Bird's Eye View

On Pioneer Day, everyone gathers at the football field in Monroe to watch the fireworks. But this year we got a little something extra. There were eight paragliders flying around up in the sky. Just before it got dark, they came down, circled the crowd a few times, and landed in the adjacent field. Pretty cool, huh? And I'm sure you've already guessed my surprise ending. One of those eight was our favorite paraglider - Jef!

He took the camera up with him, and here is a sample of the pictures he took from 12,000 feet up.

This is a view of Duck Lake, Big Lake, Deep Lake,
(such clever names)
and the mountains behind Forsytheville.

This is the top of Cove Mountain.
You know, the one that says IN.

This is a picture of a paraglider.
Oh, and that mountain is cool, too. ;)


Looking down the crevice you saw on the left of the last picture.
(also Cove Mountain)

This paraglider is easier to find.
And that's Monroe in the background.

Pioneer Day

Well, we started out the day by watching the parade and collecting LOTS of candy.

Then to the park for some crowded fun.
First is pony rides...

Then on to the blow-up activities.
(The rides are blown-up, not the participants)

Then Cannon wanted to ride the Penta-Whirl, so Jef went with him.
Can you believe it? Jef riding someone else's Penta-Whirl?
It's just not right.
We also enjoyed a few churros and snow cones.

And, of course, we finished up with fireworks.

HAPPY PIONEER DAY!!!

Color a Rainbow

I bought some crayons at the back-to-school sale, and my children have been playing with them ever since. Not coloring with them. Oh, no no. Just playing with them. Making rainbows, and patterns, and just arranging them in all kinds of fun ways. Who knew that crayons were so much fun?

Short Hair

Oh my gosh, I cut my hair!
Cut it clear off!
And I have to say that I love it. But not everyone shares my opinion.
Cannon cried.
Emily said I looked "scary."
Jef said it would take some getting used to.
But let me just tell ya...
It is a glorious thing to feel the wind blow through short hair.
And my shower time has been drastically reduced because I don't have to wash 20 lbs. of hair.

And it takes me about 1 minute to do my hair.
Who wouldn't love that?

Swimmer Winners

We hurried home from the reunion so that Ben could go to his last swim meet. It was the big invitational, and there were seven teams there. Ben and his friends won first place medals for being the fastest 8 & under freestyle relay. Wahoo! Yeah, Ben!

Are You My Mother?

We attended the Anderson Family reunion on the 18th, and had lots of fun. But I must say that the highlight of the whole reunion was our production of Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman.

I'm sorry that it's a little dark and a little far away, and you can't see the faces Lydia was making at her audience. It was so funny. She was scrunching up her face at them after they laughed at her, and just totally playing to her audience. Where does she get that from, anyway?

Sadie Nicole Irish

Congratulations to Lisa and Shawn!
(and Dudey, and Andre)

Sadie Nicole Irish was born July 17th

She was 9 lbs, 9 oz. Wow!
Isn't she adorable? I just love that little lower lip thing they do.
So cute!

4th of July

OK, so I realize this is a little late, but this whole computer crash thing has really thrown me for a loop. But here, finally, is my account of our Independence Day.

On Independence Day Eve, (the 3rd of July), the city hosts the Children's Parade. Every kid in town decorates their bike, or their wagon, or their stroller, and gets to ride down main street. It is insanely crowded, way too long, and very very hot. But the kids love it.

On the 4th, we headed for Koosharem.

We watched the parade and ate candy,
ran in some races,

Played Bingo,
Got wet,
And took a nap or two.
Happy 4th of July!

S.O.S.

This last weekend we had TWENTY people staying in this house. This 1200 sq. ft., one bathroom house. Jef's sister and her family were staying with us for the holiday weekend. So we borrowed the parents big ol' trailer to put people in. But when we tried to plug in the trailer's cooler, it drew too much power and tripped the breaker. Somehow this managed to completely wipe out the hard drive on our computer. The computer guys are still working on a data retrieval, but it's not looking good. At all.
We now have a new hard drive in the computer and our long week of living computer-less is finally over. I was quite shocked at how hard it was.
So now we're starting over with a blank computer. We are definitely missing some things.
Like our..
Programs. It is so weird to have such an empty desktop. And re-installing and re-downloading everything is a huge pain and takes HOURS.
Financial information. Bye-bye QuickBooks. Luckily we've backed up recently, but not recently enough. I'm going to be entering a lot of transactions.
Emails! Already I've thought over and over again about this email or that email that I wish I had. And all of your email addresses are pretty much gone.
But most of all:
MY PICTURES!!!
I am so sad about my pictures. Two and a half years of my children's lives are gone. True, I have printed some, and thank goodness I've been posting pictures on my blog for the last nine months, but there were so many others. It just makes me heartsick.

So here's where I need your help, please. If you could please email me (stefanie at skaterace dot com), so that I once again have your email address, and also if you have any pictures of us from the last two and half years, I would be SO excited to have them.

And do me another favor: Take this very moment to back up anything of value on your computer. No, really. Just do it.

Birthday Presents!

Happy Birthday to Me! I started out the day telling everyone that I was 29, but they all laughed and said, "Ya, right." So I decided it was better to tell people I was 30, because when you say you're 29, they all assume that you're really 39!


I know I got a double stroller for Mother's Day, but some people are just never satisfied. I wanted to go faster. So for my birthday I got a bike and a bike trailer for my little girls. So cool, huh? The bike was actually given to me by a friend, and the bike trailer was from Jef.

Ready for a long funny story? Jef hooked up the trailer for me and left for work the day after my birthday. I decided to ride it over to school lunch, drop off Jennie, go the bank, and then home. Well, I immediately discovered that pulling the trailer was HARD. It felt like it weighed 100 lbs, and I was dragging it. By the time I got the school, two blocks away, my muscles were burning, the sweat was pouring off me, and I was thinking, "Man, I'm not going many places with this thing!" So I dropped Jennie off, and headed to the bank, which is across the street. It was another two blocks to home after that, but I walked the bike for the last block because it was so hard, and I was dying. I was kind of bummed, thinking that we should probably return the trailer because I'd never be able to pull it any distance at all. So I unhooked the trailer, rolled it a little, andwas surprised to find that it is SO light. Then I tried to roll the bike. The front wheel would not move at all. I had been trying to ride the bike with the brakes on!
Well, thank goodness I'm not the world's biggest wimp, but now what do I do about my bike? Jef finally came home and took a look at it. Turns out the handle bars had been turned a full 360 degrees, and the brake lines were wrapped tight around the bike.
Oh.
So all I had to do was turn my handle bars around? That's all?!?!
So I'm not a wimp, I'm just not so smart, is all.

The next day I rode it two miles with the trailer on, and it was SO easy! Yeah! And on Monday we went on our first ever family bike ride.

P.S. This second picture is of me about to fall over because I'm trying to go slow for my picture. :)

---

You know how in the move The Scarlet Pimpernel it says it was taken from Baroness Orczy's TWO books, the Scarlet Pimpernel and El Dorado? Well I got El Dorado for my birthday! Yeah! I know, you wanna read it, too. But you'll have to get in line because Katie's first. :)

Super Swimmer

Ben has been going to swim practice three mornings a week this summer, and the other day we went to his first meet! He did a great job, and brought home 1st & 2nd place ribbons. His backstroke is definitely his strength, and it was fun to watch him. Good job, Ben!

Budding Photographers

When I went to use my camera the other day, I discovered that it already had 96 pictures on it. I couldn't remember having taken that many pictures recently...

Because I didn't!

My children had been using my camera! Here is a sample of their artistic genius. (Save these. They may be famous someday.)

"View from a Curly Q"

"Into the Wild Blue Yonder"

"I Believe I Can Fly"

"A Wild Hair"

"Instant Replay"

"Air Guitar Champion"

"Use the Force, Luke"