Through it all, I know the choice I made to marry this awesome guy, was the best choice I have made.
Life isn't always perfect or pretty, but when you have someone by your side to stand with you, it makes the journey easier.  Happy Anniversary sweets. I love you and all your silly, lovey ways.



P.S. For the first time in our marriage, we are celebrating our anniversary by watching a football game and eating wings + pizza (we have never really been sports fans). Sometimes you gotta mix it up.  

We had Jaymie from Swan Falls Photography take some updated family pics a couple weeks ago.  We loved the results, she did a fabulous job. Here are just some of them.

I bought a great book about a month ago that has 100 hikes around Boise. It has a great map and what age kids it is appropriate for.  I decided it was time to try out one. We have found we really like hiking together-it's good exercise, gets us outside and we live in a really wonderful area for hiking.  Did you know Outside magazine rated Boise the #1 city to move to?
So we loaded up, stopped at Stan's in Boise for lunch-he has a hot dog restaurant by BSU and is from New york.  He flies the hot dogs in daily-they were pretty good.  So once properly fueled up, we went to the hills around the Old Idaho Penitentiary. We picked a semi-easy trail-Hannah is still a little iffy on the steeper parts.  The day was beautiful, clear blue skies, a nice breeze.  We hiked around lots of rocks, such a pretty view. 

No wonder they call Boise the "City of Trees".

We could all see the Old penn from that high and thought it would be fun to take a tour.  It was built by stone in the 1800's and is one of only 4 territorial prisons in the nation.  We had a great time, it was a great learning experience for the kids.  Tons of history everywhere.  It was a good day :-)

The buildings are made of all stone and have lots of detail.

Where the women went, it was pretty small.  It housed one of the first women serial killers in the late 1860's.

Taylor is one of the main 3 story prisons.

This block was small, but next to it was the hanging room with a chute.  Creepy.

Solitary confinement, AKA "Siberia".  Mike nicely locked Taylor in one to give him a "realistic" feel.

I decided to see how the bed was.  What you can't see in this pic is this is one of the older buildings with no indoor plumbing.  The honey bucket was on the right side of picture in a little hole in the wall.

A cell in the Women's Ward-it had a homier feel than the others.

Are you singing the Jefferson's theme song yet?
Taylor didn't actually move "up,  more like down the hall a bit.

Taylor's old small green room.  It felt cave-like, and see all the Lego Bionicle pieces on the floor?  We have some new storage systems in place in the new room so hopefully my bare feet won't have to step on the Bionicle pieces.

We decided since Taylor had the smallest room in the house and the guest room that is only occupied a couple times a year is much bigger, it was time to move him.  The guest room was actually supposed to be the office when we picked out our floor plan for this house and has no closet, but that is okay because my super talented, handy-man hubby is going to build one.  In the meantime, Tay can just use his old closet that was re-organized. 

Taylor wanted a blue room, so I picked a very light blue-grey color-hopefully this can take him into the pre-teen years.  After him and Mike picked the color of his old room (grass green) six years ago, I decided it was my turn to pick the blue :-)

Now he has lots of light and space to spread out.

See that rocking chair in the left corner?  Taylor got that from his Grandma when he was 2 and will NOT give it up. I think it's pretty sweet.  Hannah has been eying it for years.

We painted over the weekend and moved his stuff on Monday.  He is really excited to have more space.  He spends a lot of time in his room building bionicles and star wars lego stuff and since he got a desk in February, does all his homework there.  He is the kind of kid that really loves his space and enjoys being alone with his favorite things. I still need to get curtains and hang up some shelving but we are pretty much done.

Now on to the new guest room, and painting over the green and moving everything back to there.
It never ends when you have a house.  But I like having two "new" rooms freshly painted and organized.

I've had some time to do a little cooking, and here are some recipes to try:
Yummy chicken pot pie here , complete in those cute little ramekins (Hannah loved it.)
Banana snack cake over here
Ellie over at Food Network has some pretty good energy bars here (I am the only one eating them)
and Giada De Laurentiis has a couple great lunch box recipes Hannah and I are making here (scroll all the way down for recipes).

Two websites I am enjoying lately:
Knock-off wood -really awesome plans for making furniture that looks just like the stuff at Pottery Barn.  According to Ana White, who makes all these plans and is a "homemaker" in Alaska-anyone can do it!

I get to try products from this local company that I have done some work for (when you get to the home page and see the label on the Tamanu Oil bottle-I did that :-)

and finally

....stay tuned for more on our Labor Day weekend project...somebody in our house is getting an "upgrade".

Woohoo! We had a great summer, as always, and now my FIFTH GRADER and SECOND GRADER are back in the saddle again. Or in their case, back on the bike.
Since they are all grown up, they are riding their bikes to school this year.  You can't imagine the excitement over bikes locks!  With keys!
Oh the joy of the first day of school: picking out clothing-okay Hannah was much more excited over that part, and putting on new backpacks-Taylor was really happy with his new messenger bag, new shoes. Meeting new teachers and friends. They were both a little nervous but by the time they got home, they were fine.
I woke up with a horrible headache, so my wonderful husband took the kids to each of their classes, met teachers, dropped off supplies and gathered all necessary paperwork.  I am very thankful to have a hubby that so easily steps in where I can't-I'm glad we believe in team work!

As I write this post, the only noise in the house is the washing machine. Wonderful.
Now on to grocery shopping, by myself.   Then on to working-with no interruptions.
I have to say though: I am glad to see their happy faces at 3 o'clock every day.



And the second day of school:

The end of August means summer is going to be over soon.  And I am always ready for it to end.  Don't get me wrong, I love the sunshine, the swimming, less schedules, going to bed later, walks at night because the sun is still out....but I also LOVE fall. It's my favorite time.  I get to settle in like a hibernating bear and enjoy the kids at school, baking, more time to read and prepare for the quietness of winter.  My very sweet mother-in-law found me an elliptical trainer, so it will offset the extra calories from all the baking nicely...

Anyways, what was I talking about? Yes, on to August and the last week.  My two big brothers both came for a visit this summer-I was so lazy and got no pictures of Rob's stay in July, but here are some of Sean and Chinatsu's stay.  Hannah really loves Chinatsu-talked her ear off the entire time-make that we ALL loved having Chinatsu come with Sean.  The family vote is that we would all like there to be a wedding invitation in the mail very soon.
Mike celebrated turning 35 (!), and Hannah is losing teeth faster than I can blink. 

Mike opening one of Hannah's packages

Mike wanted a berry cobbler instead of cake-good choice!

The three boys, I love this picture of them.

Rendi brought over ladder ball and everyone had a good time.

Mom enjoyed the game from the sidelines knitting.

Karsten entertained us with some songs.

The happy couple....

one front tooth gone

and look at that, the other one is gone,too!! Her 's' sound pretty cute!