The latest happenings

It has been awhile since I blogged. The last year has been kind of a blur for me. I have been doing a graduate certificate program at the university here and so everything else has seemed to slip through the cracks. This summer I am teaching swimming lessons and also starting a research project up at school, as well as studying to take the GMAT (Graduate Management Assessment Test). In between all that stuff, I am busy taking care of my kids. We are doing our own summer reading program and it has been really fun. They are also helping to take care of the garden and the yard. So here are some pictures of what we have been up to lately!

We had a piano recital! William and Marissa both take piano lessons and they are really doing well at it. Marissa plays all day long and she picks up songs very easily. She is hard for me to keep up with! William plays beautifully and he really enjoys sight reading from his book.

Here is their teacher, Sue Knutson. I think she is a great teacher!
Some reading time with our cat. I will often walk in and find the three of them together reading. Though, Owen is not reading so much as listening.

This is from last month when we went to the park to shoot off a rocket. It was a great success!

Marissa has been busy losing teeth the last couple of months. I told her to stop, but she said she can't help it.

We have been attacked, well sort of, by cicadas this summer! They are harmless, except for the tremendous noise they make. Apparently they are one of the loudest insects on the planet and when you combine their noise with thousands of others, it is really very loud. They covered the trees for a couple weeks. For several days they were even more packed on to the trees then they are in this picture. It was crazy! Marissa has been picking up their wings all the over the place and she gives me each one to put in her journal. I might have lost a few of them. She actually asked me if I would go pull the wings off the ones that were already dead, but I had to decline.

We also went fishing for the first time ever! William was so excited. He caught so many fish, it was a very successful fishing trip!

We have also had sports camps this summer. William went to a baseball camp. He had fun, but it was really very hot that week. It was a long morning for him.

William and Marissa were both really excited to do soccer camp. Here is Marissa dueling with this kid. It was a great camp and they both learned a lot. The first night they had their shin guards, they slept with them on. And William had his soccer ball with him in bed also. He hasn't stopped kicking it since the camp ended. He loved it.

It was really hot this week also, they had to take water breaks every 20 minutes. We went home everyday and ate a popsicle or two. This is the last day when they got their shirts!

William was really into this one on one scrimmage thing they did. He won this one.

Also this month, I entered two of my paintings into an art show! It sounds way cooler then it really is, but I am still proud of me for doing it. It isn't juried or anything, it is just for show. In the picture, my paintings are the two on the right.

Well, I do have pictures with a baby snapping turtle and us waiting for the International Space Station to pass over our town, but the pictures aren't loading and I have run out of time. Hopefully I will get those ones up soon. Thanks for reading!

Has it really been 8 months?

I haven't blogged for eight months! I really can't believe it has been that long. I guess I need to update cyber space with the happenings in my life over the last long while. Unfortunately, I don't really have time right this minute. Hopefully it won't take another eight months to make a decent blog posting. I hope my friends and family that see this are doing well.

Our summer of fun!

Well, one of the first things that happened when we were in Provo was that William lost his first tooth!! It was very exciting!


The next week, we got settled in Julie and Drew's apartment. It was very hot the first week we were there and we were looking for ways to cool off during the day. The second day we were there we got a pool pass at the pool 3 blocks away. It is such a cool pool. They don't let us bring cameras in, but I did get a picture of it the last day we were there. But here we are on the way to pool riding our bikes. Or rather, on the way back from the pool.


But the more important thing that happened the first time we went swimming was that I got stung by a bee!! I put on hand on it in the grass next to the pool and it stung my middle finger. It hurt! I have been stung by bees before on my hand even, but never has the sting swelled like this one did.

It continued to swell for the next two days and it throbbed also. I couldn't sleep. I had to lay down with an ice pack on my hand. Finally on the third day the swelling started to go down and I got some relief. So we never went back to the pool....
No, that isn't true. We went back, many times and loved it!

This is one of the sunsets out the back window. My camera has a sunset setting on it and I think it turned out well besides all the power lines and such. But the clouds are beautiful! I loved looking out the back window in the evening. I ended up putting William and Marissa out on the couches because it was cooler out in the front room, so I would go hang out in the bedroom while they went to sleep. I got in the habit of writing extensively in my journal every night, which was so great. I really haven't been good about doing that for a couple years. I was happy to reestablish the habit. Also I painted a lot in the evenings and I watched the first two seasons of Chuck also.

Where to begin?

I should be finishing the blog from our summer of fun in Provo, but we have done so much in the last month since being home that I thought I might update the present first.

Well, we got home on August 20th. I had class starting on the 24th, so we got back just in time. I had a little hiccup with school and ended up transferring the first week of class. I was going to school up in St Louis, which ended up being over a 2 hour drive each way. I transferred to the university in Rolla and changed majors and I am so happy and grateful I did. I'm doing a graduate certificate in Psychology in Leadership, which is like business psychology. It is a lot of fun and lots of hard work. My mom makes it possible for me to balance homeschooling, school, swim team, choir director, primary pianist, and a bunch of other stuff! Thanks Mom!

But, there are much more interesting things then my school stuff!! So, let's see. One of the first things that happened was that Marissa made a fort. Lots of forts. Here is one of them.

The next Friday morning we had a homeschooling party at the Kofoed's house. We have a lot of kids in our ward that homeschool, there were 25 kids are the swim part that day. We had a lot of fun!

That night we also had a ward camp out. It is an annual thing and it was so great, just like last year. We bought a new tent so that I could have room to stretch out my legs at night. It ended up being a very large tent. It is actually tall enough for me to stand up in and it can fit 2 queen size beds in it. So after roasting hot dogs on the fire, we got the tent all set up. Usually my kids are in bed at 7 or close to it, but Marissa and William have good friends at church now and they happened to be camping also and were up late. So for once, I let my kids stay up. They had so much fun! It got dark and they were still playing. William ran around with his buddy Zachary and they both had some flashlights with head straps. Marissa ran around with two other 4 year old girls, Kimmi and Alanna. They went in to each others tents again and again, giggling and completely wearing themselves out. They had some glow bracelets that they wore around their ankles so they didn't ever run into each other in the dark and I knew where they were.
Of course, I deeply regretted all this fun the next day when they were incredibly crabby. It reconfirmed to me that it is a good idea to put them into bed early and never let them stay up!

This fun picture is of a hat that Marissa made. Her friend Kimmi made the red part, but Marissa added the veil on the top and put on the dress. She was very proud.
A week or so later, it was Labor Day and we took Dad to the airport to head back to Maryland. We decided we should all go so we could head to the zoo. On the way out the door, I grabbed my camera and took these pictures of my mom's beautiful flowers! I love my camera and these flowers. They were just lovely.
So after I took the pictures, we headed up to St Louis. When we got to the zoo, there were cars backed up for blocks! We decided maybe the zoo wasn't such a good idea and went right instead towards the Science Center. It was also crowded, but not nearly as much. We always love going there. And it was even better this time because Grandpa was with us. Here are some highlights!


Marissa will often get dressed up in her ballet stuff after lunch and she just looked so cute, I had to take a picture. This is my tutu from when I was about 6. She loves it.
Hanging out with friends at the park and riding in a truck!

One day we also found a turtle. William felt compelled to bring it inside and show everyone.

On September 11, we went to a patriot rally at Lion's Club park. It was so great! They had big blowup toys, horses, a bald eagle, and a helicopter even landed right there in the park! Very fun for a free night!

One day Marissa had some free time and came up with this cool thing. She made it all herself and asked everyone else to pull her down the hallway. Very creative!

Also, she decorated this basket for Baby Day to sit in.

And she made this hair thing for herself too. She loves to make things.

A few nights ago, I went in the bathroom and found this sitting right next to the toilet. Mom and I had to draw straws to decide who had to kill it. We ended up accidentally chasing the thing behind the bathroom cabinet with the broom. The next morning it had come back out and mom vacuumed it up. It was huge!! Huge! HUGE!


Well, here is a hilarious picture. Just having fun the other afternoon.

And here is one of the bats that lives on our deck. This is the small one, but there is also a bigger one that lives there too. We have been trying to get rid of them but haven't been able to yet.

Monday morning we had our next ward homeschooling activity. We went to Lions' Club Park and played kick ball. I haven't played kickball since grade school. I've been missing so much! It is so great! I ended up pitching the second half of the game and it was a blast! By the end, I had grass stains all over my jeans, muddy boots (I didn't realize I would be playing), and I had a sore bottom. I loved it! You can see William running into third base in the first picture.

Just a couple more pictures of stuff we do. William doing his piano playing in the morning, Marissa in probably the third outfit of the day, and then the caterpillars we found in the garden this afternoon!

Well, I think is it for September! A busy month, but with great weather and lots of fun!