The fire

Our poor city is on fire right now, the kind of fire we are told can't happen in populated areas.  So far our home isn't in any real danger but the shop is just across the Interstate from the mandatory evacuation site.  We're hoping that the winds don't pick up again today and blow it across.  Here's some pictures to show how bad it is.

This is what the fire looked like a couple days ago, just really some smoke from the mountains.

With the changing winds you can see how it is crawling down the mountain yesterday.

Once the winds changed it took 30 minutes for the front of the shop to look like the above picture to this one.

Here is a view as the sun sets and the fire lights up the sky. 

This is the view from our gas station on the corner, you can see that the fire was successful in crawling all the way down the mountain to the city.



Toddler Time

This house runs on Toddler Time, it will take nearly 7 minutes to put on shoes, 3 minutes to clear a place setting, 45 minutes to eat dinner, 90 minutes to fall asleep...you get the gist.  Bottom line I spend a lot of time waiting each day and saying things like "Can you please hurry?" or "We are running late can you try and hurry?".  If I step in and do it for her she will quite literally melt into a puddle of screaming and crying that Satan himself would be proud of so I just stand there with Tyler waiting patiently.

We went to South Dakota this last weekend to visit Derek and Rachel.  The girls had SOOO much fun, we even visited a petting zoo (ok that part was for me, but we took the girls with us).  :-)  Every trip up there gets more fun as the girls grow and change and find that they can all play together.  It's just too cute.

Our Little Eater...she will eat anything you put in front of her and loves ribs.  That shirt she is wearing had to be thrown away after this experience.

Look at the size of this moth Joe caught for the girls. That is Joe's cell phone sitting next to it so you can see the vastness of it.  (Meowser must have been been impressed too which led her to eat it this morning luckily while the girls were still asleep).

Austin riding a pony at the petting zoo!



The girls birthday party.

So far it's really nice to have the girls' birthdays so close, I am sure one day they want to do their own separate things but for now it's much easier.


Helen testing out the new picnic table that Marmee and Papa got for the girls.

The birthday girls sharing some water waiting for people to start showing up.

The Elmo cupcakes that I made for their party, my fingernails are still red from the amount of food dye I had to use.

The Hello Meow romper that Helen got for Austin.

The pretty blue hat from Anne.

 The awesome people puzzle and Austin telling Joe all about the people in it.

You can't hear what Austin is saying to me but she is walking the beads up and giving them to me and letting me know that she will not stick them up her nose. :-)

Singing Happy Birthday to the girls.

Lil' Bit's 1 & Baby Girl's 3!

And I feel older by the second watching how fast they grow.  They already interact so well and attempt to play together.  It's really too cute for words.  Poor little bit has been having a rough day though, I just threw away the last of the frozen milk, tossed the pacifiers and heaven help me if I can make it to the Red Sea tonight I will bury my pump at the bottom of it.  Tyler is definitely attached to her pacifier and spent a good part of an hour crying in order to fall asleep for nap (and I hear her in there again crying...obviously going to be a super restful nap), Austin at one point looked at me and said I would prefer it if sister could just have her pacifier.  I smiled and said yes I know, mostly because they share a room but it was still sweet of her.  We are planning on having their party probably next weekend, it seems like time just fills up too fast and we catch ourselves in a whirlwind of stuff to get done.

Austin playing with her elf doll waiting for the good cartoons to start in the morning.

 Tyler AKA Tank...enjoying some of the birthday cake that Grandma gave to Austin.

The Bolder Boulder

Joe ran in his first ever 10K yesterday and did fantastic...I truly anticipated at least some hesitation on his part but his apparent nervous energy took over and he took off.  It was pretty amazing to watch and he even looked like he had fun.  Now I just have to hurry up an book our next race. :-)

Timeline...

So Joe and I have always had a very unconventional timeline when it comes to our relationship but I guess it wasn't until two days ago that I thought about how odd it really was.

December 2004      We meet at Overtime (a local bar here) because he is working with my brother, although Tadd has told him that he not allowed to speak to me so he refuses to sit next to me.

June 30th, 2005     We move into together and while Tadd was supposed to move in with us it ends up being just us two living in awkward although apparently amicable pretenses.

January 17th, 2006   We officially start dating because let's just face it we have spent every day of the last near 7 months (and most weekends before we moved in together) hanging out and truly wouldn't have it any other way.

March 15th, 2006  We are up snowboarding and I decide that it would be extremely detrimental to our financial future if Joe was to hurt himself because he doesn't have insurance so we declare ourselves Common Law married and he joins my insurance.

May 28th, 2009   We welcome little Miss Austin to the world.

May 31st, 2011   We welcome little Miss Tyler to the world.

May 24th, 2012  We officially get married on paper, Verizon changed their insurance policy and will no longer cover Common Law marriages.

Next Summer Sometime    We have a name changing ceremony and a GIANT party.


Like I said we have never followed the book and probably never will, but are as happy as ever. :-D

Mother's Day

We hosted a Mother's Day BBQ at our place yesterday.  My Aunt and cousins came over along with my brothers and sister.  I guess I had completely under-estimated the situation until I heard the excitement in my Mom's and Aunt's voices.  It has been since us cousins were small children that we were all together in one place (minus my oldest cousin in New York).  We smoked a couple pork shoulders that ended taking too long since it was freezing outside, so lunch was served just a bit late but we were having a blast with all the babies running around.  Here's some pictures my Mom took.  Happy Mother's Day to all of you out there.

My Mom's grand-babies!

Little Miss Tyler Mae, look at that cute little face!

Tyler just woke up from a nap and with a whole house full of guests she wouldn't let anyone hold her except us for a while.

My brother and my cousin Mike, you can definitely see the resemblance there.

My new niece Karson and my brother in law Larry.

The whole family, minus Tyler who HAD to take a nap and Danny who was still in New York.

Helen and Tyler hanging out waiting on the pork, wearing the fancy new leis that cousin Jen brought the girls from Hawaii.