Cross E Ranch

Fall is so much fun with kids. We were able to come down to Utah to go to Cross E Ranch with my sister Suzanne, Phin, and Millie back in October. This place was a huge hit the previous year with Kate. The ranch added more activities to their schedule and we had such a blast. 

Tractor tow. It was so fun to hear the kids continuous giggles while they rode. 

We loved the addition of a slide, even though it ripped a hole in Kate's pants 

Despite Harvey's look on his face he really enjoyed the hay ride.

 The corn box was amazing!  Harvey was constantly sucking on corn which he enjoyed. We loved burying the kids in corn (and finding lots of corn hidden in crevices of their body later) Harvey is 11 months in this picture

my attempt at a group picture

Preschool

Kate started Preschool September 2016. The anticipation leading up to school was very fun. She loved going to the store and getting her school supplies of crayons, markers, glue, scissors, and most importantly her backpack  The class meets twice a week for 2 hours. It is the highlight of her week. She has the most darling and creative teacher Miss Ang. She learns lots of songs, letters, shapes and even the pledge of allegiance that she can say all by herself. Kate loves being in charge of bringing treats. This has been such a good experience for her and me since it was hard to leave her for a few hours. We already enrolled her in the older class for preschool next year!

Random summer photos

We had a great summer. One of the things that kept us busy is we bought a zoo pass to our local zoo. We loved it because it also got us in cheap to the Idaho Falls Zoo and the Hogle Zoo. Our zoo it Pocatello has only animals that are native to Idaho. Our favorite was the grizzly bears.

we loved walking with peacocks at the zoo

 We kept busy with lots of activities. One of our favorites is the free workshops Home Depot puts on for the kids on Saturdays. This one below Kate put together a pink firetruck.

 We loved visiting the Cassia county fair with the Preston's. Uncle John was great at helping the kids get close to all the animals.

 We spent a lot of time at the park down the street, Harvey couldn't get enough of the swings.

We loved our garden. We worked hard and loved reaping the reward. This year we had strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, carrots, beans, snap peas, cucumbers, tomatoes and peaches from our tree.

A wedding

Joe's younger brother John got married at the beginning of August to the wonderful Hanna Picket in the Twin Falls, Idaho temple. These two are wonderful for each other. She is from a small town of Oakley, Idaho which is close to the hometown of Burley. I am so happy she is in the family!

Preston Family

I love this picture of John and Kate so much. Kate was being her usual self when it comes to being in front of a camera. She wanted nothing to do with having her picture taken. John wanted a picture with just her, and uncle Tom had to bribe her to smile. Tom told her he we would give her a dollar if she smiled. The perfect smile was captured, and uncle Tom paid up. She went around waiving her dollar in the air while Joe sang "I got a dollar"

Love my little family

Grandma Nae (aka Gammer) and Grandpa with Kate and Harvey

Grandpa was helping Harvey get a good look at the flowers and bees

My Lover!

Lagoon 2016

There are so many reasons why I love Lagoon. I love the memories I created there when I was a little kid, a teen, and even a college student. It is still so fun to spend time there. I love having Kate and Harvey ride the rides that were there when I was a little girl. I remember how fun I thought it was to go around and around in a boat, or pretend that I was driving a car. It is so fun to see the Joy that Lagoon brings to my children. I love going and spending time with my family. Kate loves going and riding on rides with her cousins, she always has more fun when she has a cousin side kick. I'm sad I didn't get any pictures at Lagoon a beach because that was such a hit with Kate this summer. We were able to make it to Lagoon a few times this summer. I was even able to ride the new ride Cannibal for the first time this summer. Kate always tells me how brave I am when I go on it. I love that Lagoon is figuring out the rider swap for parents. My goal is to get Lagoon to create a mothers room to feed infants in semi private like Disney does. Until that happens I will go and enjoy Lagoon as much as I can. Thanks Dad! Here are some fun pictures from this summer. 

I think it is safe to say Kate and Phin LOVE eachother!

Kate's Birthday

Back in August our little girl turned 3! Yes, this happened 6 months ago and I'm blogging about it finally. It's no secret I'm behind.

My friend owns a backyard water slide and we were able to rent it for the day and had lots of other 3 year old over to play in the water and jump on the trampoline. It was super easy and a hit!

Later we celebrated as a family. Kate said she wanted a princess cake, and so I tried my best, and came up with this simple cake where her princess figures were able to stand on.

How is it possible that she is 3?

Philippines

This last summer we had the opportunity to host 2 wonderful women from the Philippines. The local University here was hosting an international choir festival and in an effort to help the singers from around the world asked members of the local community to volunteer to take them in as family for a week. Choirs were coming from all over including, Ghana, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Georgia, Costa Rica and Poland, A clip board was sent around in my local ward with a sign up sheet and I felt a very strong impression that I needed to sign up. This is not something I would typically do. I had so many excuses as to why I should not, but I felt guided by the spirit that I NEEDED to do this. We fell in love with not only the wonderful girls we got to host but also their whole choir. We became groupies and were at all their performances. 

Meet Ana Marie and Isabel. They have been blessed with beautiful voices. They speak perfect English. Ana Marie is a minister, and Isabel owns a coffee shop. They both attended the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philippines. And studied music. 

I had to laugh because they called me their foster Mom.

 Their choir ranges from age 18-55. They are the sweetest people. They all loved Harvey, and he loved the attention. Carlo is the guy holding him in the picture below He was frequently stealing Harvey and every one would ooh and ahh at him.

One custom in the Philipines is that no one besides parents should hold babies. The belief behind this is that a bad spirit will stay behind with the baby. So if the baby is help by a friend and has a bad night crying it could be blamed completely on being held by the friend. Probably the reason why they loved Harvey is because they know Americans don't believe in things like that and so they could get baby cuddles.

These girls were very funny. When we got them and we were driving to our house and got into our neighborhood one of them said, "This is like the houses we see on the movies!" 

When we got to the house I was showing them around our house and told them they would be sleeping upstairs because our basement is unfinished. They told me "Good, we are afraid of the basements. In the movies bad things happen in basements."

They were shocked with how peaceful Idaho is. They live in very populated areas. One of them even lives on the 22 floor of a high rise building. 

Ana Marie and Isabel were busy, we took them in the morning to the University and then didn't pick them up until after their night performance. We did have a couple partial free days with them. 

We learned a lot about customs in the Philippines. One of the popular custom is if you go on vacation you must bring a little something back for everyone you know. It didn't matter if it was nice, but it was very rude if you didn't. The dollar store and Walmart were a hit with these girls. 

Customs in the Philippines are interesting. They told me a woman is not to bathe or shower after giving birth for 1 month. Luckily a lot of women do not uphold this tradition.

I liked cooking for these girls when I had the opportunity. We always got to eat breakfast and dinner together. In the Philippines they eat rice at every meal. We took them out to dinner one night and they could not believe the portion sizes. They commented that their meal alone could feed her whole family back home. It was fun to also cook for them our favorite meals and hear about their favorite meals back home.

It was fun to watch these ladies experience things for the first time like jumping on the trampoline.

Here is one of handsome Harvey at 8 months old

We had such a wonderful week with them. I am so happy I listened to the spirit and went out of my comfort zone to participate.