A visit from Nanna and Auntie

We were so happy to get a visit from Russell's mom and sister in August. The first thing we did was meet them out at Willow Grove Beach after the kids had their pictures taken. It was quite a chilly August evening, but we had fun anyway. Somehow I didn't manage to get the camera out while the adults were there, but this is my favorite picture of the kids. Ammon and Sissy are holding up their "watermelon smiles" and BJ is trying to do what they are-- but doesn't quite get the concept! Nanna and Sarah-beth took the kids to OMSI while Russ and I got to go to the temple. It was a great day-- and we also had fun browsing at The Rebuilding Center, where everyone went home with something.

They were able to spend Russell's birthday with us. We still celebrated low key as usual-- a few presents and some creme brule with blackberries instead of cake. His big present was an Ipod nano, which I almost never see him without now!

And here they are about to leave. It really was too short a visit, but it was still great. I hope they come back again soon!

A Little Magic

Ammon took a magic class with parks and rec last month. He has had a bit of an interest in it since I did some in one of my Webelos meetings. He really had a lot of fun, and learned some pretty good little tricks. This class really made me realize though how far he has come socially in the last couple of years. After the first day he told me that it was the first time that he wasn't nervous or scared to do something new. (Hurray! If you only knew how hard some things have been for him!) Then the last day of the class they did a little magic show for the families. They got to choose what tricks to do and how long to spend on stage. Ammon was the last one and I was nervous for him, but he was not nervous AT ALL! In fact, he really hammed it up, did more tricks than the other kids, and had a great time with it. I couldn't believe that was my Ammon. Way to go, my little magician!

Seattle!

I finally found my pictures from Seattle. They have been missing for a while. I was so disappointed to realize that I had left my camera in Idaho. Except that well, the kids were left in Idaho too, so I guess it was worth it! The kids had a great visit with Grandma and Grandpa Moore for over a week. I wish I could say that Russ and I got some good R&R, but that wasn't really the case. We spent a majority of the time working our tails off on the house, getting things like tiling and painting done. It was quite productive without the kids being around. We did however escape to Seattle for a couple of days. It was wonderful for me-- I had nothing to do. Okay, nothing I HAD to do. Russ had an AVMA conference and spent most of his day hours there, but we had some time to spend together. We saw Othello and went to the temple, and of course walked Pike's Place Market. While Russ was at the conference, I wandered the Seattle Center (where I got poured on), went to Theos chocolate shop, saw the bridge troll (see pics below,) and did some salvage building supply shopping (I love the RE-store!)

We were able to find this little Moroccan restaurant that we had visited over 3 years ago when we came out for interviews. So yummy! We were however a little disappointed that they gave us forks even though the menu says, "forks available by request" and we didn't request them. Oh well. We did get to sit on the floor.

The troll under a bridge:

The troll's view:

I will hopefull soon post some pictures of our remodel. But it is so close to being done now it seems silly to post pictures of "almost done."