HARVEST TIME

Today Kylan and I went to our neighbors vineyard and picked grapes. It was such a treat to sample sweet grapes right off the vine...they were even warm from the sun. The weather here has been beautiful with brisk mornings and warm sunny days. We all are savoring it!

Summers End, New Beginnings

It's been a little over two months since we made our move from Seattle to Boise. We have been so blessed as we have settled into a new neighborhood, church, job and community. We had a wonderful warm welcome moving into our home which was on Father's Day of all days! We pulled into our driveway at 7:30 am and were greeted by a family from our church who hustled into our house with a griddle and pan to prepare pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream, along with eggs and orange juice. We joined them, along with 5 other men from our church, for a quick breakfast before they speedily unloaded our U-Haul. It didn't end there, as we had many people extending invitations to outings and to help out in any way they could. It has made the transition easier for all of us, especially since we have been missing our Seattle friends so much! Some things we miss most about Seattle: most definately our wonderful friends, the smell of the ocean , the Olympic Mountains, the diversity of the community, our weekly family night out to PHO (vietnemese soup), fresh cut flowers, curry coconut chicken soup and mangos from Ballard Market. Despite all that we miss in Seattle, life in a small town has turned out to be quite sweet. We live in a subdivision surrounded by small ranches and farms, crop land, and the Boise River. On our short drive to run errands, we frequently pass geese, ducks, peacocks, blue herons, mules, baby calves and colts. The boys have spent much of their summer days swimming, catching frogs, riding bikes and building bike jumps right in our neighborhood. We have been blessed with nice neighbors as well as kids that the boys play with daily, and to Kylan's delight...a dog named Marlo that is the neighbor's but loves to play with the kids. And for those of you who are wondering about Zac, who is known for his predatory behavior against full-size dogs .....he now has become a wimp. Yes, it's true...he has yet to venture outside of our fenced back yard and even indoors is a little jumpy, especially when the a/c turns on. We're hoping he will recover soon. The kids have started school now and are relatively happy with school. Jon is very busy with rotations, working about an 80 hour week. Despite life at the hospital, he has been able to get out and enjoy fishing, mountain biking and a camping trip with us. Yeah! As for me, I have absolutely enjoyed the summer and am sad to see it go. We have much to look forward to as the school years begins, as the boys have already found ways to keep their mom busy shuttling them around. Quest will be playing on the tennis team, Koby made a varsity squad basketball team and Kylan has taken up Karate. Oh ya....and then I start job hunting this week. So needless to say, it will be a busy time. Hopefully this won't be my first and LAST blog. My hopes are that I continue blogging to share what's going on in our lives with all our friends and family members and I especially hope to inspire others to do the same! Love to all!

Here's a little peek from our summer! Some highlights were Heather (long time dear friend) and her son Ethan (Koby's best bud) and her daughters came to visit from Seattle for a week; We also went camping in McCall for a retreat...it was a great way to end the summer. Sorry, the pics are a little small and blurry on the slideshow....I'll have to work on that for the next blog.