1000 Posts

I recently noticed that I just passed the 1000 mark on blog posts!   I couldn't believe that I've blogged over 1000 times in the past 5 years.  I started this blog back in 2008 as a way to chronicle our lives, so our family and friends could keep up with us, despite the distance.  I titled it "All Because Two People Fell in Love", because everything I was going to share on this blog began when Pete and I fell in love and decided to start our life together.

This picture is from my very first post.  It was taken at VBS that summer. Livie was just a 2 yr old.  Madie was 7 and Noah was 5.  Look how little they are!  Seems like such a long time ago.  It's gone by so quickly.

It didn't take me long to fall in love with blogging.  I was never good at keeping a diary, but not from lack of trying.  I just didn't have the patience to sit and write it all out.  But, to type it out?  AND add pictures?!  Well, heck, THAT I could do!

Our lives have changed a lot over the past 1000 posts.  We've celebrated lots of birthdays.  They are no longer those little 2, 5, and 7 yr olds that they were when I started.  They are now 7, 10, and 12 - fully involved in school, friends, and extracurriculars.  Their personalities - their very DIFFERENT personalities - have made themselves known more and more as the years have gone by.  This blog has given me the chance to share all the fun things they've done, from graduating preschool to watching Madie get ready to enter her teenage years (gasp!).

Pete spent 3 years travelling for work over the course of 2007-2010.  He went overseas for the first time in his life when he went to China.  That was quite an experience for all of us and I'm thankful that he is now staying a lot closer to home. :-)

We went on our first family vacation to NJ for the 100th anniversary of my Grandpa Drexler's church back in 2010.  We've been on 3 vacations - NH, KY, and CO - since that one and have seen a total of 10 new states.  Each vacation experience has been lots of fun and definitely full of memories!

We were able to celebrate my sister's wedding back in 2008, added new nieces and nephews to our family, and added a furry addition of our own.  Tater joined our family in 2011 and has made our family complete in more ways than one.  Look at that sweet puppy face!  It was a long journey to get Pete convinced that we needed a dog, but it's one of the best decisions we ever made and the whole family loves him to pieces.

I guess one of the most dramatic events from the past 1000 posts has been Noah's diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes back on Jan. 26, 2011.  This disease was definitely not even on my radar back when I first began this blog, but sometimes God has other plans and I truly believe He has a very special plan in store for Noah.

Whether that's raising money and helping others be aware of what Type 1 is like for the kids and people affected, or if it's to one day use his awesome brain power to find a cure!  Either way, we've made it through 2 1/2 yrs of this disease and we'll keep fighting it on a daily basis to make sure Noah stays healthy and whole.  We're just thankful for such a supportive group of family and friends that have helped us make it this far!

A lot has happened since the first time I sat at the computer and created this blog.   I love looking back at older posts sometimes and just seeing what our daily lives were like on that day.  Sometimes I come across something that makes me laugh.  Sometimes I come across something sad.  And, there are times when I come across something that makes me remember something I had forgotten, that reminds me of special moments that I'm thankful I won't have to ever forget again, because I blogged about it here.

I am still thankful for the chance to share our lives with those we care about, and definitely excited to see what the next 1000 posts bring.   Hopefully there will be more silly and happy posts than sad ones.  Hopefully I'll have a 17, 15, and 12 yr old that are healthy, happy, and whole and a continued love relationship with their daddy.  Only God knows what the future holds, but I plan on blogging about this crazy life of mine for as long as He gives me strength to do it.  Let's hope that ends up being a very long time.  Thanks for joining me on this journey - hope you'll join me for the next 1000!

Joseph And The Technicolor Dreamcoat

Today I took Madie and Noah to go see a local production of "Joseph".  This has been one of my favorite musicals for years and years!  I was so excited when a friend of mine told me that it was being put on in a nearby town.  A friend of hers from high school was one of the narrators. :-)

Livie didn't go, because she wanted to go to our neighbor's birthday party. I wish I had pushed her to come, because I know she would've loved it, but hey, they had a bouncy house and a pool, so there wasn't much convincing after that.  We sat with our friends and let the kids sit all together, which they loved!

The production was so good!  I can't tell you how fantastic it was!  It was hilarious and inventive.  We just laughed and laughed.  Noah, who typically isn't interested in these kinds of things, thought it was hilarious and couldn't stop talking about it.

When it was over, the kids wanted to get autographs of all the players.  

But, before they did that, they checked out the stage.  Even climbed up on it and grabbed some of the confetti from the final number.

The one autograph and photo they wanted was of the Pharaoh.  They thought he was the best part of the whole show, and he was.  During his big number, he paused, came into the crowd and started cracking jokes.  He even threw in a "I'm sexy and I know it" bit to the end of one of his songs.  Hilarious!

They also wanted an autograph of Joseph himself.  This kid, and yes, I say kid (he's only 25), is the one who created this group.  I guess he was given some money after he graduated college and used it to form this group of performers.  They put on one play a year.  I told my friend Donna that we need to come back and see them each year, because the quality of their production is so awesome for such a small theater group.  And, heck, for only $10/ticket, it's DEFINITELY worth the drive!!

Work Picnic

Today was the annual picnic for Pete's work.  We've gone every year for several years now, but today was, by far, the best time ever!  One of the main reasons for that was the weather.  Typically it's hot and sweaty and we don't stay the entire time, because we're all so tired and hot.  But, today it was chilly.  We were in sweatshirts and sweaters, because it was only 67 degrees.  Sweaters and sweatshirts... in JULY!  It was awesome!  

It was held in the local state park and it started at 1, so we left and got there right at one.  The kids could see the entire set-up as we drove in and were so crazy-excited, we could barely make them sit still long enough to actually eat lunch.  Noah ate a piece of chicken and a cookie and was off!  The girls followed quickly behind.  Since we got there right as it was starting, there weren't a ton of people there yet.  In fact, there weren't many people there this year at all.  Not gonna lie.  Kind of enjoyed the smaller crowd. :-)

Noah and Livie went to each blow-up thing in order.  They started at the bounce house, then hit some giant blow-up alligator obstacle course, then went to this sports thing.  Noah was playing kickball.

While Livie was throwing baseballs. :-)

 Then they went to this giant executioner slide.  You can see them sliding down together at the same time. :-)

Madie saw a girl there from rollerskating camp and they played together for a while.  They didn't go in order like Noah and Livie and just bounced from one thing to another.

After the executioner slide and a giant dragon's castle slide/obstacle course thing, Noah wanted to do the rock wall.  Livie didn't, so she stayed behind and played on the slides some more.  Madie really wanted to do the rock wall too, but sadly they didn't have a harness small enough for her. :-(

Noah climbed to the very top and loved it so much, he climbed it another 4-5 times before the day was out!

Not only did they have lots of yummy food for lunch, they had popcorn, snow cones, and cotton candy.  YUM!  I think my kids ate more cotton candy today than they have their entire lives!

Periodically, throughout the afternoon, the DJ would announce different games that everyone could play for prizes.  I played a "Name that TV Tune" game and nearly won, but lost at the very end.  Darn it!  It was for an Ipod Mini too!  Oh well.  This was a kids' scavenger hunt game.  None of our kids won though.  Oh, by this time, our friends, the Thirys joined us.  We played with them for the rest of the afternoon and were lucky enough to have them come back to the house and hang out for a while too!  Yay!

There were lots of bouncy houses, the rock wall, and then a couple booths.  This was a game booth and we now are proud owners of about 6 stuffed animals from this place.

They had crafts and face-painting too.

One of my favorites was the BINGO gaming.  I've tried my hand at this every year and never won a single thing.  I won TWICE and Pete won once!  Do you get that?  We won three times!  I gave Noah my card to take up from the first time I won.  He won a lunchbox.  The second game won was Pete's and he won a tool box with a mini tool box inside.  The next time I won, I got a golf towel.  I let Madie claim that prize.  So, by giving Noah the lunchbox, Madie the big toolbox, Livie the little toolbox, and Pete the golf towel, we almost all walked away with something.  It was really fun!

I think my favorite part of the day was watching Livie during the watermelon-eating contest.  It was hysterical!!!  She came in third, but our friend Tessa won!  She got a CD player.

Here's another picture of us all playing BINGO - well, except Livie who I barely saw for the last hour of the day.  She was so busy playing. :-)  You can see the lunchbox I won for Noah sitting right next to him.

For the first time ever, we stayed the entire 4 hours and had the best time with our friends.

It was definitely a great day for a picnic!!

Ed'Venture Camp

We just finished the last of our summer activities - at least all the "scheduled" ones.  This week was Ed'Venture Camp!  It's called "ED-venture", because the camps are all educational. :-)  They go to the local community college and each of them pick a major for the week and then 3 minor classes they take on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday afternoons.  Thursday afternoon is the end of their camping experience and we parents join them to see a presentation on everything they did.  It's always a lot of fun and this year was no different - EXCEPT that Livie was finally old enough to participate!

The girls took a fishing camp as their major and Noah took "Blast Off", aka rocket-building, for his major.  They were pretty excited, can you tell? ;-)

The girls got to go on a fishing field trip on Wednesday.  Some of you may remember that Noah took this camp last year and was the first to catch a fish and actually caught two that day!  We all said that his Great-Grandpa Quillen helped make that possible. :-)  Madie was lucky and was able to catch one too, but Livie wasn't quite as lucky.  She was pretty disappointed, but made the best of it by finding a dead fish and stabbing it with a stick and claiming a catch!  Sometimes we just have to make it work, ya know?

Today I joined them for lunch before heading over to the gym to watch their presentation.  I had asked Pete earlier in the week if he could come too.  At the end of the presentation, the kids from Blast Off head out to the softball field and launch their rockets.  I knew Noah would really want us all to be there.  So he secretly took a half day and showed up at the gym to surprise them.  Noah actually figured it out at lunch, when I started to slip to say "Save a seat for your Da...".  But, the girls didn't hear, so he kept it a secret then too.  He said, "Thanks for asking Daddy to come.  I really wanted him to see the launch.".  It was really sweet.  The girls didn't know, so when he walked in, they both stood up and started pointing at him with HUGE smiles on their faces.  So cute!  I'm so thankful that he's willing to take time off to do special things like that for them.  I know it means the world to them!

So, after a quick intro to the program, they call each group down to give their names and share a little bit of their experience.

Once Noah's group got up there, he talked a bit about his rocket.  They left before everyone else, so they could leave and get things set up in the softball field for us.

The girls wanted to show us the fish that they painted earlier in the week.  Very cool!!

When we finally made our way over to the softball field, they were already starting to launch rockets!  Noah's TEAM rocket was the first one up.  It was so awesome!!  When he saw us get there, he came over.  He was having a low blood sugar, so he had eaten a snack, but he was still pretty lethargic.

Did that stop him from launching his rocket and chasing the thing down?  Heck no!  To see the video of this, you'll need to check out my FB page, because I couldn't load it here.  It was one of the highest ones of the day!  It shot straight up and it had an orange streamer attached to it, so lots of people thought it was on fire on the way down, but it wasn't.  It finally fell in a neighboring parking lot and he chased it all the way down and ran all the way back to us with it when he was done.

Of course, by this time, he was feeling REALLY low, so he sat down and had a couple glucose tabs while his sisters joined him for a picture.  It was a really, really fun week for them and we had the best time spending this last afternoon of camp together as a family. :-)  Good times!!

Camps

We sure have been busy since we got back from vacation!  But, hey, that's how I like our summers to be.  If we didn't have anything going on, these kids would be bored to tears and, in the process, drive me crazy! ;-)  So, anyway, here is an update on our last 2 weeks...

Last week all three kids were enrolled in Rollerskating Camp.  They've done this every year for the past 3-4 yrs and love it!  Granted, Noah would rather just skate and not actually be taught, because he is so good already, but any excuse they have to skate is fun for them.  Livie went during the first hour.  Her friend Kate from church was there too and they were two peas in a pod.  So cute!

She is also a really good skater.  Having your own skates and a basement to skate in makes for really good skaters!  She's really good doing it backwards too. :-)  Here she is doing the Hokey Pokey.

Noah and Madie went during the second hour.  Our friends Michael and Andrew skated during this time too.  They had a ball!!  Though, I think for next year, I might try and get Noah into roller hockey instead.  I think that's more up his alley now that he's such a good skater.  This is Madie's last year, so don't know what we'll replace this camp with next year.

One of my students, from 2 yrs ago, was there to watch his sister skate.  He is the sweetest boy and loved sitting by any of my kids and playing on their devices with them.  It was fun getting to spend time with him again and chat with his mom. :-)

This week, Madie has been the ultra-busy one!  She's had Photography Camp and has absolutely LOVED it!  I took this picture of Noah and Livie after we dropped Madie off for camp, so you could see my eclectic girl.  That "belt" was her hair bow, but she changed it up, so she could wear her Santa hat ... in 95 degree weather!

Yesterday, on Madie's last day, I took the other two kids to the splash park.  We had a heat index of 106 degrees yesterday.  Figured you couldn't ask for a better day to be in the water!  Madie's camp lasted from 10-12pm, so we just stayed in town and found things to do while she was there.

Noah and Livie had tons of fun and boy was I jealous!  Sitting in the HOT shade wasn't as wonderful as getting soaked.  Would've gladly traded places. :-)

I took this picture after her camp ended yesterday, outside Annette Barr's studio.  She a wonderful photographer and has her shop right in the downtown area, though she's moving to another location at the end of summer.  Madie and the other 5-6 campers walked around the downtown area, during their camp time, taking photos of various things they saw.  Madie said it was so super-fun, even in the heat.  I haven't seen any of the photos, because I want to be surprised.  In a couple weeks, they will be having an Art Show, where they showcase all of the students' favorite photos.  Can't wait to go and see what she did!!  

So, it's been a fun, but busy couple of weeks.  Between camps, VBS Day Camps, and playdates, we've been going somewhere every day!  Next week all three of them will be in Ed'Venture Camp - perhaps their favorite of all the summer camps they do.  Noah will be making rockets, Madie and Livie will be fishing, with all of them taking different afternoon courses.  I'm so excited for them!  Hopefully they'll love it. :-)  Now off to the Farmer's Market to get some fresh produce, then a birthday party for Madie, and a babysitting/playdate for us.  Another busy fun day -ll the best parts of summer. :-)

Girls Weekend

I am blessed to have two of the best friends in the world in my life and have had them in my life since elementary school.  We don't get the chance to all get together often enough, but we found the opportunity to do that this past weekend, so we took advantage!  Michelle and Ricardo just recently moved, so it was a great chance for us to see the new house too.  Bonus!  Sadly, with the time change, it makes it hard to get there early, so I got there mid-afternoon on Saturday and left about the same time the next day, but we fit a lot into that 24 hours together. :-)

Melanie came over, so we got to chat with her for a while, which was great!  We got a tour of the house and the grounds, and I say "grounds", because there is a lot of it!  We saw the Vernon clan before heading out to go shopping (our favorite pasttime together), then met up with Teresa's sister, Cyndi, to have dinner at a place called Rick's Boathouse.  It was delicious, but as always is my problem, I ate WAY too much, too late at night and paid for it later.  But, until that happened, we had a great time laughing and chatting and catching up.  I haven't seen Cyndi in years, so that was a lot of fun!

The next morning we got to visit Michelle's church and got to have lunch with some of her friends from church right afterwards.  They were all really nice and really welcoming.  Just another reminder of why I wish we all lived closer to each other, so our time together wouldn't go by so quickly!

I haven't mentioned seeing Ricardo and that's because he was in SC for a karate tournament, so he wasn't able to be there and see us.  But, we did get to play with Alexander and he is a great kid!  We worked on doing cartwheels together and he told me he liked me.  Yay!  I won him over!  Love it!  So, it was a quick weekend, but a great one and can't wait to do it again!

Colorado Vacation - Day 4

Our last day in Colorado was definitely our favorite!  The weather was perfect and we got to get out and hike, explore, and see some really cool things!  We left that day saying, "Boy, wish we could stay another two days!".

This is a picture of Livie at the side of the road on the way to RMNP.  She had a little trouble with getting car sick.  Honestly, she didn't do as bad as I expected, but sometimes those curvy roads and growing altitudes did a bit of a number on her stomach.  She found this giant dandilion on one of our stops.

On our last day, we decided to check out the Alluvial Fan, another place Pete and I remembered from our trip.  This place is SO cool!!  Back in 1982, an earthen dam broke loose and threw tons of rocks and water down the mountain.  What is left is a huge, rocky waterfall and it's absolutely beautiful!  We parked at the bottom of the place and hiked up to it.  On the way, Noah found elk poop and just had to have us take a picture. ;-)

One of the things that was most fun for me was seeing my whole family taking photos.  Usually I'm the only one taking pictures.  On this trip, Pete bought himself a really nice camera and took lots of really great photos (that I hope to share on a later post).  The kids all took their Ipods and Livie took an old camera to take pictures themselves.  It was cool to see what they wanted to take pictures of too.

This is towards the bottom of the fan.  Isn't it beautiful?!

This continues on a bit after this bridge we're standing one, but the water flow slows down a lot as it passes this point.

The water is really moving fast in some parts, so I tried to only let the kids get close to the water's edge there at the bottom.  Livie found "seaweed" and was so excited to share.

The bridge behind Madie is the one that Pete and the kids were standing on in the picture I showed you earlier.

We went back down to the car very, very briefly when rain came again, but it only lasted about 10 min and we were able to go back up.  Livie was showing Noah some of the pictures she took the first time we walked up here.

You can see how the clouds were rolling past the mountaintops that morning.

This is higher up the mountain.  The rocks got bigger the higher we went.

I think this was their favorite part of the entire vacation, because they got to climb all over the place!

They were climbing so far up, that I had to yell at them to not go so far!  They just wanted to go in three different directions (four, if you count Pete too!).  So wish we had had more opportunities to hike like this.  They needed to have the chance to just get out their energy and this was the best day for that!

There were also several logs laying around.  I'm sure back when this happened in '82, this whole area was devastated.  It's recovered well in the past 30 yrs and looks amazing now.

I have such a cute family, don't I?!

Noah really wanted to climb higher and get closer to this big rock.  So, I stayed back and took pictures of him when Pete took him up.  Pete ended up taking all the kids up, one at a time, so they could get closer to the waterfall's top.

They climbed quite a ways!

After we visted the fan, we went back to the picnic area, by our van, and got out our picnic lunch.  The kids ate just a little, because they were still ready to explore.  Noah started carrying logs over this space with fallen trees and began creating an "Amusement Park".  The girls helped him too.

They created two teeter-totters that really worked!  A family that was sitting nearby came over and their little girls started playing on them too.

There were lots of chipmunks and squirrels running around, finding food that had fallen on the ground.  While the kids were playing, I held my hand out and one of the chipmunks came right up to me, put his paw on my finger and bit my other finger to see if I had anything to give him.  It was adorable!!

Livie got to do the same thing and so did Madie and Noah.  They were thrilled to pieces!

Noah also took logs and built a tee-pee.  He's an engineer like his dad, I tell ya!

After we finished our time at the fan, the kids voted on heading back to Bear Lake to see if we could hike it again, this time without the rain and hail!  I'll be honest, I wasn't thrilled about heading back there, because I felt like there were other places to go, but boy am I glad we did!  We were driving down to the parking lot (we didn't take a shuttle that time) and we saw TONS of cars lining the road.  We knew they were checking something awesome out and we saw something brown in the distance.  I jumped out to find out what it was, totally thinking it was a moose.  I asked a girl what we were looking at and she said it was a bear with two bear cubs.  A BEAR?!!  I turned to go back to the van, but saw Pete and the kids were coming my way.  I mouthed, "It's a bear!" to Pete and his eyes lit up!  We started moving quickly, so we could get a good look at her.

It was beyond cool to see a mama bear and her cubs!  Now, remembering how I reacted to the moose, I definitely was a lot more cautious about getting too close.  She and her cubs ran right across the road and up the mountainside in front of us.  We kept a healthy distance from her, but it was seriously so cool!

When we got to Bear Lake, guess what?  The rain came back!!

But, it only stuck around for a couple minutes.  Guess it just wanted to remind us of the day before. ;-)  So, we got to walk around the entire lake and see some beautiful views.

As we were driving out of the park, we saw the sunshine over the mountains.  We had to stop and take a picture.  It was just so gorgeous!  As we were stopped, we saw a small road off to the side and decided to take it and see where it went.

As we drove down, we saw this herd of elk, grazing at dinnertime.  It was nearly 4 pm by this point, so they were enjoying the winding down of the day, just like we were.

When we got to the end of the road, we found several trails leave from this area and decided to hike a bit here in the valley.  There was a large stream running through this area and, again, the views were breathtaking!

There were some men fly-fishing, so the kids watched them for a short while.

We hiked up and down through the valley for probably a 1/2 mile or so, before turning around and heading back.  We came to a section of the trail that was covered in horse poop and figured that was our sign to go back. ;-)  There were lots of horses that went through these trails, though we didn't get to see any.

We stopped at another part of the stream to see if we could see any fish.  There were a few that Pete spotted, but he's got an eye for that.  None of us could see any.

 We walked onto some of the raised areas in the stream to throw some rocks as our last hurrah before leaving the park.  We were so thankful that the weather finally cooperated and we were able to enjoy such a wonderful day of hiking and exploring together.  It was a great way to finish off our Colorado vacation!