Eli's Sunbeam Party

Eli's church class got together for smoothies and fun. Their teacher, Sister Johnson, is so sweet and patient with the kids, even when they are rowdy! She decided to have a party at her house and everyone came to have a good time.

Eli and Mason are great buddies and also very loud in irreverant in class. We always have to remind Eli to listen and do his best to sit still.

Mason, Eli, Aubrey, Aspen, and Ashton

 Eli going down the slip and slide

 The water is pretty cold because it is coming from the water hose. BRRRRRR!

 We brought twister for them to play as well and the kids loved it. Sister Johnson is holding one of the corners down and the kids are trying to figure out which foot is the left foot to place on the blue.

 In the action.  Eli and Aspen doing their best to stay up.

 Jordyn crawled into the sprinkler and started freaking out because it was so cold.

 I gave her a cookie and she calmed down easily.

 Sister Johnson also has chickens and the kids got to feed them and collect their eggs.

 The chickens like the weeds that grow on the side of their coop. Eli really liked to watch the chickens.

I think it was good for the kids to see eachother outside of church. They had a lot of fun together and hopefully they won't fight so much in their classes.

Harvest Time Again

It is harvest time again for the the grain and since grain is what surrounds our house, we enjoy the sights and sounds of the machinery as they go back and fourth across the field. Usually, my first reaction is that we are having a small earthquake, but then I realize that it is just a huge machine with tons of power behind it, rumbling by.

My kids were playing out in the back yard and Gary, Bishop Dial on Sundays, stopped and said that he is offering free rides to all the Heath kids. 

 The drivers seat is incased in glass so that they can see almost a 360 degree radius. Gary told the kids to watch for cats in case he needed to stop.

 He actually doesn't like cats and would probably say if the cat is dumb enough to not move, he's not going to stop for them. But...I think he would stop with my kids on the rig, we don't want to tramatize them!

 Gary is always so nice to my kids. He is a great neighbor and a great bishop.

I don't normally have allergies but with all those grain particles swirling around I couln't help sneezing all day long. It is a good thing that I like to sneeze. Luckily it only lasted one day, I might have gotten annoyed with it if I constantly sneezed every day.

Jared thinks that I might be developing allergies though, so we will see if I enjoy harvest season in the future.

I've had ENOUGH!

To Whom It May Concern,                                                                                             August 22, 2011


I am a concerned parent and I don’t know who to write to or contact. I wish that I could have a police man parked right outside my house every day to ensure that people are following the traffic rules posted for New Sweden Hwy. I see laws broken all the time living on New Sweden and it makes me angry that my children are being put in such danger. Since there were so many people who complained about the speed of New Sweden Hwy being too slow, the city was kind enough to oblige them and return what once was a nice safe speed of 35 mph back up to 50 mph. Yes, the new Riverview School is not facing the highway and so why worry about the safety of the kids when you have adults in a hurry to get somewhere and need that extra 18 seconds to get to work. Who cares about the kids that are waiting on the side of the road for the bus to pick them up. Speeding cars can zoom by without a thought for the kids because they need to get to work. Oh sure, during school hours, they may need to slow down to 40 mph “for the children” but hey, when you are in a hurry, you can still go at least 45 mph. The police wouldn’t pull you over for going 45. Could you not have had the decency to at least make the speed limit 20 mph during school hours? Stop thinking about the complaints you may have to filter through for a few months until people get use to the new speed and think about countless accidents that can be prevented by lowering the speed limit back down to a safe number. Don’t you think the safety of people more important than a few seconds saved as you travel to work?

Just this morning, the school bus pulled up to our house. Normally, our bus driver will wait until all the cars have stopped before she waves to my girls that it is safe to cross the street to get on her bus. Luckily, today my kids were late getting out of the house instead of waiting at the edge of our lawn. As the young man who lives across the street was getting on the bus, a car, which should have stopped, zoomed by the bus even though the flashing lights and stop sign were up. Had my girls been crossing at that time, a serious accident would have occurred. This is just my thinking, but if the speed limit is lower, people tend to notice more things happening around them. When I am trying to maintain a slower speed, I see the kids at the cross walk, I see the bus stop lights, I see the kids crossing the street…and here’s the kicker, I have time to stop!

What’s going to happen when winter comes and that wonderful Idaho wind sends a nice snowy ice drift across New Sweden? Who can stop a car that is going 40-45 mph before hitting my girls as they cross the street? Even though it may be hard to stand up to the complainers who want to speed through New Sweden Hwy, let’s think Safety First! Let’s do what is right and lower the speed limit back down to 35 mph. If you can’t handle that, then at least have the decency of putting the speed limit at 20 mph during school hours. Otherwise, I invite a police officer and EMT ambulance to park in my driveway to be ready to catch violators or save my child from injuries after being rammed by a speeding vehicle.

Hope that you are listening,

Courtney Heath

I sent this letter to the editor and I am getting other people on my street to write in as well. Hopefully, with our city being so kind and switching the speed limit back up, with enough complaints in the other direction, those yellow bellies will change again.

First Day of School

I am sad to say that school has started again. This summer was such a great summer for our family. We did all that we could to spend time together doing anything from running in the sprinklers, going to the library, swimming, camping, and bike riding.

Now, it all changes to early morning rising, homework, practices, and eventually....snow. Most people are happy when summer ends and school starts but I am sad.

However, my kids are very excited for school and I think that this year is going to be a great year for them. Lexie will charm her teacher as usual, and Kenzie Kenz has a teacher that is loud and silly and just like Jared and me. I think that will be great because she won't be able to hide like she has with all her other teachers.

The night before school started with the girls freshly showered.

Jordyn, Me, Alexis, Mackenzie, Dad, and Eli

We talked to the girls about the routine for the mornings starting with wake up, get dressed, go potty, eat, brush teeth, brush hair, scriptures, prayers, wait for bus.

We had scriptures with the girls.

Jared and the girls pose for their first day of school.

I love that my girls are still so close! They may fight alot, but they also love each other a lot!

Mackenzie is in Second Grade and Lex is in First Grade.

Jared was giving the girls some last minute advice.  Listen to your teachers, be friends to all kids, work hard, be a missionary, have fun.

I love that they are holding hands while waiting for the bus.

My sweet princessess!

The bus arrives and the girls walk across the street to get on it. I love that our bus driver has them wait until traffic has completely stopped and then she waves them across with it is safe.

Eli and Jordyn and I hang out at home having a fun time and wait for the rest of our family to get back from their adventures at school.

Idaho Falls Youth Jam

Every year Idaho Falls puts on this activity on the green belt next to the Temple where you can do all sorts of fun stuff with the kids. It is a whole bunch of businesses promoting themselves but they aren't pushy, they just give you cards and such but then have an activity for the kids to do. The kids loved it.

Here we were at the Habitat for Humanity booth where our friend, Shawn, works. We put together these wooden mini golf houses that the kids could play with. It was pretty fun to put them together with the kids.

 Two of Jared's brothers got parts in the play Hairspray and so they were promoting the musical that will be playing in November. It you want to come. Byron, shown below, is playing Corny Collins and Dusty go the part of the mom. He gets to put on a fat suite and walk around in heals. It should be fun to go and watch them.

 The Hairspray booth let you spray your hair all sorts of different colors. The kids all loved that! Eli chose the color blue and got a mohawk done. He looked so so so freaking cute!

 The kids also got fake tattoo's and so we told them to give us a mean face and this is what they came up with.

Eli and Kenzie got tats on their arms and Lex went with one on her leg.

 To complete their new looks, they also got their faces painted. Eli's snake on his face was pretty fitting for his new wild life. Jordyn got a heart painted on her cheek and she held still the whole time. She didn't even try to rub it off afterwards.

 Now that Eli is a wild crazy blue mohawked tattooed little boy, he thought that banging around and trying to break things with sticks was an obvious choice for his new bad to the bone lifestyle.

 Playing with the hula hoops is another obvious choice for my little hooligans.

 When it was all over, we headed back to the car, with the kids begging for water because they were so hot and so thirsty. We stopped and got them some kiddie cones and waters and relaxed the rest of the day.

Camping at Bear Lake

In all Jared's years of living here in Southeast Idaho, Jared has not ever camped at Bear Lake. So, we thought that we would try it out. It was great because we were meeting up with my brother, Jamie and his family, so it was a nice central location...they live in Utah.

We loaded up the car with as much stuff as we could fit and headed out on our way. As you can see, we were pretty full. We took out one of the captain's chairs to make room for ice coolers, and totes full of camping supplies.

We went to Cloverleaf campground just outside of St. Charles. It was so beautiful. It reminded me of home with all the mountains around and tall green trees. I loved it, Jared starts to feel claustrophobic when he can't see the expanse of the sky. He likes to see a storm coming and have hours to prepare verses here in this little canyon with only 15 minute warnings as the storm clouds crest over the mountains.

We went to Bear Lake's North Beach one of our days camping. It was amazing. Bear Lake is called the Caribbean of Idaho. It is True!

A typical picture with my baby Jordyn at the beach.

A typical picture of Eli on the beach. He is so funny because he never gets wet above his waist and he always wants to wear his life jacket anyways.

Two hot momma's lounging in the sun, Melissa and me.

The sand was really fine there. Very soft on your feet. The kids liked playing in the sand because there were little crab shells or snail shells all over that they enjoyed collecting...I won't tell them that they "accidentally" got thrown away later while we were cleaning out the car once we got home.

Eli, Lexie, Jordyn, and Mack

My brother, Jamie showing off the Strong muscles...imagine reading that in an Arnold voice. Do you also notice how pretty a blue the water is?

This is an even better view of the lake....so so so  pretty!

The really cool thing about the lake was that is stayed shallow for at least 100 yards out. No kidding! Jared was out past the boat in this picture and it still only went to his waist. I loved it! My favorite part of playing at the beach was when we played water volleyball. Because of the shallowness of the water, it was really warm and so we could all stand in it and play around an d if you went under the water, you didn't freeze to death afterwards! I loved seeing Jared go for the ball and it totally slip through the set he was making and nail himself in the face. So funny!

Jamie and Carson, my nephew, were playing baseball and when I went to hit the ball, I broke the bat with my womanly strength and it bent right in half.

On Friday, the weather cooled down a bit and so we hung around camp and just played games and lounged. I love just hanging out while camping!

I was playing cribbage with Jamie and he had all these messed up rules to the game. He tried to take extra points for crossing the skunk line first and so I had to teach him about how you just get to move your extra match piece one more peg if you finish before the other person passes the skunk line. He tried to use the jokers and do all sorts of tricks, but Jared and I quickly put him in his place and taught him the right way to play the game.

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We got glow sticks for the kids but Jamie and I had more fun with them.

 On Thursday night there was thunder storm that had flash upon flash upon flash of lighting followed by thunder that was so loud and just rumbled and vibrated through your body. It was so cool. I love thunderstorms. 

We've done two camping trips this summer and both were a success.

BBQ with the Old Roomies

I feel really blessed to have such good friends! These girls are my old roommates in college. Yes, even 9 years later we are still good friends.  We had so much fun together and we still do! 18 kids later and we still got it!

Top Row, left to right: Mindy, Emily, Harmony,

Bottom Row: Annie, Sarah, and me (Courtney)

 The best part is, our husbands were all roommates or High School buddies too. So when we all get together, there are good times had all around. We all love to reminisce about "old" times.  Who dated who, what pranks did we do to each other, good teachers and bad teachers...that sort of stuff.

Top Row: Kory...the goofball!

Bottom Row: Brandon, Kelley (We were sad that Amber couldn't make it!) Jared, James, and Rodney

It is nice to have friendships that last, but it is also better that we are all still so close. Most of us went our separate ways ranging from Alaska to Washington D.C. and from Texas to Washington state, and yet, we ended up back here together. Here's to my great girlfriends who married great guys!

Pictures of Randomness!

In the car with a few of my sisters, Me, Sharon, Nancy, and Autumn

 Jordyn fell asleep at the beach and so I layed her down on the chair while we gathered up all our stuff.

 Eli and me just chillin' together

 We went to blast off, a glorified McDonald's playground place and Jordyn, Lexie and I had fun crawling through the tunnels.

 Jordyn getting messy with her peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

 Lexie combing grandpa Weber's very fine hair.