Summer Happenings

This summer was great fun! We got to see the Cooper's in their new home of Missouri and enjoyed a new area of the country. It was fun to Jackson and listen to his chatter. Then on to Idaho and California to enjoy grandparents and have a mini reunion.

Open your eyes Gigi

                                Grandpa and Grandma Cherry had lots of fun with this busy guy.

Holidays 2012-2013

Our two christmas's

Since Chance & Megan couldn't make it for Christmas we had a Santa Day and then when everyone was here we had our cultural Christmas. This year we are doing Mexico (when we are all together we will do different countries from our families.) and are celebrating Three Kings Day. It was a lot of fun and Nathaniel and Stacey get to give the next party because thier girls found the baby in the Three kings cake. 

 

Jackson's first time sledding with just enough snow to play in.

 

 We went to the Natural History Museum and the aquarium to play and let Jackson run around.

 Cousin Mary wants whatever Cousin Jackson has and kept checking out what leftovers he hadn't eaten yet. These two got along great and it is fun having their family here.

Europe For Real

After three years of planning and saving we took our semi- dream trip to Europe. Semi because we had three kids along. But it was alot of fun with them with just a few melt downs in 18 busy fun filled days.
The best part was visiting our exchange students families in Finland and Germany. We started off in Belgium and flew into Brussels. We didn't stay long and that evening after visiting Brussels we flew to Stockholm Sweden where we spent 3 days. We all loved Sweden and Finland , what beautiful countries and the people were very nice. The food was really good too. We loved the fresh fruit and Chocolate! After Stockholm we took a ship to Finland and were greeted by Anni and her parents. It was really good to see her again, It's hard to believe its been 4 years. Her family were wonderful hosts and we were able to see lots of Finland and just a few of thier 60,000 lakes!
Off to Paris on a plane, the airlines in Europe are great if you just want to fly within Europe. Paris was very crowded and busy but it was nice to see some of the things we have read about. It is true about the language there, use French they respond a lot quicker. Our favorite building was Nortra Dame, loved the gargoyles. Everyone had their fill of museums by time we left by train to Germany.
Mario met us at the train station (trains and planes are the way to go to move around in Europe) We met his family later in the day so whlie we waited we took a tour of Frankfurt and we up a tall building and had a great view of the area. Frankfurt kept only a few old buildings after WWII, mostly they rebuilt the city with new ones. Germany has many old palaces and castles to visit and it was fun to see many different kinds of each. We finished our trip by going up the Rhine River Valley to Koln, Germany then onto Brugge, Belgium. Brugge was very old with lots of canals and cobblestone streets.


The unhappy Queen!!!Waffles !! The best things on earth or at least in Belgium

Tired but happy to go back to our own beds we flew back home from Brussels for mom to plan a wedding!

Brent and Rachel got to go inside the cage with these guys and had so much fun in Stockholm. This brand of candy is the best ever. Smooth and Creamy.

Finland, Castles in Germany, markets in Frankfurt and Notra Dame in France.

Brent loving the food!

Apartment Hunting

They also went shopping!!! Don't they look good with those headbands.

The girls went apartment hunting in Boise. They decided since there were no parents around they could jump on the bed and off the couches. They had a fun weekend together. They even found an apartment so they accomplished their goal.

Megan and Amanda lovin' school

Well since Megan is at school without Chance right now, she hangs out with Amanda a lot. They went boating one weekend. They had a lot of fun tubing and wakeboarding.

Water is wonderful

Two days without running water because our main water pipe broke! With record heat for around here, 101 degrees. That was a fun test to see how well we could do. The neighbors were kind enough to let us us their hose so we had water for our toilet and drinking. All that storage water came in handy too, even though I hadn't changed it since 2004. The plants got that water even though it smelled OK. I think I need to look at it more often.
After digging a trench for 6 hours Brent and Jeff were very sweaty and dirty so with no shower that worked the next best thing was to put on swimsuits and shower with the hose! Brrrrrrr! It made for a quick one. So water really is wonderful.

You Go Girl