Our Weekend

A couple of months ago Aaron astonished me when he built a fire and burned nearly every CD he owned. Anyone who knows Aaron knows this is a big deal. Music has always been important to him and he probably had about 200 CDs. He decided he didn't want the negative influence his music had on him in his life anymore. Since then he has listened exclusively to country music. One of the country musicians he really likes is George Strait. I was really excited when I heard George Strait was going to be performing in Boise and for Aaron's Christmas present I surprised him with two tickets to the concert. We went to that concert on Friday night and it was a lot of fun. Aaron says that George Strait sounds even better live than he does on the CDs. It was nice to go to a concert where obscenities weren't screamed from the stage in between songs.

Yesterday my friend Sonja called and invited Aaron and I to go horseback riding with her. Sonja is my friend I took riding lessons from and she is so much fun to be with. Aaron hadn't been on a horse since he was fourteen but he did great. We rode up into the hills behind Sonja's house and it was amazing. We saw lots of deer, bunnies, quail and a pheasant. There are these great rock formations up there that are incredible. There was something so peaceful and soothing about being out there on the horses in that great scenery. We were quite startled when Aaron' cell phone rang and it was the kids calling to see when we'd be home. Aaron said, "Man, I almost forgot we had kids!"

My Generous Girl

For two weeks now we have been on a quest for a guinea pig. Austin and Amanda each have one and they decided they wanted to buy Lauren one for her birthday. We have been checking every Petsmart, Petco, and private pet shop in the Boise area and have yet to find one. I take that back. Tonight we did find a little white female but just before we bought her we noticed a spot on the side of her face that was kind of bald and icky. When we asked the salesperson about it, he took a look and then said he would have to send her to the vet before he could sell her. Great. Lauren was pretty bummed. Luckily she has a fantastic, generous older sister who told her that if she didn't find a guinea pig, she would share hers with her. Amanda LOVES her little black guinea pig, Magic, and Lauren was very touched that Amanda offered to share with her. Amanda is so giving, generous and thoughtful. She will pretty much give you anything she has or do anything for you. She is such a good example to me of being charitable and I admire these qualities in her so much. We are so blessed to have her in our family.

Lauren Turns 6 !!!

How can it be possible that my baby is already turning 6 years old? I'm not sure where time went but yesterday we celebrated Lauren's birthday with her first "friend" birthday party. In the past we have always celebrated with family but this year she had a real party with friends from school. The party went great and one girl was even overheard saying, "This is the best party I've ever been to!" I think that was due to our neighbor coming over and giving all of the girls Barbie dolls to take home. She just retired from working for Mattel toy company and has tons of toys that she gives to the kids. I think the party was a little bit stressful for Lauren because of her shy nature. I could tell it was hard for her to open presents in front of the crowd. She absolutely refused to smile for any of the pictures, except for the one below that I took when she opened up the radio Aaron and I got her. She accidently let that one slip. When it came time to sing Happy Birthday she looked like she wanted to hide and she then she decided she didn't want to blow out her candles. Luckily she has a big brother that helped her out with that. The party was a bit of a growing experience for her but overall she had fun and enjoyed having her friends over.

Finding Peace In the Quiet Moments...

A Quick Trip

It's been about a week now since I last posted anything. I keep waiting for something interesting to happen to write about but this week has been pretty uneventful. Tomorrow morning Aaron is flying down to California to pick up a work truck we still have there. He will get in about noon, get the truck checked out, have dinner with his family and be headed for Idaho by about 8pm. Quick trip! I am extremely jealous that he will get to eat at La Casita while he's there. What I would do to have some good mexican food! He has promised to bring me back a container of their salsa as a consolation gift. I am praying that he makes it all the way here without any problems. The truck he will be driving is an older truck and I question it's reliability. I keep imagining him breaking down in the middle of a snowstorm in one of those long stretches of nothingness. That would not be good. He feels confident though that he won't run into any problems. Let's hope he's right.

Back to the Grind

Well, today we returned to "real" life. The kids went back to school and Aaron went back to work. Aaron took time off after Christmas and we had lots of fun play time. We went to the movies twice and saw "Eragon" and "Night In the Museum". We went bowling and Lauren beat us all - again. One day we drove up to McCall where there is about a foot and a half of snow and went snow tubing at the Activity Barn. There were four runs you could tube down and at least three of them sent you flying downhill at about 40 mph. This was a bit intense for the girls and they didn't enjoy it quite as much as the rest of us. Lauren would only go down if Aaron held onto her tube and dragged his feet to slow her down. All in all we had a great Christmas vacation and had lots of fun as a family.