Summer Storms

Tonight we had a pretty good storm. I absolutely love lightning shows! I went to sit outside to watch the storm, and of course, Elli was petrified. I sat her down next to me on the step and told her about counting the seconds between the lightning and the thunder to see how far away it is. When I told her the lightning was as far away as Wal-Mart, she settled down and watched it with me for awhile. After a bit, she got up and ran into the house hollering, "I'll be right back, Mom!" She came back with her blankie and teddy bear and plopped down next to me, ready for a show. Soon enough, the rain started coming down, and when a rain drop plopped on her cute little nose, she started singing

"If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gum drops, oh what a rain it would be. Standing outside with my mouth open wide, A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-Aaaa!"

She is quite possibly the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I love her and her quirkiness so much!

Update on the First Day of "Real" School

So here is the replay of of our conversations when I picked Elli up:

Me: How was the first day of school?
Elli: Good, but I don't want to go to school tomorrow.
Me: How come?
Elli: Cuz, I'm ready for a day off.
Me: Well, what did you do at school today?
Elli: We had 2 drinks and recess.
Me: Did you learn anything?
Elli: No.
Me: How about the alphabet?
Elli: I already knew the alphabet.

Later when we got home...after I had told Eric this conversation

Eric: So, Elli, are you going to school tomorrow?
Elli: Nope.
Eric: Why, was it boring?
Elli: Yep. And I'm not going tomorrow.
Eric: Well, you have to go everyday.
Elli: (throwing one of her famous tantrums) Noooooooooooooo I don't want to go tomorrow............

Haha! Like my mom said, it's a little too early to be calling the principal asking to excuse her from class just cuz she doesn't want to go!

First Day of "Real" School

Well, today I sent my baby off to her first day of kindergarten. She was so excited, but she kept telling me "Mom, I'm nervous!" I told her not to be nervous, cuz it's just like preschool. She then informed me "Well, Mom, everyone's nervous for their first day of real school!" She got up bright and early this morning and immediately started asking if it's time to go yet. We got her some breakfast, let her put on her new school clothes, fixed her hair, and then we had an HOUR to pass waiting for it to be time to go. When I finally told her to get her backpack, I thought I was going to have to peel her off the ceiling. We took a couple of pictures, and loaded up in the car. I walked her in to her class room, and then it hit me. My baby isn't so much of a baby anymore. I held back the tears, but believe me, I wanted to just put her back in the car and take her home for a couple more years. So many people have been asking me if I was going to cry when I took her to school the first day, and I kept saying "Hell no! I'm gonna throw a party while she's gone!" So, I'm here to tell you there isn't a whole lot of partying going on right now!

More about our trip to Bear Lake

Kaleena gave Elli some sand toys to play with while we were at Bear Lake. She had so much fun trying to make sand castles, that pretty soon, Uncle Kenny had to join in. He played with her for awhile, which I thought was awesome. He tried to get her to understand the "wet sand" concept, but she wasn't really getting it. Pretty soon, this sand castle idea turned into "Let's bury Elli!" So, Toree and Mandy got down in the sand with them, and they started digging. At first, they tried to get her to lay down so that just her head was sticking out, but when they started to cover her arms, she decided this wasn't so fun after all! So then they decided to let her sit up, Indian Style, and covered all but her head this way!

Week after week of Camping...We are Fools!

The first week of August, we went on one of my favorite trips for the year. We went with Eric's family up to Willow Flat to camp for five days. So, one, I L-O-V-E to camp. I have decided that if I could live in a tent in the mountains and have a hot dog roasted over a fire every night, I would. I love the smell of the mountains, I love the cool air, not so fond of all the critters that tend to live in the forest too, but I could defend myself. And two, I love to fish. I am trying so hard to get Elli into this love too, but she is digging her heels HARD!!! She did catch one fish. Only one. Then she was done. When the little bugger started flipping around on the rope we had it on (I left ALL of my tackle home, so I had to make do, and Eric made this stringer for me) she decided that maybe fishing isn't her cup of Kool-Aid. She had some huge crocodile tears after that episode. I did manage (with the help from bribery of toys) to get a picture of her holding the fish that she detested. One of the best parts of the fishing was, the fish and game folks so kindly threw in about 15,000 fish for me to fish out if the Cub River. They put in about 1700 about 10 feet away from our trailer! I am not usually a "catch and release" kind of fisher, but I was catching fish so fast, that after 20 minutes, I had caught my limit for the day! No way was I ready to be done fishing for the day, so Eric stripped the barbs of my hook and caught and released about 200 fish in one day! It was the BEST!!! Thank you Idaho Fish and Game for putting all those fish in for me and the rest of the goobers I was camping with to catch! Sadly, I was having so much fun watching my in-laws try to kill each other that these were the only pics I got of the whole trip...as I said a few posts earlier...nothing with the Mitchell family is uneventful!!!


The next weekend, Elli and I went to Bear Lake with my mom and dad, Kenny and Chelsey, and Toree, Taylor, and her friend, Mandy. Although it was colder than H-E-L-L we really did have a lot of fun. We played Blink (which is sort of like speed without face cards) for awhile and then we all crashed. The next day we took the boat down to the lake, and it was so cold that my mom and I didn't even get on the boat! We stayed in sweats and hoodies all day on the beach! The others did go out on the boat, and some of the crazy ones even got in the water to wake board.





Taylor trying to spit on Toree's face
(I had to get this, it made me laugh!)











Toree and her friend Mandy
She was Elli's BFF for the weekend










Poor Poor Gracie hates to camp.
I kept telling my mom that she's gonna
commit doggie suicide!










I told you it was cold up there!
Somewhere in this pile of blankets
Chelsey is hiding from the world!











Chelsey, Taylor, Toree, Ashley, and Cassidy
sleeping in chairs on the beach after boating












Kenny and Elli thinking outside box...
or running out of chairs, however you want
to look at it...