Shew...so much has happened since my last post... PART 1 of 2

You can tell I have been more than busy by how crazy long it has been since I've posted!

The last few weeks/months have gone like this.

August 27th & 28th were spent walking 127 miles from Portland to Seaside, Oregon with my team of 11 other ladies.  Our team name was For the Health of It!  I had two legs...one was 7.2 miles I walked third and around 8am then again later that same night I walked 5.8 miles at 10pm...in the dark, in the woods, scary.  Not necessarily by myself but not necessarily with constant companionship either. 

My team at the END of the race!  We look pretty good for not really sleeping in 36 hours.

When I returned home on August 29th...I packed up our big van and left that night for Spokane, WA to visit Daniel's parents and go to Silverwood Theme Park on Tuesday the 31st.  The next 3 days were spent visiting Daniel's Uncle Doug & Aunt Carol in Osburn, Idaho.  We spent the night sleeping in our 15 passenger van.  The boys each had their own bench seat to sleep on, the girls shared a bench with our luggage beside it to make more of a "full size bed" & Daniel and I shared a twin air mattress in the back.  It was warm and cozy and lovely to not have to haul in all our things just to leave the next day.  We had a great visit and our kids loved playing with their dog, Aimee.

Then we headed to Missoula, MT to visit Daniel's Grandma Combes.  Later, we headed to Daniel's cousins Ken & Steve's house & then Mike and his wife Stephanie and daughter Shelby came over for a pizza dinner.  We had a blast.  My kids loved playing with their cousins.  We were afraid they would break something when a serious storm came through and caused them to need to "play" inside.  Yikes.  Luckily nothing and no one was broken and the kids had a blast playing together.

We visited Grandma again on our way to Seeley Lake to visit Auntie Evelyn & Uncle Jim at their cabin.  Oh, my goodness...I have cabin envy!  It is a gorgeous log cabin built by their family over many years.  We loved playing in the crik and rock hounding.  What a beautiful piece of paradise there!

Then we headed back to Ritzville, WA to stay at Daniel's parents house with Rhonda and her kids.  We had a very fun weekend.  Full of fun, playing, a parade which the kids participated in the Kiddie Parade.  The theme was Tooty Fruity Kids.

Our Tooty Fruity Kids.  They each earned a dollar for participating.  For Robel it was worth being dressed like a grape.  :0)

And the best part of a parade???  THE CANDY, of course!!! 

We returned home on the 6th of September from our awesome vacation in time for the kids to start school on the 7th!  How cute & big are my babies?

Confident & excited as only a 5 year old can be!  Aaaaawww...my Angelia is in Kindergarten!

I can hardly believe my Deonna is in 1st grade.  Where have the last 5 years gone?

The girls are already swooning him.  Robel was looking good and feeling excited to enter 3rd grade!  Yay!

My beautiful girls!  They CHOSE to dress alike and I loved it!  This is at the end of the day of the 1st day...you can tell just how flushed and tired Angelia is. 

How cute are my grade schoolers?!  Before I know it ALL 4 of my kids will be in school.  They were tired but willing to do a photo shoot. 

This year both of my girls go all day everyday for the 1st time ever.  They are loving learning and are good and exhausted when they get off the bus.  Angelia especially seems to "ooze" off the bus.  Michael misses them immensely when they are at school.  Michael goes to preschool M,W & TH mornings. 

I am looking forward to volunteering in each of their classes this year.  Michael will join me when I help in Angelia's class which he will love being a "kindergartener" for a couple hours each month.

I have much more to write to catch up to date but I want to spend time with Daniel now.  He is done with school for the night so that is my que.