Catching up....

Right after Janie's birthday last week, we had to get ready to go to a family reunion in Yellowstone. Of course, all of us but Mark were battling colds, so it was not the most organized preparation. But we all made it, and had lots of fun. Yellowstone is a favorite place to visit, even though I did not see a bear for the 36th year in a row.

Here we are waiting for Old Faithful.


This is Janie's "J" tree. We found it last year at Canyon Village, and I think it will be a tradition now to take her picture on it.

The scenery in Yellowstone is so spectacular. We sent out a Christmas picture from this spot a few years ago and I had a friend ask me if we were sitting in front of a painting.


This is by Yellowstone Lake. If we look a bit bigger and more satisfied than normal, it's because we just ate the best breakfast buffet that exists at the Lake Hotel. It may be the real reason we go back to Yellowstone year after year.
I kept giving Mark a hard time for not smiling in any of our pictures, so he seems to have slightly overcompensated for this next shot.

When we got home, Mark and Derek had two days to get a pinewood derby car ready. No, they didn't just spring the race on us at the last minute, we had plenty of time to prepare, we just didn't use it. It wasn't the fastest car this year, but Derek didn't seem to care, and all the boys had fun.

Well, that's the wrap up of the last couple weeks. We've got more fun trips coming up, and I will try to keep up on it all as the busy summer rolls on.

Happy 6th Birthday Janie Girl!!!

This is a late blog for Janie's birthday, but I wanted to pay a little tribute to my last born child. It's hard to believe that just six years ago, on Father's Day, my water broke and, 2 hours later, Janie came into our family. She has been so fun. Because of her birth order, she is sometimes mature beyond her years, and she has a quirky personality that makes us laugh daily. Happy Birthday to our little caboose!

I worried all week leading up to June 15th because we planned to be outside all day, first at the zoo, then at the park for dinner. I am not lying when I say that every day for the previous week and a half had looked like Janie's soccer game from my last entry, but we were blessed with great weather all day long. Not a drop of rain fell! It returned the next day, but stayed away for our day-o-fun.

Janie's cousins (and lucky for me, their mothers) were all able to join us at the zoo. Here are a few pictures from the day.

Greetings from the Pacific Northwest??

So, it's June 13th and I think we've been transported to another climate zone. It has rained every day but 2 this month, and when I say rain, I mean downpour. I think we've gotten like 80 inches of water or close to it. Summer is going to be gone, and we haven't even made it to the pool yet.
Janie's soccer season ended today much the way it began: cool and wet. She's really started to pick up on what to do. Unfortunately, today's game was called before halftime because of a tremendous rain and lightening storm.

Grandpa Treseder brought this lovely thing for Meghan to wear. Not surprisingly, she only wore it for about 30 seconds.

Here she is receiving her trophy in the car with the rain in the background.

This is a picture we took on the way home, just before we lost almost all visibility.

Help Me......

Do you see the kind of people I get to deal with on a daily basis? This is the kind of stuff that happens when mom steps into the other room.




Janie and Derek had Hawaiian day this week. Janie was excited, Derek was tolerant. He actually wore a grass skirt for about 3.7 seconds, and I never got a picture of it.



We are finally done with baseball. This is Derek and his team at closing ceremonies yesterday receiving their second place trophies. They ended 15-1, and never got a chance to play the first place team, who went undefeated.


I'm a little sad it's over, but very happy to have some extra time for things like painting my basement. That project came to a big stall when it came time for us to do some of the work ourselves. But now we will have more time, and hopefully we can get it done.