A Week To Myself

School is finally over (Yipee!!!) and summer vacation has officially started. And what happens the official first day of summer?...the first day I get to sleep in?....the first day I can start on all those fun projects that I actually want to do? I wake up sick. I guess my body took my desire to relax to mean that I couldn't get out of bed. Oh well. I actually have not been sick for a while now. I've been on a health kick the last six months, dropped a few pounds and have felt great, so I guess it was my time. The good news is that I have the whole week to myself. The girls (in keeping with Bruce family summer vacation tradition) headed off with Grammy for a week in Arnold, CA. Never been there, but supposedly it's beautiful. Last year the girls were home a whopping 4 days out of the 8 weeks they were off school. I was with them most of the time, but I do get a few days to myself here and there. They get home on Saturday and then we are off to Flagstaff on Monday. Can't wait to get up there and start decorating and furnishing the new house!! :-)

Here are a few photos from the last couple of weeks.

Grace got to go to a special party for the kids who earned the most AR (Accelerated Reading) points. You basically read a book and then take a test on it and earn points. The kids with the most points get to go to a special party. They had banana splits, and played games. Here she is "trying" to hula hoop. My poor girls inherited my athleticism (much to Louis's dismay). We both tried, and neither one of us could keep that hula hoop up. I was amazed at how long some of those kids could hula hoop. They finally gave the prize to three kids because time was ticking and those kids just kept that hoop goin' round.

Grace and Mrs. Sour...the principal that we just LOVE! Sadly she is going to another school next year. She will be missed. Emma got to be principal for the day a couple of weeks ago. I haven't uploaded those photos yet, but I will post about that later because it was just too cute.

Science Projects Galore

Both the girls had science projects due about the same time. Emma had to pick a planet, do a model and a written report (complete with a bibliography and glossary). Grace had to pick an ocean animal, do a model and a small written report. I thought both projects came out pretty cute. I'm just glad that's done. Less than two weeks of school. Yippee!!!

The new house

The view of the kitchen from the dining area



The view out my kitchen window.




View from the edge of the driveway





The detached garage/scraproom

Just an Update

Two posts in two days. Oh my, I think it's a record. I thought I better start being more diligent in my blogging since Kim linked our personal blogs to the Crazy Daisy site. If you don't know about Crazy Daisy yet, you need to check us out and get all caught up.



I'm going through my borderline insomniac phase with a million things to do, and thought it might be a good time to get all caught up. I sometimes wonder why I put so much on my plate, but then I remember that I just love to be busy.



This is an exciting week. My Emma will be nine on Friday. That, I just can't believe. I know everyone says it, but it's true..."where does the time go?" I just get more and more proud of her every day. She won a big prize at school, but I'll post more about that later...Also, the escrow on our new Flagstaff house is supposed to close on Friday. I say "supposed to close" because it was supposed to close last week and didn't. Even though this is our 3rd house, the whole lending thing has really tightened up and we have had to jump through more hoops than usual and we've had a few hold-ups. I'm confident that all is good now, and we are all set to celebrate this weekend. All weekend in fact. It is a weekend of partying. Stacey and the kids are coming into town. Friday we have Emma's birthday party complete with a sleep-over at Grammy's, Saturday we just are going to swim all day and celebrate the new house, Sunday is my birthday so we have more celebrating to do, and Monday is no school so we will celebrate that too. Party time here we come!

Blog? What blog?

Oh yeah. I have a blog. What can I say? I kinda stink at this whole blogging thing. I vow to be slightly better. Maybe if I get in a post once a month that will be good enough. I have felt so guilty about not blogging that I even stopped visiting the blogs of those that I love. Crazy I know. I thought that maybe denying that there is even a blogging world out there might help me feel better. But it hasn't. I actually miss the love. So my goal is to at least start fresh, maybe post a new picture or two and go from there...see what happens.

Thanksgiving Highlights

This was the first year that the girls actually had an entire week off of school, not just the usual Thursday/Friday deal. So we of course headed up to Flagstaff for a visit to "The Log." As I've mentioned hundreds of times before, we just love it up here.

We have been really active this trip. We went hiking every day. We explored a lot of the local Indian Ruins and even took in the big local tree lighting ceremony in town. Over a million lights...and a visit from Santa too. What more can you ask for?

School Picture

As most parents of school aged children know, school pictures just never turn out that great. So I was pleasantly surprised when I got Grace's picture back this year. I think it turned out pretty cute. Emma's on the other hand was not her best. I don't even think it looks like her so I am not going to post that one. She has this pained look on her face and her hair is half-way covering her pretty face. Oh well. Maybe next year.