare say that she and I are closer than Todd and Tom!  Emily and I are the kind of friends that could walk into eachother's house, open the fridge and help ourselves!  The kind of friend you can totally poop in front of while giving birth and not even care.  True story, but I won't tell you which one of us it was!  Ok.  It was me.  Aint no shame.  (Sorry, Hil!  I know you hate the P word!)

(This was my first birth without my real sister, so I definitely needed Em there! 

Let's pretend I look cuter after I give birth...)

For the past 5 summers I have done EVERYTHING with Emily.  Trips to the zoo, picnics at the park, swimming, running through the downtown fountain.  And here I am less than 2 weeks into summer vacation, and I feel so lost.  The days are dragging.  I took my kids to the park the other day and I was the ONLY mom there alone.  It sucked!

I have put off writing this post because I don't want any of my other friends to feel like I don't value them.  So I just need to point out that I LOVE all of my friends, and am SO thankful for an awesome group of friends.  But having Emily move is comparable to having a sister move.  It's just a different relationship.  It was so hard, I couldn't even bring myself to take a picture of us their last night in town.  We are so close that I actually had people checking in with me to make sure I was going to be ok without her.  Did it make me feel like a loser?  Yes.  But it just goes to show how great of a friend she is to me.


Did you know that I lived in the same house from age 6 until the day I got married?  Well, I totally did!  I am a homebody, and I want all the people I love to be, too.  I really thought that I would move somewhere to raise my family, and stay there forever.  And while I am pretty committed to that, I am learning that most people aren't.  So many of my friends have just moved, and I am realizing that most of my relationships will have some sort of expiration date.

I only have one real regret from high school.  Not putting enough effort into my friendships.  (OK, 2 regrets.  I probably cared a little too much about having a boyfriend...)  :)  Anyways, I was so super disciplined back then that I would literally skip a sleepover because I didn't want to tire my voice.  And while my goals and ambitions may have kept me out of trouble, they also kept me from having alot of fun with these awesome girls.

But then one day, Lauralee (who I don't think I said a word to in high school) moved to Boise and became an amazing friend!  I can't believe her two years are already up.  So not cool.  It was great to have a second chance to be her friend.  Good luck in Arizona!

My book club girls.  Our last night with all 5 couples.  Good luck Jeff and Melissa!  I fully expect you to move back to Boise when your residency is over!  (PS, could we be a cuter group of brunettes?)

So there it is.  My pity party.  I hate when people move.  I am coming down with some serious abandonment issues.  So if you are my friend and live in Boise, don't even think about leaving!  I need you!

GO! BIG! GREEN!

I have been shouting "GO BIG BLUE" for pretty much my whole life.  My high school and the two colleges I attended were blue, so it felt a little unnatural saying "green" this morning at the Borah High School Cheerleading camp performance.  For the past 3 mornings my girls have been cheerleaders in training, and really enjoyed it.  I couldn't help but smile yesterday when I heard them shouting "We've got spirit!  How 'bout you?" in the backyard.  They even got to decorate a frame to hold their cheerleading picture in.

And I gotta say... there's something about being in a high school gym with the music pumping that just boosts your spirits!  

I guess if you can't be a Digger, then a Borah Lion will have to do.  :)

100th Post!!! Kindergarten Grad.

Our first year of public education has come and gone!  Last Friday Bronwyn graduated from Kindergarten.  And much to my surprise... I didn't even get emotional!  Very odd.  The kids marched in, sang some songs, and everyone said what they wanted to be when they grew up.  

The day before the last day of school, Bronwyn was eating an apple.  She got all the way down to the core and found the seeds and the star inside the apple.  She was ecstatic about it!  She started telling me that she was an apple scientist.  She then spent the night outside with Todd who was pruning our cherry tree.  She learned all about tree rings and bark.  So when she announced that she wants to be a scientist when she grows up, I wasn't surprised at all.  She already is such a great little scientist!  

Let's be honest... things didn't start out great with Mrs. Higgs. 

 But we worked through it, and ended up having a great year!

Two of Bronwyn's favorite people:  Daddy and Julia!

It will be really weird to have Bronwyn gone all day when she starts grade school next year!  So I am just going to soak in every moment with her this summer!