Garage Sale, Big Jud's

Last night Landon went to the father/son campout. I went to bed at about 10:15pm after watching a very disturbing Dateline about a scary murderer. After I fell asleep, I was awakened by the sound of the front door softly clicking closed, then the next thing I knew there was an enormous man standing at the end of my bed staring at me. Turns out it was Landon, but I almost peed my pants. Turns out, he missed us and decided to come home. He also didn't want to blow up his air mattress and sleep in the bed of the truck in the open air.

This morning we went garage sale shopping in the Jones's neighborhood. We came home with 2 sleeping bags for the girls (thanks for the screaming deal Jones family!), a puzzle, a book, 2 white boards for the girls' rooms, and a grill basket to cook food over a fire.

We also went to Big Jud's this afternoon. We went with the Allen's (our neighbors). It was so good! We enjoyed the Big Jud Big Deal. It's perfect for Emma, Landon and me to split it and still feel like we need a long nap when we're done. (Lauren got a kid's meal.)

Because the weather's been really warm (mid 80's) Lauren's been outside playing a lot. She has sunburned shoulders. Hard to see in this picture, but just believe me. She's burnt.

We've been taking care of the Kimpel's animals while they're out of town for a few days. Katrina Kimpel is Emma's best friend. They live on about 2 acres and do "hobby farming." We're responsible for feeding/watering 23 meat chicks, about 12 hens and 1 rooster, 2 dairy goats, a dog with an arthritic hip, a 3-legged cat and a normal cat. We also water their huge garden. We go over morning and evening every day until Monday night. They have about 40 huge lilac bushes lining their property, so we brought some home. They're nauseatingly fragrant.

End of School Year

The last day of school was yesterday! The last 2 weeks were packed with all kinds of activities. I managed to sub 2 days each of the last 2 weeks, so I felt like I participated in some of the craziness. Landon's class went to an Ag Expo, hiked the Cress Creek trail then ate lunch at the splash park and played in the water, in addition to a big pizza party on the last day of school for all the kids who passed off their multiplication facts. I picked up 17 pizzas and helped serve them to the kids yesterday.
Emma's class did a big play/program about Lewis and Clark (performed it 3 times), had an Idaho History day at the park (Landon dressed up as a mountain man and demonstrated traps and black powder guns while I subbed in his classroom that day), and had a field trip to the Rex, which is a movie theater, bowling alley and games center. The whole 4th grade reserved it for the day.
Lauren's class had a talent show for all the parents one day, and went to the Nature Park on the last day of school. They also finished work on a very involved and interesting pine cone project. Lauren's teacher collects pine cones from all different kinds of trees and had the kids do a report on about 10 different types of pine cones. I'll have to find it and take a picture.
In addition to all of those activities, there was field day (I was there that day subbing for a 4th grade class), and 2 different parties for kids who earned a bunch of AR points with their reading.
It was such a relief to be done with school yesterday! It was early out because it was the last day of school, so I took the girls to the splash park to play and to celebrate summer being here. It was really fun to sit under a tree and watch the girls play in the water with thousands of other kids. This school year went by really fast, but we're all looking forward to lots of fun times this summer.
I let Emma take the camera with her to the Idaho History day and to the Rex field trip. She literally came home with 101 pictures. I selected a few for the blog:

Emma's friend, Gillian. She tends to attract friends who resemble her. This picture reminds me that we're currently shopping for an orthodontist. We're looking forward to a $4000 round of braces and at least 4 permanent teeth pulled within the next 3 months. Here's pictures of Annie, Katrina and Cassie...all her good friends.

Memorial Day

Today we went to the zoo in Idaho Falls (Tautphas Park Zoo). The Idaho Falls Zoo is the lamest zoo I've ever been to, but we still go about once a year. After the zoo, we drove up into the mountains for a cook out. We cooked bratwurst (or bratHORST, as the girls say) over the fire and supplemented with chips and Walmart mustard potato salad (my favorite store-bought potato salad). The girls climbed down a cliff to a little stream and had a blast playing in the water. We should have just avoided the zoo and gone straight to the cook out. It took us over 2 hours to get home on bumpy, dusty, rocky, dirt roads. Landon said Pa would have loved it.
This is the big highlight of the zoo...a baby camel. He seemed all tuckered out (or dead) when we were there.

There is an emu in the picture above the donkey picture. It's a horrible picture, but the only one that had me in it. I wanted to show proof that I was with everyone today.

The girls found walking sticks and explored before we ate lunch today.

Cooking the brats.

Enjoying our tasty lunch. Fake smiles all around.

Funny Stuff

This morning I was helping Lauren get ready for school and all of a sudden she gagged so hard I thought she was going to throw up. I said, "what's wrong?" She said, "your breath stinks! It smells like gravy." I said, "what kind of gravy?" She said, "meat." It was really funny.

If you want to laugh really hard, check out this video. It's a skit from Saturday Night Live. It's actually clean and it makes me laugh so hard I cry. Enjoy. (You may have to endure a 10 second commercial first, but hang in there...it's so worth it.)

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/lawrence-welk/1105211/

Survivor Party

I forgot to take my camera with me, but we went to Landon's classroom and watched the finale of Survivor with the Jones family last night. Allen brought a projector and speakers, so we were able to watch the show on the pull down screen in the front of the room. Of course we all brought food (chips, dips, candy, cookies, banana bread, drinks, etc.) and we brought in camp chairs so we'd be more comfortable. It was really fun! We've been videotaping the weekly episodes on Landon's TV at school, then passing the videotape to the Jones's so they can watch it too. (Both our families are victims of the Dish Network/Fisher Broadcasting dispute, so we don't get CBS.) It was a fun way to watch the finale.

Emma's Concert

All of the 4th graders in the school district (400 kids) had a combined singing concert with the Jr. High choir last night. Emma has been really excited about this event for the past several months. After the rehearsal yesterday at the high school, Emma completely fell to the ground and scraped her chin, both knees and hands. She rode back to her school on the bus, got some first aid attention and then went to see her dad. He called me to come get her. When I saw her, I said, "poor baby!" and that's when the weeping began. She was shaking and crying uncontrollably. I got her home, fed her lunch and laid down with her until she fell asleep. She slept 2 hours. I know I'm responsible for making my kids wimps, but I'd rather have a wimpy kid than a snotty, belligerent kid. At least mine aren't like that.

Emma (with a band-aid on the chin) and Lauren. I told Emma to wear the band-aid, because otherwise it looks like she has 3 lips.Emma is in the second row from the bottom between two blond girls.

Yellowstone Trip

For Mother's Day, I wanted to go to Yellowstone and have some fun as a family. We left Friday afternoon right after school and came home Saturday night. We had such a fun time! The animals were really active and we saw a total of 5 bears (3 grizzlies and 2 black bears)! We saw antelope, deer, hundreds of bison and elk, a coyote, a bald eagle about 20 feet away, geese, and 2 moose (mama and baby moose). I had expected to see lots of baby bison, but we only saw about 3 or 4. We always give the girls a little tally sheet so they can count the animals we see. We pay them a penny for every bison, .05 for elk, .10 for deer, .50 for bear, etc. We told them when they get to $5.00 the game is over. They got to $5.00 before we even got to Gardiner (which is the north entrance of Yellowstone).
This is where we stopped for dinner on the way to Gardiner. It was sooo cold! The girls ate in the back of the truck, but Landon and I ate inside! We packed sandwich supplies and tons of treats for our little trip. That's always one of the fun parts of any LeFevre road trip.

We love staying in Gardiner, Montana. This campground is directly next to the LDS church building in town. The owners know us by name, send us Christmas cards and don't take our credit card information over the phone. They trust us to show up when we ask for a reservation. They give the girls free postcards and give us a returning customer discount every time we come.We stayed in the 1 room cabin this time. Kind of tiny, but it has heat and lights. We had cereal in cups for breakfast in bed.That is a buffalo sleeping outside the door of a local business, visible from our cabin. Once when we were staying Gardiner, there were 2 buffalo hanging around the bathroom doors of the campground.

We stopped to see a grizzly bear Saturday afternoon and this is what the girls had to say:

Here are some animals we saw: a coyote, elk, black bear and grizzly bear.We did a small hike around the Norris geyser basin.

We stopped at a sign and read the Chief Joseph story. Emma is studying about Idaho state history and wanted to see what the sign said.

Lauren had a big headache on the drive home. Someone is always in tears by the time we get home from having adventures.

Haircuts

Today I took the girls to Evans Hairstyling College to get their hair cut. Emma just wanted an inch trimmed off the ends. She wants to grow her hair reallly long, like it was in 2nd grade. Lauren wanted her hair cut completely off like she did at the end of Kindergarten. I let the girls make their own decisions regarding their hair, so here are the results:

The girl who did Emma's hair let them each have a flower clip, which was really sweet. A boy named Hector, cut and styled Lauren's hair. He ran his own salon in Mexico and decided to move up here and get his cosmetology license in the U.S., so that's why he's so good. Lauren's hair is adorable, and it only took him about a half hour...a record for the beauty school. (I just hope he didn't give her the swine flu.)

This is what Lauren's hair looked like last time it was short:

Some Updates

Emma had her yearly eye exam, and her prescription increased by 3 levels. Here she is with her new glasses:

The teachers have been spoiled this week by the PTO. Landon has been receiving all kinds of loot for Teacher Appreciation week. He received a gift basket with a $20 giftcard to Gringos (local mexican restaurant) with a bag of chips and a jar of salsa yesterday. He's been receiving little treats each day, like his favorite candy bar, gift certificates, lunch provided by the PTO, etc. I wish someone would come up with substitute appreciation week. This is the T-shirt the kids signed for him (it's an XL and Mr. LeFevre is a 2XL, but that's OK):

Bye-Bye Kitty

Today we took our cat to Mr. Bowman's house to live. I hope he enjoys being an outdoor cat. The girls were sad for about 5 minutes as we drove away, until we stopped at Ashton's Frost Top for dinner. They filled the holes in their hearts with taco soup, chips and salsa and an ice cream cone. Landon and I each ate a footlong hotdog with onion rings. No more sadness.

Kitty, enjoying his last days of the good life.

Eagerly looking forward to his new life.

Teacher Appreciation Week

Next week is Teacher Appreciation week. I was asked to decorate Lauren's teacher's door (that's what they do in our district to celebrate the teachers).
I used different fabrics for the sand, ocean, palm tree and sun. I also glued some buttons on the palm tree to represent coconuts.
This is what the room mom did for Mr. LeFevre's door. I think it's almost better than mine.