s.c.h.o.o.l

i must say the first day of school this year was a little bit nerve racking for me. one kid was easy enough...keeping papers straight, packing snack, being at the bus-stop on time...but with two...i think my head is spinning a little bit already...and this whole day thing...wow! i don't know how you people do it that have full day kindergarten...that would TOTALLY stress me out...

we managed to get out of the house on time...we even arrived at the front door before 8:35 a.m. yeah for us...i do kind of cherish our walks to school...jogging stroller in tow. no one else gets to do it in our district...and it's fun time to chat about things...important things...like why we don't say "this word or that" and un-important things like who forgot to brush their teeth. ;) i know we give people a good laugh...but i am totally okay with that. kaden and kaycee marched in good and nervous, but an excited nervous, which was so nice to see. i didn't have as much of a breakdown this year, as last...not sure why? but i am okay with not totally crying. it feels good not to cry sometimes. :) (you cryers out there can totally get my drift, right? )

kaden's favorite part of today was "art"...yeah...specials in first grade. so cool. kaycee's favorite thing was "crafts" now that's a shocker. :) they each even saw some kids in the hallways they knew...and get this...they said hi. so fabulous. at bedtime tonight they both told me they were still nervous. kaycee is nervous about getting her color card changed...she doesn't know if she remembers "all" the rules. (if they misbehave they get their "card" changed first to yellow, then to red, and then to orange...each with their own set of consequences)... kaden got his card changed to yellow last year twice, once for calling out, and not raising his hand, and once for putting his game away early...she hadn't told him it was time to clean up. yikes. mrs. schempp, she is great...but she runs a tight ship...wow. i wish kaycee would be that nervous at home...concerning the rules i mean. :) and kaden, well...he's nervous about when his teacher leaves them...like today...she took them to art, and then she didn't stay...she left...and then came back to pick them up...bless his heart! he really loves his teacher. thank you JESUS. yay. my prayer for this year was that he would be placed in a class where he would T.H.R.I.V.E. i am believing with all of my heart that that is already happening...even on this first day. yay. again.

dismissal is at 3:25 p.m. for kaden...he arrived home at 3:50 p.m. with 7 busses behind, and cars in both directions...totally bizarre. now how can walking out the back door, thru the yard, NOT be safer than that?

i was praying like crazy all day. it felt good. it really feels good to know my kids had a great first day. it won't last i know...but i am glad and thankful for today!

are you too busy?

 1. do you fold socks (or perform any household task) after midnight?
 2. do you skip meals to fulfill responsiblities, (or stay skinny?)...just kidding. i
          added that last part. ;)
 3. are you ever late because of overlapping responsibilities?
 4. do you travel over the speed limit even when you're not in a hurry?
 5. do you feel torn between family and responsibilities?
 6. do you fall asleep as soon as you sit down?
 7. do you drink coffee/caffeine to stay awake?
 8. do you get sick easily?
 9. do you fight irritability?
10. do you have difficulty sleeping?
11. do you lie awake worrying about things you need to do the next day?
12. do you feel guilty if you do nothing?

here's the scoring:

if you answered yes to 4 or more, you're dealing with symptoms of a stressful lifestyle.

if you answered yes to 6 or more, it's time to evaluate family and spiritual priorities.

if you answered yes to 8 or more, take back control of your life.

                  (-T.Suzanne Eller, Today's Christian Woman, July/August 2000)

just because...

this makes me laugh E.V.E.R.Y time.

and to all the moms of school age kids out there...here's to a great year!

*strasburg railroad*

we decided to use our *free* kids strasburg railroad tickets today, from the library summer reading program. trying to jam pack some fun stuff into this last week of summer. oh...makes me sad. :( but what a great, great summer we had...

moppy and poppy joined us. we then had lunch at isaac's with a *free* coupon of kaden's...he got a bunch of extra cool stuff this year...{the program gets better when ya turn 7 and actually have to read on your own} :) and then poppy took kaden and kaycee to the choo-choo barn on another *free* family pass i had { a girl i graduated high school with owns the place...oh, the perks. :) }

good-bye.

this afternoon we will celebrate the life of matt's grandma...

Pauline Martin,

who passed away last Tuesday.

We rejoice in her life, and are sad that she is gone, but know that

she is without age and pain now, rejoicing with the Lord...

we will always remember grandma...she was a hugger...{as you can see}

she always hugged you and said she was praying for you,

or love you. love you. love you. :)

she was spunky and independent.

a prayer warrior who loved her family immensly.

we will miss your smiling face great grandma, but will treasure our

memories forever.

what a great life-giving service...each of grandma's children spoke of their mom...can you imagine? i could never have gotton through it, but they did so great! they spoke of how their mom wanted a very simple service...she wanted each of her children to speak, and the grandchildren to sing, and the message of salvation to be spoken. check. check. check.

sometimes i take the easy way out. :) and while it would have been easier to leave our kids behind, it was important to moppy and poppy that they be there, so...a toy bag was packed [my husband thought un-necessarily...but i see nothing wrong with some quiet amusements to get them thru a service...we will never see eye to eye on that one... ;) ] and off we went. they did extemely well. kaycee lost it at the graveside...this was before the actual memorial service.  so much...that i had to take her aside...she was crying and gasping for air. oh...my little heart broke, so then i had to cry with her. i know death shouldn't be a sad thing, but there is something very sad about never seeing great grandma's face again, never feeling her hugs, or hearing her voice...so...we will continue to talk thru the hard questions death brings up with our children and hope they can see the light...

tHe bEaCh.

Ocean City, New Jersey

wednesday, august 18- thursday, august 19, 2010

call it the year of my vacations. call me spoiled. blessed. lucky. or agree with my husband that i am living a lavish lifestyle. whatever you call it...i was fabulously thrilled to be able to go to the beach with this unique group of friends i put together. just for one night. just for a breather. for fresh perspective. for a break. for some sun...which FINALLY came out on thur. morning after a day and night FULL of rain. {huge bummer}

                     we are women who are used to ADJUSTING...
                            and making GOOD use of our time...
                               we shopped...and saw a movie...
           {most of us N.E.V.E.R see movies in the theatre...E.V.E.R.}
                 and stayed on the beach until 6 pm...it was a.w.e.s.o.m.e.
     there was triplet girls...with two moms :)....beside us, and a pregnant mom      with two littles in front of us...i guess we were just noticing the    kiddies....because we didn't have ours, and N.O.N.E of us were pregnant or        nursing...THIS is VeRy UnUsuAL. :)
                         it was kinda nice to go to the beach with                       
                                 one chair, and one bag. so.nice.

    so...we fell in love with julia roberts all.over.again. she's just so   
                     f.u.n. well...and beautiful too...i guess?  ;)

[they got a little mixed up with some God concepts...but all in all...i

                     thoroughly enjoyed it...besides freezing in the theatre, i mean.]

                            ***remember to pause "my music" before you try to watch this.***

we laughed a lot. cried a little. read a bit.

and even fit in some running on the boards.

we missed the families we left behind.

but connected in a way that only this get-away allowed.

**********************

i honestly don't know how wives of years ago survived.

they didn't relate with women like i relate with women.

they didn't share their struggles and tragedies, their broken dreams, and their disappointments with each other. they kept things bottled up inside and somehow kept a smile on their faces.

they worked really hard in the fields, and cooked, and cleaned,

and pleased their husbands.

how.did.they.do.it?

they surely make me look like a failure.

*************************

thank you daryl, seth, matt and nolan for keeping

peeps on the kids and allowing us the freedom

and opportunity to get away.

we love you all so deeply, and

are striving to be the best wives and mothers we

can be. i hope your wives came home

as invigorated and tan as i :)

thanks again and sorry we were late...

prayer.

God listens to my prayers

 wherever i am.

whether i am walking, driving across town, or sending a prayer heaven-ward from my computer, he delights in hearing from me, not just once a day, but throughout the day.

as psalms 40:1 and 34:15 say, God turns to me and his ears are attentive to my prayers.

i became even more excited about the effects of praying continuously when i noticed that throughout the Bible, God used short prayers to accomplish great things, such as raising the dead or parting the red sea.

it dawned on me that though it's wonderful to have extended sessions of prayer, short prayers can also have a big impact. that encourages me to pray throughout the day. prayer puts me in touch with the God who is in charge of everything and who promises to be faithful.

~from renew...a christian magazine for women.

what an inspiration for me this morning. sometimes i get discouraged...i am not a mom who has a specific "God" time set aside each morning. i know it's poor and pathetic, and i have no excuses, other than it's not a priority...but i just don't right now...

however, i am the queen of praying...anywhere, anytime, a lot throughout the day, so this calmed my spirit today. enjoy the day ~mk.

august f.u.n.

                       bubbles.

                             6 c. water to 3/4 c. dawn dishwashing detergent.

for HoUrs of fun...

                    we are always happy to have cousins here...although kaden
                                          looks a little punky, eigh?

"an octopus" drawn by campbell (3 1/2 yrs)

and my latest handful of pure delight...calli (22 months)

                                                   yep...pure delight. smiles. :)

our motorcycle trip. part II.

View our motorcycle trip- part II in a larger map


oh. i guess life has taken over. again. it's taken me so long to get to this second post of our trip, but i decided TODAY is THE day that it must happen. i mean...it's august already. my summer has like F.L.O.W.N. by. it's craziness. for real.

[this post will cover june 20-june 21, 2010]

i just spent a little over an hour on the above map, and it's not quite what i had hoped, but it's going to have to do. i cannot afford to spend any more time on it. :) it is not quite right on some of the roads we travelled, but you get the idea.

so...we had a yummy breakfast at a quaint little restaurant called the egg and i, i think?, with my cousin, shelly and her husband matthew, on Father's Day morning...we then treked off to the denver international airport, matt on motorcycle, me following behind in the truck. after navigating thru that GINORMOUS airport, we found an appropriate parking spot, tucked the parking ticket inside, and tucked the keys away on the outside, :), and we were off.

my man was IN his glory. what more could he ask for. his three FAVORITE things in life: a) his motorcycle, b) out WEST, and c) me of course!  ;)

we drove thru Colorado Springs, home of Focus on the Family...{ i love their programming by the way...although we did not stop}, and drove thru Garden of the Gods...so cool...{most of my pics from here are on the flip...which i did put together a way cool movie of our trip...someday i may post it? :) } then thru woodland park divide and cripple creek...this is where we ate lunch...

these people had just re-located this cajun restaurant from new orleans. good food. quaint town. donkeys roaming the streets, casinos lining this desolate street...really not much around. a mining town of some sorts. then thru buena vista, poncha springs, and gunnison- where we strolled thru the streets window shopping and splurged on some expensive ice cream cones. they were $4.80 each. yikes. :) we then proceeded to montrose, where we originally thought we would spend the night, but since we both still felt good, we continued on to Ridgway, CO.

we stayed at a "green" adobe style lodge. the hostess forgot to mention it was so green that there was no air conditioning, but it actually was fine. it got freezing cold during the night, we could actually see our breath in the morning when we went for a walk...

most of the shops were closed, which was a bummer, because they looked really fun, and infact, the only place open to eat, was an authentic mexican place...so that's what we had. kaden called on THIS night crying. i was devestated, so i cried of course too. i think matt was in disbelief...he knew it would be hard on me, and the kids...but this was only sunday...we had a long way to go. :) there's nothing really like being halfway across the country and hearing your little man on the other end sobbing. it just broke my heart. i knew in my mind that he was having fun, and i also knew bedtime was going to be the most traumatic, but still...

monday morning we woke up at 5:45 am...you wonder how we travelled 3450 miles in 8 days of riding, it's because my husband hates to sleep. for real. it's really i guess a good trait, MOST of the time. :)

met some lady who wanted me to see her baby goat. turns out she's going to go to the supreme court fighting for her right to have chickens in town...oh my. totally eccentric lady. anyway, left ridgway, co after breakfast, and proceeded on to telluride, co...fabulous, rich and famous ski resort...we just missed the big blue grass festival, and allison krauss, big downer, but what are ya gonna do?, drove thru rico, co, and then cortez, where we met up with matt's brother, mark, for lunch. mexican of course. :) that was kinda fun.

i left off before about matt doing something to the kickstand while unloading...well, it needed to be welded, so we tugged along behind mark to his first client  he had to visit, and helped ourselves to his welding equipment. what a riot.

we continued on thru the "four corners" (i believe that's of: CO, UT, NM and AZ). but the monument was baricaded off, so we met more people on motorcycles, and continued on thru kayenta, AZ arriving at our final destination for the evening of: Tuba City, AZ.

Rode thru the deserts of Arizona this day, where the temp. ranged from 110-115 degrees. Rode thru our first dust storms, which wasn't too much fun, but this should hopefully be the first and last of that. We did see smoke from the wildfires burning in Flagstaff, AZ, which was wild.

We met a gorgeous couple from Israel at our hotel, who were also touring on motorcycles. they were on their honeymoon, will be for a couple months. we chatted in the lobby for a couple  hours. it was pretty amazing. this man's grandfather survived the holocaust, and her grandfather had been a spy...crazy stories. made me once again thankful for my blessed heritage.

we had eaten mcflurries for lunch. it was so hot, we weren't really hungry. every rest stop/restaurant around was manned by Indians. Lots of road side stands set up selling beautiful pottery and jewelry. made me sad...i wonder about their families they are trying to provide for, and whether they gamble all their money away, at these casinos that are in the middle of NO WHERE.

and from my journal, " ...anyway...we feel great. i really must have a great seat. my butt does not hurt at all. we are having so much fun. no responsibilities, and it's so fun to see matt TOTALLY in his element. it's been a long day of riding. it's 11:11 p.m. and i am beat! xoxo. mis."

kaden's 7th birthday bash...

we had lots of fun with family, celebrating kaden turning 7!

family beach shot.