I ran into some problems with this post last week. I have been using Blogger to upload and store my photos online. Blogger holds the pictures in Picasa. Anyway, I found out that I am allowed only 1G of storage on Picasa. I'm not too surprised that I've met my limit as I've been using my blog for almost 2 years, and you all know how many pictures I like to put up! Thanks to my friend Shannon for telling me about flikr. I am now using them to host my photos online. I have used photobucket before, but what is nice about flikr is that I have only a monthly upload limit, as opposed to a total upload limit. So potentially, I should be able to use flikr forever and ever. Make sense? Good!

Back on the farm, we had a great Labor Day Weekend. Lee had a four-day weekend, so we headed on up to St. Louis that Friday.

We met up with our friends the Taylors and the Stouts and swapped babysitting at the temple.


Our family headed to the free St. Louis zoo afterward.





Yeah, Lee pretty much took an amazing photo of this animal. I should submit it to National Geographic!



I didn't know that someone took this photo of me. Too funny!

The WHOLE family!



We fueled up our van on the way home. I wish gas was only this much! If you look at the smaller sign it was only 2.19, which we thought was amazing as it is 2.39 here.

It was a very peaceful ride to Rolla...all kids sleeping.

On the way home we made our traditional stop at Little Caesar's and Aldi. We then headed to the Lykins for a game night. We never did play games, but we had a fun time talking and eating snacks. The weather was crazy that night. It was raining really hard and it was foggy; an un-peaceful ride home. I was very grateful we got home safely that night. It was a good, long day.

Over Labor Day weekend someone took pictures of the house where our friends Kelly and Chris lived. The housing company is remodeling it now. Gotta love the toilets outside!



That Saturday I took the girls to a birthday party at our friend's house, and later we went back again to their house so Lee could watch the BYU game. They made us a yummy dinner. The guys enjoyed the game and I had fun visiting with my friend.

Cal has been wanting pictures with Elden lately. It's very cute.


We honored Labor Day by laboring. We had a fun weekend, so we didn't mind the day off to prepare for the week.


I did Tae Bo that morning and Clark and two of his friends did it with me for a little bit.

Hope you all had a great Labor Day too!

My wonderful husband is 29! I think he had a great birthday--I enjoyed it anyway. Next year we'll have to remember to have him take leave on his birthday! That morning I got up early and made cupcakes for Lee and his co-workers. Clark's school started late so we all went over to Lee's work and said happy birthday. After working out I decorated the dining area for Lee's birthday. While Lee was at work after lunch, I finally got to his cake. It was really easy, but it just took some time cutting out the letters.

We had a fun little family party and after the kids were in bed we watched Song of the Thin Man.

Here is Clark with Cal's good friend.


Lee being the always wonderful husband, even on his birthday


The oh-so-fitting cake









Looks pretty uncomfortable...







Thanks Charles and Sam for being friends so that Lee and I could meet! It's been a great 6 years of marriage and I am excited about the rest of our journey together. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEE!

This is a whole week late. We've been pretty busy lately (okay, so we're always busy) and have enjoyed some fun activities the past couple of weeks.

I really like this outfit that Elden is wearing. This is him 1 week ago.




A picture that one of my kids took. I think Cal was the genius behind it. Hope you're not nauseous right now.


The last Thursday in August we went to the sprinkler park while Clark was at school.






The last Saturday of August I took the boys to a primary activity on building eternal families. They really enjoyed it. We have great leaders and teachers in our primary here. For lunch we went to the USO. I don't think we'll be doing that again. The kids were great but they didn't want to eat the nachos. Okay, Clark did, but the other kids just picked at their food.


I didn't realize we had the same shirts on till later. Go Dr. Who club!


We then took a trip to the Rubidoux River in Waynesville with Jen and Kristi. There was a good amount of wind for flying kites.








That night we watched our friends' kids and the other neighbor kids joined in on the festivities too.




Work is going well for Lee. It is pretty busy, especially since two more doctors are gone. He has been riding his bike to work everyday in the morning and has gotten a couple of bike rides in on the weekends. The weather here has been amazing and it's been quite a mild summer.

Clark is doing well in school. He didn't get into the LEAP program, which was disappointing. I'm hoping he'll do well on the nationalized testing again so he can try and get into it next year. His teacher recognized me yesterday when I was leaving Walmart and I did not recognize her, which I felt bad about. I had the girls with me at the time and she said that she didn't know I had two other kids. Then I told her I had two more. It was pretty funny. I also found out that Cal didn't get into the free PACE preschool on base. And unlike the LEAP program, I was happy about that.

Everytime I see Clark run into school he seems to shrink into this tiny little boy. At home I need to be careful because sometimes I think I deal with Clark like he is 12, and he is only 6. But it is sad seeing him run off into the school. Shanna had Clark's backpack on the other day and I started thinking about when the girls will go to school. I stopped thinking about it because it was making me sad. What I did with Clark in getting him ready for kindergarten I am going to do with Cal. I am glad he can be home one more year. Plus Cal has had a wonderful time playing with his friend up the street during the day. He and his friend are very cute together and his mom has been taking Cal with them to storytime.

So another funny little story, a few weeks ago I received a call on my cell phone from a number I didn't recognize. I went ahead and answered. It was an automated message saying something like: "I'm calling concerning your credit card. Be assured, there is nothing wrong with your credit card..." HA! Don't people do their research? We haven't had credit cards since February. And Lee got the same message too! A few days ago I got a thing in the mail about Marlboro advertising their website. I am the last person in the world that would smoke. Matt should do a research paper on the mishaps and marketing mistakes of giant companies.