6 years ago...

Hope asked yesterday if we could start a countdown until her Birthday...so in 13 days she will be 6 years old! Wow, this is hard to believe!

It seems like yesterday that this brand new little person became part of our lives!



I am so proud of our girl though. She is growing up beautifully with a heart that loves Jesus and loves others. We had her school conference this morning and she is doing very well in kindergarten. Her reading and writing are taking off. I always enjoyed the baby stages because they are constantly learning something new, but I had no idea that this stage of learning to read would be just as fun!

I thank the Lord for our Hope!

Life...

Here are some shots of our life from the past few months:

Hope's first day of school!




Getting off of the bus


Hope and her kindergarten teacher


We got a chance to visit the local firestation and get a tour from one of our friends, Firefighter Ashley. The kids had a great time!




Potty training is going better for Livia's dolly than Livia herself


We had a really fun family night a couple of weeks ago that was totally planned by Hope. She requested a fire in the fireplace, hot cocoa and that we all work on a puzzle together

The Fair

Ok, it's taking me forever to get the vacation pictures up and life continues to move forward. Someday I might get the rest of the vacation pictures posted, but for now you can enjoy our day at the NWWF (Northwest Washington Fair):

Final Installment of Yellowstone

Old Faithful
Old Faithful in Action:



I believe this is the Beehive Geyeser, could be wrong, but it was more amazing than Old Faithful! Upper Falls Family Pic
Yellowstone's Upper and Lower Falls:


Last night in Yellowstone. Could have spent an entire week there, so much to see and do. Maybe when the kids are bigger we'll go back and do some hiking and stay longer.

More of Yellowstone...

Marshmallows!!!






Livia's First Marshmallow...



She LOVED it!


Our Sweet Hope!


You can see some of Josiah's battle wounds. At our first hotel (second night of the trip) he was jumping on the beds and fell and hit his face on a night stand, ouch!


More Animals...


So glad these buffalo feel so comfortable on the road right between the cars!

Buffalo X-ing

Yellowstone Day 1

The North Entrance!






Mammoth Hot Springs


The Campsite! The girls tent was the blue one and the boys tent was the orange one. The first night we had a major wind and rain storm. We stayed quite warm, probaby because of the cloud cover, but we were awake most of the night because the wind was SO strong!


An elk in our campground!





Sunset on Yellowstone Lake