{What a Star}

I was one proud cousin Tuesday night when Miss Katie Berch made her public singing debut by singing the National Anthem to open up the Boise Hawks game. She was so confident and really belted it out beautifully. Plus she looked gorgeous in her fun summery dress.

Kate goofing around with her pal Alex before the game.

A broken but healing proud Aunt Lena.
(We get awesome seats in the handicapped section this year thanks to my mom's broken leg.)

The well-poised 14-year-old taking her stage like she's been doing it for years.

A beautiful girl singing a beautiful song on a beautiful night. Too bad it wasn't followed by a beautiful Hawks win. Oh well.

(Sidenote: I cannot believe how grown up Katie has become. She has morphed from a kid to a mini adult in the last few years - it's crazy! Love that girl...)

Packing...

...it's a family affair at our house!

Poor Neglected Blog

Our little blog has been so sad and neglected lately. Sorry blog and sorry readers. I've been behind on posts for awhile now and then life threw us a curveball (one we've been hoping for actually) so unfortunately we won't be back on track for a little while longer. The curveball is that we're moving back to Boise! Casey landed a fantastic job up there and is going back next weekend. I'll be following with all of our things at the end of June/beginning of July. So between packing, job hunting, house hunting, and wrapping up our life in AZ we're a little busy :-) There are lots of changes in our life right now and we're so excited about them. We'll keep you posted once we get a chance to catch our breath...

Because posts are more fun with pictures, here is a random smattering of what we've been up to the last few months:

New Neighbors

We live at the base of some "mountains" (large hills, really) so we get our fair share of wildlife around here on a routine basis. Bunnies, lizards, and javelina are the usuals. I don't mind any of these. The bunnies are kinda cute, the lizards small, and though they eat our landscaping (cactus), the javelina don't really bother me.

Last year I saw a roadrunner on our street. That was a rare, but fun sighting!

Lately, though, we've had some new visitors that I don't really like having so close to home. Last week Casey and I were sitting in the living room - I happened to look out the window and there was a bobcat walking past our patio. A bobcat! Casey maintains that it wasn't much bigger than one of our cats but I would say he was the size of a medium to large dog. It was crazy to see such, well, wild wildlife literally right outside our window.

And then today, I was vacuuming the living room, happened to look outside and saw a snake slithering by the patio. Ew. I really dislike snakes. I know we live in the desert and I know they are "out there" - I just don't like seeing them so close!

Again, I know that we live in the desert. I know that all of these critters were here before we were, but I'd appreciate it if the bobcats and snakes would stay out of our backyard. The bunnies can visit anytime though :-)

(Photo credits: bunny, lizard, javelina, road runner, bobcat, snake)

Winter Adventure Pictures

We finally got our disposable camera

from our ski/snowboard adventure developed. Enjoy!