Whoot-Whew!!

A few weeks ago I had to take a picture of Jesse so that his picture could be added to our work website. I know I have a bias opinion seeing as how I am married to the man, but.... IS IT JUST ME, OR IS HE SERIOUSLY GOOD LOOKING?????? Boy oh boy am I grateful for this man! Jesse is the best husband and Dad. I truly could not ask for anything more. I am so blessed to have him by my side forever.

Gone Fishin'

Can I tell you how much fun it is to have a dock right in your own backyard? We have obviously loved having the beautiful water right outside, just a few steps from the back door. I love to watch the reflection of lights on the water at night. I love to watch the ducks swimming, we have had a blast with our little paddle boat... But, THE BOYS LOVE FISHING IN THE BACKYARD! They have yet to catch anything, but have had a few bites. When I watch them grab a pole and head out back together my heart just melts. I am so happy that they love doing these things together. I can't look at these pictures of them without smiling, try it... IT IS IMPOSSIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am raising fish...

Well, many of you have been asking, "What have you guys been up to this summer?" I can sum up our summer in one word.... SWIMMING!!!!!! The boys have absolutely loved having such easy access to the water. We are fortunate enough to have a neighborhood pool in our subdivision. It is conveniently located just 5 houses down from us. We also have a small lake just behind our house and the beach is about 5 miles east of us.

When we first arrived in South Carolina, Broc was swimming some and Brady could not swim on his own without floaties at all. All they need is a little water and a lot of repetition and just like magic, they are swimming like pros. Jesse and I call them our little fish. All they want to do is swim, and they are both GREAT swimmers. Broc thinks that he might want to join a swim team next year, he is pretty excited about it, so naturally ... Brady wants to now as well. It was absolutely amazing to us how fast they caught on and how great they were swimming in just 2 short weeks.

We have a family ritual. As soon as we are done with work, we go down to the pool and swim for a while before bath time. On the weekend we often spend all afternoon at the pool. It goes without saying that our boys have gotten a great sun tan this summer!! I don't know what the boys are going to do when the pool closes for the winter. Good thing we live in a warm climate and that isn't going to happen for sometime still. Enjoy the pictures or our little fish!

ISLE OF PALMS VACATION 2010

This year we vacationed 5 miles from home. Before we had decided to move to Charleston, we had begun making arrangements to travel to Charleston for vacation. Marga and Dhanesh had rented a beach house and had invited us, among other people, to spend the week with them. Let me tell you... "It was AMAZING"!!! The house was gorgeous. It had everything from an elevator to a private pool. We spent 7 days in heaven. We relaxed by the pool, took morning and evening strolls down the beach searching for seashells and catching crabs in the tide pools, we ate great food and were in great company. Trying to describe the house would not do it justice. Prepare for picture overload...




















The boys could not get enough of the pool while we were there. They probably swam about 8 hours a day. In fact, they swam so much that Brady learned to swim without floaties. When we arrived to the beach house on Saturday, Brady was wearing floaties in the pool ... by Sunday he was swimming like a fish. They had a great time playing in the water.







We had a blast going for walks on the beach in the morning. In the morning there are a lot of crabs in the tide pools. We caught one in our sand bucket. It is one of the funniest memories I have with my boys and Jesse. The crab was pretty big. Broc was walking through the tide pool looking for shells when he screamed, "There was a HUGE crab by my foot." Jesse responded, "alright... you don't need to scream like that Broc." No sooner did those words leave his lips when the crab went racing past Jesse's foot. What do you think Jesse did? He screamed... just like Broc. We all had the same brilliant thought, lets see if we can catch him. The only thing we had in our possession was a 2 quart pail that we were putting our shells in. We emptied the pail and began our "crab hunt". For the next 30 minutes we chased this crab, along with about 5 others through the tide pool. The crab could sense that we were trying to catch him because he went into his defense mode. I had no idea that crabs did this, but he would raise his pinchers over his body and clap them together, then run through the water to the opposite side of the tide pool. At one point, Jesse had lost track of him. He yells over to me, "Ash can you see him, I don't know where he.... AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" I looked down and the crab is standing between Jesse's feet, with his pinchers above his body, claws open, trying to pinch. Of course jesse screamed. It was quite possibly one of the funniest things I have ever seen. We laughed until we had tears streaming down our faces. We finally caught him. We took a few pictures of the boys with the "prize crab" then released him back into the ocean. It was so much fun!




The boys and I also caught a huge sand crab. We were walking down to the beach when Broc noticed something buried in the sand. He touched it a few times and it didn't move. He called me over to look at what he had found. I told him that it looked like a dead crab, but I could only see the top of its shell. The rest of it's body was buried under the sand. I thought maybe it got stuck clear up here when the tide was high, but when the tide pool dried the crab was stranded and died. Broc wanted me to see if I could dig the little crab body up so that he could take the dried up crab shell back to the house to show Jesse. Broc ran and grabbed a stick so I could pry it's body out of the sand. I put the stick down in the sand, under the crab and pushed down forcing the crab out of the sand, when all of the sudden... the crab popped out of the sand and ran across the top of my foot. It was alive, and of course... I screamed in sheer terror! Once again we grabbed our trusty bucked and trapped the crab. This thing was disgusting. He had a crab body and trianchula legs. Eeek!


We got so much sun. One morning I woke up and my lip felt numb. I got up and looked in the mirror, I took one look and gasped. I woke up Jesse, I am sure he thought there was some emergency. It was an emergency to me! My bottom lip was about twice the size it is supposed to be. I looked like I had some bad collagen treatments or something. Apparently my lip was really sunburned and that is what caused the swelling. The funniest part is the exact same thing happened to Garin. We looked hilarious.


We had such a wonderful time. We can't wait to go back next year and sit on the back porch and look at this....


A HUGE Thank you to Dhanesh and Marga. We had so much fun. We have wonderful memories and fun times to look forward to again next year. Who said you can't have a vacation in paradise 5 minutes from home? We can!!!!

From Rigby to Charleston

Leaving Idaho was one of the hardest things our little family has ever done. The goodbyes were heart-wrenching. Packing up our memories was filled with a lot of emotion. I shed a lot of tears as I packed up the only house our boys have ever really known as "home". There were moments when we questioned if we were doing the right thing. I still cannot think about all of the goodbyes that were said without crying. Saying goodbye to our families and our closest friends was one of the most emotional things that we have experienced. However, somehow... even through the heartache, we knew we were doing the right thing for us. So, with that in the back of our minds, we made preparations to leave Idaho, the place we will always refer to as home. We were officially Charleston bound.

On Tuesday, June 8th 2010 we loaded the moving truck and hit the road. We drove our truck, pulling our boat behind us. Things started out smoothly... until we hit the hellish place people refer to as Wyoming. We were driving along, minding our own business when one of the tires on our boat trailer blew. Thank goodness for a spare... right? Jesse and I stood out on the crowded interstate as semi trucks flew by us going about 75 MPH... did I mention that we were standing about 10 ft. from them as they passed us. I was absolutely terrified as I stood there holding the flashlight shaking. Jesse got the tire changed in about 25 minutes, then we were back on the road. We got settled back in. The boys were tucked away in their pajamas fast asleep, Jesse had his energy drink and sunflower seeds within his reach and was prepared to drive through the night. I decided I would try and get some sleep so that I could take my turn driving when Jesse got tired. Just as I started to drift off.... POP!!!!!!! Are you kidding me? The other trailer tire blew. Now my question is, who in the world has 2 spare tires. We sure didn't. We were forced to leave our boat on the side of the interstate and grab a room for the night in the nearest town. We pulled into Rawlings, WY. at about 1:00 AM. It is a little town in the middle of nowhere. They have a handful of hotels, but they were all full. Who in the world needs a hotel in Rawlings, WY? I cannot think of a single reason why anyone would want to go there, I mean the ONLY reason we were there is because we were stranded until the tire store opened the next morning. We drove to every hotel in the town, every single one of them was full. We finally found a place with 1 room left. It was a room with a king bed. Who cares? We will take it. Better than sleeping in the car right? WRONG! Jesse, me, Broc, Brady and the dog all slept in a kind size bed. It was the most disgusting place I have ever been. It was the type of place where you wear flip flops in the shower. I felt dirty just from walking inside. I guess it will be something that we can look back and laugh at, but at the time... NONE of us were even smiling. Finally, the tire store opens, we get two new tires, go get the boat and we hit the road. The rest of the trip went really smoothly for the most part. We ran over a dead dear, nearly hit a few live ones crossing the road and learned that lightening bugs guts glow even after they are splattered on your windshield. We spent a fortune on gas, ate enough fast food to last us a lifetime and spent way to much time in public rest rooms. I must say, our boys were ANGELS. Thank goodness for DVD players in cars. They didn't fight once, we didn't have to make any "emergency stops" on the side of the road to use the bathroom and they didn't even spill in the car. We really could not have asked for better travelers.

We made the 2400 mile cross country trek in just over 48 hours. We arrived in Charleston of Friday the 11th at about 10:00 PM. We were all absolutely exhausted! Jesse drove the majority of the way. He was such a trooper! We were all relieved to be in SC. None of us were to anxious to spend much time in the car for a while.

We had never seen our new home in person until we got here. It was so exciting to step foot in our new home! We were all thrilled with the house. It is beautiful and we have our own dock in the backyard on the water and a neighborhood pool just a few houses up the street. The boys couldn't wait to go swimming. Pictures of our new home coming soon!


The boys slept in the bean bag the last night in our old house. All of their bedding was packed.



Our wonderful home in Rigby... we will miss our house and the wonderful people in the neighborhood.


Our new home in Charleston. We are so excited to make new memories here!