A perfect day for Zoo Boise!

Moving on Up and more...

This is Hannah a couple days back on the first night she spent in her big girl bed! Yep you heard it right... She has moved on up to a big girl bed! The process so far has been pretty painless. We had an extremely smooth transition coupled with extreme excitement and so far she has not gotten out of her bed even 1 time! Hannah seems to be in an extremely positive season for change. We thought we better take advantage of it in case it becomes not so inviting in the near future!

You can tell that she is very proud to be in a big girl bed and paired up with big girl underwear, Hannah is unstoppable these days! We've even started working on writing the alphabet (I know I thought it was a little crazy too, but our Pastor's Wife assured me she'd grab a hold of it and run!) That she has done! Huge improvements on the letter A in just 6 days!

So thought I'd post round-a-bout shots of Hannah's renovated big girl room. As you can see in the above picture (This is what you see when you enter Hannah's room) we have taken the changing pad off of the changing table (In the corner) and turned it into more of a shelf. This is also where Hannah's new lava lamp has been placed, replacing the Fischer Price baby aquarium that hung in her crib. (She was so attached to that, still having a hard time believing she let it go without too much dispute!) Obvious bed in the left corner.

If you continue to pan your gaze left while standing in her room you will come upon the "Sitting area" =) This is where she colors and reads her books, sometimes just relaxes, or pretends to be at school with her stuffed animals. The "table" is the big thimble thing that John made Hannah for Christmas which can pretty much turn into anything as she utilizes her imagination. Very exciting!

Continue left to her closet, where the brunt of the toys etc. get placed. We have also been teaching Hannah to make her bed when she wakes up in the morning and after her nap. Gotta start young for that one to stick! She is doing phenominal! Don't worry we don't require crisp corners or anything, just trying to start good habits now!

Continue left and you will find the door and her bookshelf. We're pretty happy with how it turned out and again Hannah couldn't be more excited! Growth is such a positive thing and it is absolutely amazing to watch Hannah do it!

Here is Hannah this morning... Very uninterested in the camera. It takes a while for this sleeping beauty to wake up and face the world!

On to other things... or thing. Here is the "Goal Board" we made over the weekend to help celebrate our anniversary. I designed it in my head, spit out all of the details, and John took my jumbled thoughts and ideas... Designing the exact thing I had pictured in my head! The various colors are for various things... Green = Financial Goals; Blue = John's Goals; Orange = Family Goals; Purple= Hannah's Goals; Pink = Christina's Goals. The rest of the squares are to be determined, along with just some room to grow. It is such an important thing to keep your goals in a place that you visit often. It's not too helpful to write them down in a place that you only visit once a year. Our brains are too busy to keep something so seldom visited as a priority.

So what better place to put it than the kitchen? We are definitely there everyday! We are excited to begin adding things to our boards. Pictures, words, phrases, unidentified objects that mean something... The sky is the limit as we can personalize our section in any and all ways we want to. I highly suggest you and your family make one of these! We can't wait to fill ours and watch as we begin to replace accomplished goals with new goals! How exciting! =)

6 years and counting!

Weddings for Dummies! I don't remember who gave this to us, but I'm sure they knew us well! What I've learned over the past 6 years is that the title of that book wasn't too far from the truth! In the past 6 years we have had many ups and downs. Tons of new discoveries. A daughter, dog, cat, and a fish. (We had some sea monkey along the way but they lived so long and were so boring that I flushed them because they were driving me insane! They just wouldn't die! Don't worry I did feel really bad...) Many adventures, have logged more miles than I can count. We have moved over 7 times, lived in 5 states. Owned 3 cars (2 of which we still have), 1 truck and 6 different kayaks. We have tested our skills in various outdoor activites and have a general love for everything outside. We have learned a ton about each other, life, and love. We have crossed many paths that we know we have made an impact on, as well as being impacted on. The list goes on... way on! So today as I try to think back 6 years, there are hours of photographs to look through, hundreds of stories to tell, and so many memories it is almost overwhelming! (What do you do at 50 years?) So for this blog I thought I'd share a little about the beginning. Most who read this didn't know us to well then and I thought it would be fun!

This is a pic of us while we were dating on one of the infamous Outing Center (Not Centre) trips! The Outing Center is where we met during a kayaking class I took, that John was teaching.

This is in the Boundary Waters in Minnesota. We spent 7+ days in the backcountry, armed only with a canoe, 2 paddles, supplies, and our arms and legs to do all of the work while portaging everything through the thousands of lakes there. It was amazing!

These are the "Squirrels nest" that our group camped in on the trip where it all began.... Awww!

And this is me... super intense while kayaking! One of the loves John and I share... One of the things that we love about each other!

From the beginning there are tons of pictures of us kayaking... It's what we did... all of the time... Seriously... ALL of the time. Our typical week in college. Thursday: Prep day to pack and load to go kayaking for the weekend, Friday: Stare at the clock through all of our classes aching to get on the road. Sometimes driving through the night in 2 hr shifts partnering with red bull, Sat/Sun: Getting as much river time as possible before having to head back to school. Monday: Cleaning up all of the gear from the weekend. Tuesday: Free Day Wednesday: Open Pool where we practiced kayaking and then the cycle would repeat itself!

This is the waterfall that we both went over for the first time together.

This is another Boundary Water picture... At the time we learned that we were definitely solo paddlers. I perfected the skill of "Lily Dipping" and John's canoe skills increased significantly! ;)

Nice purple helmet John!

This is why I fell in love with him! =)

No those aren't gloves! We paddled so much in the spring that the only things exposed were my hands on the paddles. Every time we went out regardless of the 75spf sunscreen I used on them, they only became tanner and tanner and tanner! I looked ridiculous but John was proud!

Yep we've even survived an accident together! I rear ended John in his truck while he was driving in front of me during a weekend kayaking in Wisconsin. It was John's fault, his Dad believes me, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! =)

I got to experience my first pit toilet while on a trip with John!

This is just one of my favorite pictures!

When John had hair! He lost it AFTER we got married! =)

Me!

And after all of that and much.. much.. more! We loved each other enough to do it for the rest of our lives! John proposed to me on a river (go figure!) and of course I said yes!

We had absolutely no idea what we were signing up for!

6 years ago digital photography was still not very popular so this is one of the only pics of our wedding that I have on the computer. We want to have all of them scanned, but until then you'll just have to trust me that I am really the bride standing there! =)

After 6 years our future is looking stronger and brighter than ever. We have recently ripped out the original foundation of our marriage to replace it with a rock solid one. Our marriage is becoming stronger on a daily basis and we have more unity now than ever! Our lives are continuing to take of the shape of what we are purposed to do and we couldn't be more excited! It's great to be in Love! In 44 years I can only imagine what my post will look like! Until then... we're gonna keep on diggin'!

Meet Susie...

The latest addition to the Daurer family! Even though Susie is a boy, he's red and in Hannah's mind that makes him a girl which equals the female name.

We've had him for 2 whole days now and he's going strong! Enjoying his new home, as we enjoy the new addition of a centerpiece and plant.

Hannah does a great job of feeding Susie and is the first thing she runs to when we get home to say hello! She even hugs the bowl goodnight. Sometimes it's the littlest things! Thank you Caleb and Ashley!

Another fun weekend!

So our plans to go camping this weekend got sidetracked when they offered John work on Saturday, but instead of grump about it, we made the most of it and headed to the great outdoors in our backyard! There was a small lake and everything! (The best part was the flushing toilets within walking distance!)

Hannah got a new pool since she outgrew hers from last year and was very excited! We are excited too, because we can actually fit into this one with her!

A new learned skill now that Hannah is no longer in diapers. Removing a wedgie!

This is one time as parents we sat back, laughed, and enjoy the fun of Hannah determined to make her swimming suit stay right where it was supposed to!

After swimming we decided it was time for smores. We have burned some weird stuff in the chiminea and don't have a gas stove... could have pulled out the camp stove or used the grill, but we decided to nuke our marshmallows!

Hannah's attempt at staying clean.. works so far!

Obviously not for long though!

Good thing we were at home to clean up!

After all of the fun and sugar it was time to go to sleep.

The night got a little cool, but morning came and the sun warmed the tent nicely and I snapped this photo of Sadie as we waited for Hannah to wake up. Sadie was anxiously awaiting to opportunity to eat the bug crawling up the side of our tent. It's a good thing that we don't have contact with her parents. They may be a bit embarrassed to learn the the only thing their hunting dog has been given the opportunity to hunt... is bugs!

Here is sleepy Hannah who awake yelling "Morning Mom!"

Hannah and I are still going strong on our way to Yellowstone. If you haven't seen our progress, check the map in the upper right hand corner of the blog!

We still love going to our favorite trail in Nampa... I'm telling you this cow knows us already! It only took a few seconds of Hannah talking to her until she came over to say hello. She's pretty darn cute if you ask us! And really sweet too... her and Sadie have become friends as well!

This is the section of the trail Hannah always gets to walk. Here she's getting in her last bit of snacks before the "petting zoo" which after she's not allowed to touch anything and put it into her mouth... for obvious reasons.

On Sunday we headed to a section of the Boise greenbelt to enjoy some new scenery and have a family picnic. With all of the warm weather and snow we got this winter, it is melting so fast that the river is at flood stages. Normally runs at 900cfs and is currently somewhere around 5500cfs! For those who don't know this language... Those numbers would make any kayaker excited! But what those numbers mean for a walk is that the path is closed unless you want to swim through some really cold water!

So turn around we did just in time to find the perfect spot for our picnic!

We enjoyed our first picnic of the season and it obviously made an impact. Last night before bed when Hannah was praying she said "Thank you God everyday for picnics" and she finished with a strong a loud "Amen!" We couldn't help but laugh and agree "Yes Hannah... it would be fun to have picnics everyday!

Below John was swinging Hannah as she held her legs up as long as possible to avoid the cold water. She always managed to drop them in just at the right time to splash John, which I found hilarious!

This is my favorite light downtown Boise. Heading strait for the capitol building. After our picnic we headed out on a search for an ice cream shop. We really do enjoy living here. There really is so much to do!

Ice cream we found, ice cream we enjoyed, and ice cream we cleaned up!

The End.