Can't say cute enough!

I just love this picture of Andrew. Graduation from Kindergarten. He's in 1st grade now and going to school everyday with his brothers. When did I go from a mom with babies to a mom with kids?! I love seeing my boys growing up!

Lemonade anyone?

Believe it or not it was Andrew who was the one to set up a lemonade stand and sell lemonade. He heard about a brother of a friend that did one and made some money. I guess the $$$ caught his attention because he was determined to get this thing going. He really enjoyed doing it and came out with a few dollars. He was pretty proud of himself. He teamed up with his cousin McKay too who sold cookies. I missed a picture of that.

The typical Andrew, camera face!

Can't sell it without testing it out, right?

The big flood in Inkom...in spring

Back in spring....(shows you how fast I am to post stuff!)...we had big flooding in our area from the snow melt. Luckily even with a river behind our house we were okay. The creeks and the rivers were maxed out! It was amazing to see that much water flowing! This picture really doesn't give the sight justice. This field has an old river bed running through it and you can't even see where it is. It was one big lake.

It was great to see how many birds discovered our little lake. There were so many birds enjoying the water. There was even this group of geese with babies. I spotted them when I drove by and quickly ran home for my camera. They were barely in sight when I got back so they are a little teeny in this picture (someday I would love to get a big zoom lens!)

What boredom creates

What is this? Bobbing for bananas?! Who ever heard of that? Well I guess that's what summer days brings out...creativity!

But hold your horses they also went traditional and mostly ended up bobbing for apples...in a cooler no less! Maybe the bananas weren't as challenging. Easier to sink your teeth into!

Go get 'em Caleb!

Josh's 1st attempt...

2nd attempt success!...with a goofy face, or maybe he's trying to wink at me... :)

Wood Badge - What an experience!

About 2 years ago I attended Wood Badge for the first time...it was an amazing learning experience! This time around I was asked to be on staff. There was a lot of preparation involved...I started meetings for it 6 months before the event. I had to prepare to give 5 presentations to a small group of people that I would be a leader over called a Troop Guide. So Wood Badge came and I left home for 8 days! I enjoyed the other "staffers" so much and became really close with my patrol (a group of 6 people). It was hard to separate from them when I had to leave them at different times as the week went on and let them learn on their own. I look forward to the next time I get to be on staff at Wood Badge...but I'm sure a couple years off wouldn't be a bad thing. It definitely is a big commitment!

This number you see here is the course number. The W2 is our area the 107 is the council the 11 is the year and the 2 means the second course of the year.

At the same time I was at Wood Badge, Caleb had the opportunity to go to Cedar Badge at the same time and place. He loved it! (Except for waking up at 6am every morning!) Cedar Badge is a leadership training for the boys. It correlates with Wood Badge which is the leadership training for the adults. I think that is so awesome!

I had the great opportunity to take all the portraits of the different groups at Wood Badge. It was fun, but tricky when I had to be in it!

This is my patrol...the Beavers! Every patrol has a critter they are associated with and will be for life. I am a Fox!

This is the staff...amazing people! I feel so lucky to have gotten to know them and learn so much from them! (I'm on the top row far right.)

And this is the whole Troop. All the participants and staff. It was quite a group with lots of fun people I was able to get to know. I am on the first row on the bench, 4th from the left in the yellow shirt.

I could never express through words well enough what a wonderful experience Wood Badge is. It's not just a scouting thing it's also a personal thing too. You grow so much and make many wonderful associations with people. I am so grateful for such an inspired program!

Boys love rockets!

In Caleb's 6th grade class (last May) his teacher, Mrs. Anderson made arrangements for the kids to make rockets and shoot them off at the school. It is not a cheap project and I commend his teacher for making the effort and coming up with the funding for it through donations. Caleb was definitely excited about this and really talked it up. I came to watch the event and he made sure to be first in line! It was pretty exciting. Each rocket did something a little different. Some went straight up, some swirled around, some went up then nose divided, etc.. It was fun to see what the next rocket up would do!

The big walk to the launch pad. (With his teacher's husband the engineer guru.)

Off it goes!......and then running to go collect the rocket.

Jon's birthday

My handsome man had a birthday at the beginning of the summer! (No beard back then!) The summer started off crazy busy so we did things simple this year. Hope he knows he's still special to us and we love him immensely!

Instead of doing a traditional cake (which isn't his favorite thing to eat anyway...but cookies are one of this favorite things so the boys and I made him a giant cookie!)

Funny how all the boys wanted to help light 3 candles.

We love you so much Jon!