Dahlia Farm

Last weekend Crystal took us to the Dahlia farm that she had found. I had never heard of a Dahlia so if you haven't you can check this out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahlia

The flowers were falling off the plants so we had some fun with them as we walked through the farm. They let you walk through and see what varities you like. They mainly sell cut flowers locally and Bulbs over the internet.
There were a million pictures I could have put up. This was the family favorite. It is called Cheyenne. We loved the orange and yellow. There were ones named after Katie, some that looked like big golf balls. I had never visited a flower farm before. It was fun!

If there are flowers laying around on the ground you might as well juggle them! These flowers were very firm and stood upt to the ordeal pretty well.

We spent about 90 minutes walking through the flowers and oohing and ahhing over the colors and varities. They only grow Dahlias at this farm but it was amazing to see how many different types, sizes and shapes they had.

"Gonna ride that sheep."

The Puyallup Fair is a big deal in our new town. In fact, the school let all the kids out early on "Fair Day" Wednesday and gave them a "free" ticket. I decided to take them all and let Dan meet us after work. We had a fabulous time! The weather was perfect and all the people were so nice.

Some of the high points were;

• Getting our faces painted for free, woo hoo!




• Riding the Ferris Wheel, a first for the kids.




• Seeing the carnival lights come on at dusk.




• Looking through the art and photography exhibits and picking our favorites.




• Listening to Chas trash talk about mutton bustin'. "I'm gonna ride that sheep" Well, Dolly the sheep took care of tough 'ol Chas pretty quick but he had a lot of fun!




• Taking Barjona, Kristi's fish, along for the crazy ride.



• Riding the shuttle from the mall to the fairgrounds. Every time we see a city bus, they say "Look, the fair shuttle!"

A two day fishing trip with Dad

I just got home from a two day fishing trip in Swan Valley, I hooked a few fish and no worms were lost in the process. I went with someone from Amcor and a 4 people from a trucking company in ID. We had great first day and floated from the dam to the bridge, we got off the water just at dusk, finishing a good day. We stayed in Swan Valley the night and got up went to breakfast at the Angus Drive In across the street from the square ice cream store. As we walked in door I looked around to see if I knew anyone there (I always look around for people I know when I am in IF) and there were a couple of guys that looked familiar and they were looking at me like they might know me, then Dad turned around in the corner seat and said hi to me. Apparently he had told them that I looked like me as I got out of the car... it was rather odd to meet him there.

The really funny part of this was that we floated the same stretch of the river on Friday (being semi retired he got a early start) we stayed in the same hotel (a 7 room hotel) we ate breakfast at the same place and floated the same part of the river on Saturday. Dad out fished me about 20 to 1, but that's about normal, he is a great fisherman.

Now that the four brothers all live on the same side of the Rockies, maybe we should talk dad into going fishing with us to teach us a few of his secretes.

Dan's 35th

This post is kind of late but I couldn't get the picture off Dan's camera! We decided to make Dan a blackberry cake in honor of all his blackberry adventures. He has canned blackberry syrup, blackberry jam, and blackberry pie filling. It is all soooo good! We are so lucky to have him. He is an awesome Dad and husband! Unfortunately, even though this cake looks pretty it wasn't the best tasting cake I have ever made. Kind of a dense spice cake with fresh black berries. Definitely not as good as a dropped angel food cake so I will go back to that next year!

Shelby's 14

Happy birthday Shelby. For her birthday she got to take 6 tests at school. She did not think that was very nice of her teachers. We all went out to dinner at olive garden it was the first place we went to eat after she was born 14 years ago. She is planing her big present to get to spend some time with just her and Grandma and Grandpa. She is picking out the days now. She is also quick to point out that she now gets to go to dances, and is only 2 years away from dating.

Columbia River

Since Dan had already gone on to Puyallup, this is the only picture we have of us on the last leg of our continental journey. The kids are wearing some very special WA shirts made for them by their cousin Shelby. Thanks Shelby! That was really nice! Whenever one of us is feeling sad about leaving sweet Georgia, we just try to remember how nice it is to be within driving distance of family. We can not wait for October to get here and get some hugs from Grandma and Grandpa!!!!

Dad at Work

Grandma shared this photo with me... I thought you'd all get a kick out of it as well.

A couple of days of my Project 365

9-24-08 Today was a very stressful and taxing day. One of the highlights of the day was working with the kids at one of my schools. A difficulty with handwriting that is common with kids is reversing letters that look similar. For example, "g" and "q" or "b" and "d." I was working with two kids to create a story or a funny image that would help them to remember which way the letters were supposed to face. This is a picture of one of the student's work. The art on the left is a depiction of the word "bad." The two letters are facing each other about to fight and the "a" in the middle is the referee stopping them from fighting. We used the saying "it's bad to fight" as the inspiration for the image. The "q" is on the right side of the art. We had a hard time coming up with something for "q" and finally settled on making it into a queen and pretending that the line curving back would be the queen's dress flowing behind her. Even though it wasn't as creative, the kids thought it was pretty funny to put a crown and feet onto the letter "q." Next week I will test to see if the fun, silly, memory techniques worked.
.
.
.

9-25-08 "In motion" That phrase describes well my day. I started the day by driving almost an hour to Herriman to help out with my first UAAACT evaluation. I then drove to Riverton and bounced around the school there talking to teachers and aides to coordinate services for the kids. From there I rushed to another school several miles away to observe a student in his class and then rushed back the school in Riverton to see one of my students before he went home. I then rushed to Sandy to see several of my students whom I had not yet seen this year and it was imperative that I get their program going. By around 3:00 PM, I was finished seeing all of the kids that I could see because the last bell was ringing at all of the schools I serve. By this time I finally had a moment to grab some lunch and then back to the office. I set my lunch on my desk and then went to check my mailbox. While checking my mailbox I noticed that one of my colleges (whom I had needed to talk to for several weeks) was in the office so I sat and talked with her for some time. By the time I got back to my desk, my lunch was cold and soggy. I left work soon after and ran several errands en route to home. But before I could make it home I ended up at Julie's house with Melissa and her kids doing piano lessons. It was a nice chance to relax a little bit and enjoy some of the great friends in my life. I took this picture while at Julie's house. David was doing some laps as a mid lesson focus exercise.

One House Family

I don't think I mentioned this to anyone yet but our home in GA sold as of last friday. We are relieved and amazed it sold so quickly. We know we were blessed and that many prayers were answered.

I am actually back in GA this week for a work project and I drove by the house. It was funny to see other peoples cars parked in the driveway.

The family that bought it was a young family with one kid. I laughed to see a stroller on the front porch because our moody neighbor across the street told us she didn't want any more kids in the neighborhood! It was such a good home for us and our kids that we were happy for other kids to enjoy it.

I have been joking that we are now poor because we are down to just one house! Instead of the two homes we owned in August and September!

Mosaics

I've recently downloaded a program that can make mosaics out of your photos. Here are some that I have made that I thought that you all would enjoy!

Liberty's Surgery

Liberty had eye surgery on Tuesday. She had a problem with Strabismus(eye deviation). The doctor thought it would be better now than later. She was pretty good in the hospital. She had a lot more swelling than we were prepared for, but she is doing so much better today.

Liberty and her dogs. The one next to her is her best dog Chocolate Sunday a gift from her Grandma.







Liberty before surgery and her new dog they gave her in the hostital his name is Deke.

Liberty after surgery she has have ointment in her eyes twice a day she hates it but she lets us put it in.

She had to wait a long time go back to surgery so the nurses let her drive a toy car around. The Glasses were a gift from the nurses.