Idaho Weeds, Beautiful Idaho Weeds.......

I have mentioned before that I love fall.

But I wanted to tell you that I REALLY love fall.

WHY?

The colors. I know everybody has a fall, but the fall season here in Idaho is the prettiest of all the places I have lived.

Even the weeds turn colors!

Sam and I have been talking about paint colors for the new house. We had one conversation about it when I picked him up from the airport last week. I told him I wanted to SHOW him my favorite color scheme. He thought I meant at a paint store, I meant on the side of the road. It is a LONG drive into Boise, almost right at an hour, and we take Simco road, a windy, curvy open range road that is totally empty. No stores, no signs, nothing but open land and a dairy ( and you really have to hold your breath when you drive past that section!).

But the colors! All the weeds turn colors. The whole ground is gorgeous. Sage, wild flowers, tumble weeds, dead grass, it all blends together for the most beautiful and peaceful color scheme.

I pointed it out to Sam on the drive home, all the wheat color with the maroon and green, with spots of dark brown and bright yellow. It just works! I love it.

He liked it to! We will need some new furniture and we are thinking of doing a southwest theme in the new den, so now we have a color palette to work of of.

I told myself that the next time I went to Boise, I would try and get some pictures before all the colors went away. On the way home from Collin's Dr. Appt , I found a place to pull over safely (as it is only a 2 lane road with no shoulder) and snapped some.

This one isn't the prettiest picture, but is shows the maroon, the green, the wheat color and the yellow.

Beautiful weeds!!!!!!

Last Idaho Endo Visit

 

Today was Collin's last visit to see his specialist here in Idaho.

We have LOVED Dr. Tiffany.

She has had type 1 herself since she was a child, so she totally understands what Collin goes through. I love it that she talks to HIM and not to ME. Everything is directed to him until he comes across something he can't answer. That is very different from past doctors and we both really like it.

Collin was at 94 pounds (65 percentile in weight) and 5 feel 1 inch (93 rd percentile in height). Tall and skinny like his Daddy. He has been on the 6'4" line track on that height chart since he was born! His doctors told us when he was really little, that his growth would slow down. That was YEARS ago, and there is no sign of it slowing. As long as he is taller then Kaitlynn, he is happy! (But she is quickly catching up!)

 

Here they are! Can you blame him for not minding Dr. visit days?  :)

 

 

(She had to wrestle him for a hug).

:)

It has been way to long since I had a real photo shoot. This one was just so much fun because they are kids of a great friend of mine.

Here are a few of my favorites!

She has the sweetest little profile!

"The Boy."  He has four older sisters, so this little guy is really loved on.

I get to do the rest of the sisters at the apple orchard next week.

The leaves are already starting to turn colors and Idaho is becoming beautiful!

I LOVE FALL!

(I only made three trips to the fax machine today and have not talked to the realtor at all.)

Finding laughter..............

Last week was a bit stressful. There was just so much to do! Wednesday, the paperwork arrived for the home loan that had been overnighted. I had Bible Study in the morning, and right after lunch the Fed Ex truck arrived and from that moment on, I hardly had a minute to do anything bit fill out forms and breathe. Thirty nine pages of signatures and questions. Good grief!

I seriously think that I had a MINIMUM of 8 phone calls every day last week with the realtor as well.

School? Forget it. No time.
House work? What? No time.
Go to the commissary to get food to feed my family? Just find anything edible and help yourself.

Sam was out of town for 10 hours, so a lot of time was spent on the phone with him asking questions about questions I had to fill out.

The kids were really hungry for dinner, but I really didn't have time to go shopping (the paper work had to be finished that night because they had to be overnighted back the next morning).
Make a sandwich? no bread
Eat cereal? no milk
Even Mr. Chef Boyardee let me down. He was missing as well.
Almost to the point of feeding them peanut butter on a spoon, the phone rang.
It was my sweet neighbor.
Apparently, she had a huge lasagna in the oven, but set something wrong and it had more time to cook. She was supposed to take it to a potluck, but couldn't, because it was still raw in the middle. They had to leave for town in 10 minutes. Would I PLEASE take it off her hands. She can't eat it and her son hates the stuff so we would really be doing her a favor.

I laughed and told her yes and said she had saved the day without even knowing it!
The kids crowded around it with a fork after it finally cooked in my oven, and dinner was served!

The next morning, Sam didn't have to go into work until 11:00 because he didn't get home until almost midnight the night before. We were talking about all the forms I had had him sign late last night when he got home.

Kaebrie came in and asked where we going today. She asks everyday, likes to know the plan for the day and the schedule, and who will be where and when. She is a LOT like her oldest brother in that matter.

Ok. I will be honest, they are both a lot like their MOTHER in that matter! :)

She asked the question, and I started running through all the stuff I had to do in my mind. I didn't know if I could overnight the paperwork from the base, or if I would have to make a trip into town. So I answered her, "It all depends."

So replies, "Can I please go to it all depends with you?"

Sam and I look at each other, and burst out laughing.

I think I would like to start and end everyday with laughter!

Saturday Night Ramblings

When Sam is gone, I stay up way later than normal. I spend way more time on the computer, especially before the new fall season starts and there is NOTHING on TV to watch.

Two weeks ago when he was gone, I was once again up late wasting time on the computer, when I remembered a conversation we had had about my blog.

He asked me one day what would happen if Blogger went out of business, and I lost all the writing. Lost all the funny stories, the narration of vacations, lost it all. That thought has troubled me for a long time. One friend has figured out how to save hers to her computer, another friend was able to show me how she printed some of her own blog pages, but I wanted something better. SURELY there was a way to save it in a nicer way then printing it out on my computer and sticking it in a folder.

I STRUCK GOLD!!

I Googled the idea, read through a bunch of sites, and FINALLY stumbled upon exactly what I was looking for but didn't know existed.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce, ................BLURB!

www. blurb.com

No, I am not being paid to endorse this, but maybe they need to think about doing that so people will know about it!!!

Blurb prints books. One option they have is making your personal blog into a book!

I clicked on it, watched the 36 minute tutorial, and I was hooked. I gave them my blog name and password, and within minutes, they accessed it and had it all.

I chose to print the year 2007. Mostly because the 2006 scrapbook was almost done. It reverts the entries into chronological order, I can delete the ones that I choose, and off to the creative part. Pick your page colors, pick the page layout, pick fonts, pick sizes, really and truly create your own book!

I spent about 5 hours that night "playing" with 2007. Mostly with the layouts and the photo presentations. There were 779 pictures for that year. :) The ones that I blogged anyway.

I was finally done and hit UPLOAD. It seemed to be a long process, so I went to bed and by the time I woke up in the morning, it was done. YAY!!!

But, when I read the red print, I only had 15 days to order it or it went away. Now, I wasn't planning on spending the money, but good grief! That took a lot of work! So I thought about it, and played with some numbers.

I am a scrapbooker. An avid creative -memories -only- scrap- booking -addict. But I am getting farther and farther behind. 2006 isn't completed, 2007 hasn't been started, and 2008 will be over before I know it and I will be even farther behind!.

If I were to buy the supplies to complete a 2007 scrapbook, the cover, pages, protectors, paper, borders and embellishments would be around $266.00. Seven hundred and seventy nine pictures printed would be $116.85. None of those costs include shipping.

So, I really didn't SPEND $65.00 on my blog book, I SAVED over $249.15.

It arrived a week later, a hard bound book, black pages, personalized cover with our family picture on it, and every story and picture preserved, including all the typos and mistakes, but hey, we aren't a perfect family! :)

My blogging friends, I HIGHLY recommend this site. All the work we put into our blogs is worth saving. I can't wait until January so I can do 2008!!!!!!!!!!!!

On to other news (can you tell yet that Sam is gone again) :).............................

We agreed on a house. One that Sam found while there. We made an offer. Offer was accepted.

Now for a bit more details. This family belongs to the church where Sam's best friend was pastor for 8 years . This was the friend who was killed in Haiti over 2 years ago. It was so special to both Sam and the house owners to have that connection. They were not ready to sell, having only called the realtor over to get an estimate on what they should list it for next summer and what they needed to do to fix it up. They were stunned to have somebody want it within days.

We have talked several times on the phone, realizing we don't need or want to go through a realtor for communication. I feel like I have a new friend. They home school 8 children and she has told me so much information about the house, the neighbors, and the area.

They found a rental they like that will fit their large family only 5 minutes away. It will be a door to door move for us. What a blessing! What wonderful things God has done to work all this out.

Next week all the inspections start we are required to have (and pay for, ugh). Please pray everything passes and all the paperwork goes through smoothly.

The packers come October 20th. The loaders should finish on the 23rd. We close on the house October 23. We leave Idaho probably on October 26th, and arrive in Yazoo City around the 31st. Hopefully the movers can unload on Monday, November 3rd.

I will tell you about the house after everything is permanent. :)

Time to go crash, it is late and I am tired from all the detailed cleaning today and repainting this gorgeous house back to its original stunning color. (For those of you who haven't seen our base housing, that was typed with fingers dripping with sarcasm).

Good night! Let me know if you print your own blog book!

The Thunder Birds!!!!

Well, we got up a bit early today and were out the door by 8:30.

AFTER finding our jackets. Yesterday we were burning up, this morning we were really cold.

Temps are in the low 40's in the am, upper 80's by dinner time. It is such a crazy time of year weather wise.

Here are the Smiths, the Klawitters and the Cates, all cold in the shade.

We moved out to a curb in the sun and they were all happier.

Emily and Kaebrie were MUCH happier.

Take-off

That is just so cool!

My FAVORITE picture of the morning!

It was a lot nicer with a small crowd of people than it was yesterday with tens of thousands of people.

 

Daddy comes home tonight! We pick him up in Boise at 6pm.

We agreed on a house! That is an answered prayer. We didn't know anything about this house until his first day there. He might have been the first person to even have looked at it, and probably the last! It has everything on the list we made of what we wanted: square footage (3500), 2 stories, it is on 3 acres and it is surrounded by woods, you can't see another house, though it is still in a neighborhood, an efficiency apartment, and more. It will need work, especially landscaping and painting. You have got to wonder sometimes about peoples choice of paint color inside their home. :) We will start the inspection process paperwork ASAP and make an offer later this week. If everything works out, they can be out when we need it and we can have a door to door move. YAY!

More updates later!

Sunday

Well, over the past week, I had pretty much decided I wasn't going to go to the actual air show. We live so close you can see a lot from here. I was not excited about that many people in a crowd and me by myself with 4 kids and nobody in a stroller anymore. Yesterday, I changed my mind (but not because of hours of begging from my oldest son). :)

We came home from chapel, changed clothes, and off we went! Michelle and Emily went with us. Kaebrie stayed attached to Emily, so with Michelle responsible for the 2 little girls, I was good with the 3 big kids.

First stop: LUNCH!!!!!!

Yes, I let Kaebrie have a Diet Pepsi and an and ice cream bar for lunch.

One of the Thunderbird pilots! Collin had left for a few minutes for a restroom break and was pretty disappointed when he returned and was told he missed meeting one in person.

War Eagle!

Her mouth is wide open and she is squealing!

Climbing through a tank.

Collin told me he would tell me the names of these planes, so I will have to remember to update them later.

*** update: (From Collin) *** I have to help my mom here.

The top plane is a F15 E Strike Eagle.

The one in the middle is a P51 Mustang.

The bottom one is the F4 Phantom, a hero from Vietnam.

As I am typing this, the Thunderbirds are putting on their show. They are flying so low and so fast over the house, that things are shaking. All the kids are in the front yard and I can hear them screaming!

The Air show ends tonight. All the public will be kicked off escorted off the base. The warning voice in the siren will sound letting all visitors know that they should be gone or risk serious trouble.

Tomorrow morning at 9am, the Thunderbirds will be practicing a new routine. The base has been invited out to watch! So we plan on going then, with WAY less people to enjoy the show.

Saturday

We headed out the door for Emily's Birthday party when Kaebrie looked up in the sky and squealed!

See what was right over our house!

I had to lay down in the front yard all the way on my back to get it all in!

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is AIR SHOW WEEKEND here on base! 75,000 - 100,000 people expected to visit from all over Idaho and other states!

The security around here is getting a bit ridiculous, but I guess I understand the necessary precautions.

This is my favorite picture from the party. They are really going to miss each other! Last time we moved, the little two were so, well, little, that they didn't know any better. Now ALL four kids have good friends they will have to leave. :(

The buddies: Tiff and McKenna. Another friend that will be highly missed.

Making visors:

The after affects of a green birthday cake.

Thanks for having us over Michelle and Emily! We had a GREAT time!!!!!!!!!

My uncle Roy is having more major surgery today. My aunt has asked everyone to wear yellow again to remind us to pray for him today.

We are praying for you Uncle Roy!

UPDATE***** He came through the surgery in half the time they thought it would take with everything successful! Now to recuperate for a week in the hospital before they send him home.

Sorry, I could not resist. After watching her speak at the convention last week, and reading about Obama's verbal attack on her this week, this was too funny to pass up!

This was done by the same artist who drew Sam's birthday picture. Check out Rick's website, his writing is as good as his drawings are!

MOVING NEWS!

Sam made the drive safely back to the deep south and Aubie is safely at her vacation home (Grandma's house). He has looked at several homes already and will be seeing more tomorrow.
Please pray for wisdom in this big decision.
His boss called him today, they have now officially verified his release date and we have been bumped back a few weeks.

{Big sigh of relief}

It looks like now we will be arriving in Yazoo on or about October 31. I have been SO busy since Sam has been gone, gutting closets, going through every drawer, and I still feel like I don't have enough time to get everything done as I am still trying to get all the 6th grade and 4th grade subjects in everyday. This makes me feel like I can breathe a bit easier as there is more time to get this incredibly long list of things that need to be done, done.

Not having the stress of doing Kindergarten, combined with how much Christopher absolutely loves going to school, has been wonderful. He is excited everyday about doing his homework and he shares with me what he did and what they talked about. They have been going to music class, PE class and library, as well as the normal classroom routine. After he finished telling me about meeting the librarian today, he said,

"Wow Mommy. That school has a LOT of rules."

That made me laugh.

The Birthday Boy

 

Man o man, how did this big little guy get to be SIX ?

He has the darkest eyes of the family, but aren't they beautiful? I can claim those genes!

He still loves music and playing the guitar makes him so happy. Some things don't seem to change!

He loves the computer! And even though he can't read, he can and does, get on to his siblings desktops, goes to Google, selects images, and changes the background on their screens. I don't know how he does it, but it drives them CRAZY, which is probably why he does it.

He woke up this morning and said, "I think I am bigger. "

:)

I went to school with him today, got a visitor pass and stayed for the first 45 minutes. Here he is in line waiting for the teacher. He is almost always with McKenna. They even sit together all day. She moved here when he was three, right after we got here, so she is a familiar friend and someone he likes, so I am glad he likes to be with her.

It was a bit windy here today. :)  We woke up to 42 degrees, but it warmed up late this afternoon to the low 80's.

 

He got to wear the birthday vest (which he wore for about 2 minutes before taking it off ) and Mrs. Norris turned his birthday celebration into a math and science lesson. Here he is showing how the earth takes one year to go around the sun. She read his life story while he did the walking. As his was the first birthday of the year, the rest of the kids enjoyed it too. Then he put his new pencil and certificate into his mailbox.

The old Saab ( or Zabu as the kids call it) made it out of the shop today, and at 5:33 Daddy pulled out for his drive back to Mississippi. He took Aubie with him, as it will be way easier to make the drive with all the kids next month without the cat. Aubie is off to a trip to Grandma's for an extended visit!  :)

Bye Aubie!!!!

Bye Daddy!

Please pray for a safe trip for Sam. For no car troubles, for health, and for the weather as the south keeps getting pummeled with rain from all these storms.

And for the cat to be invisible when it is necessary.  :) And that his meeting with the Guard goes smoothly. As of now, he will start serving in January.

And that he finds us a house! With the move date moving up, we might be leaving as early as Oct 8, with the packers coming SEPTEMBER 30th. The official date will be set during his final separation meeting on September 18th.

We will stay busy here. With all the school work to keep up with, and the closets and drawers and shelves to clean, and PWOC, I will be very busy.

And the painting..........o the painting that needs to be done........................

Painting party anyone?