Julee's Coming Home!

Julee will be home on Thursday morning! I am sure we are looking forward to her return more than she is. What GREAT fun she has had with Grandma and Grandpa Bear, Jay and Ali, Kristy and Garry, Cindy and Kevin, Jenn, Kylie, Zoey, Noah, Sammy, Stone, Tyler, Nikki, Kim, Tiff, Scott and Marianne, Maycee, and Parker. She also saw a lot of people in Grandma's ward that knew her even though she didn't remember them.

Julee, Kylie, Noah, & Zoey

Julee and our friend Robin (Julee said it was kind of weird to talk to somebody she doesn't know who has known her since she was born)

Hodge Podge Post

Today I have a hodge podge set of pictures to share.....no real theme involved........

Alexis has been practicing taking self-portraits with the camera-she's getting pretty good.

The church has a missionary ad campaign in our mission where they put up billboards. This one is just up the road from our house.

Alexis cruising on her bike.

The Fashionista

Alexis is looking quite fashionable in her new church outfit. She has been growing out her bangs and looking much older without them.

Strike a pose!.

The GREATEST day this summer!

Alexis and Rick went to the The Great Escape Amusement Park and Splashwater Kingdom this week. They spent the whole day in the waterpark! In this video, Alexis is explaining how she already went down the green slide and now she is going to go down the yellow slide. I think it is so funny how she keeps waving......

Alexis said she had the GREATEST time! Sure looks like she had fun!

Luke - the Warrior

So, last night my good friend Cindra and I decided to take a little road trip to go see the Hill Cumorah Pageant which is in Palmyra, NY (http://www.hillcumorah.org/). The drive is a little over 3 hours each way. We took off around 4pm and were there before we knew it (easy to do when you have good company and conversation). We got dinner from the concessions at the pageant ~ hamburgers and the famous YUMMY! salt potatoes. They are white potatoes boiled in salt and drenched in butter. A must have for pageant goers.
As any LDS person knows, it is a small world when it comes to meeting people in the church who know somebody that you know or are related to. We were on the lookout for Luke - a teenage boy that Cindra's daughter (who may never speak to us again) met when they lived in Atlanta and has been emailing with for about 3 or 4 years. We asked every cast member we ran into if they knew Luke. They all laughed and reminded us that there are 716 cast members. But, we perservered. We promptly ran into one cast member who is in the same word as Cindra's Uncle Pete. Just after that we ran into the brother and sister-in-law of a member of our ward. As we were sitting talking to some other cast members, I realized we were talking to Larissa Engle, one of the daughters of a family in our former ward in Arizona. Still, nobody knew Luke. Some teenage boys walked by and we asked them if they were Luke. They weren't but they knew who Luke was. They told us he was playing a warrior ~ EXCITING! We sent them off to search out Luke and send him to talk to the crazy ladies laughing in the second section back. What do you know? Those boys came through and up comes Luke ~ warrior costume and all! What a nice guy he was! He pointed out his place in the scene he was going to be in and he gave a stellar performance!

Of course, we enjoyed the pageant - it is definitely a moving experience. We were back on the road just before 11pm and home by 2am. You'd think we were 20 again, staying out all night......but we're not and I'm TIRED!

Spider Girl!

Alexis is definitely our adventurous child! We turned around this afternoon and she had scaled the bathroom wall. Who knows what other super powers are in store....

Julee's Summer Trip Begins!

At this moment, Julee is the most excited 11-year old on the planet! Yesterday she hopped on a plane to spend part of the summer in Arizona. She was so excited to be able to visit her "fun family members" as opposed to those of us who are not so fun? Her absence is already apparent around our house. It's amazing how much quieter it is when somebody is missing. We hope she has a great time, but we will miss her. Have fun Julee!

Julee and Alexis share a friendly moment at Applebee's before Julee leaves.

We went and had lunch with Dad so Julee could say goodbye before she left.

Excited to be on her way.

Off she goes........and yes, mom cried.

Nameless No More

Woohoo! Life as we know it can move forward. We have established our identity and will no longer be considered nameless. Thanks to all of you for your suggestions and input! It was a long (3 whole days) road, and we look forward to blogging with purpose and pictures! Stay tuned........