Meet The Teachers & Back To School Bash!

This year it took forever for the school district to finally tell us parents who our kids teachers were going to be. Finally 5 days before school started the info was uploaded to the kids student page on the website. This year I wanted to do something different in regards to their school supplies. I went ahead and emailed each of the teachers asking them what they needed. To me most of the time the school supply lists are just so redundant and the teachers end up with a ton of stuff, but some of it they still have a ton of from the year before that and the year before that. Once when I was volunteering in Owen's 3rd grade classroom I had to go through 9 glue sticks before I got to one that wasn't dried out. I thought this might be a good opportunity for the teachers to get something they would normal go out and buy themselves.

September 5th was meet the teacher night at school. Our schools parking lot is super small so we just avoid it all together and park in the neighbor and walk instead. 

Ella's teacher ended up being the new 1st grade teacher so she really did need the supplies that were listed on the supply list. Jackson needed some of the regular supplies and then I bought extras of colored pencils and scissors. I also picked up some fun foam balls that his teacher wanted to use for brain breaks. 

Owen's teacher only asked me to get 3 notebooks for him and then things that she runs out of like glue sticks, post-it-notes and Clorox wipes. 

Jackson is in Ms. East's class this year!!!! I am so excited! She was awesome for Owen and I know she's going to be great for Jackson. 

Owen's teacher is Mrs. Tushar!!!! I've worked with her before when I volunteered for track. She is great! Since Owen is in 5th grade he's now out in a portable. It was actually so nice out because they have their very own air conditioner!!! The only bummer part is there are no bathrooms so Owen has to go into the main school building when he needs to use the bathroom.

Ella's teacher is Ms. Sawyer! She is so sweet and I know that her and Ella are going to have so much fun this year!!! 

Per tradition after the meet and greet we headed to Red Robin to celebrate our Back To School Bash! 

They had just sat a big group prior to us getting there and not all the servers had started work yet so we had to wait about 10 minutes for our table. 

The kids don't mind though since they have this fun floor to ceiling chalkboard in the lobby! 

Ella and her Daddy! 

Zeke with his Ga-Ga! 

Even though they some times drive each other crazy they do actually really enjoy each other at times as well! 

Pa & Daddy! 

My Owen being a silly boy!!! 

We had a great dinner and it wasn't even all that expensive since I had my free birthday burger!!! Love that! It's funny how the summer seems SO long and then at the same time it always amazes me that another school year is here already! Crazy how that works!

Canning Peaches!

Like I mentioned I bought 4 boxes of peaches in Ellensburg on our way home from our road trip. One of those boxes was for Kim, one was for my Mom and two were for me. I was doing all the canning for my mom though so really all 3 were my responsibility!

If I remember correctly I canned on 3 different occasions...maybe 4! Honestly I spent so much time peeling and slicing peaches it's all a blur! 

Last year I put all the peaches in pint size jars, but those really aren't big enough for a family of 6. When I would open one pint we'd each get maybe 2 peach slices. This year I decided to make quart jars instead. 

The peaches had literally been picked the day before so they were so fresh. Some weren't even truly ripe yet. That was the main reason I had to can on so many occasions. I had to wait for some of them to ripen! 

All in all I got 14 quarts and 14 pints for myself and I made 24 pints for my mom. Of course we also ate some peaches and then there were a few that were bad. For some reason this year I had such a difficult time with my jars. I broke 5 jars! I was getting quite frustrated because I was doing everything the same way I always had. I finally resorted to filling the sink with hot hot water and setting my jars in there first before putting them in the water bath. That seemed to work thankfully!

A Paddle Boat!

On Saturday August 26th we went up to Michael's Aunt's lake house. This is the second time we've been up there. It so much fun to get to sit and chat with everyone. The best part of my day though was when all 4 of my kids did something together...without killing each other! 

Who knew a paddle boat could bring them all together?!?!?! It was a small moment, but it was a great moment!

Kindergarten Camp & A Clean Car!

The day after week got back from our road trip was Zeke's 1st day at Kindergarten camp!!!

In actually it was the 4th day of Kindergarten Camp, but oh well! 

Silly boy!!! 

I dropped Zeke off at 9am and then picked him up at noon. 

He said he had so much fun! They played with Play-Doh, were read to, ate a snack and got to dance! Ella told Zeke that was a brain break! 

He also got to use celery as a stamp to put the beautiful colors on his fish! 

Later in the afternoon I was looking on Instagram and saw that a friend had gotten her car washed for free at Brown Bear. I had remembered hearing on the radio that it was going to be free car wash day. I was really not in the mood to sit in a long time and I remember that last year it was a nightmare in downtown Des Moines because of the back up. But my van was COATED in bug guts from 4 states so it really needed to be washed! 

The line wasn't bad at all and they had a really good system in place....all very orderly! As you can see we NEVER pay to have our van washed...it was like an amusement park ride for our kids! 

So shiny!!!

Wyoming Vacation Day 11 & 12 - See Ya Later Logan & Homeward Bound!

 Tuesday the 22nd it was time to start the journey home. Thanks Aunt Linda and Uncle Lee for letting us invade your house for over a week!!!! :)

Just like when we came out to Cody I wanted to make sure we were on the road by 7am. I think we officially headed out at 7:12!!! Which with the time change was actually 6:12am!!!

Ella was so happy to get to see Logan again! 

All the kids had started to miss Daddy as well! 

Zeke man did great during the trip. I did have to explain to him early on that he was not allowed to ask any questions like.....how long, when will we, what time, are we almost. For some reason he is obsessed with time so I just refused to answer him. By the second day of the trip he finally stopped asking those questions.

We pulled into Spokane at 5pm....we did gain an hour, but it was still an 11 hour journey! This was the only time during the trip I actually felt bleary eyed. I think the drive combined with nights of not sleeping great.....children need nightlights and I slept in the same room as them....not a good combo...but it finally hit me how tired I was! 

Richard and the kids weren't actually home when we first got there, but they did leave a key for us so we could get in the house. I just collapsed on the couch and vegged while the kids watched TV. After an hour or so the kids were hungry so we got back in the van to drive to MCD's. Of course the MCD's that was the closest was under construction so we had to drive to different one. It ended up being nice though because I didn't really want to eat MCD's...on the way to the other one we passed a Burger King so after I got the kids food we went back to BK to get me a Whopper! 

When we got back Richard, Logan, Conner, Ed & Penny were there. Jen had to fly to Seattle for work. We sat around and ate our dinner and chatted about the trip. Later on I took a shower and the boys and I headed down to the basement to go to bed at 10pm. I didn't want to rush out the next morning so we slept until 8am!!! It was honestly the best night sleep of the whole trip!

I had a goal of being out by 10am. Since I showered the night before I didn't have to worry about that. Richard was so nice and made us bacon and crepes for breakfast. 

After that it was time to say goodbye. We already have planned the next time the girls get to see each other....October 28th. Thankfully neither of them cried!!! 

The only must have thing we needed to do other than potty breaks and gassing up was to stop in Ellensburg and buy 4 boxes of peaches. I ended up buying the last 4 boxes they had!!! We rolled up to the house around 3pm and Michael came home not long after that! It was so nice to see him!!! Of course I didn't take any pictures! We did get everything out of the van and started putting things away and doing laundry. I did not want to wait to get that all taken care of. I'm so happy that I took the kids on this trip. We did have a great time and I know we made tons of memories.

Wyoming Vacation Day 9 & 10 - Clean The Van & A Total Solar Eclipse!

Sunday was a lazy day....I spent the morning cleaning out the van getting ready for our return trip. I also moved the kids car seats....except Zeke's from Pa's car back to the van. Pa dealt with Zeke's....it's definitely more difficult! Later in the afternoon my Mom and I went to Wal-Mart sans kids so we could buy snacks. Of course we found all sorts of fun stuff like more clothes for Ella and the boys! :) 

Come Monday morning we were on the road by 8:30am headed to Thermopolis, Wyoming to view the solar eclipse!!!! My Dad had been planning for this for months!!!! At first our plan was to go further south than Thermopolis because we'd get to experience the totality a little longer, but when we were talking to Uncle Lee he told us that you actually had to have passes to get into the state park and that they were sold out. That's when things shifted a little...Uncle Lee's parents live in Thermopolis so we decided to go to their house and experience the event with them.

We got to Thermopolis an hour before the eclipse was going to start. I had seen a park when we drove in and thought it would be nice to take the kids there for a bit so they could run around. 

It was a gorgeous day...thankfully! We had been experiencing a lot of smoke in Cody from all the fires in MT so we were worried that it might obscure the eclipse when the time came. Nothing you can do about that though! So happy it wasn't an issue at all!!! 

Ga-Ga & I set up a couple of chairs in the shade and the kids had the picnic blanket. 

There were a few different toys for he kids to choose from! 

This four person teeter totter was funny! 

Of course Zeke doesn't weight anything so he barely made his side go down! 

It was really hot so the kids didn't want to play for long! 

Snack time! Right about this time I put on my eclipse glasses and looked up and it had started!!! The moon was just showing up in the upper right corner of the sun. We hurried up and packed up our stuff to head back to the house. I'm sure people thought we were weird. Here all these people were coming to the park to watch and we were packing up and it had just started!!! 

We hung out in the backyard of Darrell and Dorothy's house. 

Speaking of glasses these were legit! Dad had ordered them months ago so we didn't have to go through the fiasco of trying to get them at the last minute. Plus he purchased them from the government site so they were certified. It was so crazy to me how absolutely ZERO light shown through them except the sun light. 

We put the fear of God into the kids about wearing them and they were SO good! 

I was really surprised how Jack and Owen were actually really into the whole thing. 

Of course Zeke and Ella weren't as excited about it. They just wanted to play Pokemon on the porch where it was shady! 

I kept trying to get a good picture of the moon covering part of the sun, but it just didn't work! 

Later I found out from Michael that I could have downloaded an app that would have made it so I could take pictures. They really do have an app for everything! 

This picture is so cool to me! The gleaming area that's shooting out from the sun on the left. That's the only section that isn't covered by the moon!!! 

When it got about 3/4 of the way covered we called the kids over so they could sit and watch it. I had gotten Ella's outfit the day before at Wal-Mart. The front of her shirt says Sunshine so it thought it was quite appropriate for her to wear it that day!

The older boys said it was SO cool! I really hope this is something that they remember from their childhood! 

Dad was so happy that we could all be there to experience this amazing event together! 

This was the shot I took during the totality! It was so crazy how cold it got! See the yellow glow on the bottom of the picture. That's how it looked all around. It was like the sunrise from all directions. An owl even started hooting. Pictures don't even come close to doing it justice...even those fancy professional ones! The glow was so beyond this world really. On the upper left side it glowed purple it was so beautiful! Of course it was over way too quickly....probably less than a minute, but it is most definitely something that I won't ever forget! 

The kids and I didn't stay around very long after the sun started to peak back through...maybe 30 minutes. I wanted to get back to Cody before traffic got bad. Later on that day I was watching the news and I saw how awful the traffic was going home to Washington from Oregon and I was glad that we didn't experience any of that!