It's a Girl!

No, we're not having another human baby, but after much deliberation, we are adding another member to the family. A guy Dan works with has a dog that had puppies and he offered one to us. She is a little girl and is a treeing cur--a kind of cross breeded hunting dog.

Her mom and dad are about 40 pounds, so we think she'll be around that size.

Her mom

Her Dad

When we took these pictures she was two weeks old. She will be ready to leave her mom around October 11th.

Her brothers and Sisters

We had fun holding and playing with the puppies, but I think we wore them out. We are trying to name her and we are very open to suggestions. So far we have come up with: Paprika, Esperanza, Ardilla (squirrel is Spanish), Daisy and Annabeth.

Back to School

The kids started school a couple of weeks ago, but I'm just catching up on blogging.Emma is in 5th, Ben 3rd, Eliza 2nd.  The bus stops in front of our house since we live on a corner, which is really nice. There are 3-6 other kids there as well as ours, so it is fun to meet some of our neighbors.

Eliza is 7!!

Eliza turned 7 and had a bug themed birthday party before school started. We were able to invite some of her best friends. She had a Preying Mantis cake:

played pin the antenna on the grass-hopper

 

she had a blue beetle pinata

I think everybody had a fun time, and Eliza enjoyed sharing her birthday with everyone.

Summer Update

We have been so busy this summer that I haven't had a chance to blog.  We did two more camping trips--one in July to Vedauwoo and one in August to Rocky Mountain National Park. Near the end of July we went to Oregon for a week and a half and saw Dan's family for a family reunion. We really enjoyed seeing everybody there.  Then we went and spent the weekend with my Dad and Claudia in Portland. My brother Rich, and his wife, Heather, and their kids also were there. So we had another mini-reunion. Soccer started at the end of August (we have four playing, so that is our life until it's over). We lost the charger on the camera, so pictures are sparse. But here are some highlights:

 Paddleboarding at a local park.

Here we are at the Historic Governor's Mansion with Grandma Pam when she visited us.

Fun with cousins!

Hiking at Vedauwoo