Famous Parker

Enjoy this little video my brother put together. The uncles are taking Parker under their wings and training  him while he is young. Parks will be doing crazy tricks on the wakeboard in no time!

 

After Parker watched this video he exclaimed: "I'm on YOUTUBE!!! I am a FAMOUS KID!!!"

Back to School!

 Supplies ready, lunches packed, back to school blessings done. I guess we're ready! Mr. Dallin starts 3rd grade! He is SOOOO ready to go back to school. In usual Dallin style he has been counting down the days since July. ☺

Mr. Parker is starting 1st grade. I'm having a really hard time with this one. I could handle kindergarten but THIS is going to be different! Landon and I will be lost without him. I'm excited to watch him continue to grow even though....it sure isn't easy.

 We decided to let him keep the long hair. We trimmed it up but he does look pretty cute with a little shag.

And Mr. Landon is headed to preschool! Thank heavens I still have this guy to hang out with during the day.

How is it possible summer went by so fast? I can hardly believe we're already back to the grind. O wait....I think I know where it went:

Josh Turner Concert

Last night was the Josh Turner concert! Nate's firm has sweet box seats for all events at Melaleuca Field so we got to sit in the posh seating with air conditioning and leather couches. It was pretty sweet!

I'd been fretting for days about what to wear to this concert. Do I deck out in all country swag? After all this IS eastern Idaho. I decided against it and was glad I did. I didn't see many cowboy hats so I probably would have felt dumb. I always stress about what to wear....especially to Nate's work functions. I know I'm dumb like that but hey......it's just the way I am. I found a cute light weight shirt and decided against both jeans and shorts and went with capris because it was HOT when the concert started but it cools off over here a ton at night.

Here is the finished product:

Did you see how CUTE those jean shoes are!! I ♥ them!

The concert was really fun. We watched the Governor and Mrs. Otter go up on stage and welcome everyone to the concert. 2 seconds later they were RIGHT NEXT TO US in the box seats to the left. I took an "undercover" photo.

Apparently there were all sorts of big wigs sitting next to us. Of course I had no idea who they were but I decided to be on my best behavior and act like a mature adult during the concert. No crazy dancing or boot scooting from this girl. ☺

Tom Luna (Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction) was next to us as well. Now that PE and MUSIC have been cut from my children's education there was nothing I wanted more then to go over there and give him a piece of my mind. Once again though, I maintained mature composure and smiled nicely when he looked over at us.

Nate and I had a fun night. We didn't know a lot of the Josh Turner songs but we did know a few. Any excuse to get out without the kids is a good time!

Farewell Summer

 USUALLY, the Starnes boys are all about our annual "BOYS CLUB" party in the summer. This year however, we decided to allow girls to come and we called it a FAREWELL to SUMMER party! Maybe this has something to do with the fact that Landon REALLY wanted KATE to come? I'm not sure but it was a ton of fun and I think we'll do this from here on out!

We did some water balloon volleyball:

 Finger Paints:

 Shaving cream to clean the paint off:

 And waterballoons with sprinklers to wash the shaving cream off!

 25 crazy kids hyped up on sugar! Poor Jack was exhausted when they all left!

Bannock Ghost Town

Monday morning bright and early Grandma EE and I took the boys on yet another adventure! We packed the car and headed north to see the Bannock Ghost town! Grandma had been there before but she wanted us to see it....and she wanted to see it ASAP since school starts next week.

We started going towards Dillion, Montana and stopped in the small town of Dell. We ate lunch at this tiny old schoolhouse. It was an actual schoolhouse from 1860-1920. Now it is a small cafe or "CALF-A" is actually what they call it!.

We continued on for another hour or so until we got to the town. This ghost town still has about 60 buildings standing . At one point there were over 5,000 people living here during the gold and silver rush. The buildings were beautiful. Lots of shootings took place here and the mayor of the town was actually hung in the gallows back behind the town. The gallows are still there. A tad creepy! Also, there was a building that was deisgnated for sick children only. People say that at night you can still hear the children crying. Yikes!

 The jail:

 Schoolyard:

 Church:

After walking all around the town we went down over by the river to soak our feet and look for some rocks to add to the boy's collections.

Summer is winding down. Next week the boys head back to school and Landon and I will be left at home to fend for ourselves. It has been such a great summer. Yes, crazy at times but we've crammed it in, lived it up, partied hard and we have a treasure trove of memories to take with us.

Grateful for my EE...for the memories, laughs and adventures we have together this summer. I wish everyone could have a Grandma as amazing, generous, caring and fun as she is.

Nate's 33rd. Grandpa Ric's 60th!

The Saturday after Lagoon was a CELEBRATION day to say the least! It was Nate's actual birthday and the birthday party of his dad who turned the big 6-0! Nate's mom did a great job putting together a fabulous luau party! The food was GREAT and the decor was fabulous.

First let's rewind. Early that morning Nate, Justin and Ric took off to do a century ride.....of course that is how they wanted to celebrate their birthdays....riding bikes in a million degrees for a million miles. I guess I'll just never get it.☺

The boys and I went to visit my friend Suzy and see her darling little baby bunnies that morning! She is just starting her own "rabbitry" business and MAN those babies are CUTE!! I actually surprised myself that I had the strength to leave without taking one with me! She had some that were 3 weeks old and some that were only about 8 hours old. The brand new ones kind of looked like rats but the 3 week olds were SO stinking cute I could hardly stand it!

Then we met up with Ash and baby Kortney for a yummy lunch at Rumbi Grill! Then we headed back to the house for the big luau celebration!

We played the hawaiian spelling game, and the "write something that no one knows about you" game. We had some delicious bundt cakes, and finsished the night around the firepit making smores and we even had some FIREWORKS. LOVE this family.

Lagoon

End of the summer celebration time is in full swing! Friday was the day we had been looking forward to ALL SUMMER LONG. If the boys did their chores, finished their summer reading and obeyed the rules of the house for the summer they would be able to go to LAGOON as their reward at the end of the summer! Lets just say there were some "close call days" when the trip to Lagoon was definitely up in the air. Somehow they pulled it off though. ☺

It just so happens that it was also the 33rd BIRTHDAY of my favorite person in the world as well!

My brother James joined in the fun which made the whole day SO much more enjoyable. Having one child to one adult made things so much less stressful AND we were able to take advantage of the "kid swap" trick so we were able to pretty much all of the big huge sweet rides 2 times in a row! It was SWEET!

Please excuse all of the horrible camera phone pictures. I wasn't about to take my camera on all of those wild and crazy rides!

 We were there from open to almost close! Amusement parks are SO much more enjoyable when no one is in diapers, everyone can ride the majority of the rides and no one is in a stroller. Just sayin. Nate and I both got pretty queasy from the rides though. Guess we're just getting old.

The BEST moment of the entire day was when my brother had to ride on the JET STAR as a single rider becuase Dallin and I were already riding together. You see, on the Jet Star you are REQUIRED to ride with another rider. James had to old an asian teenager with a 12 inch rat tail going all the way down his back. (Rat tail being a very long skinny BRAID on the nape of his neck.) James was holding this guy in between his legs while the hair from the teenager was whipping him in the face. It was absolutely HILARIOUS. I'm sitting here laughing my head off right now thinking about it. I WISH I had a picture of his face. Hahahaha. Classic James moment.