We have a foundation!

Today we poured the cement for the walls in the basement. YEA!!! It is starting to look like a house. We are excited. Next we will backfill and start the main floor.

June?!?!

Is it really June? By the looks of these pictures you would never guess that it is June 7th. We had quite the snow storm last night. When we woke up this morning there was about 4 inches of snow on the ground and all the trees and bushes were covered with snow. We shook off the snow and hopefully they will recover from this. So far only one tree branch has broke off. Brayden and Justin built a snowman. Pretty crazy weather!

We have started!

We finally got started on our house! We are so excited. On Tuesday they dug the hole for our basement. Now we get to start the foundation. The weather hasn't been very cooperative though. We have had rain and snow today and they say it is going to last through tomorrow. So hopefully we will be able to get some work done this weekend.

Our land

We are getting closer to building our house. Today we went and staked out where the house is going to be. The digging will start next week. We are very excited to start building! The pictures below are pictures of our piece of property.

Winter or Spring?

Yesterday morning we woke up to some very cold weather. It snowed on and off all day yesterday. We have had some warm weather and so all the farmers had their sprinkler lines out and running and it got so cold the other night that where the water hit it froze. So the ground was all white from frozen water. All the pipes had ice hanging off of them. I took these picture around 1:00pm and everything was still frozen. Later that afternoon things finally started thawing out. Amazing!

Peyton turns 2

On May 20th Peyton turned 2 years old. I can't believe that two years and gone by. We had a party with his Grandma's, Grandpa's, cousins and some friends. He got really excited to open his presents and loved all of them. He got a new camping chair, a Elmo doll, a new toy to play with in the sand box, a new bike, some new cloths and some books. It was a fun night. Brayden was more excited than Peyton was. Brayden thought that he had to open all of Peyton's presents for him. We had to keep telling Brayden to give the toys back to Peyton. Peyton just enjoyed all of the attention.

Peyton and his new bike.

Peyton and his new Elmo doll.

Brayden was sure Peyton needed help opening his presents.

Peyton's race car birthday cake.

Yellowstone Park

This Elk was just sitting in the trees watching everyone watching him. He was huge!

Look at this buffalo walking down the road.


All of us on the bridge right by Old Faithful


Brayden with Old Faithful going off behind him.

Our friends came from Salt Lake to visit us. So on Saturday the 19th we took a day trip to Yellowstone Park. It is only 2 hours from our house. We had such a fun day. It was a long day but it was fun. This time of year is a great time to go because some of the baby animals are born and there are not very many people visiting the park yet. The kids loved seeing Old Faithful, the hot pots and all the animals. We were able to see lots of great animals. We were able to see baby buffalo, elk, baby geese, a coyote and three grizzley bears! We were headed home and right after we left Yellowstone Park we saw a bunch of people stopped on the side of the road so we decided to stop too. Off the road a ways was a three bears, a mom and last years babies. It was so cool to see them. We were happy that we were able to see a bear. All the kids were so excited about that. But of course the video camera battery was dead and the camera wouldn't zoom that far. So we have no pictures of the bears. That is the way it goes. But it was a fun trip.

Piano Recital

Last Saturday I had a piano recital for the students that I teach. Brayden has started showing an interest in playing the piano so I have started teaching him to play. He has picked up on it really fast and is doing well. So when the recital came along he wanted to play in it too. So he practiced really hard and got his song ready to play. He did such a great job and he wasn't even scared. I was so proud of him. All of my students did really well. I was very proud of all of them.

We finally brought home our new dog Sammy. We have had him for about a week. He is doing so well and he is lots of fun to have around. The boys love him and are having lots of fun with him. Peyton loves him but is still a little scared of him. Sammy is a puppy and he nips at everything including the boys. We are working on getting him to stop that. But overall he is a very smart puppy and is very loveable. He is calm and loves to be cuddled. We are so glad to finally have Sammy at our house.

Brayden and Matthew reading books.

Matthew, Peyton and Ryan

After Easter, me and the boys went for an airplane ride to Virginia to visit my sister Cheryl and her family. We were able to stay for a week and visit and play with them. Brayden and Peyton had such a great time playing with their cousins. We were able to go to Fun Land where we played games and won prizes, we went to see Matthew's soccer game and we were able to go see the new movie Meet the Robinsons ( the movie was great!). We had fun visiting with all of them. Our trip went by way to fast and before we knew it we were on our way home. The boys did so good on the airplane ride. Everyone said what good children they were. Brayden made lots of new friends one the airplanes. He is such a friendly boy. Peyton loved sitting in his seat with his seatbelt on (for a little while). We were so greateful that we were able to take this little vacation and go see our family.

Brayden and Peyton in their sunglasses on Easter morning. Arn't they cool!

Brayden getting candy at the Easter egg hunt.

It has been a while since we have written so we will start with Easter. We went to Salt Lake to spend Easter with my parents. Brayden was able to go to a Easter egg hunt and get TONS of candy. He also was able to see the Easter bunny. He thought that was pretty fun. We had fun visiting with grandma and grandpa, finding easter eggs and eating lots of candy.

Wrestling Champ!

Brayden wrestled in his first wrestling tournament today and he took first place in his weight. He had lots of fun and did a great job. He was so excited to wrestle and try to win. He told me that he was going to win the Piston Cup from the movie cars. After they gave him his medal he said I did it I won the Piston Cup. It was so funny to watch and see these little kids wrestle.

Granite Hot Springs

Catherine and Peyton swimming.

Justin and Brayden are being brave. They jumped into the snow bank!

Run as fast as you can back into the warm water!

This is a picture of Granite Falls. Isn't it pretty!

On Saturday we took a little trip to Granite Hot Springs. It is about an hours drive from our house and then 10 miles on snowmobiles. It is a natrual hot springs swimming pool. It is a good sized pool and the water temperatrue is between 98 degrees and 112 degrees. It feels so good, especially after the snowmobile ride in. We all had so much fun. We packed a lunch and had a picnic after we were done swimming. It was a fun Saturday. The picture of the falls is some of the beautiful scenery that you get to see on the way to the hot springs.

Sled Heads

For those of us who live in Wyoming where we have lots of snow, you have to learn to love the snow and have fun in it too. This last weekend we were able to go see the Afton Hillclimbs. This is where people take their snowmobiles up a very steep hill, through a course and try to get there the fastest. It is amazing to watch. Brayden and Peyton loved it. They had so much fun watching the race. We live close enough that we were able to take our snowmobiles, ride through a canyon and get to the race. It was fun to see. If you want to see some amazing video of the hillclimbs go to www.snowest.com and at the bottom left of the page click on Snowcross/Hillclimb video. Then click on Afton Hillclimbs. It is amazing to see these people race. Let me know what you think!

Happy 4th Birthday Brayden

These are all the kids that came to Brayden's birthday party.

Sunday the 18th was Brayden's 4th birthday. He wanted a Lightening McQueen birthday. So we had a cake made for him. He was so excited. He had a birthday party with his friends on Saturday. He was spoiled by his grandparents and Brayden loved it! On Sunday we had some family come over for cake and ice cream. It was a fun day. Then we found out that the puppy that we have been waiting for was born on Brayden's birthday. He is so excited to get a puppy. He said that he is going to name it Sam!

Island Park

This past weekend we were able to go to Island Park for the weekend with my family. We had a great time playing in the snow and snowmobiling. We played too hard and stayed up too late. We are all still trying to recover from the fun weekend. Brayden and his cousin Abby had fun being pulled behind the snowmobiles in a sled. Peyton had fun just walking in the snow. We even got Grandma and Grandpa to get on the snowmobiles and go for a ride. We had a great weekend. It is always fun to spend time with family!

BBBBUUUUURRRRR!!!!!

WOW it is cold around here. The last week we have had some very cold weather move into the valley and wow it has been cold. We have had temperatures aroun -30 at night. The other day at noon it was still -12. Now that is cold. I am ready for this to be over. The skys are blue and the sun is shining but it is too cold to go outside and enjoy it. Hopefully this will be over soon. This isn't unusual, Star Valley is use to cold winters and we always have a spell like this every winter but that doesn't make me like it any. I will be glad when we can get outside and enjoy the snow a little. I hope that you are all staying warm.

Brayden really had fun this year. He got so excited over all his presents. Peyton finally got the hang of opening his presents and had lots of fun playing with his toys.

Merry Christmas

Happy New Year! We hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and that your new year is great. We had a great Christmas. I was able to go to Salt Lake the week before Christmas and spend time with my family, visit friends and shop. It was fun. The kids had fun playing with their cousins and seeing the sites of the city. Justin stayed home and was very busy working. This time of year working for UPS isn't always the best. He worked 60 hours a week for 3 weeks. He is glad that Christmas is over. We are glad too!
Justin came to Salt Lake on Saturday the 23rd after he finished work to be with us. We had dinner on Christmas eve with my brothers and thier families. It was fun to be with family. Christmas morning was so much fun. Brayden and Peyton really had fun opening all their gifts. Brayden was so excited about Santa coming and giving him the gifts and that he asked for. It was so fun. That afternoon we packed up and headed home. We stopped and visited Justin's family and then came home. It was a great Christmas. I can't believe that it has come and gone already.

Neisha

On Friday December 1st our dog Neisha passed away. It was sudden and unexpected. We are not sure what went wrong. A few days before she started acting like she wasn't feeling well and we decided to take her to the vet on Friday. We brought her in the house Friday night and when we woke up she was gone. We are all very sad and miss her a lot. She was a very good dog and we loved her so much.

Peyton, Neisha and Brayden 

O Christmas Tree

The saturday after Thanksgiving we headed into the forest to get our Christmas tree. We had lots of fun. Our friends Tasha and Nate and their kids came from Salt Lake and we went tree hunting. We were able to take the snowmobiles too! We found a great tree and cut it down and brought it home. We had so much fun playing in the snow and playing on the snowmobiles. Peyton had fun just sitting and eating the snow!

Catherine and the boys 

Justin and Brayden cutting down the tree