Merry Christmas!

Emmy is so excited for Christmas. She sings Christmas songs all day and is fascinated with Rudolph and Frosty. We will update after the holiday but here is a little holiday cheer!

My Summer Stay at Grampa's

I know this blog is really late and all, but I've been busy with school and just haven't had time to make it. Anyway, this past summer, I flew up to Washington/Idaho to see my Grampa Mike and Grama Kathy. While I was there, Grampa and I drove to the Lochsa River to do a hiking/Geocaching/4-Wheeling camping trip.

I flew in late, late, late on Friday, July 16 and immediately passed out on my temporary bed when we arrived at the town house at about 1:30AM on Saturday. The next day was a day for me to get settled, for us to go up to the farm, a little bit of Geocaching, and to prepare for the camping trip. So once we got up to the far

m house, we had to unpack all of our merchandise from both vehicles that we took up there. So I unpacked what I needed for the trip from my suitcase and repacked it into my camping bag. We didn't really do much mor

e until the next day when we actually started an adventure.

On the next day, we had only one mission : An 11 mile hike to get the Fish Creek Ca

che. There were several complications in this goal. one of them is in the mission itself and that is 11 mile hike. The reason that hike is italicized is that there is a difference between walk and hike. The general definition of a walk is a mostly flat stroll. Now, hike is like that, but you go up, down, and through rough terrain. Anyway, we started off at the trail head in the truck decidin We set out in the morni

ng and after filling up the gas, we found our first Geocache! This was at a little park and was magnetically attached to a bolt in the back of a stage-type thing. The next one we went to was a Geocache in a log by a campsite that we almost chose, but was too far away from the river for our liking. We ended up in a spot by the river that wasn't really a campsite, but we were going to use anyway.

g what to take with us. W

e took our Geocaching things, trail food, lunch, and TWO bo

ttles of water. So we hiked, and we hiked, and we hiked, and we hiked, and we hiked, and we hiked, and we hiked. It was smooth until the second complication came into place abou

t three quarters of the way through. It was basically bushwhacking with a faint, hardly used trail. This went on and on until we reached the cache location. We whipped out our GPS's and started looking for the cache. After looking f

or about 10-15 minutes, we decided to take a break and eat lunch. This is about when

the final complication came into place. Our TWO water bottles were bone dry. And I mean that there was not a drop of drinkab

le water left. So we pushed this realization to the

back of our minds and began the search again. Finally, we had to give up. We disappointedly and thirstily started

back to the trail head. Right when it felt like I was going to pass out from thirst, I saw the parking lot. We do

wned two Dr. Peppers and went back to camp f

or dinner and relaxation.

The next morning, we started relatively early because we were near where were going to start 4-wheeling. We parked the truck off to the side of the road and hopped on. We headed up to a fire lookout because we were doing a series of Geocaches that were at lookouts. This particular one

was the Castle Butte Lookout. We got it and there was a marvelous view waiting for us on top of the mountain. We rode to a cache that grampa had put on the mount

ain from there and there was an awesome looking lake at the bottom of it. After this we didn't heve time for anything else, so we headed back to camp. We ate dinner, and went to bed.

The next morning, we only had one lookout left, so we headed out and once we were there, a lady let us go into the lookout and sign the visitor's log. We drove back to camp after talking with the woman. Since we wanted to relax a little bit while we were camping, we then decided to hike about a mile up to the Jerry Johnson Hot Springs and get a cache up there. After picking up the cache, we decide to jump into the hot springs. Me and grampa cool off in the river and then I decide to go and get grampa and my shoes. My plan was to cut in through the hot spring, so I jumped into the spring and sit there for a minute. After a little while, I start to feel a stinging in my right little toe. I look down and find that my toenail was just hanging on by the edge of the nail! I try to call grampa over from the river, but he can't hear me over the noise of the river. Finally, I motion him over and he takes a look. We decide that the best thing to do would be to hike back to camp and rest. I carefully and with assistance put my sock and shoe on and we hike (me more of a limp) back to camp. At camp we pack up what we can and go to sleep.

In the morning, we pack up camp and drive home. On the way, I troop through even more Geocaching and in about our third cache, I get caught in a ditch and I thought that I was going to die from all of the bug bites that I got. We picked up about five caches that day.

We didn't do much of anything else while I was there, except for shooting the .22 rifle. As I flew home in the plane on Monday, I think, wasn't this an eventful trip?

2nd Birthday in the books!

Emmy turned 2 on July 6th. We started celebrating early with the Fourth of July and uploaded lots of photos to the Shutterfly website on the right of the page. She had a great Fourth of July which started with a neighborhood pancake breakfast, face painting and we decorated her wagon for the parade around the lake. On her birthday we took the three kids for a picnic and paddle boat rides. Her birthday celebration was yesterday with our family and friends. We had princess and the frog party and lots of great food.


Once again my sister made an amazing cake for Emmy. I thought it would be tough to top last years' three tier fire cracker cake, but she did with this amazing castle. Emmy loves princesses, Toy Story characters and frogs. It had all of her favorites represented. I am not sure how much it weighed, but I know it was a lot. Emmy was in heaven. The signing of Happy Birthday included Emmy signing to herself. Unfortunately I messed up the video and did not capture all of it.

She loves frogs and being a princess. These were her decorations and invitations. She loved all the balloons. Her first delivery of balloons arrived on her birthday from our good friends Janice and Lue in Florida. Her balloon bouquet arrived with a soft teddy bear. She was in heaven getting her first delivery.

Close up of the cake. My sister is so creative and amazing with the detail she puts in. I keep telling her she should go into business. The creative detail took her time over 4 days. She says she is not sure how to do more next year. I am sure she can.


The grand finale was Emmy getting an amazing gift from her "bamma" (my mom), my grandma, my sister Sissy and my brother in law Bill. A Cadillac Escalade! Yes it really runs nice. The radio works and she has room for a passenger. She was driving it immediately and even asked for her purse to set on her chair beside her. I am not sure where we will be parking it. She woke up first thing and asked to drive her car. Following her spin around the street, Yancey and Jack lit off fireworks in her honor. You will see on the other pictures, she watched from the kitchen window as she is not a fan of the loud noise. It was a great week! She has so many people who love her.

Emmy having fun at the pool!

She started by just jumping in. By day #2 she was swimming across the pool, getting out on her own and jumping in. Whether we were there to get her or not. She loves being on her own with her tube. We will have to keep a close eye on her. We are trying to let her have time with and without the floating device to make sure she knows the difference. After driving home from NM for 8 hours, we immediately had to take her up to our pool. She wanted nothing to do with the baby pool and went right to the big one. She swam around the edge of the pool and moved from ladder to ladder before jumping in. She woke up this morning and asked to go swimming again. I have a feeling we will be spending time every evening up at our pool this summer.

Memorial Day Weekend 2010

Early May we had a rough time with Emmy spending a weekend sick and a day in the hospital. We returned home with her on oxygen as she had a bad virus and her oxygen levels were low. She recovered nicely a few days later.

Memorial day weekend we headed to New Mexico for a softball tournament for Annie. We were also lucky enough to meet our God Daughter - Hayden Makenna Speer who was born the week before. The kids loved her. Emmy was fine as long as Mommy didn't hold the baby. We had a wonderful weekend. We spent a couple hours in Santa Fe before heading to Albuquerque where Annie's team played. They played up an age group and finsihed in 3rd place. Not bad!

Emmy has become quite the swimmer. I will attach a video soon. She loves the water and has no fear. She gets that from her daddy.

We are home today and expecting a visit from Nana and Baba this evening.

Spring Refresh

Well, we spent a couple weekends getting the house ready for Summer. We restained our redwood deck. Seems simple but with about 500 sq. feet it is a big job. Unfortunately I do not have the before and after photos. It looks great though. I also planted about 15 large flower pots. They are already taking nicely and look beautiful in both the front and back yard.

Summer is almost here.....

It has been several months since my last post so I am sure you can appreciate that there is a lot to catch everyone up on. First, it is beautiful here and the trees are starting to fill out. I love seeing everything turn green. It has been such a long cold winter and it felt like Spring would never get here.

Yancey and I plan to spend the weekend working in the yard as we only have a couple of weekends off from Annie's softball tournaments. His task - to refinish our back deck. Mine - to plant all of my flowers. Keep your fingers crossed for good weather.

Jackson has been doing great with Scouts and continues to be an excellent student. He made the Principle's Honor roll again and has made great strides with his Trumpet skills. He has been on several boy scouts camp outs throughout the winter. He has another one in a couple of weeks and is looking forward to his week long camp in June.

As for Annie. Softball has started and her team is in the 14A classification. They have chosen to compete primarily in the tournaments for 16 year olds. They are doing pretty well and facing new challenges this year. We are planning our Memorial Day trip to Rio Rancho, NM for her next tournament. It will be good to see how they compete there. She is still catching and playing outfield and is a killer at the plate! School is going great for Annie as well but unlike her brother she is on the count down to her last day on May 26th. Watch out, next stop...high school!

Then there is little Emmy! Not so little anymore. 22 months and counting until her 2nd birthday. She is signing, talking, running, jumping and much, much more. She has become a bit more curious and developing her stubborn side nicely:) We hope the "terrible two's" are short lived here. She is still a wonderful baby with a smile that inspires me! We took her to Sesame Street Live (her first trip to the theater) and she loved every minute. She goes through phases, her favorite characters range from Elmo and Zoe to now she is in love with Toy Story. Buzz and Woody are her recent favorites.

We are adapting nicely to having grandma here. Every once in awhile the family will take her for a few days to give all of us a break. Her heart has strengthened and the doctor gave us the okay to let her travel. She will be leaving for the summer to go stay with my aunt in Myrtle Beach, SC. They will bring her back at the end of August. Grandma is always cold, so I am sure she will appreciate the warm weather. Nothing better then watching the waves roll in on the beach. She has been making blankets and we are trying to get her comfortable with email. That one is not so easy.

As for Yancey and I, we are doing great. I still love my job and I have become more actively involved in some community organizations. I am planning my second charity golf tournament and I have been selected to be a Starbucks Ambassador to America Scores Denver. Perfect charity for me as it is an organization that works with kids and soccer. I currently am busy with 12 stores and helping to cover 14 more while I train a new DM. I will need a vacation soon!

Yancey received some bad news about the closure of his company. He has been looking for his next opportunity. On the bright side it has been nice having him home this last week! One thing I know about him is that he is such an amazing person and he is so positive. I know he will find something soon and be great at it. He always lands on his feet!

Well that is all for now. I will include more pictures next time.

A more timely update!

No pictures, just an update. We have moved grandma in officially and are beginning to establish a routine. It will take time for her to feel completely comfortable but we are on our way.

Jack is away at Scout Camp this weekend and I am sure he is freezing. I can't wait for him to update the blog, as nobody can tell a story like Jack.

Annie is at softball camp this weekend. She is back in the swing with practices a couple days a week. Her first tournament is in March. It will get her quickly.

Yancey, Emmy and I took a quick trip to Salt Lake to see Nana and Baba. Linda's birthday was on Wednesday so it gave us a good excuse. Uncle Bob is with them now and we are enjoying spending time with him as well. Emmy and I had never met him so it is a nice treat.

I only wish grandpa Mike was closer as today is his birthday and we hope he knows we are thinking of him today! Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Christmas Time

Lots went on in November and December. I will upload more photos to Shutterfly for you to see.

Yancey, Emmy and I enjoyed a great vacation in November to the East coast to visit Murray, Babara and Doug. We had a great time.

December started rough with Grandpa passing and Emmy was very sick and in the hospital a couple of days.

It finished with a great Christmas and we look forward to a great 2010.

Annie is back to softball practice this week. Jack is active in basketball and Scouts. Emmy is growing, learning and changing daily. Yancey, Annie and Jack are taking up snowboarding and used all their new equipment and winter ski passes for the first time a couple days ago. I think they all are a little sore.

More to come...stay tuned!