Holy sh*t!!

I seriously can't believe it's been a year since I updated this blog! What is my problem? I always have the best of intentions but all of the craziness of life just seems to take over. I'd love to promise you yet again that I will do better but who the hell knows?? :)

So, this might be a long entry! Grab yourself a cup of coffee (or tea, Nanc!) and prepare yourself to dive into the exciting details of the last year in the life of the Boyle's! Try to stay awake, k?

Let's see....where to begin...

In April Keith and I took our first vacation since the kids were born by ourselves. Keith had accumulated a bunch of frequent flyer miles from all of his business travel and they were going to expire so we decided to go for it! Keith had been bugging me for years to go to Las Vegas (he's always there for work but I had never gone) plus one of my "Things I have to do before I die" list included seeing the Grand Canyon so we decided to make Vegas our destination. My mom and Keith's parents divided up the time we were gone and watched the kids while we were away so we knew they were in good hands. The whole vacation was great! We stayed at the Luxor Hotel right on the strip and it was so much fun. We didn't do a whole lot of gambling but I am proud to say I left up $4.32!! We did a lot of fun things: walking through all of the hotels and casinos, Sigfried and Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin habitat, saw "Hairspray", ate at a lot of awesome restaurants, saw the fountains at the Bellagio, did the gondola ride at the Venetian hotel, went to the Old Vegas Strip, met Elvis (I *knew* he was still alive!), and a TON of other stuff! But the absolute high point of the trip was seeing the Grand Canyon. Since we were only in Vegas for 5 days and didn't want to spend 2 days driving while we were there, we decided to do the helicopter tour of the canyon. We flew right out of Vegas and were able to see a lot of the area between Vegas and the canyon. We flew right over the Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, and lots of mountains. I was surprised by the size of the Hoover Dam and definitely got a good view of it from the air. I had never been in a helicopter before but I was so excited about seeing everything that I never had time to be nervous at all! It was us and 4 other people, including the pilot. When we finally came over that last ridge and were over the canyon it was breathtaking. I had seen pics of it many times but seeing it for real was nothing short of amazing. It really makes you realize just how small you really are in the grand scheme of things. If you haven't been there and you have the opportunity, GO! I took a million pictures but none of them can even begin to do it justice. With our tour we had the opportunity to land down in the bottom of the canyon, beside the Colorado River, and explore the canyon a bit. Our pilot brought along a picnic lunch and a bottle of champagne too! It was really awesome! I am so glad that I had a chance to go and I hope to go back one day and show it to the boys.

The high point of our summer was definitely the addition of our pool and deck. The boys LOVE to swim and it was a ton of fun! We love having our friends and family over so it's really nice to now have the deck and pool for when we're entertaining. We had originally planned to take a vacation to Cape Cod this summer but decided that this would be a better use of the money. At the beginning of the summer both boys were a bit unsure of the water but within no time they were swimming like little fish! Evan still uses his floaties but Connor just jumps right in and swims away. Keith and I enjoyed it a lot too!

The high point of *Connor's* summer was finally ("I've been waiting my *whole* life!) getting a 4 wheeler. We got him a Yamaha Raptor 80 and to say he was thrilled is the understatement of the year!! He would never get off that thing if it was his decision! He thinks he's sooo cool!! It makes me a little nervous but he's got all of the safety equipment and Keith has it set so it won't go above a certain speed so I guess I'm okay with it. So far Evan is still satisfied with the Fisher Price Power Wheels 4 wheeler but I'm sure it's only a matter of time...

In March I started as a representative for Country Bunny Bath & Body. For a while I had been feeling like I needed to do something that was just mine and that would allow me to get out a little bit and make a little bit of extra money. A friend (Thanks Katie!) tried to recruit me for Mary Kay and got me thinking about it. I decided that Mary Kay wasn't for me but it got me doing some research on different direct sales companies and I finally found one that is the right fit for me. I love the products and I have fun doing it so it's great! I've been doing pretty well with it and I hope to have some time soon to focus on building my business some more. I have one recruit under me now and would like to try and find some new people for my team. I do home parties and book parties and have been pretty successful with it in the few months I've been at it. Check out my website at www.CBunnySpa.com if you have a chance!

Keith is still working like crazy. Things at Peak are always so up in the air and we never know how much job security he really has. Starting in November he will be working from home all the time so soon he'll begin working on constructing a home office in our basement. With a little bit of luck we won't even kill each other with all of the togetherness!

Connor is now 7 and in 2nd grade!! I have trouble wrapping my brain around that one! He did great last year in 1st and we are so proud of him. He loves his teacher this year and seems to enjoy school. He's doing really well. Over the summer he took swimming lessons at the college and played soccer. Soccer seems to be more his thing than t-ball was last year. I think t-ball bored him somewhat since there wasn't always much going on. His team was the "Mighty Molars" and they did really well. He's still taking taekwondo and is about to get his green belt (he has a green stripe belt right now). He just did a tournament this past weekend and got 4th place for his pattern and 2nd place for sparring. We hope he sticks with it. He just started back in Cub Scouts again too and is a Wolf this year. He really enjoys Scouts.

Speaking of Scouts, I was a den mother for Cub Scout camp this summer. I loved it! I had 9 boys in my den and they were a great group of kids. They ranged from 6-8 years old. We did so many fun activities--sports, woodworking, nature classes, games, archery (the boys favorite!) and crafts. The theme for camp was "the Serengeti" and on the last day of camp we had to do a skit for all of the other dens and the parents. They did great! I hope I have the opportunity to do that again next summer!

Evan will be 5 next week! We're having a party for him a week from Sunday and he picked the Disney "Cars" theme. He's a tad bit obsessed with that movie!! He recently got some bubble eye goldfish (he would NOT settle for regular goldfish!) and their names are Wingo and Mater McQueen, after the cars in the movie. If you've seen that movie I do realize that Mater and McQueen are two different characters but Evan *had* to use both names! He's kind of a strong-willed little man and has definite ideas of his own. Sometimes that is good and sometimes it is very, VERY bad!! Anyway, he loves the Cars movie so much that for his birthday we are redoing his room all in Cars (I'll try and post a pic after I'm done with it). We managed to get a slightly illegal copy of the movie from China since it's not released here yet and I swear we've seen it 500 times! He sings the songs from the movie as he's doing other things. It's slightly obsessive but very cute! He's also going to be the tow truck, Mater, for Halloween!

Evan is in preschool again this year. He could have gone to kindergarten but with his late birthday we decided that another year of preschool would be the best way to go. He's still at St. Paul's and has Mrs. Porter as his teacher again. One of his best buddies, Jake, is in his class so he loves that. Together those two are double trouble!! It's a small class this year--only 9 kids--so they are able to get more individual attention. I'm sure he'll be more than ready to go to kindergarten next fall. He also started taekwondo in April and seems to like it. He's having some trouble settling down enough to focus but he does pretty well. He did his first tournament last week and got a trophy almost as big as he is! He looks so darn cute in his little uniform!!

The boys also have a new "Aunt" that they adore! Last November we finally convinced my dad to adopt a dog from the animal shelter. I thought that a dog would be a good thing for my dad since he's living alone and the boys love dogs and can't have one since Keith is allergic. I found a dog on the animal shelter's website that I was sure would be the dog for my dad and sure enough, she was! We went out to the shelter to visit all of the dogs and before we left he had agreed to adopt "Chloe", a lab mix who was almost a year old. The boys just love her to pieces! She's a crazy dog and VERY active (ok, hyper! LOL) and my dad might have returned her to the shelter if it weren't for the boys. As wild as Chloe is she is SOOO good with the boys, despite the torture that they put her through every time they see her! And my dad does enjoy having her, despite all of his grumblings! She's starting to calm down a little but still has a lot of puppy in her. I like knowing that he's got someone there with him, even if it is a dog.

The addition to our immediate family this year was a hamster, Eddy Bob. And no, I didn't name him! Someone we know had gotten a hamster and ended up not being able to keep him because of allergies so we took him in. His name was already Eddy and the boy who had him wanted his name to stay the same so my boys just added the "Bob" onto it. He's black, fuzzy and adorable and he fills the boys need for a pet that they can actually touch! Somehow all these fish just weren't cutting it!