SKOO

Today was Kendal's first day of school, preschool. She is attending the same elementary school that Kelsey does, but she is going to the Early Intervention Preschool there. I met the speech therapist today and she seemed like a really great lady. Anyway, I put Kendal to bed early last night (8:30) so she would be ready to get up in the morning for school. Well, she woke up at 5:50!! She came and got in bed with us and just laid there smiling. When Matt got in the shower I thought she would fall asleep - no way! So we were up and ready for school this morning!

Here she is this morning. She was so excited for "skoo." She loves her new DORA shoes and her little kitty shirt, and of course her DORA backpack! She wouldn't really hold still for a good picture, so you get a few wild ones. By the way, that is the tile we bought for our new HEARTH (I hate that word). I was laying it out to see how it looked.

Kelsey walked out the front door for "skoo" and so Kendal said "doe doe doe mom!" and we did go go go! By the way I did cry, but I think I held myself together pretty well.

This evening when Matt got home from work I was mowing the lawn and look at what I found when I rounded the corner! Pints of ice cream have been on sale for $1 so I bought a bunch for visiting teaching, friends, and of course myself. Well, Kendal and Matt made quick work of this one! Notice the chocolate syrup! I love summer.

I have been reading the Twilight book series. I will read a book in 2 or 3 days and then I have to sleep, clean the bathrooms, do laundry, and feed the kids for a good week or two before I start the next book. I should be grateful that there are only 4 books, but I am sad that the story is nearly over for me. I finished the third book, Eclipse, yesterday and I only have one more to go. I think I am going to drive myself CRAZY, but I am going to hold off for awhile to read the last one. Like I said CRAZY!! Anyway, my sister is also reading them and you need to go read her blog. She cracks me up! You vampire and werewolf fans will appreciate her post today.

Burn Baby Burn!

If I thought I was a procrastinator, then what is my husband?

We made the decision a few months ago to install a wood burning stove in our house this summer. Now that it is almost fall, we are finally doing it. Actually, we picked out and paid for our stove a good month ago. We just have to build a hearth to put it on before they can install it.

So, the two most amazing procrastinators went shopping for tile, backer board, etc. So exciting! It is going to be so great. So hopefully, within a couple of weeks, after our HUGE Labor Day Family Reunion, our new stove will be installed on the hearth we get to make. Wish us luck! We are new at the tile thing, good thing my dad is coming up!


Anyway, here is the beauty we are getting. I think it will be so fun and nice. I guess I will let you all know how fun it is to clean soot off of a vaulted ceiling next spring!

My day ALONE

Saturday Matt took the sweet girls down south to Salina for the day while I went to a quilt show at the Thanksgiving Point Gardens. It was such a pretty day, warm, but pretty.



I met some crazy fun ladies from Moab, above, and had a super fun time just wandering around the gorgeous gardens at Thanksgiving Point.

Oh, I liked seeing all the quilts too! They had the quilts grouped in areas around the gardens. It was exciting to stroll down the walkways, turn a corner, and see another area of quilts.


I put one of my quilts in the show which was beyond my comfort zone, but it was fun. I had such a good time making this quilt, that I have to share it when there is a fun NON JUDGED opportunity!

I enjoyed my day alone very much, I got to go visit Tori, Jared, and Brogan. He is so stinking cute! I also ran to Cabela's ALONE for Matt and ate a burger there without having to repress a food fight with my 3 year old, I also ran into one quilt shop really quick and bought the funnest pattern for charm squares. What a super day! My family returned home about 20 minutes after me. The girls rode horses and 4 wheelers with their dad and grandpa and had a great day too!

Nothing Much

I am currently reading a book entitled If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be Hard and other reassuring truths. for those of you that are hard core LDS, you know that this is a Sheri Dew bestseller. I got this book for my birthday awhile ago from a friend and I have been reading it off and on. It sits on my dresser and I see it everyday, but what I can not figure out is what is so reassuring about life being hard? I am 1/2 way through that book and I don't feel any better or reassured that life is not a cake walk in the park! Give me some insight here please.

Matt is watching Amanda Jones' Bar J Wranglers dvd for the second time tonight. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Bar J's, but he does like to go overboard. As I sit here, fresh out of the shower, eating 10 mini Snickers my friend Sarah brought me, typing, and listening to the Bar Js sing while my kids are in bed, I wonder - Can life get any better?

One more thing, I have found my anti drug. I found it today. I have some friends that like to go get a slushie, my husband and daughters LOVE Slurpees, and I have never EVER been tempted nor enjoyed those little pieces of cold sugared heaven - until today. I hit a Sonic on my way home from Provo today and got a strawberry fruit slushie. Holy smack! It was so good! I took a few nice big tugs on the straw on my way out of the parking lot and thankfully had to wait at a stop light for a minute because I had a MAJOR brain ache AND a chest ache. I was truly immobilized for a 1/2 minute! It was wonderful! What else could make me feel so horrible for 30 seconds AND then quench my thirst for something cold and fruity the rest of the way up the canyon? My new anti drug - Sonic fruit slushies!

Boating

I am wracking my brain trying to remember a time when Kelsey has EVER been on a boat, and I really can't think of once. She is 6 years old and we have 5 reservoirs within 1/2 hour of us and she has never been on a boat. How lame is that? Well, she finally got to ride on a boat this week, thanks to Brian-the-good-sport-Rowser.

Our friends bought a boat and so after school we headed to Jordanelle for a little dip in the water. Kelsey LOVED it. She was on the boat most of the time. She did take a break for a little hot dog. Kendal didn't get on the boat, she was happy with the shore and the snacks. Thank goodness!

Amanda was a good sport too, here she is getting ready for a ride as the only mother with almost ALL the kids!

Kelsey loved the tube as much as the boat I think. Thanks Brian for making her so happy!

Kendal and I hung out with the food. We know how to have a good time!

Thanks Rowsers and Jones for getting us out of the house on such a nice evening!

First Grade

Kelsey started first grade today. She was so excited!! She didn't get to bed as early as I wanted last night because we had to drive down to SLC and rescue Matt all broken down on I-215, but I warned her that she better be happy when I wake her lazy bones up in the morning. She woke up early this morning, ran in our bedroom and asked "Am I late for school?" I told her no, she didn't need to get up for another 1/2 hour. She went back to bed!

Matt and Kelsey rode bikes to school together this morning and Matt made sure she got into the right classroom. I had a little lump in my throat as I watched her ride away knowing that she would be gone all day long this time around. No tears though. I saw a handful of other first grade moms today and they asked me if I was lonely or if I was having a hard time with Kelsey being gone all day. Am I a horrible mom for saying no?

Most of them kept carrying on about how much they missed their kids already and how lonely and long the day was with them gone all day. Not me! She SO very much needed to go to school all day! She has been so ready for this. I am sad however that my little cocoon of a world I have made for her is no longer around her. I won't have the influence that I used to nor the ability to block out the bad things from her anymore. That is all that makes me sad, my little girl is growing up and seeing the real world, not just the sheltered world I have had her live in so far. Oh well, that is how it goes right? We can't keep them couped up in a bubble forever!

She was so excited when she got home and was so anxious to tell me about her new friends, school lunch, their classroom pet, 2 recesses now not 1, and that her teacher lets them have a reading pal, a stuffed animal, during reading time. What a fun fun day for my little goose.

By the way, the raccoon trapping has been quite disappointing. The buggers tricked us one night, and then they haven't been back since! My corn in the garden is almost ready to eat, I think that means they will be back very soon. Wish me luck.

Ponderosa State Park

I mentioned that we took a little trip, it was a wonderful little trip. Friday after work we headed north and spent the night in Twin Falls, Idaho. I had the truck all packed and ready for our fun fun camping trip with our friends from Oregon, Joe and Lindsay. Joe and I joked all spring that we should get together sometime this summer. We figured that about 1/2 way for each of us would be McCall, Idaho. Matt said "okay" much to my surprise, then we picked a date and off we were!


We met at our campsite early Saturday afternoon. We camped at Ponderosa State Park near McCall, Idaho in the Peninsula Campground. It was a nice little campground and the area was beautiful. Joe and Lindsay have a little girl, Addison, that learned many bad habits I am sure from my children over the weekend!

Sorry, there are a ton of pictures, but I couldn't help it. It was so beautiful! After being gone from Oregon and Washington for so long, Utah is looking pretty dry. I loved all the trees and I loved seeing moss growing on all the trees again! It was so nice and green and lush!

Joe and Lindsay were great. They totally took care of the Cranes. They cooked, they cleaned, they let us use all their plates, cups, and dish soap! Actually, there is much more than that, but I don't want to mention how ill prepared or lazy we were!

Our campground was on a peninsula that juts out into Payette Lake. The lake surrounds the the state park on 3 sides and it was so pretty! This was the first night we were there. Joe and Lindsay were putting Addison to bed so we took a little walk right at sunset so she could actually fall asleep.

The water was such a treat for the girls. There is something about a lake that just makes it all so much more prettier and fresher.

This would be a great family picture if it were taken 15 minutes later when the sun had gone behind the mountain. Dang it!

My two little dare devils found this fallen tree on our walk and they both promptly climbed up it. Kelsey stopped and sat down when she got scared, but little Kendal is fearless and just kept going. It was making me SO nervous!

Did I mention how pretty it was there?

The park has a few bike trails so Sunday morning we decided to head out on a bike ride. We weren't sure where we were headed, we had taken a look at the map and knew where the trails went, we just weren't sure which one we were going to take.

We ended up taking the longest one to a few lookout points on the very end of the peninsula. When I read "lookout point" I thought, that means it is on TOP of the mountain. Well, yes it was. Lindsay said we went on a 5 or 6 mile bike ride that morning and about 1/4 of it was UPHILL!! Very uphill! Kelsey was off her bike, pushing it, and crying as she climbed the hills. I was pulling an extra 35 pounds up the hills with Kendal on the back of my bike and I had to get off a few times and just push. Joe and Lindsay are bikers by heart, they had no problems!

We made it to the overlook and there wasn't much to over look at. The trees were in the way! Our steep, long bike ride was a little anti-climatic!

So we headed off the hill and hit another overlook, now this is an overlook! The lake looked so pretty and it was great to see all the boats on the lake and people playing in the great outdoors.

This overlook made me a little nervous though, there was just a rock outcropping and then cliffs, and then the lake. Matt and Kendal sure liked to test my sanity!

On our way back to the campground, it was all downhill! This is Lindsay.

This is Joe and Addison.

Here is Kelsey and her dad on his new bike he got for Father's Day! He loved it by the way.

After our bike ride we decided to head to one of the beaches we saw on our way. Kelsey was brave with her swimming suit on while the rest of us hung back a little bit.

It didn't take long for me to realize it wasn't ice water and that Kendal needed her suit on or she would weigh 10 extra pounds with her wet sweater. So we played in the water for a few hours. It was so nice. I love the sound of the water. Matt said he wanted to move our tent to the beach so he could hear the water all night. I think it has been WAY too long since we have been to the ocean. What do you think?

A Sunday afternoon nap was needed after our bike ride and our swimming adventure. I borrowed my sister's DVD player so the girls could watch movies while we drove and it came in nice and handy for our "quiet time." It is amazing what force for good Dora the Explorer and Diego have on my Kendal!

Monday we headed into town to see the sites and see the shops. Lindsay is an antique girl and I love the quilt shops. Luckily we found one of each. Unfortunately though, my body wanted to get rid of every ounce of food or liquid in my body which was quite a bothersome time. To put it straightforward - I was sick sick sick. It was horrible actually. So I didn't get to spend much time in the cute little quilt and fabric store, but I did get a picture of a quilt that I might sign up for. It is a block of the month quilt. They send you everything for one block every month. I thought it was so cute!

We visited the dock in McCall and the girls loved the water once again! They loved the bears too.

After wandering around town for a few hours with me keeping a restroom within view, we decided to head back to camp. Matt took the girls to the fish hatchery first while I had a snooze in the truck, thus, no pictures.

When we got back to camp, everyone headed down to another beach for the afternoon while once again I had a nice nap in the truck. I didn't get much sleep the night before with all my trips across the campground to the bathroom! So here is the beach party without me.

Joe and Lindsay, thanks for such a great great time! It was so fun to play with you guys. Thanks for letting my girls 'baby and boss' your sweet little Addison too.

If anyone wants a great place to play for a few days, Ponderosa State Park was a beautiful place to visit! Go with friends and it will make it even that much more fun!