Life as we know it..

Fall is here. Like all of us, I love it, but it sure is tiring! Gone are the days of doing whatever we please. Schedules are nice, but so restrictive! ;) Here's a few snapshots of our day to day..

Dayne is so, SO busy. Every day upon arriving home from school, she has it set in her mind what craft she wants to do and how it'll go. It's exhausting to watch her! I seem to be in a constant state of "pick-up after Dayne". Paper clippings in her room.., glue and glitter all over the dining room table.., it never really ends. But I do appreciate her ability to stay entertained and of course the sweet artwork with which she adorns our home. Notice the last pic below is the books and card she made for Santa. Sweet girl. "Dir Santa Claus, I love you". Should I leave it right there on my fireplace until Christmas??

All she needs from me is an occasional spelling for the many books she staples together, composes, then delivers to loved ones (that includes teachers, friends.., even acquaintances, mind you.). She's also a great helper when I can motivate her. Here are a few pics of our typical "Monday"; Cole doing homeschool, Dayne peeling sweet potatoes (what a messy kitchen I have!), and June keeping herself happy after being ignored most of the day (we can thank Cole for having my complete attention most, if not ALL of the school day).

We went to Dayne's fall school fair last Sat. Her teacher was the face painter and Dayne asked for a painting on her forehead of the cow jumping over the moon! Good thing she inherited my "sufficiently-sized" forehead! Ha! The Sat. before that our ward put on a HUGE garage sale benefiting a youth in our ward who has bone cancer. It was incredible. Geof. and Cole camped on the grass outside the building because there was so much that had to be left outside and they needed some "watch dogs". We had over a thousand people enter the church building and the sale raised over $11,500! Such a wonderful experience for the ward and its members. We came home with a Santa and Mrs. Claus troll dolls. Reminds me of the mother. She loved her scary troll dolls.

Junie is loving ballet. Dayne doesn't seem to mind that she's not doing it. They didn't offer it for her age, sadly. She's starting swimming again next month. We're hoping it'll help clear her up and strengthen her lungs. June is also enjoying preschool and all the play dates she enjoys afterward (there are 5 lds kids from our ward in the class of 12 kids!). Happy child.

And although most days are a fight to get Cole started on school, he still says he does NOT want to go back to regular school and Geof. and I both agree that he's getting SO much more done at home and actually LEARNING something! ;)

Sorry I don't have pics of me or Geof. Geof. did sport a mustache for half of last week. Not so cute. He shaved it off after seeing himself in a mirror at the gym and thinking he appeared quite "mouselike".

Rocky Mountain National Park

We took our annual trip up to Rocky Mountain National Park on Saturday. We sure missed having Pa & Grandma Danna with us, like we did last year! We took a hike (not to cub lake again, a new trail through the meadow). While driving we saw elk, two moose, and a few big horn sheep. One of my favorite traditions during one of my favorite times of year :).

Oh, this lady! There was a group of people observing this elk (from a logical, safe distance). Then she comes along for a close up shot and all of us tense up waiting for the elk to show her whose boss. But he didn't. A few years ago, Pop and Gram got too close to a bull elk and he started to charge Pop. Fortunately, the elk changed his mind and left peacefully...leaving all of us (especially Pop) a bit shaken up. Ever since then we like to call Pop "elk bait", but not to his face.

Provo

Finny flexing his muscles. We also taught him to say "Arr mateys!".


before the nightmare began...


Meeting his aunt Jackie :)- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Jack, for a giant bill they found out that it could resolve itself. We are so blessed that it did but....ouch!

Darla, great job on the piano teaching! I have an idea how fun it is to keep Cole interested and excited to practice and play! How fun is it he can play a duet with his mom! Thanks for saying all those nice things about us. You are always serving someone!

Adam is Amazing! While I was in Utah I got to drive out to Adam's "Man Camp." We hiked around and had a great visit. What a riot he is! I blame Ellery! I'm just sorry I missed his text about stopping by the plant after church for an elk burger.

Mindi, whenever I hear a story about someone like "The Stone Cutter" walking 20 or so miles every Mon into Salt Lake so he can work on the temple till Fri or Sat and then walking home, I am always impressed but......WHO I AM REALLY IMPRESSED WITH IS HIS WIFE! She is home holding down the fort by herself! No movie about her! No glory and no complaints! You are an amazing wife! You are Adam's best decision!

We are pretty impressed with all our kids. We are truly blessed!

Jess did you get the magic marker out of everything or anything? So sorry!

Le Anne

PS I am way excited to be home for awhile! Went to the paint store today. I can hardly wait!

Meags and I are having a race to see who gets their painting done 1st

Piano

The Olympians

We live in Lacey but our address is Olympia and "The Olympians" sounds way more cool than "the Laceys."  Plus, my daughter that is obsessed with Percy Jackson will love the name.  It is way too easy to justify not taking the time to write on the blog now that life is so crazy, but I have felt tremendous guilt.  So...here's the lowdown.

Last week we made the 14-hour drive down to Mike's graduation, it was a great trip, brief, but great.  We had so much fun and it was very satisfying being able to watch Mike graduate after all the hours and hours and hours and hours of work he has done.  Our friends, the Carlisle's, came down for the graduation and our delicious lunch on Fisherman's Wharf.  They gave Mike a framed flag.  It was the flag they flew from 9/11 until Mike got home from Afghanistan, a very touching tribute to Mike and his service.  It still makes me tear up when I look at it. Besides graduation we were able to spend a little more time walking our favorite running route with the kids, going out for bread bowls and Ghiradelli chocolates, dinner with our good friends, the Burton's, a girl's night out for me, and a weekend that included a few glimpses of Jane as she made her way from one social event to another. Then we loaded up Mike's apt and took off at 10:30 Saturday night.

Now we have Mike home and it is heavenly.  We all love having daddy around.  Sawyer is his daddy's little shadow or his battle buddy.  Ellyn takes his hand and drags him around with her or curls up in his lap for snuggles.  Jane and Sadie tolerate his constant teasing.   I have a running buddy and someone that makes staying up late more appealing than just climbing into bed exhausted every night and falling asleep.  I'm pretending that he is not leaving again.

Family news-

Jane has a huge group of friends and is always doing something with friends or begging to do something with friends.  It's a cute group and I have no complaints.  She has a hard schedule this fall and at first I was freaking out with the amount of homework she had, but she is getting it done faster and isn't as overwhelmed as she was the first few weeks.

Sadie is queen of the neighborhood.  She plays with all our little neighbor kids until dark.  We have four LDS families on our street and three of them are old enough to play with Sadie and Sawyer, they all just run and bike around from one house to the next.  Sadie is the very oldest so most of the time she is the MC of all activities.  I'm not a huge lover of little cookie-cutter neighborhoods but it really is fun after having the kids so isolated from friends in Carmel.  Besides playing, Sadie is doing piano and doing well in school.  She and Ellyn go to the same school and my cute Sadie is so excited when she sees her sister in the halls and loves playing with her the few recesses a week that Ellyn is integrated into the general school population.

Ellyn is doing great.  I panicked the first day of school.  I walked into her classroom and it was a regular classroom.  No play area, no craft table, no bright happy colors everywhere.  I really just wanted to yell at them  "DID YOU NOT EVEN PAY ANY ATTENTION TO ANYTHING THAT I SENT YOU MONTHS AGO?"  The answer to that is- No, they hadn't.  BUT... they assured me that Ellyn would be fine and basically told Mama Bear to go home.  At the end of the day they asked if we could meet as soon as possible.  We did, they've been able to get to know Ellyn, and they have made some adjustments and what is awesome is that Ellyn seems to be thriving.  She is saying lots of new words, starting to make little one word answers, and is really happy.  She has great new after school tutors and a new respite person from our ward.  It is always an excellent feeling to have our girl feeling good.

Sawyer is a such a happy, cute, little guy. I can't believe our baby will be four in a week! Sawyer is his mom's daytime buddy, he is sweet and loving to each of his sisters, and loves playing with all of his new friends.  "Soy Bean" does preschool four days a week with our preschool co-op.  We have all sorts of fun, each momma takes one day and all the kids love it.  Sawyer now has "red days" and "purple days." He picked the colors.  It's a sign on the fridge, two sided.  Red is a no video game day and purple is a yes video game day.  This little system has saved my sanity.  No more nagging all day long, three days yes, four days no.  Of course with daddy home there have been many more yes days.  

I am just being the mom.  I wake up at 5 with Jane and hit the sack after I get everyone to bed and spend some time talking with Mike on Face time (not now of course).  I don't know when we'll fit in talking when he is three hours earlier than I am.  I am finally on a regular work out schedule and slowly integrating running back into my routine.  I have X-rays on my feet tomorrow and then they are going to make me some lovely orthotics.  I'm hoping I'll get to finally heal up.  I chopped my hair off last month- short.  I figured it would just hang down my back wet all winter long.  It is much easier and I only miss it when I'm around Meagan and I get a teensy bit jealous.

That is the OLYMPIAN update.  Sorry it is sooo long.  Love you all.

Adam Ellery

Ellynn, I hesitate to interrupt all the good news about baby Adam...but I've been wanting to post a few things about Adam E. (I wanted to say my Adam, but I know better. I have to share.)

Adam is so happy as a homeless man. He really hopes to survive the winter out here (doesn't it look like the moon?). He's been working from noon to midnight, driving to this spot a few miles from the plant, and sleeping in his truck. He's convinced that he cannot be seen from the road and will not be discovered in this location. As far as I can tell, he has two plans for surviving the winter out here: a) find a cave to sleep in (honestly, he has been looking for caves on his morning runs), b) drop a camper out here and snowshoe in when the snow is so deep he can't drive his truck. He spends a lot of effort in making sure he gets a shower every day. He just bought his third camp shower at an REI garage sale and it is funny to see how excited it is about it. He wrote me an email and said that he showered that morning and it was only 48 degrees. When he comes home, he claims to take cold showers so that he won't get soft.

Aside from telling you all about his showering habits, I also wanted to include words from a letter he recently received. A few weeks ago he stopped to help a friend of Meagan & Cory's, Shane Hall. I'm trying to figure out how to word this to make the story less complicated...Shane and his father, Tim, were in Colorado on a 9 day bow hunting trip (hunting for elk). In the middle of the trip, Shane (a trained EMT) got really sick and self-diagnosed himself with appendicitis. They left their packs and rushed to civilization to medical help. Shane is ok, but the packs were 9.5 miles back in the wild. It wasn't too much out of Adam's way to meet up with Tim and hike in & out to get the packs. Adam didn't have the right clothes or food for such a hike, but being Adam he did it anyway. Here is the letter of appreciation from Tim:

"People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built." Eleanor Roosevelt
Hello Adam. Not only was your recent experience on the Flat Tops Wilderness a character building experience, but it also showed the true measure of your character going in. There are few men who would have volunteered to help a complete stranger by walking 13.5 hours in the cold freezing rain over rough steep country carryng a heavy pack suffering physical pain not complaining and end the ordeal in a positive frame of mind. It's difficult for me to find the correct words to express my gratitude for your enormous outpouring of yourself to come to my aid as you did. For without your unselfish act I would have suffered much and taken three days to do what we did together in one...I'd like to express my heart-felt thanks for all that you did and to your family for allowing you the time to be away. You will always be remembered.
I couldn't help but tear up when Adam read this to me. I wanted to share it with everyone. "Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto [Adam]..." (Alma 48:17)

Adam is home!!!

We are a very happy little family!! Our little guy is doing great! He's a good eater, he sleeps like a rock and is so mellow when he's awake. Basically a polar opposite from Finn, haha! Finny could not be more excited to have his baby home. Life is beautiful :)


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