Merry Christmas Everybody!!

We just wanted to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

click on the link for our…2011 Schaff Christmas Newsletter

A Little Backtracking…Avery’s 7th Birthday Party (8.27.2011)

Avery has been on this “Hawaiian” kick lately.  All summer long it has been her thing.  It may have something to do with the HUGE hibiscus flowers we have growing in the backyard.  Pretty aren’t they?!  Anyhow, she of course decided that she wanted to have a Hawaiian birthday party with her friends.  Here are a few picture highlights…

Some of her favorite friends joined us:  Kennedy, Ellie, Ella, Chloe W., Emily, Lauren, Adalynn, Misuzu and Avery Jane the birthday girl.

They had a great time playing volleyball, swimming and running through the sprinklers, water gun fights, hula hoop and limbo contests, cupcakes & tropical sherbet with slushies for a treat.

A Home

So we went on vacation in July and came home to this on our front porch…

Mama Hummingbird had set up house and home on the extension cord for our Christmas lights.  I guess we won’t be taking those down anytime soon!  She was a very protective Mama.  She was not afraid to get up close and personal if she thought we were too close to her nest.  My brother Aaron came over one day and Mama Hummingbird tried to peck him in the ear!

A couple of weeks later there was this…

3 baby hummingbird in that tiny little nest!  I don’t know if you can tell from the picture, but they are sitting head to tail in the nest…2 tails with a beak in between.

We watched them flap their wings and climb on each other for a couple days.  We even endured their dropping on the front porch (not pretty!)  Then one morning we went to see them and they were all gone!  We have had a lot of fun seeing hummingbirds all over the neighborhood, pretending that they are “our” hummingbirds!

School Days

Avery was so excited to start 2nd grade.  Her teacher this year is Miss Isaacs.  Avery struggled a bit last year with wanting to go to school.  Somewhere along the way she lost her love for school.  Everyday for the first week of school she got off the bus saying things like:  “School was sooo fun!” & “best school day ever…even from first grade!”  So things are good so far!

Chloe also got to start school this year.  Yeah for preschool!  She is going to Amber’s Academy (Amber Taylor, 1 block down the street)  So far she is loving it!  She has already talked about the letter A and the letter C and made a paper doll that looks like herself.  She has a favorite stuffed animal –Mousey…she has stowed away in her pack back everyday and been use for show and tell as an ANIMAL (FOR “A” DAY) & CUTE CRITTER (FOR “C” DAY)

(this was green beans for breakfast with Mousey…)
(Hey!  don’t judge, you feed ‘em what they’ll eat when they’ll eat it, right?!)

So you are probably wondering what I am doing with all my free time with Avery back in school all day and Chloe at pre-school for 4 hours a week…

A trip to Costco never went so smoothly!  The dishes are getting done on a more regular basis.  The “mountain-o-laundry” finally got folded (we haven’t seen some of those clothes since Jackson Hole!) Oh and let’s not forget the uninterrupted showers! 

I love my kids, don’t get me wrong…but I am also enjoying some time to my self!

I’m a Slacker…I know!

But what gives me comfort in that is that as I look through the blogs of friends and family on my side bar…most of you are too!  (In the blogging world at least!)

Summer for us does not always equal more time.  We seem to have been busy since the minute school got out.  We have had one session of swimming lessons and are gearing up for a second, summer recreation soccer and literacy at the park, friends and backyard water parties, two vacations back to back with another couple of days at Bear Lake coming soon.  Jeremy and Jordan are coming with the kids for a couple of weeks in August so there is definitely more fun to be had!With only a month until school starts again, the fun will most likely go until the bitter end!

We have been very lucky this spring and summer to have some great vacations to add to our memory books.  In April (I know, it was so long ago!) over Avery’s Spring Break from school, we took a trip to San Diego.  We had a great time!  The girls were so good on the long drive down and they completely enjoyed every minute of Sea World and the Zoo.  The Safari Park (formally known as the Wild Animal Park) was a slightly miserable experience and we will probably never do that again, but everything else was great.  I will post a Smilebox Slideshow with some of our favorite moments from that trip.

But for now, here are the pictures from our latest trip to Bear Lake with the Jensen Family and the Tetons with the Schaff Family.

and let’s not forget the Bear Lake Wildlife…

(He’s single folks…hard to believe huh?!)

We spent July 11th-14th at “the cabin” at Bear Lake.  With the long winter and record amounts of snow and rain fall the lake is finally back to the wall…just barely.  We were happy to see that we could launch the wave runner right from the shore and not have to be out it the marsh land muck.

That meant a few things that we didn’t get to do this year:  no packing lunches before you’ve had breakfast, no truck loading and unloading every morning and afternoon, no truck rides to the bathroom, no sandy bums & toes and the girls could change in and out and in and out and in and out of their swimming suits whenever they felt like it!

 

The morning of the 14th we loaded the car back up and headed to the Grand Tetons to meet the Schaff Family for 6 days.  We enjoyed the beautiful mountains, wildflowers, wildlife and relaxation. 

Downtown Jackson at the Elk Horn Arches in the Park

A view of the Tetons from the back deck of Jackson Lake Lodge.

Saddles at Jackson Lake Lodge, my cowboy and girls, wildflowers and smiles.

     

Bar T5:  Wagon ride complete with Indian ambush, dutch oven dinner and a show, Avery & Preslee.

Wow this is getting long!  But there is still more!  Time to Enjoy Yellowstone.  We stayed mostly around Old Faithful and a few hot springs just north of there.

Keplar Cascades

Old Faithful

The Beehive Geyser and 2 kids that don’t care!

Bacteria mat, Fountain Paint Pots and boiling mud!

    

Spasm (the geyser not the girl), boiling run off from the Excelsior pool and Turquoise Pool.

And last but not least…The Grand Prismatic Springs.  I loved the colors that came off of this one.  Even the steam seemed to glow blue, green and orange.

You may have noticed that Avery Jane is the star in most of these photos.  Katers was tuckered out and fell asleep on Stephen’s shoulders at the Fountain Paint Pots.  They relaxed in the car while Avery and I ran up the hill to catch these wonders of nature.

 

We just want to say thank you to the Grandparents in our lives that put together these vacations.  Without them we would have been stuck at home doing laundry!