THE CATES: September 2014

Labor Day Party

We had to throw one last swim party for Labor Day. It was a gorgeous day!

My sister and niece just moved here. I'm gonna LOVE getting to see them more often now!!!

Quick stop at Twisters on a beautiful evening. *We thought of you Anna!*

Arrow of Light and Rain Gutter Regatta

Aiden crossed over to Boy Scouts!!!

They made him a VERY cool plaque with a long silver arrow to symbolize the arrow of light.

Good job Aiden!!

Prairie Fire

We took advantage of a beautiful Fall day to spend some time at Prairie Fire for the day with some great friends

I caught Whitney and her bestie in the back holding hands. So Cute!!

Lunch at Rock and Brews

Yes, they actually ate dried crickets! (they were sour cream and onion flavored)

ROYALS!!

Last year for Christmas I bought Jeremy tickets to go to 3 Royals games this season. Who could have possibly guessed they would be doing so good!?! It has been so much fun going to the games. We went to our last of the 3 games and invited Jeremy's co-work and great friends to come with us.

C.A.N. Night

The Middle School has a Cardinal Activity Night a few times/year. Connor went last year but I never did... (I don't know why). I volunteered to do the Cotton Candy Machine for the first one of the year. I loved it!!

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I took though because the Cotton Candy machine was very popular and I was working hard!!

Art Fair on the Plaza

When Jeremy and I were newly dating this was one of our first dates. We always try to go back every year - when we are here. This time we even took the kids!

Have I mentioned how much I am LOVING having Tara and Tamara here!?!

Hahah... I had to take a picture to see who was taller!

Boys Choir

Connor had the opportunity to sing in an all boys choir concert. He sang with boys from all the blue valley middle schools. It was great! Connor really loves singing and has a great voice (like his daddy!)

Health Promotion Council

I guess this is a good time to announce our exciting news.... Jeremy's agency has asked him to go to Italy for 3 years. While we were trying to decide what to do I was offered a position in the same city in Italy to do what I did in Germany. With everything coming together so perfectly we felt that we needed to say yes! Soooo.... I started working already from home and got to facilitate my first Health Promotion Council via Video Conference out of Fort Leavenworth already. It seems surreal to be working with the Army again and making plans to move across the world... again!

Homecoming Parade

A really cool tradition that the elementary school does here is that all the kids get to sit outside and watch the high schoolers homecoming parade. They love it and look forward to it all year. This year I got to come and watch it too!

Worlds Of Fun

With our upcoming move our schedule was getting really tight! Aiden wanted to go to Worlds of Fun for his birthday with his best friend. We wanted to go on a Saturday but every Saturday between now and our move date was completely full! So, we decided to go on a Friday night. But... Oh My Gosh!!! I had NO IDEA that it was the Haunted night! It was seriously VERY VERY scary! In fact, there are signs everywhere saying that after 6:30pm the park is no suggested for anyone under 14!! All 4 of our kids were under 14! I was really worried....

It started out fun... I even got the kids some little props to dress up

Then the parade started... All the scary monsters were in the parade and that was when Jeremy and I had to split up. He went with the boys for the rest of the night and I tried to keep Whitney away from all the monsters. She was literally bawling when the parade started!!

Snoopy land was closed, since this was clearly no place for kids, so we hung out here for a while - it was safe.

Tamara preferred staying away from all of the scary stuff too! They played on the rides even though they were all turned off

We met up with the boys again to play some games

They did pretty good!

The arcade was safe - no monsters in here! Which also meant we were the only ones in the whole place since everyone else was here to see the monsters.

I was soooo glad Tara and Tamara were there to hang out with us too.

Funnel cakes make everything better!

We didn't leave until midnight! The kids were all sick and tired the whole drive home! We even had to stop to get some fresh air to keep them from throwing up!

Cates Family

We had a Cates party to see Jeremy's Aunt and Uncle's new home. It was fun to see everyone especially not knowing if we will see them again before we leave.

Grandpa and Marjorie. I love these 2!

Bar Mitzvah

We were invited to witness Connor's friend becoming a Bar Mitzvah!

The after party!

Nerdie Nummies

Whitney LOVES this youtube channel called Nerdie Nummies and is always bringing me recipes that are posted that she wants to make with me. Her enthusiasm and complete faith in my abilities melts my heart so I can never say no... even though they are usually completely out of my comfort zone! Well, here was a perfect example. She came to me with the idea to make a cake that looks like Candy Land. Well, we made it (kinda) and we even got to PLAY it with Chris and Jaime's kids when they stopped by to say hi while they were in town.