Helpful little boy

What a good kid.  I didn't even ask him.  He just decided to check the dryer and pulled out the towels.  He took them to his room and folded them all for me :)

Accepted!!

Her first accepted letter came today!

Of course she's only applied to one school so far so we don't expected to receive any others.....yet!

Powder Puff Game

I can't believe this is the last one!

Last year Sahara chose Sassafras as her name.  This year she chose Adea (the name Canyon gave her when he was 3)

Seniors won of course!

Sneak-peak...Senior pictures!

I took a half day and got the kids out of school early.  We went home to get ready and headed to Walmart to meet a friend turned photographer, the amazing Melanie!  While waiting on her at Walmart, I remembered we didn't bring any jewelry.  So we bought 2 necklace/earring sets for $12.  Awesome find!

Here are 2/3 of the photos taken.  It's all we get for now until all 276 have been sifted though and edited.

We went to a secret abandoned school from the 60's way out in no-mans-land.  Then to the beach part of the river, and then to a couple fields in Atkins.  We were out for 4 1/2 hours.  It was great.  The weather was perfect and the clouds worked with us.

Melanie says the photos turned out better then she was hoping.  I can't wait to see the rest!!

THEN....

9:30 at night.  Sahara asks me for Jared's class ring she was wearing around her neck that she took off to put the new jewelry on.  I had put it in my front pocket back at the abandoned school, 6 hours earlier.  That was the last I saw it!

I couldn't believe what I was gonna have to do.  I threw my clothes back on and grabbed a flash light.  I told Sahara that I'd see her in the morning and headed out.  I was going to back track but realized I had no idea what roads we took to get to the fields.  I was gonna have to pass the river-beach to head to the abandoned school.  I was NOT looking forward to making that trip or to be out in no-mans-land in the middle of the night, by myself.  I thought I could see the headlines and knew it was a movie in the making.  The rape, left in a well for a week and eventual slaughtering and decapitation of a single mom in rural Arkansas...based on real life events.  

So, my first stop was the beach.  The beach, you have to get to through this little park located between 2 houses in a regular neighborhood.  Past the park, you walk on out until you get to the beach and river.  So, at 10 pm, I got to the park.  I drove carefully in case it had fallen out of my pocket in the parking lot, by chance, and I didn't want to run it over.  Got out, checked with the flash light under the truck and around that area.  Wishful thinking that it would be that easy.  So, here I go to the beach.  Get to the single gate entrance to the park and there, smack dab in the middle of the sidewalk at the gate entrance, is the ring and necklace. It was a complete MIRACLE!!!!!  It had sat there for 5 hours.  

I was glad I didn't have to replace a $550 ring....or have my life become a made for TV movie!!

Burn Ban Lifted

So we finally got the burn the dressers that we replaced a couple months ago.  They really had no were to be kept and for the most part, they were completely trash. 

 It took some work to get the fire going, but they finally caught.

Then the fire got pretty big!  Canyon loves watching fire.

An up close fire picture.  Se the light colored flame in the center?  It was blueish-white.  I think it was metal burning.

What was left of the cremation.

I don't know if we are just not good with little dogs, or maybe we just have a very odd one....but we almost lost his life again!

Sascha and Malaki were chasing each other around the yard, well Malaki chases Sascha anyway, and he tends to take short cuts to catch up to her.  Sahara was afraid he would run into the fire.  I told her he wouldn't do that and it would be ok.  I was wrong!  Sascha ran around the fire and he chased after taking a shortcut and headed straight into the fire.  If it wasn't for him getting scared at us all yelling his name at the same moment and the grass being a clump he couldn't get thru as he came to a hault when we yelled, he was within inches of the flames.  In fact, in the picture above, he put the breaks on and stopped in that patch of grass to the left of the board that is standing up on the left side.  If he leaped over that patch and the board (which were his intentions) he would have been right where the fire is the thickest.  A dead dog for sure.

Massive Mushrooms

Look what's growing in our yard.  

These things sprung up over night, which is crazy because they are HUGE!

Visiting baby

Jared's brother Jamie, sister-in-law Kaycee and brand new nephew Hudson came for a visit from Georgia.  

Sahara said Hudson was freaked that Jared was holding him.  But that he liked her a lot.

Our new family outing adventure past-time...

Geo-cashing!!!

It was a lot of fun!  We found our first one within walking distance

 from our house!

Our treasure...little baby feet pin.

All we had were stickers that Canyon made last year in school to leave as our return treasure.

The next one was a bust.  Couldn't find it.  I don't know if it was because we are using the garmin as our GPS, or if they all do this, but it could say 200 feet away one moment and 20 feet away the next.  Even if you haven't moved at all!  

#3 was a find though!

 

Yea!  Sahara found this one and dogtag style necklaces were in it :)

The next 3 were a bust.  Especially since it had rained pretty good the day before and we were out in the mud.  Yep!  Truck got stuck!  We had to wait for over 30 minutes for a friend of Jared's with a 4X4 to come an rescue us.

The more I turned the tires, the more we slid sideways toward the ditch!

Malaki went with us, but we probably wont take him again.  He was just a nervous wreck with us in and out of the truck so much.

Home to wash up from all the mud and some lunch and we were off again.  

Didn't find the one here, but did find an old nest :)

After 5 more tries, we found another.

Nothing was in it but the log sheet so we signed it and added a sticker for the next person.

We stayed within 5 miles of the house and hit 12-15 spots (only finding 4).  But it was something to do and only cost us gas money.  We have an account on geocashing.com and logged our finds.  Looking at the map, we could try to hit 12-15 every weekend for a year and still not make it out of town!!

Sad face today

I think he knows he is in trouble, even though I haven't said anything about it.  Not that it matters anyway....But Canyon decided to put in a video today (instead of a DVD)  We only have one vcr working and that is the one that is a tv / vcr combo in the kitchen.  At first it wasn't working for him because it needed to be rewound.  Then, our wedding started playing....There's Papa!  There's Daddy...then, The Family Feud??!  Then, The Simpsons!  Yep, after the first few minutes, the tape had been previously taped over.  

I don't know if anything else has been taped on it.  I just took it out, said it was broken, and took his picture.    He refused to look at me.

Dance

Canyon has his ticket and he is ready with his glow bracelets and light sticks and glow Animal t-shirt.

Heading off tho the Glow-In-The-Dark Dance at the Jr. High!

Glasses

Well, Sahara got her glasses a couple weeks ago and now Jared decided he has had it with dried out contacts.

He has had problems with his contacts since we met him.  So back to glasses he went too.  Actually he is wearing both off and on.  

The cute little nerd couple :)

Blue Angels Air Show

What to do this weekend now that the weather has changed from in the 100s to in the 80s over night....

The Blue Angels are in town!!

Standing in line to be bag-checked and metal-detected.

There were at least 50 planes on the ground for visiting.  Canyon stands under one with it's wheel coming half way up his back.  The line to walk through this one was very long though so we took a pass on it.

I don't know what this is exactly, but it was cool looking.

Canyon has a turn in the cock-pit of the Coast Guard helicopter.

This plane (The Brat III) was silver and looked like a mirror.

Of course Canyon found a firetruck!

The Blue Angles.

We got to the Air Force Base 1 1/2 hours before the show started.  There were pre-shows going on in the sky and on the ground.

I was lucky to snap this picture right when these two crossed paths.  One right-side up and one up-side down.

Canyon was not a super fan of the loud noises of the engines.  Other kids wore headphones and they had earplugs for sale for $1.  But I didn't think Canyon would want to put them in his ears.  So he or Sahara held his ears just about every time a plane went by.

The tricks were really neat to see.  I'm so glad we didn't make the news with a plane crash though.  That was my biggest fear.

We didn't get to tour this big plane either, but Sahara wanted a picture of it.  She said it looked like a ginormous shark.

We had a good time and it was a very long day (we left at 11:30 and got home at 7).  And even though the temperatures were perfect today, 2 hours sitting in the sun watching the show and I ended up a tad bit burnt!

17

Happy Birthday 

Sahara

!!!!

Before we left for shopping in Little Rock for her birthday, she opened cards and gifts.

Nana and Papa gave her gift cards for Areopostale and Olive Garden.

Another gift card from Aunt Kristy, Uncle Rodd, Caleb and Emily.

Cash and a key chain from Dad and her grandparents.

Cash from Uncle Brian, Aunt Mel, Jason, Parker, Tobey, and Zoey.

She got clothes, a licences plate, key chain, and LED lights (to be installed) from Jared.

THANK YOU EVERYONE!!

At Olive Garden in Little Rock.

At the mall she used her gift card for 2 tanks, a shirt, and a pair of jeans with money left over :)

I got her a pair of Miss Me Jeans.  She better be very in love with them because I will never again spend that amount on 1 pair of jeans ever ever ever again!  But, I guess her little butt is worth it :)

She picked out cheese cake for dessert.

While she was in the shower the night before, I ran out and tagged her car.  But the dew made it all run.  So we had to wipe it clean and re-do it and be late this morning.  Oh well!



Then....look what Jared got for her and had delivered to school!!

SWEEEEET