Welcome to our World

Homecoming week was even more fun with half of our kids in high school.  For instance, when Kate and Danny went to the powder puff game, Coach Prime (Deion Sanders) was there to watch his niece play.  The high school me was so happy for them!  I told them to enjoy this year of having him around because once his niece graduates in the spring you probably won't see him at your high school again.  Of course knowing he had been there made it even more fun to watch CU beat Nebraska on Saturday afternoon.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Friday afternoon I was so grateful to get to help take some of our ssn students out to watch the homecoming parade so that I could see Danny on the basketball float aka trailer.  He had gone with C the day before to help make the signs.  Natalie got to walk over from the elementary school and Michelle, of course, got to watch from the middle school like I did.  That evening I helped with the football game concess...

I was lucky enough to have a day off work on my actual birthday. I asked Hubby to skip work that morning and hang out with me after we got the kids off to school.  I felt so spoiled to get him all to myself and above is a photo of one of the outcomes of our morning: a delicious gluten free/dairy free 4 layer chocolate cake with raspberry filling.  We all agreed it was so yummy! Since the timing was so close I kind of felt like joining sister-in-laws on a girls trip was a part of my birthday.  They were going to Austin, Texas for a PopCast live show. I didn’t know anything about that podcast but I had enough airline points for a plane ticket so I decided to go along for the ride. The final group ended up being three of Hubby’s four sisters and two of their daughters for a total of six of us.  AmyLynn found an apartment to stay in with a great location and we would scooter or Uber our way around if it was too far to walk. And since it made it to about 101° out every da...

It’s hard to believe it had been 10 years since we moved into the house we had built for our children.  With all the rain we’ve had the trees and weeds have grown like crazy, telling us yes, we have lived here a while. This is the longest the kids and I have ever lived in one place and I am still so grateful Hubby picked this place out.  Natalie redid our fairy garden after helping me pull weeds and I am so glad we still have that fairy garden magic here. Oh, and we threw a neighborhood potluck in the pocket park to celebrate 10 years but only 2 other families showed up. It was still lovely and now I’ve learned that a simple Facebook post isn’t enough to get the word out. Natalie also got to celebrate a wonderful friend’s birthday before school started with a morning of ropes, zip lines, friends and food.  All of my teenagers went to the county fair at least once with friends and now we can all say we’ve watched the Barbie movie at least once. Exactly 10 years to the day ...

It’s fun to quote the Village People and they are not wrong!  We went glamping with our family for Fist City 2023.  Hubby did an amazing job taking over the planning and organization when I decided I couldn't handle the tech free way the YMCA was doing things.  If they could just get some good software/website on their end, I could recommend planning family reunions there to everyone!  Of course the best part was being with family in a beautiful place doing lots of fun things but it was also awesome to not have to cook and have nice long windows to get food around the activities we had scheduled. I am so grateful Hubby's family was willing to drive out and meet us closer to where we live.  Our first activity together as people got settled into the lodge was to have a campfire with s'mores.  Then it was time for three full days of adventure!  First up, rock wall climbing, which made me want to sign Michelle and Natalie up for the local climbing gym. ...