Family Reunion

Our latest family reunion was held at the City of Rocks National Reserve in southern Idaho. It was a beautiful place. The campground was surrounded by mountains, but the impressive things were the huge rocks all over the valley. We enjoyed doing a little hiking and sight-seeing. Jonathan's absolutely favorite thing was getting wagon rides from anyone that he could convince to take him. Generally, that meant he would take someone by the hand and say, "Come on," then would lead them to the wagon. The funny thing is that whenever one kid got in the wagon, any nearby kid would pile into the wagon as well!

Jonathan thinks he is getting too big for help from Mom and Dad. He tells us all the time, "Me turn" or "Jonny's turn." On this hike, he wouldn't hold my hand, but he would hold cousin Mary's hand!

Moving, Part 2

These pictures show some of the ways that Jonny has "helped" us move...

sitting in the boxes/containers (notice the pillow and cup of milk)...
riding on the hand truck...


and using Daddy's drill.

I spy with my little eye,

one small guy,

where it's not very clean,

watching Lighting McQueen!

(his favorite)

By the way, we are down to just a few boxes in the house...but the shed is another story!

Moving, Part 1

I'm sorry that I haven't kept the blog up to date lately. This has been an exhausting three weeks! We bought a new house more than a year ago but were waiting to move until Chris was finished with his degree and I had finished up the school year. It was my bright idea to complete a state-to-state move the weekend after school got out. I clearly was not realizing what a chore it would be to clean and pack up my classroom, on top of doing final report cards and all of the fun end-of-the-year stuff that an elementary school teacher gets to do. After packing up 13 years of teaching stuff, I was exhausted and did not even want to touch the house! (By the way, I stopped counting boxes of books when I got to 10!) I am looking forward to being a stay-at-home mom now, but I will miss teaching. I cried when I told the students that I wouldn't see them next year, but it was amazing how happy I was on the last day of school! (The top picture shows Jonny at school with me and all of the kids on the last day of school.)