Benjamin's Birthday Bash

As a parent, I am learning the injustices of society, including having to go to school on your birthday!! SO...of course we had to celebrate Ben's birthday a week early to avoid such abuses.

Jacob was once again our party planner. He made invitations and planned activities including: build a minifig, lego racers, and a beyblade battle. We have a lot of great boys in our neighborhood and it was fun to get many together to celebrate!! Ben is well loved and it's not very hard to see why!! He is a fun kid.
Happy Birthday Ben! Our home is a much more exciting place with you in it! We're proud of you and excited for your baptism next week!! The celebrating continues!!

the street where we live

Quite often these days, my amazing husband has different job opportunities that come up. Several years ago when he was trying to decide whether to stick with the profession or not, I encouraged him to stick with it and become one of the best orthotist/prosthetists that he could be (yes, I'll take the credit!) He has worked very hard and has become quite the hot commodity. Every once in a while he forward me emails from different people inquiring about whether he would be interested in a certain job.

I love when he forwards me the emails. First of all, he'd BETTER forward me the emails!! It's fun to be wanted and I love to see who is after him next. There's just one small problem: we love where we live! We spent the first 7 years of our marriage gallivanting around the country for school and jobs. It was so fun and we had so many adventures, but in the back of our minds, we always wanted to get back "home." Once the kids started getting older, it became more apparent that it was time. When Micah was a baby, we took the plunge and now we have spent 5 whole years in one spot!! In fact, we moved in 5 years ago this weekend!!

With the most recent email, we again reflected on why we like it here. Our boys are happy. We feel safe. We're close to family. We feel like we're starting to belong to a neighborhood, school, and community. We are putting down roots, and it's down right lovely!! Ben's been on the same soccer team for 3 or 4 years. Jacob has the opportunity to play with the same baseball coach he did in the spring. I love to sit and watch them play with the backdrop of our beautiful mountains. We love being where we are. Though I know life is fluid and things can change in heart beat, I am completely content for the moment to be here, on the street where we live!

Dog Days of Summer

I've slacked off this summer, so since pictures speak louder than words, here's what we've been up to!!
(I had to add this picture to spice it up a bit. We had a little plumbing issue that led to water pouring through our ceiling. Dramatic explanation from Ben, "I'm only 7 years old and my house is flooding!")

Pretend there are pictures of legos all over the house, bear lake, girls camp, visits from cousins even Leah, James and Aubrey, fireworks, grandparents and lots of fun park days with friends. That about covers it!! Hope your summer has been great!