Friday, September 22, 2017

Vacation to Idaho Part 1

I fully intended to post this weeks ago. A couple things happened though and it just kind of got put on the back burner. The minor things. Lightroom did something crazy and re downloaded and I lost all my photos and had to download from online back up. That added time I just couldn't devote to this. School started for us and that takes up a large part of my time. Also I jumped right back into work which means sewing projects and deadlines which I absolutely love. It just means some things not as important get put on the back burner. 

The biggest reason is I honestly couldn't look back at these photos without a few tears. When I say all this I LOVE our home. I LOVE Michigan. I LOVE living here. I LOVE having Anthony's family around. BUT I hate not having my family closer. I just barely unpacked my suitcase this past weekend because I loved smelling my clothes. They smelled like my Grandma. It had been four years since we had been to Idaho. Don't get me wrong I don't love  Idaho. It has some beauty, but it just is so brown. LOL It has my family though. My grandma's parting words to me, "If I don't see you again, I'll see you in Glory." It still breaks my heart. I realize she is close to that age and it is hard to see. I don't realize how much people age until I visit them after a few years. So while our trip was so wonderful to see family it hurt a bit knowing my kids loved visiting everybody and then we may not see them for a while. It is one of those things about living across country. If we move they miss out on family here. So I had to put pictures away just so I didn't dwell too much on it.


Our vacation was wonderful and  we all had a blast. We flew out in the evening which was a bit nuts with the babies. The older kids were angels. The twins not so much. We had a rough go. We didn't get into Boise into our hotel until about 2:00 a.m. Idaho time which was really 4:00 a.m. Michigan time. Needless to say Anthony and I were exhausted. We stayed the night in a hotel as we still had a drive to Twin Falls. The kids woke up and had forgotten what mountains were. They were so excited. Unfortunately while we were home we didn't get the greatest view due to all the forest fires which is common for that time of year. 


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Then we headed to see my parents at the river. The kids all had a blast.

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Anthony and I took the twins to my grandparents where we were staying and left the older kids to hang out and tube. We got some much needed sleep.

We spent a lot of time visiting my Grandparents. They have a beautiful yard  and the kids loved waking up and being outside all day. They picked blackberries, helped my grandparents dig potatoes, and just had fun.



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My grandparents had gotten a new kitten to go with the other kitten they had. All the kids loved them. They were well played with.

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The other big thing they all played with for hours was this tricycle.

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More on our adventures and some of the fun things we did and saw on our vacation in the next post. 

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Summer 2017 ReCap


Less than a week until school starts and I am finally catching up on some summer photos. I think I started off summer by wishing I would blog more. I may have, but probably I didn't. A lot has been happening behind the scenes here for me. Anthony had hoped that one day I would turn my sewing into some sort of business and I basically refused. If I was doing something like that I would go back to photography. Clothing requires too many regulations. Something more exciting for me happened though. I was offered a position/job to be an administrator for my favorite fabric company So Sew English Fabrics. So it may not have turned into a business, but my sewing hobby nows pays for itself so that has been pretty great. This has also meant a lot of sewing all summer and photographing creations. I may be working towards a blog or something soon to showcase them. For now I am keeping this about our family.  We also took a vacation to Idaho and I hope to have those photos blogged this week along with my heart poured out. We haven't even been back a week so I have been so busy also doing homeschool prep. 


I have had helpers all summer helping me get focus to photograph my garments.


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We celebrated Ari's birthday. 


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Anthony and I enjoyed a bit of time with just the girls while the older kids went up north with family. DSC_8892 - Copy

We spent a lot of time at the school playing so Ari could learn to ride his bike. He is too big for his balance bike much to his dismay. 


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We did some more organizing and rearranging with more to do in the house. During this time the chair was downstairs. It brought the best entertainment for the girls. They spent so much time being pushed back and forth in this chair. 



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Lots of light saber wars




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Annual front step photo


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Much to my dismay lots and lots of mud and dirt


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The girls also learned to climb which has officially made me even busier than I was. 


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It has been another summer for the books with the highlight being our vacation.