Nate's Trip

I haven't blogged about Nate leaving because I am still coming to terms with it. Although I am going to blog about the first leg of his trip. Nate flew out of Boise around 8:30 Thursday morning and went to Norfolk, Virginia. He was there until early Saturday morning. While he was there him and his friend went downtown to go shopping and get some oysters to eat (Nate has been talking about oysters for weeks now). They also went to a Navy shipyard. They kept asking for a tour and everyone told them no until they went to this ship. I don't know if they got to go below but they did get to go on the flight deck. He said that it was huge. I thought that I would share the pictures that he sent to me.

Box Of Love

This year for Valentines Day Nate and I decided that we were going to make each other gifts instead of buy them. I made Nate a photo book to take with him to Iraq and Nate made me a Box of Love. This box of love came complete with fry sauce, a stuffed animal, roses, and chocolate. There was also many, many paper hearts that had notes written on it from all of the kids and Nate.

Because I want to remember what all of them say I am going to write them all on here.

Ella's said: Thank you for watching me clean my room.

You're the best mom ever. Thank you for everything you do for me.

XOXOXO

Happy Valentine's Day

I love you

Thank you for all of the stuff you do for us!

Thank you for cooking dinner

Roses are read, violets are blue. When I think of you my heart goes woo.

Tyler's said

Thank you for feeting (feeding) us

Thank you for cleaning the bathroom

You are the best one ever

Roses are red, Violets are blue, We all love you

XOXOXO

Thank for giving us candy

Happy Valitines Day!

Nichole wrote

Happy Valentines Day

You're awesome

I love you

World's prettiest Person

Thank you for everythin

World's Greatest Mom

Luv ya ton

You are great

My Mom O so beautiful, The world's pretties person, Has great hair, Even has a great smile, Realy love potography

Natalie wrote

You are preaty

O am thankful your my mom

Thank you for taking care of me

You are pretty

You are cool

You are nice

You are as sweet as suger

Roses are red, violets are blue, Suger is sweet and so are you!

Nate wrote

I love you more then ever.

Thank you for playing footsies with me

You are very well organized

Thank you for being such a good wife

Be my Valentine

You make me laugh and smile

You are loyal

Roses are red, Violets are blue, You make my valentine dreams come true! I love you.
Best valentines EVER!!!!

Weekend visit

Nate's parents and Grandma came up last weekend to visit before Nate left for Iraq. They got here Friday night and visited for a little bit before they went over to their hotel room. The next day they came over and we all went into Boise to eat and run a few errands then we went to see Percy Jackson- The lightening thief. That movie so not as good as the book but then again they never are. Then we went over to their hotel so the kids could play in the pool. The kids love playing at the pool and would probably live their if I would let them. After the kids got worn out at the pool we all came back to my house and had dinner. I am happy that Nate got to see his parents before they left.

New Painting

Look at this AMAZING painting Nate's Grandma Swenson painted for us. How much talent does she have? I am so lucky that she has made this for the family. When she said that it was my turn to do a picture done I was so excited. It was painted off of one of my favorite pictures of my kids.

Mutual Faith Factor

For Mutual this week we played faith fear factor. What a riot that was (at least that is what I thought). We divided the YM and YW into 3 teams. The team would pick a team leader there was a new leader for each question. Then a question was read. If you were the first team to answer the question correctly you got 10 points if you were the other 2 team leaders had to participate in a challenge. If you won the challenge you got 5 pts. To win the first challenge you had to be the first one done eating a jar of baby food. The Young Men's leader almost puked. It was hilarious. The baby food wasn't even a bad flavor. It was chicken and apple.

The second challenge was having to carry one person to one end of the room and then switching off and carrying the other person back.

This picture is of a 14 year old boy fireman carrying his Young Men's leader.

The next challenge was putting 4 big gumballs into their mouths and singing the song "Called to Serve" but in order to win the judge had to understand all of the words.Then there was the cool whip challenge. These 2 girls had to eat a cool whip pie with out using their hands. One of the girls hates cool whip. After it was done one of the YW came up and asked if they could finish eating the pie (eww they had their faces and tongues all over in them) ahhh nooooo. Then another one asked if she could take it home to their family. I don't think that the family would really appreciate having a pie that had someones face in it.The next challenge was seeing who could eat the most pretzel's in 2 minutes. They had to completely eat one pretzel before starting another one. They both got through a whole 2 rods. It came down to who could swallow it first.Next came the challenge of seeing who can get the most worms out of their spaghetti with only their mouths. This was a close race. They both got 11 out but one of them got 11 out first.Next was the challenge of using a straw to move a balloon from one side of a line to another. Nope you don't blow the balloon you use the straw to suck the balloon to move it. It is harder then it looks. This was a team challenge so they all had to participate.Then came the mystery can challenge. The group had to eat the contents of the mystery can. The boy on the right decided to drink his can of tomato sauce and the boy on the left had pork and beans to ea. I personally would rather eat the pork and beans.The next challenge was using a can of alphabet soup to be the first person to write a word that was found in the scriptures. It had to be at least 5 letters long.The last challenge was digging through the kitty litter with their faces and pulling out the droppings. Of course it was homemade kitty litter made of cookies and homemade droppings made of tootsie rolls. But one of the leader came up to me and said he wasn't sure how safe it was for the kids to be putting kitty litter in their mouths. Which made me laugh and him too after I told him it wasn't real but at least I fooled him.Natalie showing me how she got kitty litter up her nose. BTW Natalie claims she threw the game so that she could participate in the challenges.

There was a tie in the ends so we had a tie breaking question. The winning team did not have to help clean up the mess that was made.

I think that night turned out to be a huge success.

Valentines

The kids made Valentines for all of the Grandparents and for Joy this year (although half of them have yet to even see them because I haven't mailed them oops). They made cards that said hands down we love you most.Ella's card to Joy.I bought Natalie and Nichole valentines to make for their friends and Nichole didn't end up making them. But Natalie did.They are little ipods.I asked Tyler if he wanted to have me make robots or if he just wanted me to buy a box and chose for me to buy a box which was probably betterBecause I made 27 of these for Ella's class and it took over 4 hours. They had a heart on the front of them that said from Ella. Ella and Tyler both had class parties. Nate went to Ty's and I went to Ella's. In Ella's the kids made their valentines bags and had cookies and Capri sun's. They made Valentines for their parents and a valentine dog made out of hearts. Ella didn't ever want valentines to end. But lucky for us we got to celebrate for 2 days in a row.

Just so I don't forget this week my back cracked and I said to Ella. "Ahh my back cracked." to which Ella replied "A few days ago my butt cracked." Funny girl.

Monkey Bizness

We had a double whammy for FHE the last week. First Ella got invited to a birthday party for that night and second we all went. We celebrated a birthday party for FHE. We went to a place in Boise called Monkey Bizness. The children thought that it was one of the best places to go. All of them had fun which is a rare thing around here anymore. The big girls at first were a not to enthused about us going and thought that they were to big to play but ended up having a blast.There was a rock wall for all of the kids to go up. They all made it to the top by the end of the evening.Ella loved it despite the look on her face.This slide was the fasted slide that the kids have ever gone on. I had to include that picture because you can kind of tell just how fast the kids were going. Nicole's little girl (the birthday girl) had to be carried down once she got to the top she wanted nothing to do with going down the slide.Ella loved it and went down several times. Nicole posing her most beautiful for us.

Tyler and Jackson had a blast. Both of their faces were hot and pink by the end of the night. Thank you Maddy for inviting us all to your party. After the party we went to McDonald's to eat and play on the play place there too. What a fun family night we had.

100 days of school

Ella has just celebrated her 100th day in school. They celebrated by bringing in 100 items from their home. Ella brought in 100 gummy bears to share with the kids. The also used those items to count with. They made this awesome hat to celebrate the day!!Ella is really loving kindergarten. I have seen her personality grow. I am very surprised that she sits so still and so quite while she is in school. Everyday before she goes to school she says a prayer that she will have fun and that she will get to go to the treasure box. I am so proud of her and all of her hard work that she puts forth in class.