A little bit of this and that....

Pretty sky one night

Katie trying to be artistic with the picture taking. Yum! It does look good, doesn't it?

And would you believe I forgot to take the camera to our Memorial Day picnic so.... no pictures. We had a great time, eating burgers and hot dogs and playing soccer and softball. I was even talking smack out there on the softball field. :) My dear husband is coming home tomorrow night late, Lord willing. That is a good thing. Katie, Grant and Drew are all celebrating birthdays this weekend..... this is my get sick of cake week. Grant wants a cheesecake though, so that will be a nice difference. Have I started birthday shopping yet?????? NO!! What am I thinking?? And I have to plant flowers this weekend too.

Katie's (almost) 15

I promised the kids when they were little that each major 5th birthday (5, 10, 15) I would give them a big bIrthday bash. They could choose anything they wanted to do, within reason, and ask as many friends as they wanted, within reason. Then on the other years we would just do small birthday parties with family and one or two friends. So this is Katie's 15th birthday year and her turn to choose. She wanted a sleepover with 7 friends and then go to Pizza Hut. Here are some pictures.

Her friends know her well. Katie loves anything girlie.

Tara, Danielle, Katie, and Catie (you can't see Rachel, Chelsea, and Rosie and Meghan)

Can a trampoline hold 9 teenage girls? (and four bratty brothers?:)

There were 14 of us in Pizza Hut! UGH! (only one of us was over 18, but I'm not telling which one it was:)

Spring leaves and fresh colors

I have several new posts, so make sure you scroll down a ways to be sure you haven't missed anything. :)

Graduation

Can you see the tired in Taylor's eyes? I saw it and took a picture. He was asleep about 2 minutes after this picture was taken. We were at graduation. The next few pictures are from the graduation ceremony. Both 8th grade and 12th grade graduations were combined. We had only one high school grad and 3 8th grade graduates.

8th graders, Randy, Danielle, and Andrew.

Here came the junior class with their shades on. They tried not to laugh but most of them had smiles on their faces as they came up the aisle.

Ericka

Alex

Heidi N.

Ben looks like a Secret Service Agent.

Andre'a, the High School graduate and her shades. She made mention of Mr. Bryan (Lincoln) who inspired her love of learning. When we moved up here 13 yrs. ago this little girl would not have even been in kindergarten yet. Am I old or what???
Tim's ode to macaroni. Hilarious!! I got a video but it would take too long to upload it so I won't. I forgot to mention that we have a really nice sized Junior Class (now Seniors), I think there are 11 of them. So next years' graduation will be really "big".

Andre'a's car.

Freezing cold picnic

Our end of school picnic was yesterday, we always have a picnic on the last day of school. This year was very cold. I woke up to pouring rain at about 5 a.m. and I don't think it stopped until maybe 7 a.m. I thought they would probably cancel the picnic, but it did start breaking up around 10 a.m. Anyway, we had a stiff breeze which made eating outside quite uncomfortable. You can see how cold everyone is in this picture.
I think everyone had a good time. Cold doesn't seem to bother the kids too badly. (Just us old people:))

St. Mary's, Alaska

Here is part of the little town in western Alaska where Andrew and several other guys are spending the spring/summer/fall. It is on the Andrefski River about 90 miles from the coast of Alaska.
Unloading one of the seven "Herc's" full of materials, food, equipment and supplies.
I believe these are C130's, only they are not operated by the military, but a private carrier. Huge airplanes!!!
The primary mode of transportation!!
The secondary mode of transportation. :) The steering wheel is on the right side of the vehicle and they are having to learn how to shift gears with their left hand. Besides the fact that it is a tiny cab! Darryl Q. is driving..... so nice he and Andrew could work together again this summer!! For those of you who didn't know, Darryl and Andrew had a business together in Tennessee many, many years ago!!
This is the Catholic Mission that started the town of St. Mary's, I don't know how many years ago, but I would guess in the 30's or 40's.
Cute kids playing on the little truck.
This snowmachine was being held up by a very small mound of snow. It looks funny, suspended like that.
This is the house/dorm they are renting. There isn't as much snow now, if any at all, the picture was taken back in March.
Not a very clear picture of one of the rooms inside the dorm.

Beautiful Mt. McKinley on the right, out of the window of the airplane. Mt. Foraker is on the left.

Eric the Red

This last week of school Miss Kerley had a medieval (sp?) day/banquet. Drew was Eric the Red. Katie sprayed his hair red and made a red beard from paint and cotton balls. Crazy kids! It was kind of hard to eat, it looked like.
She did it to Taylor too. :)

Good Dad!!

I so love watching my gorgeous husband be such a good dad to his boys (and his girls too, but ESPECIALLY the boys). Here they are playing softball/baseball. :) They are still out there playing as I write.

Tyler

Taylor

Grant

Drew

Notice we are finally having spring weather, thus the short sleeves, no snow on the ground, etc.

Double Congrats

The twins had their graduation ceremony last evening. Andrew made it in for that. It is soooo good to have him home. These next few pictures are of the graduation ceremony. I got so many it was hard to choose so I tried to pick out the cutest. I'm also going to try to post a video.

Hannah and Taylor

Tyler and Kati H.

Kati told her mom this week that she and Tyler had been holding pretend weddings, getting married to each other. :) So cute!

Mrs. Wease, their awesome teacher.

I guess Taylor didn't want to mess the front of his hair up, his hat is pushed way back on his head. He almost lost it.

They just wont smile nice at all. Can I blame that on Gramp?? :)