Lucile McCall July 14th and 15th

Here they are finally! Pics of us visiting Dave's Grandma in Goodland, KS back in the middle of July. It was so nice to be able to go visit her! The last time we got to see her I think was when Carter was a baby about two years ago when Mel brought his Mom out here to stay for a visit. She was recently put into an assited living home at the beginning of the summer for health reasons. I was a little apprehensive about going there because of my experience going to one in the Springs a couple times growing up, that one just felt like a hospital. So I was very pleasantly surprised when we got to visit Lucile! She has a very nice room all to herself with a little fridge, sink and microwave as well as a bathroom and some of her very own furniture, even her own t.v. She also has lots of pictures of her family and friends which we helped to add to. A couple of pictures we took the first day of our visit we went and developed them, enlarged them and put them in two frames for her. We really enjoyed our visit with her and I'm especially pleased that when the boys see the pictures we took that they even remember going to see Great Grandma! Carter was just telling me a few minutes ago when I first put these pics up to post who everyone is including Lucile! He said, "There's you, me, Daddy and Brendan with Great Grandma!" Hopefully we'll get to see her again soon, much sooner than two years. She's going to be 90 this November, so even though she is now in assisted living she seems to be doing fairly well! Thanks again Mel and Joyce for helping us to be able to go see her! Sorry it took me so long to post them.

Bestest Day Ever!

I decided to wait a few days to tell you all how Kindergarten started for Brendan. That way if anything exciting happened on day 2 or 3 I could just write it all at the same time. The first day was great for him, he was so excited! He went in with a smile and came out with one. What more could a parent ask for? Nothing in this case, nothing! :)

Well, when Carter and I picked Brendan up on Friday, he revealed to me that Friday was the bestest day ever of Kindergarten. When I asked him why, he told me that the 2nd day he was a little nervous and somehow the 3rd ended up being much better. I'm not sure why and even now he says, 'I don't know'. Oh well, I'm sure he'll get better at explaining these things as he gets older. Mostly what they did their first few days was listen to the teacher read, learned a new song, danced, played outside and got to know their classmates. And he has a folder he brings home every Friday with paper stuff for us and returns it on Monday. I probably spent at least a good ten minutes or so trying to figure out the symbols for the PSD school schedule so I could know when vacations are and parent/teacher conferences and in-service days that the kids don't have to go! I'm sure once the year gets going we'll get the hang of it too and I'll forget I was even confused about it in the first place.

So all in all, he had a great start to his elementary education and we get to go this Thursday to Back to School Night. The PTA provides childcare for the kids so we can go to his classroom to hear from his teacher about the curriculum and what the kids will be learning this year as well as ask any questions we may have. This is such an exciting time for all of us! Dave and I are even looking forward to Thursday. :)

Our Excited Kindergartener and Wannabe!

Well Brendan is now officially a Kindergartener at O'Dea Elementary School! He was so excited that yesterday at the school picnic and walking to school he kept chanting, "I'm gonna like school, I like school!" It was definitely much easier for him than it was for us, even Carter (the wannabe kindergartener) had a little hard time understanding why he couldn't stay with brother to play because they both went to preschool together last year. Just driving on the way to school I felt like crying, thankfully I held off for his sake but I was probably very clearly teary eyed. They let the parents stay for a story before we had to tell our kids bye one last time. It's called The Kissing Hand and is a very heartwarming book for parents and kids starting school!

I am finding it hard to concentrate right now and get some things done before we have to go pick him up again and constantly am chanting in my own head what time I need to pick him up so I don't forget, also the fact he will be 5 days a week now instead of 2! But I know we'll get used to it quick, I'm just used to the schedule for preschool and now need to adjust to his new school schedule. I am also so excited to find out what he did today and how he liked it and what friends he will make! I think he'll do great. He was practicing his name yesterday so he could get used to putting his B in uppercase and all the rest of his name in lowercase and that was just getting him even more excited!


Walking to school from where we parked, sometimes we'll actually walk from home and the days Carter has preschool we'll drive him.


In front of his classroom door and the school in a shadier spot


B in front of his cubbie


B at his desk! Carter took the one of him smiling


Then here's our little wannabe which Brendan took a picture of.

Carter and I will be leaving here in a bit to pick Brendan up and we'll post again to let you know any pertinent first day information I can get from our new Kindergartener!

Happy Birthday Aunt Dian!

Okay so I've been a lazy butt I know. It has taken me longer to do this next post than I had planned but here it is finally! These are all pictures from my Aunt Dian's 60th Birthday party almost two weeks ago that my cousins planned for her, she didn't know that there would be more than her kids and grandkids there. It was fun to just walk right up to her, say hi and see her reaction! I was so happy to take Dave and the boys down to Denver to see our family, it's been almost two years since I last saw most of them at Chantal's wedding! Hopefully we'll be able to start seeing them more often since we are pretty close by. We all had a good time and the boys made some new friends. ;) They have a friend who is a photographer and she was there taking pictures and had her kids with her. Well, needless to say Brendan and her oldest daughter, Elly got along sensationally so much so that Elly has been saying Brendan is her boyfriend and he is invited to her birthday party in mid August! How cute is that? They are only 5 so I am not worried, I just think it's adorable. And they all love Anginet (Elly's mom) so I am looking forward to getting to know her better through facebook and being at the birthday party. And if you are wondering why there are no pics of Dave, well there were pics of us taken but with other people's cameras.


Uncle Mike and Aunt Dian's six kids in order of birth from left to right:

Lani, Jennifer, Krissie, Sean, Gina and Chad

Me with Aunt Dian and then me with Seany! Sorry Sean couldn't help it. ;)

Left pic: Uncle Joe and Chad

Right pic: Krissie

L. to R. Tara P. (Sean's girlfriend), Chantal, Aunt Dian and Uncle Joe and also

Lani in the second pic

L. pic: Chantal, Jen and me

R. pic: Gina and her Mom Dian dancin together

L. pic: Mindy, Cedric and Chad

R. pic: me and Gina

Krissie was trying to get the kids to help her sing the itsy bitsy spider

Carter was loving the punching bag! We need one of those too. ;) The

little girl is Katy (I think) Lani's granddaughter

L. pic: Elly, Brendan and Cedric

R. pic: Elly and Brendan

Anginet has a really cute one of them I need to get!

L. pic: Devin (Lani's grandson)

R. pic: Violet (Krissie's daughter)

Getting Back in the Groove!

Hi All! Well so far our first day with Dave gone to work we are doing good. The boys and I have already run about 7 errands or so in 90 minutes and I am starting to remember what it's like for Dave to have a job again! I'm even contemplating bringing them to the grocery store with me later or tomorrow morning but think I might be crazy to since I haven't done that very often and in a LONG time. I really enjoy going by myself but may have to wait on that until they are in school again if I want to avoid going on evenings or the weekend! Oh well, we'll see how the day goes. These boys need to get back to the store more often again so they can remember how they are supposed to act in public, we've been having issues with that lately.
I want to tell you all thank you for checking our blog out. Thank You! I notice that more of you have been keeping up with us now that I've opened up the invites and I am so happy about that. Now that means I need to be a little more dilligent about posting. So, I wanted to write a quick note and let you know that I will be putting up pics soon to share what we've been doing. Gosh, I think I have pics from the 4th, Kansas (which we went just yesterday and Tues.), also my Aunt's birthday we went to in Denver last Saturday! So many things I want to share but it will take me a little time especially now that Dave is working again (SO THANKFUL!) and I don't feel right being on the computer for lengthy periods until the boys are in school again. So, us McCall's hope you are having a splendid, beautiful and safe summer! We love you all!

Aaaahhhhhh! Back to The Land of The Working!

Yay!!! I cannot contain my excitement, relief and happiness! Dave is officially employed again and will be going back to work at First National Bank after having left there over 4 years ago! His position is a Credit Analyst and would have been his next step if he had stayed at the bank, so I believe evenly more strongly now even though it was hard at the time that there really was a good reason for him not getting his previous job at the bank back. Along with all the hard work Dave has done job hunting we also needed to wait and be patient for this better position to come along. We are all extremely excited, thankful and happy for this news! Mainly of course because he is employed again but I also have some little reasons for the happiness of him going back to the bank. We will get to enjoy him having bank holidays as well as having good insurance again! This is such a big relief for us especially in the economy today and we still have other friends and family looking for new and/or better work which we want to let you know that our good thoughts, blessings and prayers are always with you! We genuinely hope you are all doing well and thank you for your wonderful wishes and prayers for Dave too!

There Really are Bears in Rocky Dave...There Are, There Are!

Here are the best pics we have from our camping trip this last Monday and Tuesday night! Thanks again Mel and Joyce for your help, we wouldn't have been able to go without you! The first night was the most exhausting for me, not getting good sleep the night before and then setting up. The very reason I look so tired but a good feeling tired. :)

The second day was easily our best and most exciting day! We had a good walk around Sprague Lake after eating breakfast there, we like to get up super early to go animal sightseeing! Tuesday was the day it paid off the greatest because after we left Sprague and headed back down the mountain towards the valley we were very fortunate to see our first bear in Rocky after looking for the 11+ years that Dave and I have been together!!! The pics below are of the lake and right after those are our BEAR! It's still amazing to us that we finally got to see a bear and I'm sure Dave is glad that I will no longer be skeptical that we will find one. I can't even believe I'm the one who spotted him, poor Dave thought I was seeing a rock at first but once it clicked how crazy I was going and shaking and then he spotted it, he knew that at least that craziness was warranted!

A deer right by the road and this pic was taken without using the zoom!

The one on the right is of Hallet Peak and Flattop Mountain

Chipmunk and one of a few duck families we saw around the lake.

Boys throwing rocks to scare the fishes and I hate spiders yet couldn't help taking its picture.

Carter and I waiting for Dave and Brendan to be done in the bathroom so we could drive on somewhere else. They had perfect timing or we may not have been able to see this cute black bear after our visit to the lake!

Here he is our beautiful first bear sighting in Rocky!

Below, these pictures are of the west side of the park and why Dave was the exhausted one the second night since he drove a lot that day. We were hoping to see one of our moose which live on the west side, we barely missed a baby according to some rangers we saw on the road. But that's okay since we've seen them before and got to see a BEAR! Okay, I am still very excited about that, can you tell?! ;) Sadly our visit to the west side brought us close to tears, okay maybe not Dave so much as me. As you can tell a LOT of the trees are brown and red as they have been taken over by the pine beetle and are killing a great number of pines very fast. According to the ranger talk/skit we went to the second night thankfully there is hope and the park will eventually become a more Aspen dominant park again drastically changing its landscape for our kids and grandkids! We just hope we are fortunate enough to have long lives and are able to see this beautiful change. The next pics are of Timber Creek Campground which has been shut down so that they can chop down all the affected trees and this was the most disheartening for us to see since it was by far the best campground in our opinion. This was the first place we brought Brendan to camp when he was 18 months old and also the place we chose to camp one night when we didn't have the kiddos almost two years ago.

These pictures below are of our trip in Sept. '07 when the boys spent a weekend with Nana and Papo. I put them up for you to compare what it looked like and how dense it was almost two years ago and help you see why we are so sad this is happening. We had the most southern spot in the campground and as you can see with the picture of Dave how far the walk was to our former white van and how dense this place really was! We will truly miss this campground!

So all in all even with some annoying whining from the boys on occasion especially the last morning, we all enjoyed ourselves greatly! Thank goodness we all love being outdoors!