Misha

Someday, we'll have a lot of funny pictures for Misha to display at her wedding. This one, I'm sure, will be one of them.

Busy Month

Our first month into school and life has kept us pretty busy. Chris has traveled quite a bit this month, as is usual at the end of a quarter at work. Except for this past week when he was home every day. It was a nice treat for all of us, though he thinks he could use a hormone break! Our school has a program called Watch D.O.G.S. (Dads of Great Students) where the dads go and spend a day with their child(ren) helping out in the classroom, on the playground, and in the lunchroom. Chris was able to spend last Friday with Kristen and Misha in their classes. Kristen and Misha were beyond thrilled. There are a few 4th grade girls who would love to have Christopher come back even.

Amy has jumped into middle school and is doing superbly. She has been great about getting herself up around 6:30 every morning, and most of the time she gets her piano practicing done before heading for the school bus at 7:20. I am doubly impressed that her practicing does not wake up her sisters when she is playing. We've got her schedule down so that while she eats breakfast, the rest of us read the scriptures. She mostly listens, but answers and asks questions. I think it makes a difference to our day to spend this time together and to send our children out the door after having prayed together.

Amy has participated in intramural volleyball this past month. She will be participating in a single elimination tournament on Friday after school, and then she is finished. I signed all three girls up for swimming lessons, beginning in October, so that'll fill up our Wednesday evenings until December.

Not sure if I ever mentioned that Misha switched from playing the violin to the piano. My hope is that she will take piano lessons for a couple of years and then hopefully get back into the violin. She is doing quite well with piano since she already had a background in reading music; she likes to play a lot of the songs by ear that Amy is working on. Misha is a great student and seems to charm all of her teachers.

The nice thing about piano lessons this year, since I have all three girls taking lessons, is that their teacher, Rebecca, offered to teach the girls at our house. Last year, Amy and Misha had piano and violin lessons at the same time and I only had a 1/2 hour of waiting in the cold during the winter months. I was planning what I would do for 1 1/2 hrs during their lesson time this year. Now, no worries. I can be making dinner and listening in at the same time.

Kristen is loving Kindergarten. She is inquisitive and sweet and an all-around great girl. She is picking up reading more and more each day. She still says some of the funniest things and often tells me that she is "geniuser" than me. She started taking gymnastics at the recreation center in Frederick and loves it. You can tell that some of the girls have been doing it for awhile (and they're only five), but Kristen is picking it up quickly. I must admit, I did laugh when I watched her trying to skip backwards. Pretty funny. She has adjusted pretty well to having all of her playgroup friends going to school in the afternoon--meaning she never sees them anymore--but has made a few new friends in her current kindergarten class.

And me. Well, I am taking an Institute of Religion class at the church on Wednesday mornings on Scripture Study and how to get the most out of it. It has been great so far and just that extra oomph that I need during the week. Also, I have been taking a "Buff Moms" class twice a week at the Recreation Center. It pretty much kicks my butt every time, but it was that extra motivation I needed to get out of my current rut.

And that is September in a nutshell.

Update

Chris said I needed to update my blog and could sing his praises if I needed something to write about. Fortunately, there are plenty of great things to say about Christopher:

* He is a wonderful dad
* He is my in-house computer technician, and very skilled, I might add
* He loves gadgets, and if I get something new, I can count on him to format and do all the setup for me and then give me the quick version of how it works. He'll roll his eyes at me, but he secretly loves it.
* He gives great foot massages
* He doesn't care that I like to get a pedicure every month
* He goes shopping with me far more often that he'd like. I credit his willingness to go to "his" gadgets. They are a lifesaver for me as he reads email, keeps up with blogs and reads sundry other info on his iPhone while I shop.
* He loves to go on dates with me

Picture Day

Kristen and Misha had picture day this morning. Kristen thought ahead and asked if I would put sponge rollers in her hair last night. This was the result. I love her hair.



They look like they love each other!

BYU Football

Another weekend in Colorado Springs. The last time we went for a BYU vs Air Force football game, it was November and cold. I was quite happy when I saw the BYU Football schedule this summer and saw that the BYU/AF match-up would be in September.

We had originally planned to leave Friday night and stay over until Sunday. Since making those plans, our girls had activities scheduled into Friday after school that would last until 6 pm. With their tendency toward hunger in the evening, we figured we wouldn't even arrive in Colorado Springs until bedtime. We canceled our Friday night reservation and left after Chris mowed the lawn Saturday morning.

Since we had a few laptop bags to return, we stopped at the Factory stores in Castlerock for a little while. Chris was able to find one that he hoped would fit his stuff at another store. We grabbed some lunch and headed off to the tailgate party.

Holy TRAFFIC Batman!

It was not fun. We finally started moving fast with about four miles to go when it bogged down again with game traffic. Sadly, we missed most of the tailgate stuff, but got a quick picture with Cosmo and "Y" hats for Misha and I before heading over to the stadium. Chris got us great tickets close to the field with our friends the Burnhams and the Helms. The only drawback was the intense sun--so glad I brought sunscreen!





With Saturday being September 11, we thought that it would be a wonderful place to be to experience the 9th anniversary of 9/11. There were the usual pregame activities, as well as spotlights throughout the game of family, policemen, and servicemen who had some role in 9/11.

Last fall when we were in Colorado Springs, we happened to tour the Academy on a game day. We stopped at the field outside the football stadium just to see and hear the planes fly over. Kristen remembered just how loud they were.





BYU started off with a bang but after the 1st quarter, they just could not hang on to the ball. We stayed until there was about 5 minutes left in the 4th quarter when BYU was down three touchdowns and decided to leave. Amy and Misha, who we thought would be the most enthusiastic, were poops. No other way to say it. Their attitudes stunk for most of the game. Kristen was quite enthusiastic even though she was ready to be done at half time.

One of my children, who will remain nameless to protect her identity, asked while at the game, "Is this live?" I must admit, I was a bit stunned. I thought for a second, looked at her and then said, "Well, we ARE sitting right here." She clarified by asking, "Are they taping this so that it is on tv right now?"

A lot of other fans left when we did, so getting off the campus still took some time. We finally made it to our hotel, checked in, dropped off bags and headed to find some dinner. We didn't want the normal fast food stuff, and Chris nixed mexican food because he eats it a lot in his travels, so we ended up at a new place--Saltgrass. Loved it! I had a chicken tortilla soup that was de-lic-ious!

Amy was still in a bit of a wad, so we dropped her off at the hotel, picked up jackets and drove over to Maggie Moo's for ice cream. Sometimes I don't look forward to having teenage daughters.

There was a lot of 9/11 coverage on TV Saturday evening. Amy was totally enthralled by it. She was just under two when it occurred. Misha was two months old then. She still had no desire to watch any of the broadcasts on TV. It was too much for her sweet sensitive heart to take in. I admit, I have a hard time watching footage of that day as well. There are moments when your heart melts because of the thoughtfulness of another. Chris found Misha curled up in our bed reading and trying not to hear the TV in the other room, it was bedtime, and he asked her if she would like to pray with him. I don't usually take pictures of people praying...




We all slept until almost 8 am Sunday morning. Nice! We showered, went down for breakfast and then still had some time to spare for church at 11 am. We need to remember to take some games with us for times like that.

Chris arranged for us to have a late checkout, so we hurried back to the hotel after Sacrament Meeting, packed up all of our stuff, grabbed our leftovers, and were off to find a park for lunch. We came upon Mountain View school not too far from our hotel that had a covered pavilion with a picnic table. I had leftover chicken from Saltgrass and only a plastic spoon and fork to eat it with--maybe we didn't use our very best manners.







Kristen and I played on this teeter totter thingie. When we were walking back to the van, she asked, "Are you going to put a picture of you and me playing on the tater tot?"





The girls played on the park equipment for about twenty minutes before Chris shepherded us back to the van. He had found a short hike for us in Monument--Mt. Herman Trail--as we headed back toward home. Thank heavens for a GPS to find these places.

The trails weren't all that well marked but we took a path we thought was the right one. It led us to this cool rock formation that the girls were happy to climb on. We met this nice older couple who took a few pictures of us and we returned the favor. We kept passing them, stopping to look at stuff, and passing them again, so they took two photos of us in different places.







We thought the planting of these trees were pretty cool.

The Laptop Bag Saga

So earlier this year when I was looking rather diligently for a new purse, my husband took it upon himself to make fun of me. These are excerpts from actual posts of his on Facebook and the comments that followed:


Post #1

Chris Kline Why is getting a new purse for Jolayne so much like getting a spouse? It's like the biggest decision of her life. She can hardly stand the tension!
January 2 at 2:02pm

Ann Hepworth Schmitz It's like getting a spouse because you're gonna have to live w/ that purse for a while and it will go everywhere that you go and hold all your important stuff!!! :)

Kristin Jensen Ricks You spend more time with your purse than your spouse.

Loraine Elyse DeBelser that purse makes a statement about who you are, and has to go with everything. Plus it needs to be functional...or was I talking about spouses?

Chris Kline Jo tried to put "Shut Up" on her reply, but Facebook understand that was not appropriate. :-p

Eric Morris Call me crazy, but I was actually gutsy enough to pick out a purse for Teresa for her birthday

Adrianne Stropes I don't think I've bought a new purse since moving to TX . ;)

Maria Wallin Burnham Rafer was crazy enough to get me a purse for Christmas--expecting that I would take it back. I like it.

Trent John that is one item that I wont even think about trying to buy

Lauren States Honestly Chris -- you just can't understand!

Rafer Burnham Yes, it was a Christmas miracle that I bought my wife a purse for Christmas that didn't get returned... guess I've learned something about Maria in the last 20 years.

Chris Kline Fodder for next year's not-so-newlywed game.

Post #2


Chris Kline: she found a purse! Think of all the new activities we can do for date night now!
January 15 at 8:59pm via Facebook for BlackBerry

Trent John Brooke came home with a new one last week. I had no idea it was such a complicated thing!

Jolayne Kline Men!

Kristin Morgan Briggs Seriously..

Mark A. Schofield its like inspecting the escape hatch on the space shuttle...

Jolayne Kline See what bugs me is he pulls his fruit phone (aka blackberry) out a dinner to text such a comment. If you kept it holstered, think of all the conversations we could have on our dates!

Bev Wilcox fruit phone-hahaha!

Lauren States I'll fix him -- go to bagsnob.com! :-)

Chris Kline Watch it, Lauren!

Lauren States Chris, Honestly -- don't u trust me? Ha Ha!

So I found it rather interesting when he began looking for laptop bags. He quickly realized that you don't just buy the first bag you find. You take it home, you try it out, you see if it works. He hasn't appreciated me making a point of this in the past couple of weeks. He did not know that I took a picture of the three bags he purchase at Wilson's Leather before he returned them!



Or of his current choice.....



The first moral of the story: Bag shopping, whether it is a purse or a laptop bag, takes time and a few returns.

The second moral of the story: Never make fun of someone who remembers!

Silverthorne

Chris has been traveling a lot lately, so a three-day weekend where us girls had him all to ourselves was wonderful. Chris has a co-worker who owns a condo in Silverthorne. She is in the process of selling it, but didn't mind if we used it for the weekend if we kept it clean. We were all excited for some time away. We decided to leave Saturday afternoon after lunch and chores and a kids' meeting.

Since I don't travel toward the mountains and Golden very often, I requested a stop at Colorado Mills mall so that I could check out The Children's Place Outlet store. Sometimes I find really good deals there, that particular day I didn't. After looking at Eddie Bauer and The Children's Place, I was ready to move on; however, my girls remembered the Lego store and wanted to visit it. If you have ever been to Colorado Mills mall before, you might know that the Lego store is quite a distance from The Children's Place store. Since it wasn't me making the suggestion to keep on shopping, I was happy to oblige. Chris ended up finding some laptop bags (the complete story will be in another post) at Wilson's Leather, so he was quite happy with the visit as well.

We left the mall around 5 pm amid cries of, "I'm hungry." and, "Can we go to Olive Garden?" We drug out our visit to the mall until 5 pm and close enough to the dinner hour--'cause you know 4:45 is just too early to eat dinner. The nearest Olive Garden wasn't exactly close, but we weren't in any hurry.

We finally arrived at the condo around 7:30. We got situated and set up an extra bed for Amy. The girls watched tv while Chris and I drove to the grocery store to pick up some snacks and food for Sunday; by the time we returned, we were happy to send the girls off to bed.

We attended church meetings in Frisco on Sunday morning at 10 am. Crazy but we met the temple president and his wife there and friends who used to be in our ward. One young boy, he wasn't any older than 9, bore his testimony about prayer and finding his dog. We were all enthralled with his story and how his prayers were answered, but ended up laughing when he said, "If I hadn't prayed and my mom hadn't gone to the basement and turned on the light to look, we might never have found our dog who had fallen into the window well, for a very long time. Except that we might have smelled him." The entire congregation started laughing.



Our girls weren't too thrilled to be "visitors" in Primary, but ended up enjoying their time in a ward so tiny that the visitors outnumbered the regular attendees. I sat in Relief Society meeting next to the open window listening to the stream next to the building and enjoying the beautiful scenery.

We returned to Silverthorne and the condo for lunch. Chris found a hike for us just a short distance further up the hill--to Lily Pond Lake. I think this was the first hike where our children didn't whine and complain the whole way. I know! Miracle! This is Kristen's first year of hiking without hitching a ride, and she was a very happy hiker. The first part of our hike was a rather steep incline up to the actual trail.





Can you just imagine what this must look like when all the flowers are in bloom?



We hiked up over a small rise to another lake that sparkled in the sunlight. I highly recommend enlarging the picture.







Next thing I know, Chris was walking out onto a log with Kristen hanging on for dear life to his hand. She made it to the end of the log, let go of his hand rather reluctantly while expressing her desire to hang on, posed rather quickly and was then deposited back on the shore. Unfortunately, that depositing unbalanced Chris and the log gave way under the mud beneath it. His foot plunged in to the mud and water. He did his best to wash the mud off, but really, he should have seen that one coming.



And wouldn't you know, Amy and Misha had to follow in Dad's footsteps--at least they didn't fall in!



The girls were throwing rocks and branches in to the lake and were having a grand time when all of a sudden we hear a splash and then extremely loud wailing from Kristen, "I fell in the water!!!!!!!" Really it was mostly just her hands that were muddy, but she was not very happy nonetheless. Chris helped her get washed off Daddy style.





You can see that her oh-so-supportive Daddy wasn't as upset about the whole incident as Kristen was!

On our return portion of the hike, a few members of our party were not quite so enthusiastic. To keep their minds off of being tired and hungry, I played an alphabet game with Kristen. I gave her a letter and she had to think up something that started with that letter. She zipped through it. Seriously, Chris and I were quite impressed. I asked her how she thought of something so quickly. She replied that she just remembered the alphabet cards in her classroom at school and the pictures that were associated with each letter. Wow! Impressive.

Misha's turn was next. Chris started quizzing her on her multiplication facts. She knows most of them, but she doesn't have them down so that they just trip off her tongue. And before we knew it, we were walking back down the hill to our van.

Kristen was pretty pooped at bed time and went to sleep around 8 am. Chris and I let the other two stay up lots later playing games. I think they will always remember that part of our vacation.

We packed up Monday morning, cleaned up the condo, and headed down to the Silverthorne outlets. Back to Wilson's leather for an extra 30% off. Misha got a cute jacket and Chris...another laptop bag.

We spent time shopping, had lunch, and then headed off on a hike that some lady told Chris would offer great views. Well, yeah, because you sent us straight up the mountain. You can tell that not all of our family were thrilled by this... Seriously, if someone tells you that the Ptarmigan Trail is a great hike with amazing views, think twice before taking your 5-year, make that 10-year old on it.







After 25 minutes of going straight up, we'd had enough. Good workout for the day. Done. We decided to maybe try another hike in Georgetown, but that plan was kiboshed when we got into traffic. Something caused a major slow down and it was three hours later when we finally arrived home. Good weekend away though.

Intramural Volleyball

Amy's adventure into Middle School is going well. She is keeping on top of assignments, reading, and getting herself out of bed by 6:30 every morning (she'd sleep until 8:30 if she could). She has been excited for additional after-school opportunities, intramural volleyball being her first experience. She's never really played before, so it is a good skill to develop.

I went to watch her first game. She was a pretty good under-hand server, but her whole team was pretty passive when it came to returning a serve. More often than not, they all just turned and stared as the ball hit the hardwood and bounced away. This week, the team AND especially Amy were much improved. She served well and even returned a few serves.

Little Sickie

If ever there was a good time to be sick, Kristen picked it. Our schools have a late-start Wednesday once a month. The half-day Kindergartens switch off going in the afternoon on those late-start days. This month, Kristen was home, and it was a good thing. She had a fever of 103*, her body ached, and she threw up a couple of times. Poor little thing. The bad news was that Chris wasn't home for help and moral support. The good news was that Chris wasn't home and Kristen was more than happy to usurp his spot in our bed. In fact, she fell asleep on the couch (so cute I had to take a picture), and as I was taking her upstairs to bed she mumbled, "Can I sleep in your bed?" Usually that's not allowed, but with her continuous fever, I wanted to keep an eye on her. (With Chris being gone regularly, I get that question often enough. I can just imagine the fights my girls would have over whose turn it was to sleep in my bed THIS time!)

So, Kristen didn't have to worry about missing a day of school. She was better by Wednesday evening and raring to go Thursday morning.