Emry Turns 6!!

Emry turned the ripe old age of 6 on Sept 7th!  She was the first kid in her class to celebrate a birthday, so she was excited about that.  Both Ali's family and Maggie were here to party with us which made the evening a lot of fun!  Ali and Maggie helped me decorate with recycled goods.  We made a garland and party hats. (ali's the genious behind the creativity...maggie and i were just the pawns)

Emry asked to have a roast for dinner, and grandma cooked it up just right.  I made the requested rainbow cake and all was well in Emryland!!

          7

emry's been wanting a locket for the longest time.  trent decided it was time and got one for her.  she was super excited and happy when she saw it!

carley had some serious issues when emry started opening her gifts.  at first i thought she was ok with it, but then emry opened up a barbie and then a new dress up (basically the same things carley got for her birthday only 3 weeks earlier...and then it was emry who was crying) and out went the lip, down came the tears!!  it's a rough life being a little girl, let me tell ya!


more random party pics:

First Day of School=2010

Luke & Emry were sooo excited for the 1st day of school.  I was surprised!  They had a hard time sleeping, you'd have thought it was Christmas Eve at our house or something!  Emry was mostly excited to ride the school bus! 

 
When the kids left, Carley had a melt down.  She thought she was going too.  She even had her backpack ready by the door.  It really was cute and I felt sad for her in all her misery!!
 
I was waiting for the kids to get off the school bus and what do you know, only Emry gets off.  No Luke!!  Don't they check this sort of thing??  I immediately had a flashback to his first day of kindergarten when he got onto the wrong bus after school and ended up at the daycare on base.  He wasn't upset by it, but I was.  He wasn't upset this time either.  I had to call the school and sure enough they found him on another bus.  My dad and I drove to meet the bus and he was fine...no big deal.  He just shrugged his shoulders and said, "I didn't know."  I asked him if he'd looked for Emry and wondered why she wasn't on his bus.  His reply was a true big brother one, "I didn't see her" again, shrugging the shoulders.  I shouldn't have even bothered with that question because why would he look for her anyway??? go figure!!  crazy kids!  anyway, we got the bus situation sorted out and haven't had any more incidences. 

Arrival in Wisconsin & Goodbye to Dad

We arrived in Wisconsin about a week and a half before Trent had to fly out to meet his ship.  We tried to get unpacked and as much settled as possible.  We spent most of our time eating ice cream, running errands and trying to keep our minds occupied with anything but Trent's looming departure. 

It's hard for me to explain how I feel about his leaving.  Inside I feel torn into pieces. 
One piece is overflowing with pride for his willingness to serve our country. 
One piece is screaming because I'll be missing my partner in crime, my main squeeze, my rock.
One piece is scared because I don't want the responsibility of raising our kids solo over the next year.
One piece is totally 100% JEALOUS for the experience Trent's going to have and things he'll see. 
One piece is anxious for this process to begin.
One piece is nervous for this process to begin.
One piece is just sad.
and the last piece is full of love.

We're now 1 month in and we're OK.  The kids are starting to settle in and I feel like we're beginning to hit our stride.  Anyway, this post is getting a little heavy, which is uncomfortable territory for me!  Here are a few pics we took while on a walk the day before we took Trent to the airport.

Summer Wrap Up

I have been meaning to add a few miscellaneous summer activities to our blog, but we've been so caught up in life that I haven't gotten around to them.  They have been nagging and nagging at me from the outter reaches of my brain, so tonight is the night...

• Trent graduated from the Family Practice Residency program at Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton.  Trent didn't want me to make a big deal about it or do anything at all, so I didn't.  I did take a few pictures though, what can he say about that??? Right??

Whew, you made it.  Congratulations!!!

 

 

 

A few of Trent's nurses and co workers.

• We had a really fun family night involving fire, marshmallows & chocolate, lots and lots of chocolate. We went on a quest to find out what type of chocolate made "THE BESTEST SMORES IN THE UNIVERSE".  I'll let the pictures do the talking...

Needless to say, Carley liked every smore she tried...it was pretty comical!  We didn't eat all those smores, we're not that crazy.  We took 1-2 bites and then threw them away in the name of science.  We were still sick to our stomachs at the end though...we had fun though.

• Trent sold his beloved truck.

• Luke learned to make peanut butter cookies.  We tried out a new summer program for the kids called Summer Goals.  Trent and I assigned each of our kids a set of about 20 items for them to master during summer vacation.  We promised them that if they were able to accomplish them then we'd take them to a water park at the end of the summer as the reward.  The goals were age appropriate and ranged from: memorizing articles of faiths; new primary songs; learning to cook and clean, mastering hand stands, back bends and somersaults; reviewing sight words and multiplacation facts....you get the idea, part work/education/silliness.  The program was a complete success and we're going to do it again!  They had a great time at the water park too, we all did!