Cat & Mouse

This last week my mom joined the boys and me on an Ikea adventure. There are so many fun thing there! Anyway, we were in the kids section and a stuffed animal caught Jacob's attention and he had to have it. So grandma offered to buy it for him because that is what grandmas do. But my mom, being the awesome person she is, had to make sure Drew had something also. So Drew and I browsed the stuffed animal section. They had dogs and alligators--all kids of fun animals but Drew had to have the mouse. So here they are--a cute little brotherly pair. The cat and the mouse! --emily

Jacob's creativity is starting to blossom.

Today I was upstairs changing Drew. When I came downstairs, Jacob was sitting on the kitchen counter with his "school box" of supplies. This box is filled with glue, tape, pencils, and rulers mostly supplies bought by my cute aunt Mary. He had also gathered a fun assortment of random things getting ready to glue onto a scrap of paper. His favorite skill right now is gluing things. He will always ask, "Can that be glued?" For example, we where hanging his latest art project in his room to his magnet board when he asked, "Mom can I glue it to the wall?" I am hoping I never have to clean that up. Another example my mom gave Jacob a plastic fire fighter hat, and when it had gotten a crack in it, Jacob asked, "Can I fix it with glue?" We decided that tape would work better. He did a great repair job!

I had asked Jacob why he decided to do this project

on the counter and his reply was, "Andrew can't get it".

Isn't that AWESOME! This is my favorite Jacob art project yet. --emily

Business School

It has always been a goal of mine to get an MBA. I decided this year that it is finally time to make that goal a reality. I chose a distance program with Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. Last week I went out to Bloomington, Indiana to start the program. They had a week long in-residence that focussed mainly on Organizational Development and Change.

Here I am at the registration the first day of the program. We got our student ID, textbook for our class that week, and some trinkets.

They had a big dinner the first night. It was fun to meet some of the other people in the program.

This picture was taken the first day of classes. I'm sitting at a table with Rob (who I would later find out was in my group), Jaideep, Juan, and Tabitha.

Here I am in one of the classrooms. I was surrounded by other students, but when I asked the girl in front of me to take my picture, everyone around me scattered. I guess they didn't want to show up on my blog.

The instructors were all really great. I tried to get a picture with each of them. Clockwise from top left: Professor Linda Dunn-Jensen, Professor Sheri Fella, Professor Sarah "Intelligirl" Robbins, Usha Venkat, Professor Steve Hayford, and Professor Tatiana Kolovou.

Our cohort was broken up into groups of six. We did all assignments, presentations, etc. with our group. Meeting and working with my group was the highlight of the week for me. They are some of the brightest, most talented people I have had the pleasure to work with. I hope that we will all be friends the rest of our lives. In the photo above, from left to right: Pamela Trouw, Rob Suppiger, Katie Fox, Kelly Siple, Aaron Bock, and Whitney Carroll.

Here we are working hard on one of our assignments in class.

Here's my team working on a simulation. The goal of the simulation was to get 60% buy in from the employees regarding a shift in strategy. We had to choose which tasks to perform in what order. Each task would affect the employee buy in either up or down. We got up to about 56% buy in before we ran out of time and money. Lesson learned: just fire the guy who refuses to buy in.

Here we are preparing for the case competition. It was a long night, but we stayed on schedule and did some of our best work. Most nights we were up until 1 or 2 a.m. finishing our assignments. This night was no exception.

I've always been really into doing things that promote team unity. We had a social event on Wednesday night at a place in town called Nick's Tavern. Before the event we went to a store so some people in my group could get Indiana University gear. I thought it would be cool if we all got matching red Kelley Business School t-shirts to wear to Nick's.

I'm standing under a tribute to Bobby Knight, the famous former IU basketball coach. I had wanted to go see the basketball court where the team plays, but I never had time.

Despite our busy schedule, my group and I were able to get out and enjoy some of Bloomington's finer eating establishments. This night we were in the mood for Thai food.

I had the opportunity to participate in a focus group with a few of the other MBA students. Darren Klein, seated to my left, is the Director of Marketing for the program. He wanted to get our input on how to market the program in our respective geographic locations. I was happy to share my thoughts, and it gave me the opportunity to meet a few other people in the program.

It was a fun and rewarding week, but I was very happy to get back home with my family. I brought back Indiana University hoodies for Emily, Jacob and Andrew.

If this week was any indication, it will be a busy and challenging couple of years as I complete the rest of the program. --Kelly

Girls Camp 2009

This year I was asked to be a leader at the girls camp that I attended as a young woman. It was an amazing and fun opportunity. As a youth I had no idea how much work and planning went into an activity such as this. I know now! I spent many nights before camp crafting, making handouts, making bags, making beads, and so many of the little details that maybe only I noticed. Did I mention beads? When I was young we made beads to trade with our friends. I think I made 20 or so. When I was working on my beads prior to camp, I had asked an experienced leader how many I should make, and she said 80 to 100. I laughed because I thought she was joking. Not Joking! The girls are out of control. They trade with everyone. They run around in search of a bead to trade that they don't already have on their string. If you happen to have a cute bead, girls will come out of the woodwork and hunt you down to get one of your beads. It is crazy, but fun! I made 100 beads and I came home with 12 or so left over. Not too bad. It was a fun week filled with certifying, hiking, the climbing wall, the slip n' slide, river "screaming", pranks, making new friends, and knitting hats for babies. I was given so many great opportunities to love and serve. I hope that I am asked to join the amazing team of leaders next year! --emily 2009

Beach Day

A friend of mine organized a great day at the beach where moms and their kids have a chance to enjoy the sunshine and water fun. What a great day! Here is Andrew showing you his plain jam sandwich. I think that is his way of saying, "Does anyone see anything wrong here? Can someone talk to this lady that calls herself my mom and tell her about a thing called peanutbutter?!"

Andrew hugging Jacob. He love to give hugs.

Andrew was luring the ducks in by feeing them cheese.

My guess was he wanted to give them a hug. Andrew loves to give hugs.

I am so grateful for my handsome boys!

I am such a lucky mom to have two heathy and happy boys to

look after and enjoy every day. --emily

Running

Today while we were out I snapped a couple of awesome shots of Jacob! This is why I am going to sign him up for track. Look at his great form. He is fast! Everywhere we go people are always commenting on how fast he is. --emily

Picking Raspberries

Today our friend called us in the morning to see if we wanted to go raspberry picking. We ate a quick breakfast, got dressed and went to pick berries. This year has been my first real year of berry picking, so if you are not a picker yet, here is something obvious I forgot to take into consideration.

Strawberries vs. Raspberries:

Strawberries are low to the ground so I could always see my boys as they wandered and played, but the raspberry stalks were taller than corn stalks. The kids loved to run and hide in the raspberry stalks, but I couldn't see them so this made me nervous. Washington strawberries are small, so you have to pick a bunch to make jam. I could pick a whole lot more raspberries in an hour, but because I had to spend so much time trying to keep an eye on my kids, I picked the same amount of raspberries as I did strawberries. Andrew kept hiding and the big boys would try to find him. This would cause Andrew to run farther away while giggling. Also, as you can see in this picture, Andrew enjoys strawberries more than raspberries. All in all, we had a great time. Next year will be even better because the kids will be a little bigger and I will know what to expect. Needless to say, I hope we picked enough raspberries to make jam. --emily

Day Out With Thomas

A couple of months ago we bought tickets to go and see Thomas at our local train depot. Jacob loves trains and Thomas so we thought that it would be a fun family outing to go and see him in person. Jacob has been so excited about the idea of going and meeting Thomas. He kept asking when we are going to see him! So the day has finally come and what a great day it was.

Our day started out with Thomas water stickers.

They had a large tented area with eight train tables set up so the kids could play with the trains. It was a big hit with all the kids. If we let them, I am sure that the kids would have played there all day.

Jacob's seeing The real Thomas for the first time. He was in awe!

Here we are all loaded on the train and ready for a great train adventure.

The train took us on a short 25 minute ride over the Snoqualmie Falls. It was a gorgouse sight that I have never seen before. We have gone to visit the falls in the past and I used to work at the lodge a long time ago. But this was an amazing view that can only be seen from the train.

Andrew and Kelly enjoying the ride. Andrew was feeling so sick today. I felt so bad for him. I think the motion of the train was making him feel worse. Poor kid! This is the worse day to not be feeling good.

I love this picture of Jacob. It was cute that Jacob found the only seat on the train that the window had been broken out. Jacob loved sticking his head out the window and feeling the wind in his hair. It was a darling sight.

Kelly and Jacob had a cute converasation right before this picture:

Jacob: "Can I touch him"

Kelly: "Sure go ahead"

Kelly: "You should give him a hug"

Then Jacob gave him a darling big squeeze.

I think today was a dream come true for him. It is so fun to see our kid's eyes light up and sparkle!--emily

Bike Helmets

We went to our local fire station for FHE to be fitted for bike helemets. The boys have been wearing helemets that are not ideal for them. Andrew's was run over by the Jeep and I was able to pull it into a normal shape so he has been wearing it like that for a couple of weeks now. Jacob has been growing so fast that all of the sudden his helmet didn't fit him, so he has been wearing Kelly's. Also Jacob has had a thing about being asked a bazilion times to put his helemet on with threats of having to go back inside because he won't put it on. So when a friend told me that the fire station fits kids with the right helmet for inexpensive, I thought that might be my ticket to making the helmet a special thing. My hope was that Jacob would want to put it on every time without me nagging so much. When we returned home, Jacob was so excited to wear his helmet. So we went for a family bike ride, Jacob began to explane how his new helmet had made him so fast. Yeah, I hope this is the end of having to beg him to wear his helmet. We shall see! --emily

Celebrating Our Independence

Our day began with a kid bike parade. This was amazing. In our neighborhood we have so many kids. I would guess that there were 500 kids and parents that participated in the parade. We started at the school, looped through town and ended at our local field/park where the party began.

This cute old fire truck was at the end of the parade.

The community planned an amazing carnival funded by local businesses and churches. There where about 6 bouncy houses and a strap-in jumpy thing for the big kids (dads), pony rides, a petting zoo, free snow cones, cotton candy, drinks and other food. It was mind boggling to me to be at an event of this caliber and not be charged for anything.

Jacob loves a good bouncy house! This was a huge pirate house that Jacob picked to go through. There were sharks to weave through and a huge slide. As you can see, he had a great time.

Andrew enjoying some good cotton candy! Too much sugar for one little dude, but it was party day.

The big kid jumpy thing!

After a couple of hours of playing at the park we ventured home for some real food (lunch). Then as Andrew took a nap, we gathered our stuff for our next party. Our neighbor had invited us over for a BBQ and some evening fireworks. We are so lucky to have such amazing neighbors.

Kelly lighting snakes for the kids. This group of kids were great. They played so well together all evening. I don't think that there were any tears all night. They where all good listeners with the fireworks. They stood at a safe distance and had a fun time.

I Love this picture because for the past couple of years Jacob has been afraid of sparklers. When he was younger he burned his finger on a sparkler, and every year his great memory recalls this sad moment. This year he was a little hesitant, but look at him go. What a great year of fun friends, good food, and fireworks. -- emily