Cool Desert Nights

Cool Desert Night's is one of Richland's funnest weekends! This year John was home so we had a parrrtyyy! BBQ and then one house down to watch the Cool Desert Nights car parade. I'm not sure how many vintage cars there were this yr. Last yr there were 800. It was a blast. We'll have to make this an annual thing!
Heather and Cassidy

Nicole and Steph, watchin' the cool cars

Two of my boys :)

Friends

Well, this week has been increadibly social! 2 parties at our house, 2 dinners at friend's houses, 2 friends in town that I don't get to see much that we got together with, a baby shower, church, BUNCO, and some friends came and stayed the night! We say we are blessed to have so many awesome friends, although John might start to want some say in next month's social calander :)

Here are pics of Lilly and Berg, when my friend Mo came to visit. Hopefully I'll also get some pics of our "cousin party", when I finally get them off mom's camara.

Father's Day

We had such a great Father's Day this year, and since John had been in Iraq for the past two Father's Days, we deserved a good one! The kids and I woke John with breakfast in bed and the Sunday New York Times. Of course, there's no way you'ld eat breakfast in bed with these kids bouncing all over you, so we moved to the table....it's teh thought that counts..right? We then made it to church, came home and watched most of Mysterious Island....one of John's childhood faves. It was a terrific day for a terrific dad!

Big Brother Luke

Luke and Chloe are real "baby kids". They have always loved babies and been very good around them, so of course, they LOVE little Zach...and Zach seems to love them. He gives them lots of smiles and sometimes talks to them, which they are increadibly excited about!

The Circus

Well, the poor economy has hit the circus hard, I believe. They were down to 2 elephants and employees must perform at least 3 different acts and serve consessions during intermission. I can't say I was thourly entertianed, but it was all worth it for the kids, who went to my parents afterwards and tried a few daring tricks. Mom finally quit watching them, I'm not sure if we should take Luke to any more circuses for his own wellbeing. Brady boo (my cute nephew) adn my sister, Carinn, went with us too.

The Multitasking Abilities of a Stay at Home Mom

John is now official "off payroll", otherwards know as "unemployed". I've been picking up a few more hours at my job while he has taken up my roll of a stay at home parent. Although he is much better with the kids than I am (in my opinion), and usually accomplishes quite a few things in one day (when he puts his mind to it), I'm often hearing, "you just really can't get very much done with this many kids". Between the two of us the basic cleaning, grass cutting, yard work, multiple 1/2 finished projects, bills, toys, boys toilet misses, diapers, dishes, endless piles of laundry, car cleaning, deap cleaning, and other typical household duties of a stay at home parent, just never seem to quite be caught up on. I think if we had maid who did nothing but cook, clean and take care of the children, we still wouldn't be "caught up".

A visit from Goyke

John's life-long friend, John Goyke (Goyke), came to visit....in a 31 ft motorhome, which he is currently living in. I have decided that this is also what I want to live in when my children have left the house, then I can drive around the country bugging all my friends and family.
Goyke got board after awhile, and luckily, he cured his bordem by fixing the broken part of our sprinkler system...which I was quite happy about :) He also had to show John up on his grading abilities (picture below), as we were leveling an area in our backyard. Goyke and John happen to always end up with a random adventure or two, and when they went to see the windmills they somehow drove 2 hours longer into the middle of Oregon, were first responders to an accident, pulled an almost all-nighter, and had endless arguments about nothing.

Last day of school

Here's Chloe and her friend at the "End of the Year" school party. On to the 1st grade :)

Pirates and the end of the school year.

Today was Luke's last day of preschool Chloe's will be on Wednesday. Today they celebrated thier ocean unit by dressing as pirates. John thought we should make them modern pirates, by making them look Somalian and equiping them with AK-47s, but we decided to stick to the older pirate dress. Chloe was a 'pink pirate" (how fitting) and Joel, of course, had to dress up too :)