Crazy Old Ladies

We're official. Officially on the web that is. Crazyoldladiesquilts.com is up and running. It shows the patterns that are currently available. As new ones are designed we will add them to the site as well. The site is in the early stages but has all the essentials that we need. Now we're going to contact quilt shops around the country and online to see if they want to carry our product. With the website up, all they have to do is follow the link to see our stuff. If everything goes well we'll get a lot more business. If you get a minute, check it out!

New Headline Pic

So here's the deal. I tried to get the tree picture to fit in this space but since it's not in landscape format it would not fit. Here is another family picture we took in Yellowstone. You can't tell, but the "Grand Canyon of Yellowstone" is behind us. Off to our right was a huge waterfall. It was awesome! Anyways, not the best picture with the wind blowing through our hair and squinty eyes, but it's us nonetheless.

Wednesday's laundry

Okay, so I finally woke up and realized how absurd it is for me to pay so much for an 11 year old to come fold laundry. I guess I thought since I hated it so much that I would have to pay someone a lot to do it. Because frankly, I wish someone would pay me a lot to do it. Anyways, Gilbert reminded me that I was paying her more than we pay our mechanic and then I understood the ridiculousness of it all. Besides, am I really that lazy that I have to pay someone to fold laundry? (I don't have to answer that, do I?) Anyways, as of tomorrow my children are going to learn to do their own laundry. Ugh! Even the thought makes me sick because I know it's going to be a battle to get them to do it. (they're so just like their mother.) Oh well, at least I won't have to pay them.

We have just made history. This is a picture of Paris after her very first haircut. Yes, at 3 years old she has finally gotten a haricut. We've loved her beautiful curls and her hair just kept growing so we've left it. But as she's gotten older it's become more of a hassle to comb, shampoo, and "do". So we told her she was going to have to get it cut. This was a difficult decision to come to, especially for Gilbert. At first she was completely against it. But as we've talked about it the idea has grown on her. The final commitment came after she was offered bubble gum by her Dad. Should've known. Bubble gum always works. The other thing was that my friend Jeanne used to be a hairdresser and agreed to come to the house for this event. Paris really likes her so that was a plus. Paris was so great. She held still and moved every which way Jeanne asked her too. I even painted ther toe nails while she got her haircut so it was like a real spa day for her. We only cut about 3 inches off, which isn't much. Now it's just longer than her shoulder's in the back. It looks really cute. I am sad to say though that I think her curls will be gone after the next few cuts. But hey, if we follow this trend it'll be another 3 years before she gets another haircut and we'll get to enjoy looking at (and hate "doing") those beautiful curls. By the way, she's a very cute little princess, she just starts acting goofy when the camera comes out. Hope you like the pictures. And yes, I did still save a few locks for scrapbooking. Who wouldn't!?

home "sweat" home

Well we made it home safe and sound from Yellowstone. What an amazing place! Our last night in the park was awesome. We were able to sneak a peek at 3 different black bears within 1/4 mile right off the side of the road. Got some amazing pictures of these ones. Gilbert also went fishing in Yellowstone lake and caught a 3lb. cutthroat trout (that's a good size). He was hoping for a lake trout because then he could've kept. it. The cutthroat are native to the lake so the park wants to preserve them. However, the lake trout are not native and get big and eat the cutthroat so there are strict instructions that if you catch one you have to kill it. Gilbert imagines that because of the size of the lake (up to 430 ft deep!) that there are some monsters in there. Maybe next time he'll land a hook in one of those lake trout, but for now he was pretty happy with the one he got. The drive home was pretty uneventful. Obviously the kids didn't like being in the car so long, but they did okay considering they'd been in the car all weekend long. We were so glad to be home until we stepped in the door. Before we'd left temperatures were nice and mild. When we came home it was in the mid 90's which meant our house was in the mid 80's. Yuck! We quickly unloaded the car then called some good friends and offered to buy them dinner if we could hang out at their house for a while. It was nice to "chill" for a bit but I was tired and in extreme need of a shower. The guys had other plans. Can you believe they went fishing!? Gilbert took the two boys out to the lake for a couple hours. Needless to say, everyone slept really good that night and well into the morning. The next day vacation was over. Back to the grind. And guess what? I have about 8 more loads of laundry that need to be done. Ugh!

lions and tigers and BEARS, oh my!

Okay, so we really didn't see and lions or tigers, but we did see bears! Boy did we hit it good. We saw just about everything on our first day in the park. We were lucky enough to see a black bear hanging out next to the river, and then later on we saw a Momma and her two cubs. That was really cool! Today we saw a Grizzly bear. She was pretty far off, too far to get a picture. But she had her cub with her and we were able to watch her for quite a bit with the binoculars. We've seen lots of buffalo which I think is so cool. A couple of times they were right by the car. Also, we took a short walk to see a sulfur spring and when we came back a herd of buffalo were right on the trail so we had to make our way around them. At one point a couple of them got riled up at eachother and were snorting and jumping but we think they were just playing. We were never in any real danger, it was just awesome watching them in the wild. We've seen lots of elk. Its amazing how used to humans they are, you can just about walk right up to them and they don't even care. We drove up around Mammoth hot springs and the town near there where the elk come down every night to the town and eat the grass. It's a cool town, it feels like you're going back in time. There's a cool hotel there and a resturant/diner that feel like the 40's or 50's to me. Who knows? they could be lots older than that, but it made me think of Back to the Future. It's also where the old Fort Yellowstone is. Anyway, the elk were crossing the road so we had to stop and there was a bull calf right next to the car. Gilbert rolled down my window and I could've reached out and touched it. It kinda freaked me out a bit it was so close. We also saw a big horn sheep right off the side of the road. And every morning driving in we pass a bald eagle's nest that's right off the road. There's almost always an eagle in it, or very near by. We also saw a wolf, several coyote's including a momma and her pups. I could go on and on but I fear this is already getting boring. my dang camera! I'll get pictures on soon. Mom and Dad, we're already planning our next trip and you're coming with us!

Yellowstone

Well, we made it to yellowstone. Thanks to a bit of laziness on my part last night our 6am departure this morning was delayed until 11am. ouch! That's okay, it was a lot nicer to be laid back and not stressed out. The drive was not too bad, about 5 1/2 hours had we driven straight. however, we stopped in tremonton, UT for lunch. Then we stopped in Rexburg for a mid-afternoon snack. WOW! Has that place changed. The Rexburg temple so beautiful. We drove by our old apartments and talked about all the things we remembered. The children were not intertained, I think watching paint peel might've been more interesting for them. But it was nice to go back in time with Gilbert to where we first met. Rexburg is still in the middle of nowhere, but there's lots more to do there then there used to be. After driving another hour or so we stopped in Island Park, ID at one of Gilbert's favorite fishing spots. Apparently when he was here last year the fish were biting like crazy. Not the case this time. but that's okay, we're here a month earlier than he was and it's a lot colder. Finally we got to West Yellowstone. Our hotel is moderate, nothing fancy but it'll work. We went out to dinner at a cute little downhome type place. But in a tourist town it wasn't really down-home, especially the prices (yikes!) Anyway, we did plan ahead and brought lots of food and since our room has a kitchen we will be cooking the rest of our meals. We did have to stop and buy perishables, another 'yikes!' since milk was $5.09 a gallon. We'll be rationing the one gallon for the rest of the trip. Also, I thought I would be cute and load my memory card from the camera onto my laptop the show you some pictures of the kids fishing...but my comp. doesn't have a port for the card. I guess I should've brought the cords. ohwell. I guess you'll have to wait until I get home. It's time to get the troops in bed, lots to do tomorrow. We already saw a calf moose on our fishing adventure and a deer jaywalked in front of us on the highway (not close though). We're looking forward to seeing all the wildlife tomorrow. more to come from our adventures in yellowstone soon.

Kung Fu and Bears

Uncles Trevor and Zach gave Kung Fu Panda rave reviews when they were over on sunday, so we decided to take the kids to see it today. I was pleasantly surprised with the film. It was very cute and not at all raunchy like Shrek. The boys laughed and laughed. Paris didn't do too well. She is still too young to go to the movies. She was very tired and just didn't want to sit... anywhere. This created quite a problem for us and all the other people around. Gilbert and I managed to pass he back and forth enough through the movie to keep the disruption to a minimum. Afterwards we took Preston to "Build-a-Bear Workshop" to get his birthday bear. He has given this a lot of thought. He originally wanted an orange tabby cat with a Harley leather jacket but decided on a 'salt & pepper' gray koala which he dressed in skater gear (he even got a skateboard for it!). He named his bear "Cool Koala." Logan and Paris even brought their bears with them to visit the store where they were "born". The boys decided to sleep downstairs tonight and Paris has been asleep since the ride home. This means that I probably will not get a good nights sleep. Well I at least better try. Good night!

Day 2

Yesterday I started a blog. Today I found out my blog was... boring? misleading? empty? I guess since I only had one post some people were a bit unimpressed that there wasn't more to read. To this I say "Just you wait!" Pretty soon this blog is going to be so full of useless information about our family you won't know what to do with it. For starters, tomorrow I have a cute 11 yr. old girl from the neighborhood coming to fold laundry. I'm paying her good money to do what I hate to do. To some degree I feel pretty pathetic, but then I look at the mountain of laundry (not an exaggeration) and realize that my procrastination has made this task completely worth the money. Anyways I'm sure I can find something better to do with my time. Also, Paris has decided that since Preston didn't want a baby stroller for his birthday she is going to try and earn it by not sucking her fingers. She tried this a few weeks ago when she wanted a toy cellphone. She did really good for 4 days not sucking so be got her the phone. A couple hours later I found her on the couch with her monkey blankie, her new phone, and her fingers in her mouth. This time she has to go 10 days. I don't know who this is going to be harder for, her or me. I mean, all she has to do is not suck her fingers. I have to listen to her whine and cry everyday for a baby stroller as I try to explain for the 50th time that she cannot get it until she stops sucking. I'm not sure it's going to be worth it. The stroller only costs $6. Geez, that's like 45 minutes of laundry folding. And there you have it, we've come full circle. Stay tuned for Day 3 and more useless information. ;o)

Blogger!!

My sister Allison will be proud of my technological advancement. I could barely manage my myspace account without her help and now I've managed to create a blog all on my own. Can this be happening? Along with all the other titles I have and everything else I have to keep me busy I'm actually going to add "blogger." The thing is, after reading so many other blogs, many of them much cuter than my generic one, I decided that it was such a fun way to journal. I have to admit I haven't been to good at keeping a journal for the last um, 3 years or so. That's scary. Does my journal even know that Paris exists!? I'm afraid to look. yikes! Anyway, here it is. Our family blog. Hopefully I can keep this up. Summer shouldn't be too hard but once school starts again we may be in trouble. Oh well. Let's just focus on one day at a time, right!?