Survived My First Field Trip! :-)

On a lighter note...Went on my first field trip today with 24 1st graders! Went really well. Loved the fact that on the way to Gibbs Farm/Pioneer Museum out near the State Fair that my son was too poplular to sit with. He had two boys in his seat with him who had been arguing in the classroom as to who would sit by him. :-)

On the way home I got to sit with him and one of the boys and Zack was all snuggly with me. :-) I know that won't last long so I enjoyed it a lot!! :-)

The museum was really neat! Love the 1800's period, lots to learn about there! I'd recomend it to anyone. Kind of like Fort Snelling where they dress in the time period and bring you around the grounds. Beautiful day too!

Hard Drive Whoas

So about a month ago our external hard drive where we kept all our pictures (and didn't back any up) started making a clicking sound but it still worked... Then it didn't!  We have brought it in now to two different places, Geek Squad and Kroll Ontrack, a more advanced company and both have come back with the worst news.  They can't recover anything!

 If you ever hear your computer making clicking noises start backing up everything. It's called the click of death! The drive heads were damaged and that scratched up the "platter" which means no pictures for us.

On a positive note, we still have our old computer from 3 years ago in our house (something I'm grateful that Darin now neglected to do even when asked at least once a year) so I have only lost about 3 years of pictures.

So...if I've sent you pictures from June of 2009 to present and you'd like to share them back I'd be very appreciative!

Got some on Facebook that I'll be downloading back and a few on Snapfish  and will be trying to figure out how to get them off here too but still lots will be lost forever.. :-(

Kiley's First Day of Preschool!

Today was Kiley's first day of preschool and she loved it.  I wasn't too worried, the teacher she has this year she had at the beginning of last year and she is very familiar with the building.  Kiley couldn't wait to get into the classroom.  :-)

 

Kiley even got to celebrate her birthday today.  She got a necklace and got to sit in a special chair at snack time.  :-)

Happy 8th Birthday Emily!

To day is our beautiful nieces' 8th birthday!  As always we wish we could be celebrating with her!
We love you kiddo!

Here are some pictures from our trip out to Oregon in June with Miss Emily.

Our greeting at the airport!

Dinner and a little dancing with the family the first night in town.

Play time at Grandma and Grandpa's

Hope you have a wonderful day Em!

Kiley is 4 Going On 14!

Today our little girl turns 4!  But really she is more like 14!  :-)  She is a smart little cookie and is full of life!  She loves to dance and sing any song she can make up.  She loves to dress up and so it only seemed fitting to throw her a Fancy Nancy party, (for those of you without little girls around, she is a character from a book who loves anything fancy).  Kiley requested that everyone dress fancy and we all did!

 

 

 

 

Just for the record, Kiley picked out Darin's outfit.  Darin was going to wear his Hawaiian shirt but she said that wasn't fancy!  So he had her pick out the shirt and this is the one she chose.  He added the hat and eventually was handed Kiley's boa to add to the outfit.  :-)

 

So what does a 4 year old think is fancy for dinner?  Brats!  We offered steak or beer can chicken but she chose brats!  Darin says they are fancy hotdogs.  :-)

 

 Kiley's new lefty glove she asked for to play ball with Daddy!  :-)

Yummy Cake!  So much so that my Dad was swiping mine as I took the picture!  Caught red handed!

Who's Still Reading?

Hi There.  I am just wondering who is still reading this blog who is not on Facebook.  It's taking forever to download pictures to this blog for some reason (speed of program not me).  Facebook is much faster so I am just wondering who my audience is out here to make sure I don't loose you if I just start to post to Facebook.

OR anyone got any tips on how to download faster to the blog??

Happy 90th Birthday Great Grandma!

Today is also my Grandma Cooley's 90th birthday!  Wish I could share some pictures with you of her and the kids but our hard drive crashed and so far Geek Squad was not able to get any of the pictures back.

We are very blessed to have all this time with Grandma and hope she has a wonderful day today!  My favorite memory with Grams is when I was 15 and she was giving me driving tips about what to look for at intersections because people blow through stop lights, then she treated the stop light we were at like a stop sign and blew right through the light! My sisters and I yelled and told her it was still red and there were a few choice words and then laughter.  We learned our lesson that day!

Love you very much Grandma!  Thanks for all the love and lessons you've given us through the years!

1st Day of School!

Can't believe the first day of school is already here!  Zack is on his way to first grade today!  He is super excited.  He got the teacher he wanted and lots of his friends from last year are in his class this year.  Last night when asking him what he is looking most forward to in 1st grade, "Playing kickball again!"  Guess Kiley and I weren't enough of a game for him.  ;-)