My Little Graduate

The kids are officially out of school. Eliza graduated kindergarten on Tuesday. The school had a graduation ceremony. The Kindergartners all sang songs and received a diploma from the principal. Eliza was so cute up on the stage singing and dancing. The best part of the ceremony is when all the kindergartners sang their rendition of "New York, New York" only they sang it "First Grade, First Grade." It was sooo cute and funny. They even did the can can during the last chorus.
She learned a lot this year and loved her teacher. She is sad to not be in kindergarten anymore because she asked if Mrs. Moeller was going to be her teacher again next year. Sadly no, she was a great teacher and told me Eliza has certainly blossomed into a social butterfly. Can't believe both the girls will be going to school all day next year!

Camping in May in Idaho

We love to go camping. However, a lot of the time we don't actually make it out camping as much as we would like. The month of June is going to be very busy so if we wanted to go camping before July we had to go the weekend of May 21-22. We got the trailer all ready and left as soon as the girls got home from school. As we were pulling out of town Eliza said, "It's not going to snow, it's all sunny outside." At that particular moment it was sunny outside. However this is what we drove into, not too sunny at all.


The first thing the kids and the dog did when we got up to Birch Creek was to start playing in the water. They pulled buckets and shovels out and made gravel castles and mud pies. It kept them busy while we set up camp.






After Mac got camp all set up he chopped a bunch of little wood to roast marshmallows with. While he did this I made up hamburgers. I forgot to pack soy sauce and we don't have any spices in the trailer except salt and pepper. So Mac and I thought the hamburgers were a little plain but the kids told me they were the best burgers they had ever had. They ate them better than they ever do at home. I guess when I make burgers I will have to make plain ones for them and seasoned ones for Mac and I. We were going to roast marshmallows after dinner. Of course, by the time we were ready to roast marshmallows the wind had picked up and we didn't even end up building a fire. We roasted marshmallows over the stove top in the trailer.


Before we went to bed the wind settled down for a few minutes. We went outside, went for a walk, and let the kids burn off some energy. While we were out there the sun was setting. Bobby pointed at the mountain and said , "oh look at that mom." Then Eliza asked me if someone had built a big fire on top of the mountain. I told her that it was just from the sun setting behind the peak.

We got up the next morning fixed pancakes and bacon and then headed straight home since it was raining, slash, hailing, slash, snowing and the wind was screaming. Not a bad first camping trip, what more can you expect when camping in Idaho in May.

Wizard of OZ Ballet

The girls had two spring recitals this year. The owner of the ballet studio we go to is friends with a woman who runs a tap school and she wanted to do the Wizard of OZ this year which she does in cooperation with our ballet studio. The girls were way excited to be in the Wizard of OZ as it is one of their favorite movies. (Tidbit for you: If you haven't seen the SciFi channels Tin Man which is a movie based on the land of OZ today you have to watch it. It's long but awesome) Taylor was a bunny and a witch. Yes, I know there are no bunnies in the Wizard of OZ the movie but there are in the ballet. When they go into the dark forest our version was, "lions, and bunnies and skunks, oh my!" Eliza was a lollipop girl. I just loved her costume. Also, the studios wanted a large munchkin cast so they held open auditions and my two nieces performed. So Mac's mom had five of her six granddaughters in the performance (the sixth one is only 3). I was able to get a picture of all of them together. I watched one performance and chaperoned the other two. Eliza's part was early in the first act so after the matinee performance on Saturday me and her walked around downtown Idaho Falls until Taylor was finished. We bought cookies from Great Harvest, my most favorite cookies of all time. I will someday duplicate their recipe for oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, I am getting closer but for now I have to get my fix from them. Girls did great and I am very thankful for a two week reprieve before summer classes start.

Kitchen Remodel Part 4: Cabinets are all installed!

So these have been installed for a while now but hey sometimes life just gets in the way of me sitting down to update my blog. Anyway, back to my fabulous kitchen. So Mac installed the cabinets and did an awesome job. I love the way they turned out. The wood has a very pinkish tone to it (more so than the sample we picked out) but it's natural wood they are all a bit different. We did have to finagle a couple of doors to make them match better with their pair. Everyone who has seen it asks what kind of wood it is. We picked out natural oak. I'm not a huge honey oak fan but loved the grain and color of the natural oak. We also picked out the raised panel centers because I thought they looked better quality than the ones with the flat panels. I don't know the flat panels all struck me as looking very particle boardish (yea that is a real word). So now we are on the homestretch. The counter top guy came last Wednesday and took all out measurements. Mac is actually at Lowes as I am typing this buying all the parts necessary to hook up the dishwasher. Yes Yes YES!!! No more washing in the tub, just rinsing them off. We still haven't picked out a sink for definite. I have it narrowed down to two though, I think.

A Decade of Mactallysmith

(Mactallysmith is our email address) So as of 2:00 pm I have been married to the most wonderful man I know for 10 years, a whole decade! Sometimes it barely feels like any time at all and other times it feels like I can't remember what it was like to not have him in my life. Mac took the day off from work so we got to hang out and go have lunch together. I love spending time with him. There is no one else in this world I would rather be with. So in honor of ten great years I wanted to post a few pictures.

Ten years ago today













Here we are today, probably more in love than ever!

Umm, What month is it?

So I'm okay with snow in February and March, heck we live in Idaho it is kind of expected. I can even live with having snow on Easter. We have had a lot of Easter eggs hunts in the snow. But snow in May that is where I put my foot down and say enough is enough! I didn't even want to get out of bed this morning when I looked out the window. The kids on the other hand were quite excited to get out their snow stuff and head straight outside before even eating breakfast. Hopefully that will be the last of it!




Even though the tomatoes were planted under the green house it still got cold enough to freeze them.