.: "is that your first tumbleweed, honey?” :.

what a weekend! dave and i worked on friday and hit the road on our way to idaho about 4 o’clock. i don’t think i was mentally prepared for the drive ahead of us. i was just so excited to be heading out to visit brent, ruth, lil’ brent, sarah, jake, penny and maralyn and robert. we hauled the whole way down there. few stops on the way and only if they were absolutely necessary. our last necessary stop was to get gas on this lonely highway just outside of hailey. it was a scene straight out of a horror flick. complete with tumbleweeds, and a vacant motel with the “o-t-e” burnt out on its sign. when the gas pump shut off it made this huge clanging sound and i’ve never jumped back in the car so fast as i did right then. pretty sure i tripped on the blanket i had wrapped around me. anyways- we hit the road and made it safely to brent’s dwelling at about 2:30 our time, 3:30 idaho time. we said quick hello’s to those awake enough to greet us and both brent’s who came home after doing a spot of cable work in the middle of the night. then we hit the sack. literally- the hope’s have this HUGE bean bag that dave and i both fit on. this thing was incredible! we quickly jumped on that and rapidly fell asleep.

saturday morning came quick, however we were ready to get up and see what sun valley (and brent) had planned for us. we ate a little breakfast, said hi to the sleepy heads, and hit the road for the first of the tours. brent, ruth and penny showed us around their town of hailey. what an adorable, quaint town. we stopped at a few places and headed home to wait for maralyn and robert to arrive. how great to see them! i had only met maralyn once last summer and had yet to meet robert. once they arrived we had a quick lunch and hopped back in the car for the big tour. we cruised through hailey again and in to sun valley. brent was sure to point out all the celebrity’s houses. felt like an authentic ‘star tour’. we stopped at this small shopping village that was simply delightful. dave and i picked up our commemorative golf ball there. we all splurged on some fudge and walked around in the beautiful sun. we snapped a few pictures and headed back to the car. once we got back to chateau hope that huge bean bag sucked dave and i in again and we took a quick power nap. brent woke us up to hit the slopes. i’ve never said that before! we rounded up all our gear and piled into the truck. brent, lil brent, dave, penny and i all headed to the mountain. tubing was SO amazing! we hiked up to the top and let ‘er rip. dave and i flew down that mountain so fast. i had no idea that was what i was getting myself in to! as we came to an adrenaline pumping stop we flipped and i landed smack in the middle of a huge mudd puddle and dave landed right on top of me! you would have thought we were in a romantic comedy where the two love birds accidentally fall down together and steal a kiss. we hiked back to the top even higher than the time before and we all went down at the same time. brent, lil brent, and penny all on one tractor tube, and dave and i on the other. what a blast! penny was the one to land in that nasty mudd puddle on this run- but what a great sport she was. you can tell she’s a tough cookie for being the baby of 7. we had an absolute amazing time! dave and i will try and get the video from brent and post it on here. we headed home and got cleaned up for a delicious dinner prepared by ruth. she made a scrumptious stir-fry that we all devoured.

saturday night was reserved for decorating eggs. some amazing talent at their dinner table. you can check out The Daily Item for the top ten eggs... and vote! i showed penny how my family blows eggs... bless her heart she rocked it out!

sunday morning came, and happy easter! we had a leisurely morning and then dave and i went and explored hailey a little by ourselves. we stopped at a cute little coffee shop and tried this cream cheese jalapeño thing that was a little goofy, but good. we walked around in the sun for a bit and headed back to the house. the whole gang rounded up to play some basketball, walk the dogs and a spot of bocce ball! it was brent, lil brent, dave and i who played. pretty sure dave and i won... oh wait... yeah, it was the brent’s who won. that was a way fun time and i know dave and i will be playing again and again. there was yet another feast prepared for easter dinner. the meat was amazing- well, i heard the meat was amazing. couldn’t tell ya from experience though. everything else was delectable. we wrapped up the night with a game of apples to apples (a schaeperkoetter/hope favorite).

we hit the road monday morning about 8:30. hugged and kissed our family goodbye... tears rolling down our cheeks as we drove away. okay, no tears, but almost! we had sun almost the whole way home, hit a tumbleweed- oops, my bad. and about 10 and a half hours later dave and i were pulling in our driveway. home sweet home. and back to reality.

what a wonderful trip we had. it was so great to visit with everyone. next time we’ll be taking the girls out there to visit this magical town and phenomenal family.
we’re celebrating easter with the girls on sunday. chloe has ballet tomorrow and lily has baseball games both tomorrow and saturday. we’ll just be dragging ella along to all the activities- she keeps us entertained.

until next time...

kb. aka zoe.

*photos courtesy of brent hope*

.:just thursday:.

dave and i are headed to idaho for the weekend. his mom and her boyfriend are headed out to brent's from utah. we thought we could make the trek to idaho and crash their party. dang, maybe we should have planned to surprise maralyn and robert... only have brent and ruth know. dangit! oh well... maybe another time. we are very excited to see everyone and brent's house. we are leaving tomorrow after work, i get off at 2:30 as usual, but we're not sure what time dave will get off. we'll just be ready to head out whenever he gets home.

we get to hang out with the girls tonight... only until 8. this 'visiting' thing feels pretty weird. they're not supposed to just 'visit'... they live with us. this is their home. i'm still adjusting to it and don't really care for it too much. which leads me to wonder how the heck the girls are doing with this.

ella called dave upset the other morning. she wanted to know where we were, and she wanted to hang out with us. she wanted to spend the night... broke dave's heart as he had to just power through and tell her we loved her and would see her soon. when he told me, my heart broke along with his and ella's.

you can't tell me this is best for everyone.

the schaeperkoetter/detert/leonard/lago/schroeder/levesque/bibbons annual easter is happening this year at ma's- sans my fruit pizza. easter is one of my most favorite holiday's at my ma's house. it seems so relaxed and chill compared to the others (not that the others are in any way filled with undying traditions and schedules and routine and must-haves and must-do's). easter is just easter- in a good way. so we're a little bummed we'll be missing easter at mom's, but so incredibly stoked to spend a holiday with the hope's. maybe someone could video-tape the easter egg hunt so dave really believes me when i tell him he needs a helmet and shin guards. anyone? anyone?!

chris- don't give in to ryan's pleas.

i think i'll wrap up here... can you tell it's a slow week at work? someone should tell me to quit writing.

i hope everyone is well... seems a bit like a relative term these days. i wish everyone the best, and a great holiday weekend.

shall report more later...

xokb.

.:tea time at work:.

my great friend jenny and i at work share the quotes on our tea bags when we feel they are worthy to share... we’ve had some great ones. including the one i keep in my wallet that states “truth is everlasting”.

the one she sent me this morning- right after i finished the below blog... was so appropriate. i know i’m not biologically a mother, but i do now have three bonus girls... dave and i were able to make this weekend incredibly beautiful with the great chaos that is three girls under 9.

“Mother-love is not inevitable. The good mother is a great artist ever creating beauty out of chaos.”
--Alice Randall
Novelist, The Wind Done Gone and the first black woman to write a #1 country song.

enjoy a cup of tea today... maybe iced thanks to the sun!

.:happy birthday lily:.

what a weekend! the weather, lily’s birthday, dave and my anniversary today.

friday we picked the girls up from school and headed home to change our clothes and go back to AJ to play basketball and on the big toys. we were going to spend as much time in this beautiful seattle spring sun as possible. we wore ourselves out and headed home for some grub. eventually chloe asked to go to bed, so we tucked ‘em all in and dave and i continued to do some work around the house. lily’s birthday was on saturday... and she requested eggs and bacon for breakfast. really? really?! well, it was her birthday not mine, so i touched the bacon (i know, right?) and layed out the gnarly pieces of “meat” and dave handled the eggs. i really couldn’t do both. thankfully we had some cantelope to round out the meal... we had chloe’s ballet class on saturday morning and then lily’s first baseball game right after. lily smacked the baseball pretty dang hard the one at-bat she had. she was the mvp this game... i think. what a busy, exciting morning. chloe continues to learn her recital dance. lily looked adorable in her pink baseball tee-shirt and hat. and ella just goes where she is told. and does it just about flawlessly.

we headed home for a quick snack and power nap before heading out to meet carl, debby and eric at southcenter. lily’s (reasonable) birthday wish was to have a shopping spree. my wonderful parents, carl and debby and dave and i were able to team up and give lil a bit of a spree. ma, lil and i headed to the girls section at macy’s and the boys took chloe and ella out to the play area in the mall. the spotlight was on lily. she had a hay-day just grabbing different outfits to try on and different pieces to play with. she was really amped on these pink and black acid wash punk rock jeans, but the 7 was too small and 8 was way too big... c’mon macy’s! so she voted those jeans off the island, and picked some other phenomenal items. she got two pairs of jeans, both quite cute, but the first pair has these rockin’ pockets on the bootie and are so very cute. she also got this long shirt/dress that has lace, a silver belt and a couple necklaces attached. she also picked out a tee, a vest, scarf, hoodie, and leggings... oh.my.gosh. she scored! the leggings are adorable and will be worn quite a bit. ma, lil and i all picked stuff out and ma picked out some really rockin’ things. so we tallied up the ‘yes pile’ and lily had to play ‘total drama island’ and vote some things off. she ended up with items she adores. thank you so much for your time and generousity, carl and m<3mma.

after meeting back up with the boys, chloe and ella, we headed to red robin. ma and carl treated us all to a wonderful birthday dinner complete with “cherry temples”, balloons and ice cream. we saw pictures of their trip to san antonio, laughed and some of us (okay, lily) almost had ice cream come out our noses! what a wonderful brithday celebration for lily and us all. here is the first of many HUGE thank you’s from the schaeperkoetter-hope’s to the schaeperkoetter-detert’s. we love you all so very much. thank you from the bottom of my heart.

saturday night dave and i stayed up super late baking lily’s cake... putting together the goodie bags for our guests on sunday, scrubbing the house, painting... what else? hanging doors back up, painting a bit more, dishes, dusting, and talking. well, i do most of the talking, but dave’s a wonderful listener. *wink* we finally crashed out and woke up bright and early to get our birthday party day started. i headed to grocery outlet to save a few coins and have a few bits for people to nibble on. the girls were absolutely amazing and helped out all day long. i stepped outside to go to the store at about 8:30, and as i was leaving the girls were already asking dave what they could do because they were bored (haha)... i stuck my head back inside and told them to come outside because it was already so warm. they were outside when i got home enjoying this glorious break from the rain... we all rallied and got the house in tip-top shape for lily’s birthday party. we had our great friends over to lily’s celebration complete with candy, a pinata, sprinkler, and melt-down’s. we ran ourselves into the ground from all the partying but i think lily had quite the birthday weekend.

the girls were picked up at 7, and just like that they were gone. that was the worst part of the whole weekend. we look forward to spending some more time with them on thursday. deep breath.



dave and i met 10 months ago today... we try and say an extra ‘i love you’ on the 6th of every month. i don’t think we have missed one yet. i’m more excited to see him when i get home tonight than i ever have been... so i think we’re doing something right. or we’re just dang lucky. either way... i wouldn’t want to be anyone else’s first mate.

storm is calming? that may be wishful thinking, but the break in downpoor is nice. just hold fast for the next spell.

love....kb.

.:so accomplished:.

so, my older brother robby was asked to guest teach at a design high school in california.

i am so incredibly proud of both my brothers. robby’s talents exceed much that i’ve seen out in the world.

i’m stoked to continue to hear about his amazing accomplishments.

love you robby. congratulations.