We Love You Mara!!

For those of you who don't know, a dear family in our ward lost their precious little girl to brain cancer on Monday.  Mara was such a beautiful person inside and out.  Please keep the Adam's family in your prayers.  If you would like to know more, I strongly encourage you to visit her website maraadams.com but you will probably want some tissues nearby.  Go back a few updates and read the inspiring words from her wonderful parents.  We love the Adam's family and will miss Mara a great deal!

The Latest in Facial Cream

I think Brooklyn might be onto something here.  I'm sure there is a huge market out there for Peanut Butter Facials.  If you're interested in being one of the first to try it, just let me know.  

P.S.  It's all natural!!!

P.S.S.  There are 2 more new posts, so keep reading. . .

First weeks of School

I've seen many people blog about the first day of school but since I'm a little behind, I thought I would title mine the first weeks of school.  The kids are doing really well in school.  

Nicholas has a great teacher name Mr. Morris.  I think him and Nicholas will get along pretty well, he seems really great.  Nicholas is also excited about all the fun things that 5th graders get to do.  They get to start band or ochestra. (Nicholas has elected to play the viola and is really excited about it)  They also get to have "jobs" around the school and Nicholas was chosen to be one of the kids that gets to change the letters on the big reader board outside the school. He also gets to go to 5th grade camp at the end of the year.  It should be a very busy but exciting year.  I can't believe that he will start middle school next year.  AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Lucy is also doing very well in school.  She is a 2nd grader in a 2nd/3rd grade split class.  Her teacher is Ms. Ferguson.  Nicholas had her as well and I really like her.  She is really going to challenge the kids this year with  a brand new math curriculum that only her class is doing.  They also get to do fun book projects and other fun things that Lucy wouldn't get in a normal 2nd grade class.  It is so good to know that she will continue to get an excellent education.

Noah started afternoon pre-K.  I love his school, Lucy went there for 2 years as well and I just can't say enough good things about them.  His teachers have commented several times on how well he is doing and how much he has changed over the summer.  Overall, it looks like we are off to a great school year!

Road Trip: Part II

So I finally got the 2nd part of our road trip put into a movie.  We had a blast.  This video covers the aquarium, six flags, and our visit to park city.  It was so fun.  I hope you enjoy the movie.  Hopefully there will be one more to come.

Hallelujah!!

Yes, we made it back from our road trip in one piece, and I will have more to post on that later.  I just wanted to leave a quick post because Noah started his preschool today.  It is 4 days a week in the afternoons which is conveniently the same time Brooklyn takes her nap.  So I now have a solid 2 1/2 hours of peace and quiet.  Now I know that most of these days I will spend keeping up on housework or other motherly duties but I have promised myself at least one of these days a week I will do something I enjoy, whether it be scrapbooking, posting to the blog, reading a book, or just whatever I feel like.  I just wanted to share that.

Promised Video

The Jessee's Hit the Road

We are on day 5 of our 2 week vacation.  We left Auburn at about 9:00 am on Wednesday and headed south.  We drove about 9 hours to Crescent City, CA.  We spent the night there and then on Thursday drove about 8 1/2 hours to Santa Cruz, CA.  So far things are going pretty well.  If it hadn't been for the flu bug that decided to come with us things would be great.  Noah was sick the day before we left and Lucy spent Friday throwing up at various places around Santa Cruz. She was a good trooper though, and still managed to have some fun.  Billy wasn't feeling great either but he wasn't sure if it was the bug or getting up early for surfing lessons, which he and Nicholas enjoyed.  We spent Friday exploring the boardwalk and beach of Santa Cruz.  We had fun riding rides and playing in the water.  I have put together a little movie of our day.

Ok, apparently my movie is not going to work right now.  I will try to figure it out and post it later.  

On Saturday we drove down to Monterey Bay to visit the aquarium they have there.  It was a  pretty nice aquarium and we got to see quite a bit of the beach front because we had to park about 7 blocks away.  I haven't downloaded any pictures yet so you'll have to wait to see them later.

Today  we went to Six Flags: Discovery Bay (near San Francisco)  It was a lot of fun.   My family can't quite hang with me in the Roller Coaster department, I could ride them all day, over and over!  Lucy shows real promise though. As you will see in the movie, she went on "The Fire Ball,"  (and that was while she was still sick.)  Today she went on almost anything she was tall enough for and right before the park closed we went on the same roller coaster 3 times in a row because there was no line.  It was a lot of fun.  They also had animals there including a dolphin show and a killer whale show.  Again, no pictures to show right now.

Tomorrow we are headed to Reno, NV where we will stay one night and then continue on to Park City, UT.  Hopefully I will get that movie and some pictures to share in the next few days.  

Too Funny!!!

Ok, this was too funny to not post.  We set up the slip n slide the other day and Brooklyn spent the entire time trying to drink the water.  She must have done this for about 15 minutes.  She would squat in one spot for a few minutes and then move to another.  Finally she tried drinking the water in the puddles.  It was hilarious!!!  What a goofball.  (Maybe she's trying to tell me she needs more water.)

Digital Scrapbooking, Here I Come!!!

This past week I went to visit my parents and my mom was nice enough to show me the finer points of Photoshop Elements 6.  She has spent many many many hours learning and using this program and she was nice enough to share her vast knowledge with me.  It was a ton of fun and I'm hooked.  Here are some of the pages I've produced so far.

Thank you to my Mom for teaching me and for getting me the program for my Birthday.  You're the BEST!!!

BMX anyone?

So many of you know my husband Billy, but if you don't I thought I would share a little about him. . .  

When Billy does something he doesn't just do it half way.  This summer he decided that it would be fun to do some BMX biking.  Well, we now have 3 BMX bikes.  But that wasn't enough, he needed to have some ramps and stuff to make the BMX bikes more fun.  Some of you might say, "Just go to a skate park."  Not Billy,  he decided he would build them himself. So while I was in Bremerton visiting my parents he built a ramp.  Here it is. . .

One ramp isn't very fun so he built a box to go with it. . .

. . .with the help of Niko and couple friends.

This was done on Saturday.  Today, (Monday) he built another ramp to go down the other side, unfortunately I don't have any pictures of it.   And just so you know, they are all built very well.  

Oh, and one more thing . . . he shaved his head. 

 Now I know that a lot of you might be thinking that he's having some kind of mid-life crisis, but don't worry that's just my sweet, wonderful husband and I wouldn't trade him for the world.