"The days are long, but the years are short"

I can't remember who first said that to me, but it is kind of my mantra. That being said, I cannot believe that kindergarten is almost over! It seems like only a couple of months ago that I was lamenting sending my baby off to school, and now his last day is tomorrow. I got some pictures from the school year sent home in his backpack today. It is funny that in so many pictures that we have taken this year Nathan is wearing his blue Fulbright shirt, and I'm in my red scrubs. On the days that Ashley wore her green 2nd Pres shirt, we looked like a bunch of Crayolas!

Here's Nate with his two best buddies from this year - Carter and Luke. They had their on group of kindergartners called "The Boys Team" that included these three, about 4 other boys, and one girl named Chloe. It has been a great year, and I can only hope that 1st grade will be as good.

Lake Sylvia

I had some of my teenager girls from church at the house Saturday night for their End of the Year sleepover. This means that Jeff and the kids got the boot. Mom and Dad were camping on Lake Sylvia, so they spent the night with them - Jeff in 1 tent and the other 4 in another!

Dino Dash

I was prepared to really get my blog on yesterday, but our power went out. (Dump truck + telephone pole = 7 hours with no electricity.) So, let me try this again...

Here are few pictures from the Dino Dash on Saturday. It was a 5k run and 1k walk/run. Jonathan asked us to join the Arkansas Johnsons for the race, but Mary Beth got a stomach virus and Mandi had to stay home with her.

Nathan was excited about running in a real race. According to Jeff, he ran/jogged the whole 1k. I wouldn't know, because I was lagging behind with Ashley on my shoulders. She did not enjoy it at all. However, they both enjoyed the Popsicles at the finish line!

Fishing at John Boyd's Pond

Wayne retired in February, so he's got a lot of time on his hands these days. He loves to fish, so we invited him to go fishing at John Boyd's pond one afternoon last week. Nathan is really starting to enjoy fishing as well. He's really good at casting, but I still spent most of my time getting his line untangled. That's fine by me though. I'm not really into fishing (especially the putting-the-worm-on-the-hook part), but it was fun to watch everybody else.

Nathan caught a small crappie and big catfish. After that, he was done, so he and I walked home and picked blackberries along the way.

"The Arts" in action

Tonight we went to B's Kindergarten program. The theme was "My future Career". This is not a very good picture, but the kid with the glowing eyes is Brandon dressed as a firefighter (he did not get to chose but he was thrilled with his "profession.") His group sang a cute song and the whole program was mercifully short. However the "blog-worthy" part was that one group of kids -Dressed as Plumbers. I could not make this up-did an interpretative dance-COMPLETE WITH PLUNGERS!

I'm sure glad that our music/dances classes are safe from the budget cuts because I'm not sure HOW our kids would ever grow into well-rounded citizins with out plunger based dance training.

Her Dad's a Freaking Trapper

Hey girls! I just wanted to give you an update on this weekend. Jonathan and Kristine Woodring and their little girl Niah came to Washington on a "survey trip" this weekend. (sorry-no pics)They got here on Friday night and wouldn't you know over the course of dinner it came up that my Dad was a trapper. For some reason Aaron feels the need to tell everybody he knows what his F-I-L does for a living? (trapper envy?) Anyway... her dad is a wildlife biologist (or something like that) and does trapping on the side........ What are the freaking odds? It's just weird that we sat around telling trapping stories over dinner. Overall their trip went very well. Now we will just have to wait and see where God leads them. And girls thanks for the blog therapy while in Flo-rida. I'm going to try to work through my "issues" and post more often.

Belated American Idol Post

With all that's been going on lately, I failed to mention the Kris Allen mania that was going on around here a couple of weeks ago. Since we have been following the show all season, we wanted to participate in some of the Homecoming Week festivities. We took the kids to the Metroplex on Thursday night when Kris was interviewed on Fox 16. Then Jeff picked-up Nathan early from school on Friday so they could go to the concert in Conway.

My family sporting their purple UCA shirts. Go Bears!

Our closest encounter with the paparazzi.

Concert in Conway

Sean, Kate, and Nate

Riverfest 2009

We went to Riverfest, or as I like to call it Freakfest, on Friday night. For me, it's a toss-up on which venue draws the highest percentage of weirdos between the State Fair and Riverfest. The fair is more redneck populated, and Riverfest is more of the earthy/hippie types. On positive side, the weather was nice and there were a lot of free things for the kids to do. Jeff, Sean, John, Mom, and Dad all stayed for the concerts that night (B52s and Willie Nelson), but I headed home around 8:30 to put the kids to bed. We were planning to go back tonight to see the fireworks, but it has been raining here all day.

The one-armed juggler impressed us all. Nathan was especially mesmerized.

Obviously a butterfly.

Did I mention that it was free face painting? That's supposed to be an American flag.

Yeth, he loth the other tooth

While, I was in Florida, Nathan lost his other front tooth. He's very proud of his new toothless grin. Here's a few pictures from this week at school. They had a very belated Mother's Day breakfast on Thursday and Field Day on Friday.

Congratulations, Sean!

Sean graduated on Thursday night for my alma mater Benton High. It was a little weird being back there 15 years later...yes, I said 15 years! I have been out of high school for 15 years! A lot has changed since 1994. I didn't see very many people that I knew, and I didn't recognize many of the the teachers. They now have graduation at the Stephens Center at UALR. In fact, the only things that are really the same are the school colors (maroon and gray, really?) and of course the Alma Mater that Renee loves so much.

We had a graduation party for Sean at our house last week. Jeff made a slide show that was really good and made us all laugh and cry. Phyllis had the cake above made to look like a snare drum. It tasted as good as it looked!