BBQ season begins!

This is my favorite time of year, because I love spending time outside. I love working in the yard, spending time at the pool, and having barbecues. We had a barbecue last night with our friends. Usually we start having barbecues in April, but because of the weather, we had a late start. We had an enjoyable night with GOOD steaks and homemade rootbeer.

Here are some cute pictures of the little 1 year olds. I took a million picture, and I couldn't get one with them all looking, atleast they were good and sat for a little while. Here they are sitting oldest to youngest. Abigail is on the left, she is 3 weeks older then Gavin and Carter, Gavin and Carter were born on the same day, and Brielle is 2 weeks younger then them. Yes, that is my son having the tantrum...I love how the other three are looking at him like, "What's his problem?"
We can't forget about Braxton. He loves his little friends.

Summer Vacation...here I come!

Tomorrow is the last day of school! I have had so much fun teaching this year...I'm sad to see it end. I never thought I'd have a job where I was excited to go to work everyday. I had a really great class, and I'll really miss them. I had a great partner I worked with, who will be going full-time next year, so I'll really miss working along side her. My new partner will be a lot of fun, so I'm excited to work with her. Summer...here I come!

Winding down

Well, this school year is winding down. Only one more week! This last week we had our 1st grade program where we sang about having good manners. The kids were great! It was also teacher appreciation week and I got spoiled with A LOT of flowers and plants and candy. What sweet kids I get to be with everyday!

One of the dogs

One of Gavin's favorite places to hang out is on the dog bed. I catch him in their room laying in their bed every once in a while. He also likes their toys, and they like his..aah, the joys of having dogs.

Bee's Game and Dinner

We went to the Bee's game yesterday...the Jr. Bee's Game. Damon has been having fun learning how to play baseball. Yesterday it was his last game, so we all went up to watch his game. It was also my Dad's birthday, so we went out to dinner after to Famous Dave's to celebrate.


We all pitched in and got my Dad an ipod. My dad walks to school everyday when it is cold and rides his bike when it is warm. He has done that for as many years that I can remember. When I was in Jr. High, I remember having to always run to catch up to him (I was a little slow). Not too long ago, he was given an MP3 player that he loved listening to when he would walk to school, but in the cold it doesn't work very well, and the battery doesn't last very long, so he was pretty excited about his ipod shuffle.

Roxianne

Casey's sister, Tiffny, had her 5th baby on May 5th. We were fighting colds last week so we finally were able to see little Roxi today. It was fun holding a tiny baby...it is hard to think Gavin was this small! Gavin wanted to touch her, but he doesn't know how to be gentle, so I had to keep a close eye on him.

Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's Day! Casey made me breakfast, which I think he cooks better then me, so it was good! Later, we went to visit family and talk to Logan! This is his last phone call before he comes home. It was god hearing his voice. Only 45 more days and he comes home!

For Mother's Day, Casey got me flowers for the yard, so on Saturday I was able to plant some of them. I love this time of year!

Welcome back puppy!

Gavin loves stuffed animals, but his FAVORITE stuffed animal had to take a trip to the washer because he thought it would be funny to throw it in the dog water. After I washed it and gave it back to him, he hasn't let it leave his side. He carries it wherever he goes. I think it is cute that he is attatched to it, but I'm glad he isn't too attatched that he can't sleep or go anywhere without it.

Laundry

Gavin loves it when it is laundry day (I don't share the same feelings). The first thing he does is climbs into the basket and then starts pulling things out of the basket. Someday Gavin, it will be your job!

He's cruising!

Gavin loves his little Clifford car he got for his Birthday. He can go pretty fast on it!

Tullip Festival

Since Monday was SO nice, we decided to go as a family to Thanksgiving Point Gardens to see all the tullips. It is my favorite time to go to the gardens!

Gavin REALLY wanted to touch the tullips.
This is a picture of the kids a year ago....
This is them today...
Kylie loves little Gavin

Playing with Brady

I watched my friend Ashleigh's little boy, Brady, on Monday. It was so much fun to see Gavin as "the big boy". He liked Brady, and kept wanting to poke his eyes. He thought it was pretty fun having a friend over to play with.

Slow and steady, wins the race....

Well, I didn't win the race...I didn't even come close to winning, but I sure was slow! I did my first triathlon on Saturday! It was quite the experience, but a rewarding one! My whole goal was to finish the race without stopping, and I did that, so I was very happy!

For those of you who know me well, know I am NOT athletic AT ALL. Autumn is the athletic one out of us girls. When she started thinking about doing a triathlon a while back, I thought, "Good for you, but PLEASE don't ask me to do it with you". Of course I never said that, and she never asked. But one evening when we went out dinner with our friend Tracy, who did track with Autumn up at the U (so you know what kind of athletes they are), she tried to convince us to do a triathlon with her up at the U. I gave it some thought, and I knew Autumn really wanted to do it, but really wanted someone to workout with her, so I thought I'd atleast workout with her, but there is NO WAY that I would actually do the triathlon. When I found out that it is ONLY a 300 yard swim, 8 mile bike (off road) and a 3.1 mile run, I thought that it may be do-able, so I decided to train and do it. Thanks to Casey, Autumn and I were able to train almost everyday for the last two months. Casey would watch the boys while Autumn and I would go workout.

That morning, I was NERVOUS! We met Tracy up there, and she kept saying we'll do fine. I wasn't worried about the swimming or the running, but I was really worried about the off road biking, because we had never trained off road. I did the swim fine (minus the girl who had to pass me because I was slow and the other two girls close behind me), biking wasn't too bad, it was actually fun! Beautiful view and it was fun going down some of those hills...going up, wasn't much fun! The last part was the running. I quickly dropped my bike off and started to run. My legs felt like jello, and I was really worried they wouldn't be able to stay strong, but they did and I ran the whole 5K without stopping. The best part was the end, after coming up a hill, seeing the finish line, and seeing Casey, Gavin, Autumn (who had finished long before I had), Doug and Braxton cheering me on!

Thanks Autumn for pushing me to do this...it was a neat experience, and for the first time in my life, I was called and athlete.


I just got finished swimming, now I am quickly putting on my clothes ready to start the bike ride.

haha...don't you love my pink bike? This was the bike I had in jr. high! I think it was the only pink one there.
Casey and Doug were so supportive. Here they are waiting for us...what good husbands we have!Gavin came to support me too
Can you see my big smile? Almost to the end!
Crossing the finish line
We did it!!

Cooking with the Dutch Ovens

One thing I love about Casey, is that when he gets excited about something, he gets REALLY excited. Well, he just got him some new dutch ovens, and has been having so much fun cooking in them. The first night we got them, he wanted to make his Dad's famous dutch oven recipe's: baked beans and mountain man breakfast....so we made both of them. Two interesting meals to have together. The next night, we had my parents and Autumn and Doug over for the Jazz game, so we had a BBQ with baked beans from the dutch oven, and then I made peach cobbler in the dutch oven. Yum!

Swinging!

We put a swing up in one of the trees in the backyard. Gavin LOVES it! If he is in the house, and is looking out the window and sees the swing, he points and says "Oooh!"

Sleeping Baby

One morning I put Gavin in his swing so I could get ready, and I came back to this...

Another day at the park!

On Friday we took another trip to the park. Gavin had so much fun climbing the stairs. He even went down the slide a few times on his own! He doesn't quite have enough courage to go down on own, so I have to push him. He thinks it is so much fun.

Trying to figure out how to go down. Some day we'll get it!