I regret not taking MORE pictures!

Because tonight we're going to party like it's 1999...and we did! I was up waaaaaaaaay past my bedtime and was able to party and dance the night away at my 10 year reunion. It was such a blast and I'm so glad that I went. I saw former classmates that haven't changed (which I expected) and saw some former friends that I lost touch with and have rekindled with (which I didn't expect!) All in all it was a fantastic night.
Brooke Anderson and I made it a Girl's Night and left the kids home. Since I haven't seen her in 10 years, it was so nice to catch up and be there together. Thanks, Brooke, for a WONDERFUL memory! And thanks again for all those tootsie rolls that "accidentally" fell into my purse!



Brooke Ewing Anderson, me and Dawn Christensen Dougal

Me and Becca Miller Robison

I am THRILLED that I ran into my old friend! Steve and I used to "jam" and we'd get together to play Smashing Pumpkins and other fun music. Me on the piano and him on his rockin' guitar.

Summer Carringer Wilson, Kendra Severine, Lauren Parry, me and Katie Hansen Givens.

Beautiful girls!! Julie Weyerman Puckett and Amy Vail Hamlin.
Bethany Rudd Tuft dancing it up, and because of the delay of my ancient camera, I was only able to get the BACK half of her!
Summer Carringer Wilson and her husband TJ were dancing it up too, Summer is in the middle of her spin!
Julie dancing away
Bryan Hurd and his absolutely adorable wife. They sat still through THREE pictures because of my stupid camera delay.
Jon and Cathy Taylor
The band "Octane" played and were pretty good! I enjoyed listening to them. My ears rang afterwards because it was SOOOOOO loud!
Amy Willis and her husband danced the ENTIRE night. I actually was the first one to dance with him, he grabbed my hand and we were the only two out there. It was so fun!
Lauren Parry and her boyfriend Corey visiting from SLC. It's also her birthday TODAY, so Happy Birthday old friend!
Danielle Thomas and Billee Jensen were so excited to see each other, I HAD to get this picture. It was so fun to see old friends.

It was held at the Basque Center downtown. I hadn't been there before, it was a nice place.

Adam Nielson won a 1999 tee shirt from the raffle and WORE it! I wanted to get his picture, I had this shirt at one point, but since have lost track of it. Christy Collins hopped in the picture too. I believe that Matt Bodett designed the shirt, I remember him being an amazing artist.

Me, Tiffany Barbour, Natalie Thomas, Billee Jensen. I haven't seen these faces in years!

Adam and Christy again.

There are MORE! I need to get in touch with the others who were snapping pictures, I didn't get enough!!! I should have gotten a picture of me and Brooke at the end of the night, I don't think my feet have hurt like that in YEARS. Plus I was too hyper to sleep after I got home from the event, I didn't go to sleep for a long time! And I could hardly talk because my poor voice was shot. It was such a fun night!!

dawson's dilemma

Dawson REALLY REALLY wanted to get the mail and had asked if he could go get it and I told him that he could. After a few minutes, he came in with a stack and threw it on the table beside me.

It wasn't at all uncommon for our mail to sometimes be mixed up with our neighbor's and visa versa. The first bill on the stack was our neighbor's. And so was the next one. And the next one. I realized that ALL of the pieces of mail did NOT belong to us! I called for Dawson:

"Daws, did you know that these belong to our neighbor? Our mailbox is the white one, did you get the mail out of the white one? Which box did you get them from?"

"Well, the black one. The white one didn't have anything in it!"

when daddy studied

While Ryan was studying for the last several weeks, the kids and I had to keep ourselves busy with activities. I unpacked and got settled. The kids did other things such as:

Rode scooters,

Played in the water in the backyard,
Rode scooters some more,

Soaked up rays,

Collected ants,

Fought alongside of clones and destroyed the Death Star,
Rode bikes (in our pajamas!),
Rode our bikes some more,
Went on a middle-of-the-night Burger King run because it was too hot to sleep,


Ate a Kit Kat but decorated the surroundings more than consumed it,

Just played and goofed off,

AND stayed in our pajamas all day long!

Okay, we also worked really hard. We did our chores and made sure that we stayed out of Daddy's way. Thank goodness that the bar exam is over, hip hip hooray!

summer fun with the strattons!

Our sweet friends that we met in law school came through town last week. It was so fun to see them, but weird too! It was weird because we've only seen their faces in MOSCOW and never in Boise. We stayed up way too late, at yummy food, caught up on old times and played in the pool.

I think this is Hunter. ??

I think this blur of red hair is Emma jumping in.

Issy being all cute in the pool
Carter was too cold to swim for long, so I took him out early.
Cute Will enjoying a snack.
The whole gang!
Right after this was taken, Dawson yelled, "Bye Hunter! I love you!" I know he wishes he had an older brother like Hunter! Dawson has always looked up and admired him.
Issy and Carter were so cute, made Dawson jealous though!!
One time Dawson had tears in his eyes and came up to me just SOBBING. I finally was able to coax out of him what the problem was. He said, "I told Issy that she's my girlfriend and I'm her boyfriend and she said nooooooooooooooooo!" I told him that he didn't need girlfriends at his age anyway and that she would always be his friend no matter what. He didn't seem phased and said, "I'll just make her be my girlfriend anyway." I said okay.



We love you Strattons!