Oh my, has summer flown by or what? I know that if there were an award for the world's worst blogger...i would definitely be nominated and possibly win. This summer has been super busy. It started off sort of blah as our closest friends all went on vacation at once and we were left alone. But then we made two exciting discoveries in our town...the adventurarium (aka...the science center bc a 3 year old can say that WAY easier than "adventurarium") and the city pool. Both are free and both are totally fun! The science center has a gravity funnel, magnets, a shadow room, lots of animals (turtles, spiders, lizards, frogs, fish, parrots, ferrets, guinea pigs), skulls, music instruments, fossil digging pit and more. The girls love it. It is very easy to kill two hours there and they have nice shady grassy areas that we picnic in afterwards. We have gone there twice with our playgroup and plan to go a couple times a month. The City Pool...is AH-MAY-ZING! It is huge (for a public pool!)! It has four different swimming areas...one sorta small pool for big kids, a pool with a slide and a diving board, another separate area for kids under 4ft tall (not our favorite bc there are so many fountains you can't just play without being hit by water and the girls don't ilke that) and then another HUGE pool that goes from zero depth (shoreline) to 2.5ft. It has a big fountain that the girls call a waterfall and then several small fountains along the shore. It has a few little jet sprayers on the side of the pool an the rest of it is calm. It also has an Orca statue that has a fountain as it's blowhole. Zannah is especially fond of the Orca...a girl after my own heart. Delia is very brave and wanders clear to the other side of the pool and plays with various children, sits on the edge of the pool and talks to moms (showing them her beautiful "red shoes" haha.), and if there are any kids we know...she is right there playing with them. Zannah prefers to stay pretty close to me but is getting more brave every time we go. The pool closes at the end of next week...this is a sad thing! But the rec center has a good kiddie pool too...the only problem is that the first open swim session isn't until 1pm - hello! Naps!. So i am trying to get all of the mothers i know with toddlers to suggest that they do an open swim at 10-12 daily too. All I know is that both of my girls love the water and the rec ctr will be a great option come winter! So, we'll see. Other exciting news is that I really think we found our church. As many of you know, Delia had a very hard time at the church we thought we would settle into. Like, bizaare. I won't go into too much detail but will say our first 4x there (2 sundays, 2 monday bible studies) she did fine. Then suddenly she freaked out! Like they had to come get me. This happened every week til we had to stop going on Mondays bc she would melt down int he parking lot and never recover...to the point of nearly throwing up on herself and peeing her pants once (she had never had an accident before that). Then on Sundays the same. Chris was basically going to church alone. Then the week before Mother's Day we both looked at eachother and said that we didn't feel like going through the drama and the energy that it took out of Delia and that this church obviously wasn't the right fit. Normally Delia loves the nursery. She loves socializing and playing and makes new friends very easily. She is independent and not clingy. We decided to visit a different church we had heard about and Delia had about 2 mins of separation anxiety for the first 3x we visited and by the 4th time when we went to pick her up we were told "just a minute" and then finally when we asked her if she was staying or coming home with us we were informed that she was staying. That's my girl! We both like the pastor and the kids/family pastor. Our girls like the nursery. And the people are great. Looking forward to plugging into a community group. Another good thing is that MOPS will be meeting at our church and will be coordinated by one of the ladies i have already met. So i am looking forward to getting plugged in there too this fall. All and all Wyoming is starting to feel like home. I must be honest and say that I am already dreading winter. What with the super mild winter we had last year and the insanely hot summer we have had this year...everyone is saying we are in for a really hard winter. :( But I will do my best to live in the day that God has given me and not worry about what's to come.

Delia with magnets

Zannah and the bearded dragon that she "NEEDED" to touch

Picnic at the science center

The waterfall

Orca

sisterly love on the Orca.

Mother's Day Weekend

Mother's Day Weekend...was so beautiful! We have had a month of yucky Saturdays that have kept us inside and just bored. However, the clouds parted and Mr. Golden Sun decided to shine on us and Saturday morning we headed out for a family drive. We live about 80 miles from the Bighorn Mountains and you can see them off in the distance from our town. They look like a hologram. So, off we drove. The tallest mountain this range is Cloud Peak standing almost at 14k feet. It is hard to see bc it is almost always covered in clouds (hence it's name). But there was a lot of beauty to be seen. I am always amazed how you can drive under a hundred miles and encounter so many different landscapes. Where we live is rolling plains with a few buttes. The sky is big and the spaces are wide open! As we drove towards Buffalo it begins to dip and you can see where the water has eroded deep ruts in the earth. Then within a few miles you are in the mountains. There was still snow in many places and tons of pine trees. Near the top I commented that it looked a lot like Mordor...the mountains that Frodo and Sam (and Gollum) had to climb to get to Mordor to drop the ring. Then once you got over the mountain on the other side, it was rolling fields, high cliffs, rock formations and down into pasture land with sheep! All of this in a very short drive. I love it. I posted tons of my pictures on facebook (bc it is so much more user friendly) but will include a few from our drive here. Then on Mother's Day we went out for a brunch and then to Wal-Mart for some plants to make our apartment feel more like a home. Delia and I ate yogurt pops while Daddy did some work and we just enjoyed the nice, warm weather and being together. Someone was grillin while we were hanging our plants and I mentioned that I wanted a burger for dinner. Chris went back to Wal-Mart for an outdoor trash can and came home with a grill and burgers to cook. he put that joker together and we cooked out. Now when we sit out on our patio we have beautiful flowers hanging in pots and tomato plants as well as a grill. The hubs is too good to me. :) I am so blessed to have the little family that we do and the husband that God has blessed me with. Love them!

SLACKER!

Ok, so I love to poke around and read blogs, especially if I truly know the person or if I feel inspired upon reading it. What I don't get is how people make the time to blog consistently. Like, where do they come up with this time? Do they do it while their kids nap? While Dora is on? LATE at night or EARLY in the morning? Or does it just take them like HOURS to write a few paragraphs and they write a little each time they pass by their computer? I don't know...but it seems that I have about 6 months to a year between posts. One would think that my life is either very busy and I don't have time or very boring and I have nothing to share. Neither is true. I am just a slacker. I just forget. I just get distracted too easily. I keep telling myself that I will blog more often. But I find a one liner easier to post on FB. I find it easier to post my pics on FB than on this dumb blogger thing (am I just retarded??? Every time i go to post pics, it seems to take forever and the order is all off and I get frustrated!). Maybe if I were to just open my blog each morning it would cause me to think of something to write every few days. I don't know. Today what is on the agenda is; to bake some pumpkin bread for new neighbors, eat breakfast, deliver the bread and let them know we are meeting some other moms at the park if they want to join us, go to the park, come home for baths, dishes, pick up the house, make dinner, clean up dinner, go to the gym, definitely some Dora and play time in there and if time permits chalk and maybe some cross stitch for me somewhere in this busy day! Life is good. I am thankful for such a full life and happy kids who are healthy to boot! So here is to Spring. Here is to life. Here is to the Author and Creator of my story...which is worth reading...now I just have to make time to write it all down!