August thus far

After unloading boxes to our new place, we unpacked enough clothes and toilettes to repack for vacation at the grandparents house two days later. Wild times! Here's some shots from the week in SD and a few from happenings around the house. Enjoy. We've absolutely love the trail behind our house that leads to 3 different playgrounds. It's great for stroller rides, dog walks, biking, skateboarding, and leisurely walks (my style). We are discovering it is truly an asset to our place! Here's Kai cruizin' along the bike path. Every time he takes off his helmet and has sweaty hair he is very proud! It indicates a good ride! Now when he rides his bike to the playground from home, he keeps his helmet on while he plays. I'll soon be needing to disinfect it each use!!! Here's the 3 musketeers! Kai almost 3, Addie 15 mo. and Eli 8 wks. The next 2 pics are from Pactola Lake. We hit the rocky beach to let the kids romp in the water. They both loved it. Kai mainly threw muddy sand on himself and dug along the shore. Addie just liked to walk into the little waves and back out. Daddy and Addie swimming together. Addie is sporting the "alfalfa sprout" hair! Grandpa and Kai did a bit of gardening together. They checked for produce almost daily during our visit. Here was one of the harvest times.....lots of zucchuni and cucumbers! It's amazing how much more willing toddlers are to eat veggies when they have some kind of ownership in them! I bought zucchuni at home and fixed it...Kai wanted nothing to do with it. Derrick and I took the kids to the creek to "dip our feet" one HOT day! As you can see in the pics, it ended up as more of a "dunk" session! The kids were left with only dry diapers and a smile afterwards. Here's Kai and my cousin's son, Henry at a downtown weekly festival. They had a kids section with crafts set up....so now we have a brightly colored paperbag beaver. Grandma and Grandpa have a bike trailer to pull Kai and Addie along the path....they weren't diggin' it in the 90 degree weather!! We went to Bear Country USA while we were there. Here's Kai posing with the biggest bull elk we've ever seen! Piggyback rides through the bear cub exhibits. Wolf hat....not her style. Buffalo hat.....our own Davey Crocket look alike! Eli and I observing the grizzlies. He is alert like this so often when we're outside. I think I will have another outdoorsman!! A family shot....it's a rarity. Mom and all the kiddos posing by the train at Storybook Island...one of our favorite places to play at Grandma's house. Addie entertaining at Great Grandpa Ernie's house. We've really logged the car time this month.....Daddy assists with the last leg of our trip. Seven and a half hours quickly turns into 12 hours with the 3 kiddos! Every stop averages an hour. I think we'll stick close to home these next few years!! LOL

On the Move

Yes, it's been a long month of house hunting, changing addresses, packing, cleaning, and unpacking.....quite the process, but the troops have made it through and we now are in our new home in Colorado Springs---ALMOST done with the unpacking, cleaning, and organization of TOO MUCH STUFF (I'm sure you've had this feeling if you've ever moved!) Thanks to everyone who helped us pull this move off----the Ponderosa "muscles" (pictured above but not all inclusive), BA and LA for doing jobs friends should never do...even good friends LOL, Uncle Kyle for picking up any slack and chasing K & A all week, and everyone else who babysat, etc. We literally could not have done it without you! You were a blessing. We did plenty of car travel between the two houses and during the house hunting phase....this was one of Kai's many questioning faces, "can we go to the park Mom?" Poor kid. We got desperate enough to pull out the portable DVD player to watch Thomas and Elmo for entertainment. It just made things that had to get done much more pleasant! A few shots taken through the whole process: My brother Kyle helping pack up and load !! LOL Kidding bro....it was really helpful having you chase kids and thanks for letting us use your truck! Eli's camp chair crib at the new house during the cleaning day. Derrick steam cleaning the carpets before moving day! With little ones laying, crawling, and probably on ocassion finding bits of food all over the floor this was NECESSARY!!! This video is Addie and Kai during house hunting and in rather good spirits! ." WEll, thanks again for everyone's help during our transition. We're blessed to have you as part of our lives! It was very bittersweet leaving camp. We were so blessed with the beautiful countryside and crew there. We will miss "camp life." But we feel very confident God has called us elsewhere to mentor kids and reach them for Christ in the skateboarding community through FCA! We are loving our new place and will slowly call it "home."