I Heart Independence: Football

Whenever there is a home game, the whole town shows it's school spirit. There is only one high school here and everybody knows someone that plays. If they don't know somebody, it doesn't even matter. Gamedays, everybody and their dog (literally) is dressed in Orange and Black. Go Bulldogs!!!

I Heart Independence: Bella Vita

Last Friday Corky and I went to a great Italian resturaunt here in town that was FABULOUS! Our neighbor watched our kids while we enjoyed a lovely evening of wonderful food while checking out the amazing architecture. This resturaunt is located in the Hotel Booth. I only know small details of it's history, but the age itself makes it fascinating. It was built in 1911 and is now kept as an apartment building. It is also the home of my new favorite sit-down resturaunt in town, Bella Vita. And Italian food isn't even my favorite. Not to mention, we felt we were at a fancy dinner place but walked out of there spending less than $20. For all of that, I ate the best pizza of my life and Corky had an amazing chicken parmesan sub sandwich.


Corky and I looked at the floors and fancy moldings, and tried to imagine what kind of events took place in that room so long ago. It is definitely one of those places where you think, "if only walls could talk!" We imagined well dressed folks arriving for fancy dinner parties and receptions. I thought of the rich oil tycoons that were so frequent to this town, coming to the bar to wind down for the day.



I didn't want to look too touristy by taking so many photos, so I kept my flash off for some of these photos. I lightened them a little so they may look a little grainy, but they'll give you a small idea of how neat that place was.




I heart Independence.

Miss Emily's Back to School Survey

Emily

Age: 3
Height: 29 1/4 "
Weight: 35 lbs
Hair color: dirty blonde

Favorites:
Animal: dog

Food: Sah-getti (spaghetti), pepperoni pizza, and cheese pizza

Game: Hi Ho Cherry -O!

Toy: a pretend snake

Thing to do: Play one of my games

Book: The Sleeping Tiger Book (DK Bedtime Peekaboo!)

Color: green and pink and purple and white and brown and black

Movie: Mickey Mouse and Special Agent Oso. And Enchanted too! (finally got a movie in there!)

Song: "Baby, just say yes!" (Taylor Swift "Love Story")

Primary Song: I Lived in Heaven

My best friend is: Ashton and Mason

Other friends I like to play with: Jake and Easton even though

they spray me with water guns

Things I like to do with my friends: Excercise and play with them and ride bikes. (can you tell I send them out the door to "play and get exercise!" haha)

If I had a pet it would be a: dog

named: Belle

What people like about me: "They know my name and know that I am awesome because

I am 3!" (hahaha her exact words)

Things I can do really well: I pretend books are computer and I dance like this *proceeds to shake her booty and shoulders. trust me, it's hilarious!*

This girl had her first day of preschool today. How is that even possible? With her silly personality really pouring out lately, this is how all the recent pictures of her look like.

I love it.

She walked in and knew just what to do. She found her name, hung her backpack up, then went and picked out a puzzle and started playing quietly. (I am hoping that tidy behavior can begin happening more often at home!)

2 Wheels!!

Emily and Gracey LOVE to ride their bikes outside. Gracey has been on just 2 wheels for a while now and Emily has never vocalized a desire to try her bike without training wheels. She's only 3. We don't do "Bicycle Boot Camp" and yell obscenities until their 4th birthday. Just kidding.

Corky and I were both excited to hear her mention it and Corky took the opportunity to take the training wheels off immediately. I held the video camera while Corky did the whole "not letting go" thing. I haven't uploaded the videos yet to my computer or I would post them because it is hilarious. You basically see Emily, like all other kids learning to ride a bike, insist that her bike isn't let go of. Then it is let go, the child realizes it, then falls. She didn't want to try again.


Finally I urge her to come watch the playback on my camera and she can actually see she did it for a split second. So we convince her that that split second was the coolest thing in the world and I tell her to try again as I videotape so she can come watch again. That happened over and over. Get on the bike, watch the video, back on the bike, watch the video, until finally, Emily was zooming up and down the street!


I usually describe Emily as not the outgoing one of my children (did that make any sense?), but since moving here to Kansas, and she has really opened up to trying new things. It makes us so happy and proud!

And of course, here is Gracey. She has been a pro on the bike for a while. Just tonight she showed us her new trick. She gets the bike going, then puts both legs up and rests on the bar. She is dangerous and hilarious.

It's also a special day because Corky turned 31! We love him. A lot. Happy Birthday, old man!

I Heart Independence: The Carrousel

There is a great park here in Independence, and I am talking real great. One of the highlights of the park that my girls have enjoyed is the carrousel. Now that Labor Day has come and gone, the house of operation are quite minimal, but we look forward to regular visits next year.

Get this...only $.05 a ride! There is a city statute that says that price will never rise. The girls love to go up with their nickels and dimes and buy their own tickets and I get to watch them absolutely enjoy themselves for the price of next to nothing!

This carrousel was put together I believe in the summer of 1950! 60 years later, it is still being used and loved! I found some awesome old pictures of the construction. Of course, I am emotionally attached to this place already, so these pictures are really great to see!



I heart Independence.

Lunch with Emily

Little Miss Emily doesn't start preschool until next week, and even when it starts, she will go only twice a week. She is the youngest kid on our street and the only one not in elementary school, so her and I have a lot of time to hang out.

Gracey started school yesterday, giving Em the first real taste of not playing with kids all day. Since moving here, she hangs out with Gracey and all the other kids non-stop. I didn't want her day to suck too bad (is suck a bad word to anyone? I use it regularly) so we drove to Corky's work, about 30 minutes away, to pick him up and go to lunch.

We went to Braum's, my new favorite place, and had a fun time.


Today is our 2nd day of just the two of us and I must say, I am enjoying it more than I thought I would. I was sure that I would struggle keeping her entertained, but so far so good. She is my best little buddy and helps me with everything. I will post a picture or two of our adventures this afternoon making 4 meatloaves!

Miss Gracey's Back to School Survey

Gracey

Favorites:
Food: Ramen Noodles
Game: Chutes and Ladders
Toy: "Pretty much all baby dolls and my kitchen!"
Thing to do: Playing with friends

Book: My princess book. (A large book full of stories of all the Disney princesses)
Color: Pink and Red
Movie: Alice and Wonderland (the new Tim Burton movie)
Song: My Little Pony song
Primary Song: Follow the Prophet

My best friend is: Mason (the new neighbor girl)
Other friends I like to play with: Jake, Easton, Ashton (all of our new next door neighbor kids)
Things I like to do with my friends: Ride bikes and scooters and find mysteries
If I had a pet it would be a: cat

named: Sleeping Beauty
What people like about me: "They like my blond hair and my name. They like that I...ummm...that's pretty much all!"
Things I can do really well: "I ride my bike really well and I do hard work really well. Like, I make my bed every day, and that is hard!"

This little lady had her very first day of Kindergarten and she loved it. She was so excited to be there that after every picture I took she would say, "Bye Mom!"

I wasn't quite ready to leave just yet so I snapped another picture. Once again, "Bye Mom!"

After about four "Bye Mom's" I figured it was time. I sure do love that kid!

1/3 of a year has gone by.

Has it really been that long?

Can you tell that blogging went on the back burner? Not sure if it is really because I went private or if it would have happened anyway. I am promising myself to be better about it in the future. Gracey and Emily start school this week and so I feel I have a fresh re-starting point.

We are in Kansas. We love it. We will miss plenty about Kingman. Our ward, our friends, our house, just to name a few. However, this place feels like home. The community and the neighborhood is seriously what I have wanted for my kids to grow up in. Gracey and Em play with the neighbor kids all day outside. They ride their bikes up and down the street, they have been picking apples off of the trees, and are going to bed way too late. It is likely we won't live here forever of course, but this area has already occupied a piece of my heart. (how cheesy was that?) So what that the temps last week were well over 100 degrees with a humidity of 80%? Okay, so that was awful.

As I promised my sister, I would post something. I have been pretty awful about taking pictures recently. I have done quite a bit of video taping, but that doesn't help the blog much.

Here are a couple of pictures of our AZ departure....

Here are the girls playing "store" among some packed boxes. It was pretty clever.


Here Emily would crawl up to the top bunk, then slide down the mattress. It looked it was burning some good energy from both girls. Over and over and over and over....


This is obviously in front of our house as they were preparing to load the truck. They have to do inventory and let me tell you, it makes you feel like a hoarder. I swear, we are not.




An empty house that has lots and lots of good memories. (I don't remember what Em was doing in this picture)


And finally, the traditional pose-in-front-of-the-house picture. (Gracey played "make up" with her friend right before! Ha!)


This week I will photograph more things as we go around town. I will give you a virtual tour of this charming little community.

Should I be proud of her or embarrassed for me?

While swimming with our girls, I was coaxing Gracey to dive deeper and deeper into the water to get the dive toys. I wanted her to get the toy from a certain deep part that I knew she could do but was a littler nervous about. It was about 5 feet deep. After asking her if she wanted to do it, she said,

"No, no, no! That's too deep!"

My response, "Please? You can do it!"

Gracey says, "Will you give me $50 bucks?"

I start laughing and say that I will give her $.50.

She says, "Okay!" and dives right down and grabs it!

Her and I celebrate this small victory while I am still laughing about her wanting to do it for $50.

Corky swims over to us and I tell him the story. Just as I am telling him, I realize that I just got highballed and tricked by a 5 year old. We were laughing so hard!! $.50 to a 5 year old is gold mine and I totally gave in because she first suggested $50!!!!

She is good. She is very, very good!

In short, the rest of the Easter weekend.

The rest of the weekend consisted of just hanging out.

• There was some easter egg coloring
• Late-night swimming
• Drakey-poo smooching
• sleep deprived children
• and Easter-Basket getting!

Gracey and Emily, the Dog Whisperers!

My step-dad has a new dog. She's a German Shepherd dog, she is (said in my best "Hank" impression for my family) named Zeba. She has been trained really well and is not even a year old yet. Of course, the only reason she will ever listen to me is because my step-dad repeats my command. I am definitely not an alpha in that relationship. Gracey and Emily are another story. Zeba minds them so well. Here is some proof. These pictures only show a portion of it all. By the end of this exercise (or torture for the pup) Zeba had crackers on both paws, her back, all up her nose, and behind her ears. She just stared longingly at Gracey and Emily, waiting for the command of "okay!"

St. George Easter Egg Hunt

Anytime we spend Easter in St. George, we most certainly attend this. It is 30 minutes of waiting around at your designated area. Then a 10 second count-down on a mega-phone. Then it is parents pushing their kids out into the hunt when the count-down gets to about 4! Then it is cheering your child on and encouraging her to pick up as much candy on her own while the parent next to you is loading up candy and dropping it into her own child's bucket. I assure you, it is awesome!!

Did that sound like a complaint?? My bad. We really do love, it is just comical to see some of the parents do the job of a 3 year old, among other 3 year olds. I want to say to those parents, "Go buy a freaking bag of candy at Wal-Mart!!!"

My girls think the egg hunt is the bomb and I truly do enjoy watching them (do it on their own!)! It is a fun tradition that we have done the last couple of Easter Holidays!

Here are some pictures of Emily from the beginning, when Grandma Joyce was giving her instructions, to when she was showing off all her fun stuff!


And here is Gracey! She was a pro!


And if you don't believe me about the parents, look closely at this photo. I wish I would have taken a closer picture, this lady was literally dragging her kid around!


After the Egg Hunt, we went over and held some cute baby chicks. Gracey was all about holding them, Emily only want to barely touch the head as long as I was holding it. They were cute....and so were the baby chicks. Glad they weren't mind though!

Check out the intensity in Em's face!

Private Blah!

When people set their blogs to private, I usually forget and have to catch up on a months worth of posts to feel reconnected to that person. If you are like me, lucky you, you don't have a lot to catch up on here. Setting myself to private has caused me to do the exact same thing to my own dang blog.

Hmmmm...I haven't even finished up the posts and pictures from Easter. Someday.

PVHS-ers! Remember this guy?

Good old Officer Brown! For those who didn't attend Pine View High School, he was the cop that worked full time at the high school. He was well liked and respected, and everybody thought he was the coolest. My guess is the trouble-makers wouldn't agree, but that's okay.

In his spare time, when he isn't arresting bad guys, he is the lead singer of the local St. George band, the Lawn Darts! They opened for Kansas and it was fun to see him do his thing. I spoke to him afterwards and he is as cool as ever. He was stoked when I asked him if I could post this video!

Kansas Concert

My dad gave us some tickets to the Kansas concert! They were performing at the Tuachan Amphitheater. How cool is that? Kansas is a 35 year old rock band that were around before I was born....and they still rock! It was so much fun! After the concert, I told my dad that if I had to choose 5 songs that I feel I grew up with, this song would definitely one of them.



And on another note, did you know I married an Oompa Loompa? Just kidding, honey!! Corky had been golfing that day and forgot the sunblock. The combination of that, then sitting next to me, and me being white and the closest to the flash, his "orangeness" was inevitable!

CannonBall!!!!

While spending time with my family in St. George over the Easter weekend, we got a lot of swimming in. The outside temps were quite chilly, but my mom and step dad decided to splurge and heat the pool for us to enjoy! The temperature outside were the low 60's, but the pool was a warm 95 degrees! It was like swimming in a giant bath! We enjoyed being outside, even if a bee attacked my face and stung my cheek! (There is a sweet, cynical revenge in knowing that a bee just died because it stung you!)

It was Drake's first time in the pool and that kid loved it! (Jess, I think he looks like you in this picture!)

Gracey pretty much perfected her cannonball! After watching Home Alone 2 as often as she does, I knew she would be wanting to get it down!

And then there is Emily! I can't help but laugh when I see her in her swim get-up! As much as I ask, she doesn't want me to help her fix her goggles!

A Little Explanation....

I feel like such a sell-out. I honestly vowed that I would not go private....ever. I didn't want to live my life in fear or paranoia that someone was out to get me or my family. I mean, if someone wanted to find me, all they had to do is look up our names in the white pages. It is public record. I was well aware that by googling our names our blog did indeed come up, but I was always mindful of not posting pictures of schools, driver license #, or even pictures of my kids friends who I didn't ask for permission to post. I liked that old friends were able to find us.

My tune has changed. Not radically though. I am not scared by any means, nothing remotely scary has happened to make me go private. The thing that is going on though is that Corky's plant that he works for is shutting down. The company itself is doing fine, but they are phasing out the manufacturing plant here in Kingman. That is bad news for nearly 76 local employees, other local businesses, and the community. Luckily for us, Corky is being transferred within the company. He will continue his work as an Operations Manager, still being employed by Southwire.. We are grateful for the opportunity that he has been given to continue working for them. They are a great company that has treated our whole family incredibly well.

With his transfer though, he has gotten a lot of criticism. Understandably, people are upset by this closing and are a little resentful that Corky is being transferred. Of course, there are employees that understand that when the business isn't seeing a profit then changes need to me made. Sadly though, there are plenty of employees who feel entitled and want to put the blame on someone else.

Anyway, Corky has gotten wind that some people who aren't too happy with him, are knowing more about his personal life than he has personally shared. While we have nothing to hide and are proud of our family blog and its content, neither of us feel comfortable knowing that people who don't like us are searching it out. One guy at work came up to Corky and said, "Is it true you were thinking about going to medical school?" If that information was found through our blog, then someone was looking back at posts from over 2 years ago.

Another reason to go private is not just because it is creepy knowing that people who don't like us are looking, but also I want to be sensitive to them. So many people are losing their jobs when the only thing to really blame is the economy. It sucks. We both are sad and worried about their families and hope they can find employment soon after this summer. It would just feel wrong of me to document our move, the job, and this new chapter in our lives that we are so excited for, knowing that people who aren't so fortunate are reading.

With all of that said, I can look back at all the hard work and long hours that Corky has put in (that I usually griped about) and be so grateful. I am so grateful that he has shown his value with this company. We have been truly blessed since Corky made the decision to get out of the army. His hard work and attitude has paid off thus far and we can only pray that the blessings continue to be great!

And now that I have babbled on and on, is anyone curious to where we are moving by the end of the summer?? Huh?? :)

I will let the picture do the talking!


I better start now and brush up on my "Little House on the Prairie" knowledge!

Locking it Up!

I vowed to not ever do this.... but for the time being, it is for the best.

We are going to make our blog private for a while.

It is such a pain in the booty, I know.

Blogger has a limit of 100, I know that too.

Not that I think we are super popular, but we do have a good amount of traffic. With aunts, uncles, cousins, and then all the friends we have made in the bajillion places we have lived, it happens! If we exceed the limit of 100, I will create a second (identical) blog to accommodate. We don't want to leave anyone out.

Leave me a comment with your email, send me a message on facebook, shoot me an email, or give me a call.

Like I said, we don't want to leave anyone out. Blogging has been a GREAT way to be in touch with friends. If you are old friends, new friends, my friends, Corky's friends, friends of friends, parents of friends, etc., please give me your email.

Lots of explaining to come!

Cinderella Hair

Corky snapped this phot of Gracey a couple of days ago while she was in the bath. He wanted her to see how her hair looked like Cinderella's hair.

Camera's are so much better than mirrors!

Life's a Beach

Last week my friend Natalie had a great idea to take the kiddos to Lake Havasu. They are moving to Las Vegas this week and so we were cramming in the fun things to do. We went to this great family-friendly park where the kids were able to roam free. The temperature outside was about 80 degrees, a good 15-20 degrees warmer than Kingman, and the water was freezing. The kids didn't seem to mind at all though! Gracey was so excited to be at a beach. They even found hand fulls of little seashells!

I am not sure why we haven't spent more time in Lake Havasu. Growing up, we went nearly every summer to visit my aunt and uncle and play in the lake. We have now lived in Kingman for 2 years and sadly, this was the first time I have been to Havasu since. We will definitely be going again soon!