Happy 13th!!!

Today is mine and Blake's 13th Anniversary. Wow, how time flies!! Our celebration this year was pretty uneventful because of my busy school schedule and us being back on a student budget, but that's quite okay with me. Blake is always sooo good to me. I think sometimes I take for granted just how great of a husband he is because he is ALWAYS so amazing to me. He has been sooo supportive of me, especially moving across the country so that I can pursue my dreams and has been great the past couple of weeks with my school schedule. He does the laundry, cooks, grocery shops, everything ~ and never complains! Not even once, instead he is always asking me what I need. How amazing is that! I am a very lucky girl to have found such a wonderful husband who seems to love and adore me!! I love and adore Blake as well, and truly appreciate the wonderful husband and father that he is. Happy Anniversary Baby, I love you!

He even made this delicious chocolate bundt cake! I was very impressed, but unfortunately forgot to get the picture until after we'd eaten half of it!! I'm telling you...he's the best!

You know your poor when.....

You know you are on a starving students budget when your husband is asking you if your old scout shirt will fit him. Hahaha! Needless to say, he went out and bought a shirt that fits. Thank goodness he's not that cheap!!

2 weeks down, 102 to go!

Well I have made it through the first two weeks of school. Yay! The first week doesn't really count because it was only orientation type stuff. This week however, we have been taught TONS of information! All I have been doing is studying, studying, studying and I still feel like I should be studying some more. I like what I am learning though, especially the gas machine class. I had my first experience with a gas machine checkout yesterday and I loved it. Good thing too because I will be doing it everyday I work for the rest of my career. So far, so good - I'm hanging in there.

Finally....Double Digits!

Today is Gage's birthday and what a milestone birthday this is for him! He has been looking forward to it for months because it would mean that he is "finally in the double digits." That day has finally arrived and today he told me that it feels good to be in the double digits. I'm not really sure what he means exactly, but I'm pretty sure I was probably just as excited as he is to be in the double digits when I was turning ten. So Happy Birthday Gage! We love you and are so happy that you are a part of our family!!!!! Here's ten things I love about Gage (not in any particular order):

1. His smile.
2. That he is a momma's boy.
3. That he loves to cuddle with me or give me hugs.
4. That he is a great big brother.
5. I love the way he looks so adoringly at Eliza when she does something cute.
6. That he wants to make good choices and tries to do what right.
7. That he trusts me enough to open up to me when something is bothering him.
8. That he is a great friend to his friends.
9. That he cares about others and tries to do nice things for them.
10. He's not afraid or embarrased to tell any of us that he loves us.

When the boys got home from school Blake had a note on the door that was a map written with pictures directing Gage where to find his birthday presents. It said that he would find his presents where a cute girl was hiding with them. Gage and Max started scouring the house for Eliza and eventually found her underneath the bathroom sink hiding so quietly with his presents. I was impressed because she can never stay that quiet for very long. Especially when it's a surprise, she gets too excited! They all had a good laugh when they found her and thought it was pretty fun. I thought it was very cute of Blake to think of doing that to make Gage's birthday even a little more fun for him. He got a new Xbox game that he had been wanting, some checkers, and his very own set of golf clubs. He was pretty excited about that. Later on we took him out to dinner for Chinese, his choice, and then we had our first Pack meeting for scouts here in NC. When we got home from scouts we had brownies and cookies and cream ice cream - Gage's favorite! Happy Birthday Gage!

1st Day of School

Yesterday was the kids first day of school. They are at a new school this year, Southwest Elementary. School starts early here, 8 am, so I was worried they would all be grumpy when we woke them up, but they woke up easily. Blake took them to school for their first day, but today they wanted to try the bus and they liked it so I guess they will be riding the bus from now on. The boys only complaint about their first day of school is that they didn't get lockers. They were soooo looking forward to having lockers, but I guess their grades don't get them. My only complaint was that I didn't get to take them to their first day of school because I too had to go to school, but it did give Blake the opportunity to experience first day fun!



Eliza wanted Blake to take all kinds of pictures of her. She asked for one of her by herself, one of the monkey on her backpack and some of her by her locker.



Today is Gage's birthday so Blake surprised Gage and took donuts to school at lunchtime for his class. Gage told Blake, "Dad don't do this, I'm too old for donuts at school" so Blake decided to ask Gage's class. He said to the class, "Gage thinks you guys are too old for donuts,is that true?" They all started yelling for donuts, so I guess that means they're not. Gage didn't seem to mind in the end. Where is my little boy going??? He's getting too big! I guess he couldn't stay my little guy forever!

Updates...

Last night was open house at the kid's new school. They were able to walk around and see the school and meet their teachers. Eliza has Mr. Vest who we heard from a friend here is amazing and every kindergarten class has an assistant teacher so that is very nice. Max has Mrs. Winters and Gage has Mrs. Vance. They all seemed very nice and I think that they will be good fits for our kids. I found out that on one of their extracurricular days they teach Spanish. I like that, I think it's pretty cool that the school offers this. In North Carolina kindergarten is all day so Lize will even be there all day! What will Blake do with all of his free time???? The only bummers about this school is that it starts early, 8 am, and it only goes to fifth grade. Nothing major, but I know our kids are not going to want to be waking up before 7 am and it will just make things a little more difficult for Blake next year, having to take the kids to two different schools. The kids are really liking it here though. In fact, just a couple of days ago Max and Eliza both asked if we could stay here for a long time.

I started school on Monday, but it doesn't really seem like it yet. This week was basically just orientation. Next week is when all of the fun and learning will begin and when you probably won't see me blogging for awile. I'm going to have to have Blake take over. We'll see how that goes!

Eliza said something I thought was pretty funny today. I was sitting next to her while she was watching a movie on her portable dvd player as she turned to me and said, "Mom see this girl, she is incredibly full of herself and wicked mean." It was funny to hear this come from a little five year old. I don't know where she comes up with these things sometimes.

Eliza Claire

Eliza was invited to a birthday party today for her new friend Bryce. It was a costume party and this is what she decided to wear. I thought she looked just adorable and she was feeling pretty cute as well so I just had to take a picture of her.

Sliding Rock & Grandfather Mountain

Last week we went camping in Brevard, NC at Sliding Rock. There is literally this long rock that you can slide down, but the water is freezing. Not Utah cold, but still really cold! Blake, Gage and Eliza all slid down the rock. Max didn't want to because the water felt too cold and I was going to, but Eliza decided that she didn't want to go again after we were almost in line. By the time I took her back to Blake a big group of boys arrived and the line was way too long. We had a great camping trip. Sliding Rock was the main reason we chose to try out this campground, but we also went on a few hikes and saw some amazing waterfalls. Our first day there it rained pretty hard. We are learning that in NC, always be prepared for rain! We had a tarp with us and put it over our tent so our things wouldn't get soaked this time and headed out for a hike with our raincoats on. What an adventure!! It turned out to be really fun hiking in the rain. While we were hiking Max said, "I don't know where I'm going, but I'm happy!" So cute, I just love that kid! Always so happy go lucky.
This was on a suspension bridge during our hike, but you can't really see it very well.
Sliding Rock....



Blake's face is confirming that the water is quite a bit chilly!
We stopped for lunch and had a picnic in this big grassy area. Eliza was running and tackling Gage. He was loving all of the attention from his little sister.

Blake and Max were playing catch....
Playing in one of the smaller waterfalls we hiked to....


The kids each wanted to take their own picture with mom. Max's turned out really dark though. They are all loving having me home every night. I thought they would be sick of fighting over me by now, but not yet. I love feeling loved!!


This is the largest waterfall we have been to between the two of our camping trips so far. It was beautiful.
Gage really should have been born a polar bear. He LOVES being in the water and it never matters to him how cold it is. He is always the first one in and the last one out. He was the only one of us who swam over to the falls. He swam pretty much right under it, which scared me because he looked like he was struggling a little from the weight of the falling water, but he said it was just really cold.

Awwww, so sweet and tender ~ a big brother helping his little sister across the rocks so she doesn't get hurt.
The boys looking for fish and crawdads.
This was supposed to be of just me and Blake because we hardly have any pictures of just the two of us. Sweet little Lize wasn't going to have any of that though, she snuck right in.
Isn't this so cute of Lize and Blake? And how about that waterfall???
Here's the crawdad that Blake caught for the kids. Max actually found it first and we were all calling it a mini lobster until Blake corrected us and told us it's a crawdad. I didn't know, I've never seen one before! Max misunderstood what he had said though and kept calling it a crawldad. It made us chuckle!
Gage mustered up some courage and picked it up after a couple of attempts. I tried to touch the back of it's tail and it whipped around so fast with his claws up ready to attack. I know it's small, but I still didn't want to get pinched. Blake and Gage were the only ones brave enough to pick it up.
Back at camp, Gage with his traditional camping beard....
Eliza putting the choker on her dad without a care in the world. She likes to rough him up.
Here she is with a caterpillar. The girl loves bugs, well certain ones, and insisted on taking this one with her.
On our way home we stopped at Grandfather Mountain where we walked across the mile high suspension bridge, visited their small museum, and saw some wildlife that they have in their nature preserve. We fed some bears, which the kids really enjoyed. The view from the suspension bridge was really nice. When we got across the bridge, Gage was not at all comfortable up that high and kept getting mad at Blake for jumping around on all of the rocks. It was cute that he cared so much about his dad's safety. We didn't stay up there long because he was pretty anxious to get back down. At least he was a good sport and gave it a try, he's never been a big fan of heights.



Typical Eliza fashion, getting carried on a hike.