Jeremy's Star Wars Birthday bash

I am not sure how or why I get so crazy when the kids' birthdays come around. I know that I have sworn off throwing themed birthday parties in the past, and yet, as you can see another themed birthday party comes forth from the Beal household. There was a lot of planning involved, not to mention a desperate search for non-seasonal pool noodles that involved driving to many stores including the hardware store where I finally had to buy some pipe insulators to supplement my deficient pool noodle numbers. But to see the smile on the children's faces, and to watch them hit each other wildly with their 'light sabers', it was all worth it.

Special thanks to Dani and Ryan Schafer for helping to calm and organize the chaos. And thanks to Kelsey Ensz, who offered to be the birthday photographer; 85 pictures and 2 videos later, we have a lot of memories captured on camera/computer. I will be hiring all 3 of you to help at all of my children's parties...if there are anymore that is.

On top of the world

Alright, we are not quite that high. But when you are above the fog and can see it below in the valley, it makes you feel that way. The pictures were taken early morning, and I am not a morning person. But now I have the privilege of getting up at the crack of dawn to get Hannah ready for the bus, which is supposed to come at 7:08am but really comes at 7:00am. I am not looking forward to beating the sun out of bed come winter.

The newest addition to our family...

is Slinky, our new kitten. We got her from Walmart. Well she was in a box marked 'free kittens' in front of the store. My sister-in-law JoAnn happened to see the box and mentioned it to me. I just went up to look, and well, you know how the rest of the story goes. And yes, I named her. The kids had crazy names like Princess and Blacky. We had to go with something more mainstream and chic-Slinky says it all doesn't it? I am not sure this cat knows she is a cat with all the love, attention and mauling she has been subjected to.
She will be an outside cat, once we think she is big enough not be another animal's lunch-how many pounds do you really think that should be? It does not pay to be small when you live in the country.

Our first summer of visitors...

All the cousins below

No family resemblance eh?

in the new house in the country that is. And what a quick summer it was. We had a lot of family come to visit. First my Mom came to visit for 12 days. We shopped for new furniture, spent some time at the beach house, and sat outside, enjoying the view. 3 days after my Mom left my sister Gina and her 2 kids came for a week. Back to the beach house we went for some frolicking in the sand and surf. Not to mention our diet that consisted of ice cream at least daily. 2 days after Gina left Don and JoAnn, Doc's brother and his wife came to visit accompanied by their niece Crystal. We had fun just hanging out around the house.

And now back to 'normal'. School is in full swing so we are settling down into some sort of routine. We really enjoyed everyone's visit. Same time, same place, next year we hope.