since then...

so what's been going on in my life since then? let me quickly fill you in.....

my niece, caitlin, graduated from high school. when daryl and i first started dating, she didn't like me AT ALL! she wouldn't even call me by my name. she referred to me as "uncle daryl's friend". she was only 4 (i think) and she wasn't happy that i was taking her uncle daryl away from her. one night i started blowing some bubbles from a bottle in her backyard, and that was it....we were friends after that!

colby slept through most of caitlin's graduation....
the next week, i said good-bye to jane phillips elementary. since it was my first year in the district, i was on a temporary contract, meaning i was not guaranteed a job for the next school year. principals were moved around, and i was not rehired at JP. i shed MANY tears on the last day of school for many reasons...the kids, the teachers and the unfairness of the whole situation. jane phillips elementary will always hold a special place in my heart.
my awesome group of 4th graders at jane phillips elementary...i'll miss all of you so much!

the next day i cleaned out my classroom and packed everything up AGAIN. i even through away this little dog. it was the first "decoration" i ever made during my first year of teaching. it went on a bulletin board i used with my favorite kids' book, shiloh.
we moved out of the king's house and back into our house in broken arrow.

the boys and i kicked off summer with lunch at one of our favorite places...freddy's!!!!
then we bought a slip and slide for the backyard since we didn't have the trampoline anymore.

spencer played on the slip and slide for about 30 minutes.
colby, however, spent a couple of hours sliding!
spencer finally saved enough money to buy an iTouch. he was so excited to get it that he couldn't wait until it was delivered to our house! we drove to the fed ex place at the tulsa airport to pick it up! i really didn't mind taking him because he'd been saving his money for a year, and i was really proud of him for doing that.
i went to daryl's high school reunion. i was dreading the event, but it really wasn't bad at all. only 9 of the 30-something graduates showed up.
the next week the boys and i dog sat for my sister in law! wow! that was an adventure! their biggest dog, boomer, is completely freaked out by storms, and she and i stayed up almost all night because of storms. she kept barking, drooling, panting and trying to chew her way out of her metal cage! i thought she was going to hurt herself so i sat by the cage petting her and singing to her to get her to calm down. it was exhausting. i just wanted to sleep.....

the daytime was great though. we swam in their pool everyday!

one day we went to the oklahoma city zoo. it was so hot that day! of course compared to the temperatures right now, that heat was NOTHING!




colby and i are pretending to be miserably hot waiting for the sea lion show to start!



awwww....aren't they a cute couple?
i love turtles!

it's ok, spencer! it's not real...just a statue!



this is how i felt at the end of our zoo adventure!
later that month i tried to surprise my dad by showing up for worship at their church on father's day evening. i called mom to see what time service started and told her not to say anything to dad. when they got to the church he saw me and said, "i knew you were coming! i was listening on the other line when you were talking to mom!"

oh, well! i'm glad i got to spend the evening with him! i love this man!
my sister and her kids also came to worship and dinner that night. it was fun!
we saw toy story 3 in 3-D later that month. it was such a great movie! if you haven't seen it, i highly recommend it. seeing it in 3-D isn't necessary, though. i bawled for the last 15 minutes of the movie! (yes, i know it's just a cartoon.)
i saw some really awesome clouds....
colby and i went bowling with caroline and her mom.
yikes!
one sunday at church, colby and his friend, jack, were walking up to people and saying, "hi. we're cheese...get it? colby jack cheese?" so jack's mom made them t-shirts! so funny!
colby and i walked to the ponds near our house in BA one last time to take some pictures. it was sad...there was lots of trash, and it was completely overgrown. we only got a few pictures.




4th of july weekend we went back to edmond to hang out with family some more. the first stop was aunt carla's (daryl's sister).
she has pretty flowers so of course i had to take some pictures of them!

i also played with sidewalk chalk at carla's.
my niece, natalie, making art.
colby posing with his artwork....ribbit!
the next day we went to grammy and pappy's for burgers! yum-o!

the boys picked tomatoes with pappy.

my mom, posing for a picture! so pretty!
totally random picture..i kept putting my coke can on the deviled egg platter to try to get a cool looking picture. i never got one, but the can in the eggs drove my mom nuts! :)
my new little brother, chico the chihuahua.
it rained the whole time in edmond, so i had to take pictures of grammy and pappy's flowers in the rain!
i went for a walk at the creek, and my patriotic toes got a little dirty....oh well!

my niece, makenna, went for a walk with me, and we caught baby frogs! she named them amy and makenna!
this is my baby frog trying to escape!
i found freckled flowers!

about a week or so later the boys and i went back to edmond to hang out with my sister's kids while she and her husband went on a romantic get-away for a few days.

we made sun-catchers and shrinky dinks! (spencer recorded the shrinky dink process while they were in the oven. if i could figure out how to upload video, i'd put it on here!)

it rained a lot that week, too, so i sent the kids out to play in the rain. they had a blast!
when the rain ended....
a week after that, we moved! we took a HUGE leap of faith and rented a house in bartlesville even though our house in BA hasn't sold or rented yet. daryl and i both believe that god will provide, and someone will be in our BA house soon.

this is my new kitchen! so cool!
huge living room!
and a pool in the backyard!!!!
taking a swimming break for some ice cream!
even daryl enjoys floating around in our pool!
so that's what's been happening. and the reason i haven't blogged is we didn't have internet at our BA house. it was driving me nuts! i missed blogging so much!

now we are in our new house, and there are lots of boxes to unpack. but it sure is great to finally be here!