first day of preschool

Lily was so excited to go to preschool. she likes her teacher Mrs. Elizabeth well she calls her Mrs Elizaba for some odd reason. When I ask her to say Elizabeth she says it but then goes right back to saying Elizaba. what a funy little girl. she is slowly learning to do what the teacher says. she goes twice a week for 2.5 hrs. she comes home with a little less enery than normal so this is good. I love having her home when Kalee is at school it gives me some one on one time with her when clarks down for his nap. speaking of clark he is already acting like a 2 yr old, he keeps me pretty busy. the other day he did something super cute. He never lets me cuddle with him so this is a moment to remember. He went and got his blanket that Grandma Rudd Made him and his binky crawled up on my lap and fell asleep. It was such a sweet moment. That leads me to another moment when I dropped Lily off at preschool it started to get teary eyed realizing that it's just me and clark and both my baby girls are growning up.

First day of School

Kalee started school on August 18th she loves her new school and her teacher Mrs. Lara. she has her own desk that she can open and it has all her school supplies in it. she has made some new friends and really enjoys being a 1st grader.

families in town

The Bragg annual trip to California was full of Sanfransisco, a A's game, eating, planes and swimming oh and did I say swimming lots and lots of swimming. Joel and Jimmy also couldn't get enough of throwing kalee and lily into the air clear to the other side of the pool it was very entertaining. the good part is that Joel's family had to do the traveling and we got to stay right here. he! he!

Burns

This is a little late but a couple of wednesday's ago Joel was vacuuming and Clark Put his hand underneath the vacuum and the rollers gave him a 2nd degree burn on his right hand it took off the top part of his skin poor little guy I felt so bad. after many trips to the clinic and lots of bandage changing he is healing really well. the kids is a trooper and oddly enough he still loves the vacuum.

my little darlings

Joel went on a trip to Japan a couple of weeks ago to pick up some f-22 and bring them to Alaska. he bought the girls these dresses they are so adorable. His trip went well, the time change messed his sleeping habits up then again he doesn't sleep anyway. whoever says you can't go back in time has never been to Japan Joel went from Friday to Saturday to Sunday back to Saturday then to Sunday again crazy huh.


Flaming Gorge is so fun I love going, it never gets old. This is at the beach the kids are having so much fun. They had a mud fight and thought it was Hilarious..

This past month has just flown by. Joel had his first trip and went to Alaska. He said it was beautiful and perfect weather. He even got the chance to get in some fishing and caught almost 30. He went there to bring back some F-18’s to Mirimar (the Top Gun school). The kids and I have stayed very busy doing projects, swimming and going to many places. Just recently I took them to the Exploratorium in San Francisco and they had a great time playing with all that science crud.

This 4th of July we decided on going to the Fairfield parade. I guess the theme was “emergency vehicles” or something along those lines, because that’s about all there was. Still, the kids loved watching it. The only really odd thing was this guy behind us sitting on a bicycle. Every few minutes he would chant loudly L-O-O-I-E! For two and a half hours Joel and I sat there listening to this and racking our brains trying to figure out what the heck it meant. Finally we just decided that he might have been better off in a straight jacket than riding a bike. After the show of force…I mean parade we went home and spent some time together as a family. Later that night we barbequed some hamburgers and left the house to watch the fireworks in nearby Vacaville. We were going to just buy them at the store and do them in front of our house, but we found out it is illegal here, even possessing them is illegal. We found a really good spot at a high school which ended up perfect. It was also fun to watch all the biker cops speeding around writing tickets to anyone who wanted to “augment” the city’s fireworks. They were serious about that stuff.

Yesterday we took the kids to the San Francisco Zoo and had a blast. We were so used the Hogle Zoo in Utah were the animals pride themselves in seeing how long they can remain motionless. This Zoo was great! When we first got there we saw a mommy and baby giraffe get bumped by an antelope and the giraffes began chasing around the antelope for about 10 minutes. The Zebra and a couple other African animals even got involved and joined the chase. It finally got out of hand when Joel jumped the fence and started headbutting the giraffe too. The Zoo here had just about every kind of animal we could think of except Elephants, which we thought was weird. They did have three tiger cubs which played around with each other and jumped all over their mommy. It was vaguely familiar how all the cubs were jumping all over the mother and she just sat there taking it, looking very annoyed. We rode a little train ride which they kids liked. When Joel asked Lily what she thought of the train she said “I didn’t like it.” Joel asked her why not and she replied “it was pretty hanus.” We laughed our heads off, and we have absolutely no idea where she got that word.

The kids are all doing very well. They are enjoying their summer and are still growing like crazy. They are so interested in the daily things I do and always want to help. Sometimes they help just a bit too much. Their favorite thing to help with is the cooking. The other day I was making Fettuccini Alfredo, Lily was right by my side as usual standing on her princess chair watching my every move. I was making the sauce and had just finished putting the salt in. I accidentally left the salt on the counter in her reach and as I turned around to grab the next ingredient she poured about half the container in the pan. Of course I only had enough whipping cream to make that one batch, so I spooned out as much as I could and we ate it anyway. She just wanted to help and its so cute, but its so hard to hold in your frustration. I love her so much!

A Kindergartner' No More

So, my kids are growing up right in front of me...doesn't that just blow! It seems just like yesterday that she was Clark's age and now she is going to be a 1st grader. Anywho, as you might have guessed, Kalee graduated Kindergarten on friday. Joel and I were so proud! Tears of joy and pride were running down our faces as pomp and circumstance was played for the entrance of the graduating class. Kalee's name was announced and she proudly walked up and said "the thing I liked most about kindergarten was the centers." She had been rehearsing that all week. It was cute how they did it, but I am still am not sure it was necessary. I did not think that the move from kindergarten to 1st was that big of a deal. and I really did not think that the president was going to show up and give the congradulatory speech, j/k. Oh, yeah, and we were crying because Clark had just dropped one of the stinkiest gut bomb in his diaper, and not because of the graduation.

Kalee has really enjoyed these past few weeks of school. Recently the school (and I) took the kids to a farm in a nearby county. Although, I am really not sure you could call 2 cats a dog a farm. Seriously, it only had a few animals and a field of something none of the kids cared about. But, I guess they liked being together and not being in school. On thursday this week Kalee and Lily were fighting by the door and Kalee's fingers were shut in the door. So, Joel had to pull Kalee out of her field day a little early for the doctor to tell him that if gets worse just bring her back. What a waste of time that was. I really do not like this hospital on base.