School....

The girls started school on Monday, each displaying their interdependency by picking out their own clothes and hair styles. I kind of had a hard time with that one. They each have super fantastic teachers this year, Emilys spent the summer in Africa teaching 2nd grade kids and Em comes home with outrageous Baboon stories (if you know Em, this is right up her alley). Her teacher also set it up so that each kid has an African pen pal. Way excited, maybe we can get Rachel a baby. And this is what Garrett has been up to while the girls are away.....

teaching his chick how to skate board. Poor chick.

clogs and shins

While shopping for school clothes we stumbled upon these beauties:
They are cute but the reason for this post is the great story that dates back 30 years. When Jeff was a wee lad his sisters Jen and Jill wore clogs just like these and whenever Jeff fell out of line or got on a nerve, wham, a clog to the shin (please remember that this is Jeff we are talking about and I"m sure that he egged them on to the nth degree). When we go shoe shopping and he sees a pair of shoes like these he literally flinches and locks up in the fetal position. Oh, was I tempted to buy these (too bad I'm such a cheap skate). Anyway, heres to you Jen and Jill, your love is forever imprinted on Jeffs shins!

our ONLY vacation this summer

Yeah, too bad I forgot the camera.

I decided that we REALLY needed to get away for a night or two before school started and with the price of gasoline Jeffs family cabin in Sun Valley was out of the question. So we quickly packed our car full of pillows and more pillows and lots of stuffed animals (have I mentioned that Abby is a pack rat?) and headed off to my moms cabin up in the Uinta Mountains. On the short drive up Garrett asked "Are we in Australia yet?" (I guess he thought we were on a different adventure that involved Aunt Jen, Uncle Darran, and a kangaroo or two). I was surprised that my children had never been around a bon fire or made Smores (yuck). We had such a blast and I am a little disappointed to find that my family got in touch with their red-neck side and LOVED spotting. Oh, you don't know what spotting is (and I'm not talking about what happens to most women)? It when you go find the biggest spot light you can find, amp up the wattage (having a brother that is an electrician on the trip helps), and drive around very late at night and shine that spot light in the poor animals eyes probably giving them a rash because they think they are on the brink of death. My kids lived for this adventure. They got to see deer (Em can tell you the difference between a buck and a doe), jack rabbits, elk, and a moose. We also brought out the red-neck and took up the BB gun. Guess who loves to shoot? Abby Nan Jones (I am still trying to get over seeing my girly-girl holding a weapon of mass destruction). We were so sad to have it end but I do love not having dirt in between my toes.

For anyone who still pulls up this blog...

Okay, its been two weeks since I've updated and I certainly have been slacking in my blog duties. I apologize, deeply. You see my creative juices haven't been flowing lately. Whether it be my children zapping all the life out of me or me trying to keep up with my families weird fetish with animals, I just haven't had time to blog and frankly, I feel terrible about it. Since my mouth is bigger than my ability to get my kids off the computer, I'm sure you all know about our new farm dog, Molly: She is quite cute. The best thing about her is that since we are part owners we don't have to have her full time. This means that my dear brother (who is childless at the moment) gets to potty train her and let her chew up his furniture (which she hasn't done, yet). We only take her when we can. I love partial custody pets.
And since my children think they need MORE pets I take them, on occasion, to the animal shelter.
Where we ended up with one more turkey, one more rooster, one more hen, and yes, four more chicks. Who knew that the animal shelter took in fowl? Apparently not I.