Friends from home!

How fun for us today to have our friends, Charlie and Dollie, here from California!! Charlie grew up out here and with 8 siblings still has plenty of family in the area. It was so cool to see some California people here in Oklahoma! A little piece of home! It's always fun with Dollie & Charlie. I can prove it, because here's a picture of Charlie the last time we saw him:

His kids threw him a surprise 60th birthday party while we were in California this summer! (The surprise was that it was 6 months after his actual birthday!) These people know how to party!

These two are like second grandparents to my kids and second parents to me. They've been a part of the major milestones in my life and they are always pulling for me and praying for me. I am so grateful to God for putting them in my life and my parents' lives.

So thanks for making time to come see us, Dollie & Charlie! It was great to show you around our place finally and share more Oklahoma stories!!!

Grandma's here!

See, even Bo's happy!!!

When we moved out here 3 years ago, my mom drove with us and we arrived two days before school started. She helped me get the kids registered, do back-to-school clothes shopping and meet the teachers. I probably wouldn't have survived without her help! Ever since, Mom's made it a point to be out here for the First Day of School every year. It works out well, because she comes out a week or two before school starts and gets to spend some summer fun time with the boys while they still have free time. So, we have our own little tradition and I'm so thankful for it! :)

Cody's Birthday Party

We spent the day at Grand Lake for Cody's birthday! The boys had a great time celebrating with friends and meeting new ones! I love this picture of E & Cody sitting on the dock fishing. What a perfect picture of childhood!

Then, the birthday boy caught a fish thhhhhiiiiiiisssss big!:

Go Cody!

Even Bo got to go to the lake today.

He'll probably sleep for a week now with all the running around he did up there! Don't feel too sorry for him. As usual, he had everyone there under his spell and spent much of the day getting his ears and his belly rubbed. I wish I could explain it, but people just meet this dog and instantly fall in love. Of course, he is a big love, I just don't know how people know this immediately upon setting eyes on him. I'm just lucky to have the best dog on the planet.

Of course, no party is complete without a pinata!

Chet whacked it pretty good, but this is probably my favorite picture of the day:

I was so happy to capture the pure joy of Tracey helping Cody break open the pinata! And this was the perfect shot of what happens AFTER the pinata is open:

Nice way to spend a summer day, which is good, because they are winding down oh-so-quickly!

My First Photoshop Creations!

So, I have a confession to make. My husband bought me the very first edition of Photoshop back in 2003(?) because he had read what a great organizer it would be for all the then-new digital pictures I was taking. Apparently, it was beyond my comprehension at the time and things got deleted and removed and reentered and it was just a mess. Nonetheless, he purchased several other updates and new versions and even in the last year he's spent time reading books and learning how to use the darn thing! I did actually figure out how to use it semi-wisely to organize and tag my photos and even to fix them occassionaly. Generally, I don't have the patience to make them all as pretty as I want, because I just WANT them in my hot little hand!

Well, thank God for Cathy Zielske and her blog! (That's not hyperbole, I mean every word!) She's posted a couple of tutorials in the last week or so showing step by step how to do some fairly basic things in Photoshop. Yesterday, I learned how to make a photo overlay(above) and today I learned to make a photo collage! I am in love with this program now! Why they didn't make it more user friendly I will never know, but I am so glad I'm finally learning how to use it!!

So, here are my first Photoshop creations:

So, honey, aren't you glad you bought me that program 6 years and 2 houses ago? Look how far I've come!

Signed,

Kelli

Longtime Photoshop Newbie

P.S. On a completely unrelated subject, if laughter is the best medicine, every hospital in America should have an All Wipeout All the Time channel! THAT would lower health costs in this country better than any bill in Congress!

So much can happen in a MONTH!

So, Chet has a friend over tonight and says, "Hey, Mom, show him your blog with all my pictures on it!" So, I get it all up and guess what -- it's been exactly a month since I last posted! Oh the places I've been since then and things we've done since then! Here's a small recap:

I've been to a FOREIGN country!


That, folks, is the Persain Gulf, as seen from the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. For the uninitiated, it's the basically the financial center of the Middle East. Their version of New York City, but richer and with taller buildings. The building behind me is the Burg Al Arab (Arab Tower, we call it the Sail Hotel since it looks like a Sail.) It is the world's only 7 star hotel. You have to pay just to walk in to the lobby. Thankfully, we had a great view from the beach! Here's the tallest building in the world:

It's Burg Al Dubai and they're building an even taller one! The dustiness of the air makes everything look a little surreal and since it felt surreal to be over there at all it all seemed to fit.

Anyway, I went to Dubai to meet my hubby:

And celebrate my birthday!:

Then I got to bring him home with me!:

The boys had not seen him since April. So, we had some fun to catch up on:

We went to see Star Trek!

Ethan learned to ride his bike!

They all swam in our pond!

We all went to another foreign country:

Oh, wait, Arkansas only seems like a foreign country. Actually, I shouldn't crack on Arkansas. It was really pretty and we stayed at fantastic state park - Devil's Den. Lots of hiking and relaxing, just not enough of either one.

But, then Dad was on his way again, but we snuck in some last minute family pictures. One of them actually turned out! ;)

So, it's been a busy summer! (I haven't even posted any pics of our three week sojourn to California!) Today feels like it's back to reality. School starts in just over two weeks! Unbelievable! I am just going to enjoy the rest of summer as much as I can!

Hey out there in the blogosphere! I'm back! (temporarily, anyway!) I have about 5000 pics of Cali I could post but I will save you from that today. Since it's been a while since my last post I saw this little quiz, if you will, on Cathy Zielske's blog and thought it would be a good way to get remotivated in my blogging! I'll post pics later!

TODAY June 26, 2009
Outside my window... Our new fountain is lit up in the pond. (It's nighttime right now.)
I am thinking... about all the stuff I'm probably forgetting I need to do in the next week.
I am thankful for... air conditioning on hot and humid days. (Again, if I was a pioneer, I don't think this place ever would have been settled!)
From the kitchen... the process of restocking after a long vacation is almost complet. (Does that mean I have to cook now?)
I am wearing... one of only two pairs of shorts that fit me.
I am creating... a scrapbook/journal for my upcoming trip.
I am going... to weed the garden tomorrow or Monday morning since it will be the coolest days this week.
I am reading... Robinson Crusoe and The 39 Clues. (Two separate books. Robinson Crusoe hasn't come in to play yet in The 39 Clues, but he very well could with the way that series is set up.)
I am hoping... the boys behave themselves and manage to get along at some point this summer, especially while staying with Steph.
I am hearing... WALL-E from upstairs in the gameroom. (And I hear kids...shouldn't they be asleep by now?)
Around the house... wow! There is a lot I would like to do before Chet comes home! (Wow! There is a lot that won't get done before Chet comes home!)
One of my favorite things... air conditioning.
A few plans for the rest of the week... unpack, pack again, clean, pull weeds, pedicure and more stuff and that I just can't remember at the moment, but another trip to the pool would sure be nice!

Last Day of School!

This picture just makes me smile! If that doesn't say "It's Summer!" I don't know what does!

I can't believe school's been out for almost a week and I haven't posted any pics of the big day! It's also known as Super Kids Day at our school and we go all out with inflatables, games, popsicles and the fire truck comes and sprays down the 3rd-5th graders! It is any awesome day to be a kid!!

Chet made the tug-of-war team for his class, but you probably guessed from the picture they didn't win! They all had the grass stains and rope burns to prove how tirelessly they fought though!

Chet dared to race me (on the left) and my purple wheely board! I beat him by a mile, going backwards no less!


The best part of my day was right at the beginning when the bus driver stopped me to lean out the window and thank me for having such well behaved kids. She said, "It is an honor and a priviledge to drive your kids every day." Wow! As if I wasn't going to be teary eyed all day anyway! I feel so proud of them. Truthfully, you never know how they behave when they're out of your sight, so it's nice to know they do a good job of being respectful of others when they're navigating the world on their own!

And finally, am I the only mom who cries on the last day of kindergarten? I did with Chet and it was no different for Ethan. He's grown so much this year and learned so much! All the credit for that goes to his fabulous teacher, Mrs. Weyher! She has made his kindergarten experience better than I ever could have hoped. There is truly a special place in Heaven for kindergarten teachers! Thank you, Mrs. Weyher! Now, of course, with all that growing and learning it is evident that E is no longer a little kid. In kindergarten, you can still convince yourself they are so little and small and maybe still, a little bit, your baby, but I can't even lie to myself anymore. He's a big guy now and while I'm so proud of him and all he can do, it's a little bittersweet to see him become that big boy. So, like I said, it was a teary eyed day, but, thankfully, for all the right reasons!