First Day of School

Wow...can you believe it...the first day of school!! We started school on Monday, August 24th. It has been a great week so far.

Nana and Papa took the girls shopping for a new outfit to start school. They got new clothes, new shoes, new socks, and even new haircuts. Somehow, I think the teacher should get that treatment as well, but I digress.


Shelby is starting 2nd grade and is very excited. She is working on her reading skills and always wants to do art.

Lexi is starting 4th grade (this must be a mistake). She is excited about doing her on-line math and learning Spanish.

We are looking forward to a great year. We are studying American History and Earth Sciences. Lexi is going to begin piano lessons and both girls will participate in the home school gymnastics program. We will continue to swim throughout the year at the indoor pool in Yakima. We are very excited for all the fun things that we are able to do as a home schooling family.

We went to the zoo a couple of weeks ago and I am just now getting the pictures posted. Grandpa DeVore went with us and it was a great time. We are having a great summer, but are sad that it is almost over. We start school next week and then we are going strong for quite a while.

We have had a lot of people what to see some updates on our house. For those of you who do not know John and I bought a 5500 sq. ft. grange in Naches, WA. We took a 1500 sq. ft. open room and made it into our house. This is a picture of our family room.

This is our master suite. The window boxes are "dad-made" and were needed because the windows are so far off the ground from the inside in case of a fire. It is so nice to have the rocker and sofa in there to watch movies or just to read.

This is our bathroom off the master suite.

This is the girl's playroom. It is lavender with a cute pink border. Grandma made the curtains and window seat cover. It is "clean" according to the girls.

This is the girls room. It is a dark picture, but it is pink with the same border. It has lavender curtain and window seat.

Here is a picture of the dining room that flows into the family room. The bathroom door is open and Grandpa is doing wash. As you can see, we have a lot of swim suits hanging up.





Now this picture is of the "dance floor" upstairs. It is 1500 sq. ft. with hard wood floors and a stage. The stage acts as our "storage", but the floor has been used for roller skating, scooters, and both girls learned to ride their bikes on this floor. How many kids can say they learned to ride their bike in the house. Our dream was to make this room a game room as well as an activity center for the girls. Here is where we are so far. John got the ping pong table for Father's Day. The pool table and air hockey table are thanks to "Craig's List". We were able to get them at a good price and now our game room is too much fun. It is great because the skates and scooters can still be ridden around the tables because their is plenty of room.

Well, I know it has been a while since I have posted and for that I am sorry. We have been crazy with swim team and general summer stuff. These are some pictures of our trip to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. We were able to go in June and are looking forward to going again in the fall. We watched a couple of IMAX movies and had a great time.

We are done with swim team now and are looking forward to playing without a schedule for a week or two.

We are taking a break from the house project for the month of August. We are running temperatures between 100 and 110. It is already 95 degrees and it is only 10:00 am. We are thinking of resuming the project in September.

We had our neice Rachel over this week and had a great time with her. Our friends from Bellingham, the Hendrickson's, are here for the weekend and we are having a great time with them. Currently, Kim and I are sitting at the table both updating our blogs. It is so great to have them here.