Girls Weekend

This last Saturday, we had a girls weekend. My sister and her two girls came and then my mom, me, Paige and Kayla, loaded up and headed to West Yellowstone for the day. We had a picnic lunch at the park and then we walked around and went into a lot of the shops. We had a lot of fun and the girls each got to pick something out. Then we were able to go to the Playmill and see "High School Musical." It was so good. We had a lot of fun and can't wait until next summer.

Grandma and the girls

Kayla with her cute Moose that she bought.

Matt was able to spend the whole day with the boys. They poured some concrete forms for our deck, went to eat at McDonald's, got haircuts and just had fun being with Dad.

Matt found a bird nest a few weeks ago and it had fallen out of one of our trees. It had some eggs in it so he tucked it back into the tree and we have been monitoring the eggs. Last week the baby birds arrived and we snuck in and took a picture. When we moved the branches back to take a picture, they thought we were momma bird bringing them some food, so that is why all three of them have their mouths wide open.

Lately we have been going to ride the carosel. The boys and girls absolutely love it. Last summer Collin hated it and never wanted to ride. This summer he gets right on and loves every minute of it.

Collin, Brock & Aiden

Over Father's Day weekend, Matt and I were able to go 4-wheeling with some of our neighbor's. It was a fun day and the weather was beautiful. We went out to Stoddard Creek. I can hardly wait until we get to go again. Thanks Ryan and Lesa for a fun day.

It is finally official. Matt's last class is tonight and he is finally finished with his Master's Degree. I am so excited. Congrats Matt and we are so proud of your hard work and dedication.

Enjoying Summer

We are enjoying our summer break. I am wishing the weather would be nicer. We just keep having cold, windy and rainy days. I keep thinking that eventually the good weather will show up. The girls are staying busy with gymnastics, piano for Paige, summer movies and playing with friends. The boys love to be outside and playing on the tramp or their bikes.

We are counting down the last couple of weeks of Matt's schooling. He is almost finished with his Master's Degree and we are so excited to have time to spend with him. I don't know who is more excited, Matt or I, but it will be really nice to have this part of his schooling done with. It has been a long 4 1/2 years coming.

I have kind of spoiled my kids. I am a sucker for fresh chocolate chip cookies and my kids have been trained to like them as well. The other night after dinner we were enjoying our cookies and I had to snap a few shots of the boys. They really enjoyed their cookies.

Aiden and Collin were the two messiest............

and then Brock, who is my little clean freak, hardly made a mess at all.

Paige's Birthday

Tuesday was Paige's 9th birthday. I can't believe she is 9. She is such a wonderful daughter and she is so good to help out and she is good older sister. She is an excellent student and we are so lucky to have her in our home.

She had a fun day. I took her and Kayla to the summer matinee of "Ramona and Beezus." It was a really cute show. Then when we got home I had to put together her cake. She chose to have a butterfly cake. Then she wanted spaghetti for dinner. We ate when Matt got home and then we did presents and had cake and ice cream.

She got 3 different sets of legos, a log cabin, a dream house, and a Prince of Persia castle. She asked for legos and that is what she got. She also got some clothes and lots of earrings. It was a really fun day and she had a lot of fun.

Memorial Day Weekend

On Friday, we got packed up and loaded and headed to Island Park for the annual Hill Family Reunion. The weather was not looking very promising, so I was very glad that we had a cabin to stay in.

Saturday was a pretty nice day. We played Minute to Win It and had a lot of fun with that. Then we played games and gave the little girls pedicures. It was fun. Saturday night we had our dutch oven cook off and I made a yummy Rocky Road Cake. The food was so yummy and the weather was pretty good for us.

Sunday we woke up and it started snowing and it snowed most of the morning. We had some fun kids crafts and then we played more games. Sunday night we did our annual chicken fry and scones and dutch oven cobblers. The weather didn't cooperate with us to well, so the cobblers didn't turn out as good as they normally do, but they were still good.

Monday morning we cleaned up and headed home. I was really glad to get home and I am glad that we get to stay put for awhile.

Kindergarten Graduation

I am so glad we made it home in time for Kayla's Kindergarten Graduation. She had a little program and sang all the songs and it was really cute. Then they had a slide show of pictures of all the fun things she did through the year. She had such a fun teacher and a fun year. I can't believe that next year she will be in 1st grade and go all day.

San Antonio

Matt and I had a wonderful time in San Antonio. Matt had meetings 1/2 day on Saturday and then we went to an African Safari, Texas Style. It reminded me alot of Bear World. The only difference was, we actually got to roll our windows down and feed the animals. It was pretty fun.

Sunday we were able to visit the Alamo. It was 1/2 a block from our hotel, so we were really close. It was really neat and it was also a very hot day. After the Alamo, we rode on a city trolley over to Market Square. It reminded me a lot of Mexico. It had a bunch of little shops and we had fun walking around there.

Monday night we went on the Riverwalk Cruise and saw all the sights of the Riverwalk. Then we enjoyed dinner at one of the restraunts along the Riverwalk. It was really fun, but we were both anxious to get home and see our kiddos.

Tuesday, Matt went to meetings for half a day and then we headed to the airport. We got to the airport a little early and they were able to get us out of San Antonio on an earlier flight to Dallas/Fort Worth. That was all good and we tried to get on an earlier flight from Dallas/Fort Worth to Salt Lake, but it was full. So we enjoyed a nice dinner at the airport and then the fun began. We had just found a t.v. to watch one of the basketball playoff games and a loud siren goes off. Next thing we know over the intercom they are saying that the National Weather Service has issued tornado warnings in the vicinity of the Dallas/Fort Worth airport and that everyone needs to move away from the windows into the center of the airport. That is when I started to panic. We had just been watching on the news all the coverage of the horrible tornado in Joplin, so I was getting really nervous. The first thing I did was call my parents and tell them and told them to give my girls a kiss and Matt also called his parents and let them know what was going on. I know that sounds horrible, but I had no idea what was going to happen. So we moved to the center of the airport and waited. The sirens would go off about every 5-10 minutes and they would repeat the same message. As this went on, we watched out the big windows and the sky just kept getting darker and darker. At one point we could see the airport tower and then seconds later it was totally gone. The sky got so dark it made it so we couldn't see anything. After about 1 1/2 hours, the tornado had passed and they let us return to our gates. Then they started cancelling all the flights. There had been grapefruit sized hail during the storm and it had damaged 83 planes, so they cancelled all the flights.

At this point, we got in line and tried to figure out how to get on a flight out of Dallas. Kayla's kindergarten graduation was on Thursday morning and I had promised her I would be there for it. So Matt was on the phone trying to find a hotel near the airport for us to stay in and I was on the phone with the airlines. All the hotels were booked except for one 20 miles away, so we opted to stay at the airport. There was a flight out first thing Wednesday morning at 10:15 a.m. and there was only one seat available on it. Matt told me to take it, so I did and then he got on standby. Then he got a ticket out on a 12:15 p.m. flight and he got that one, so I was feeling pretty good. We had an awful night trying to sleep on the uncomfortable seats at the airport. We didn't get any sleep. Then Wednesday morning when we checked the board for which gate our flight was going out of, we noticed his flight at 12:15 p.m. had been cancelled. We had no idea what we were going to do. There were so many people stuck in the airport and all the flights had at least 50 people on standby, that it seemed impossible to get home.

When it came time to board my flight, I left Matt standing in the airport and I was hoping he would get on the flight. Only one person from standby made it on, and it wasn't him. So I took off hoping that he would find a flight and be able to get on. As soon as I landed in Salt Lake, I called him and he had convinced them to send him to Phoenix. I have no idea how he got on the flight, because there were 150 people on standby, but he just happened to get a seat. Once he got to Phoenix, he found a connection to Salt Lake and he made it there Wednesday night. After I got to Salt Lake, I went to Matt's mom and dad's and saw my boys and I took a nap. Then I loaded the boys up and picked Matt up at the airport and then we headed home. We got to Rexburg at about 11:30 p.m. and I was so glad to be home.