This will be my last blog, before we head out for our final summer vacation. Sorry still no pictures, that camera still cannot be found anywhere!

(6) Wednesday-
8pm Maas' pick up Maas' from airport
(7) Thursday-
6 am Breakfast Head to 6 mile/ Service Project
Robinson Family Reunion
(8) Friday-
Jeff and Ann...whom ever else attend a Manti Temple Session
Reunion/ 12 noon leave for Ding & Dang Canyon (all invited to go)
Amy Stevenson Reception
(9) Saturday-
9 am Family Pictures
Skousen Dinner/ Grandma Nodzu coming?
1 Catherine's Twins Baby Shower
Tasha Time
1-2 Frisbee Golf with Jeff's Friends
5 Fudrucker's Friends Dinner
(10) Sunday-
Church with Maas'
Maas Family Day/Dinner
(11) Monday-
Temple session?
Jeff meet with BYU
Ann Lunch with Lyndsey Henderson (What time Lynds works best for you?)
Hale Center Theater with Garren and Becky Maas (Doreen watch kids)
(12) Tuesday-
4 am Hike Timpanogus (all invited to go)
Noon: Lunch With Tasha
5 pm Maas' Siblings Dinner.... where? Not sure yet? NO KIDS so find sitters!
(13) Wednesday-

5 am Robinson's return us to the airport, and we fly back to IN

Cute kids

This Week....

Well we are now only 2 days away from leaving for Utah and we are REALLY excited !!! We hope to spend a lot of time with both families since, it will be our last time to see Jeremiah (my brother) and Erin (Jeff's sister) before they put in their mission papers and leave for far off "exotic countries", in search of those willing to receive the gospel! The Robinson's have planned our FIRST Family Reunion and as long as we don't get rained out it should be a lot of fun...well even if we get some rain, it will still be great!................... Hey are there going to be Tee-Shirts at this reunion to keep up with tradition?

This past week has been a little crazy, but its now over. Like usual, Jeff's professor just gave him his "to do" list before he is to leave, so Jeff has spent a lot of time at school finishing his projects and finishing new ones as well. He's such a hard worker and hasn't complained at all, :) So I make up for it grumbling about it and then expressing my thankfulness for the trip this week.

We had fun rearranging Day Care for our kids, we went from having someone lined up to finding out that they are graduating and could leave any time. Then Purdue called and had room for our kids in their new program, on campus. So we will now have the kids on campus with us, which is really cool, because this program will let us come and visit them anytime we want.

So now we are packing up our bags and getting ready to leave. Since our flight doesn't leave till the afternoon of the 6th our plan is to take the kids to the Children's Museum and give them a few hours to run themselves to the ground. The Museum is only a few minutes from the airport, we are hoping that they fall asleep as soon as they sit down on the plane. :) ( Ha ha ha its a good plan!)

So to all our family in UT, we'll see you soon, as for everyone else, Have a great week!

Ann & The Family

My Big Helper

Ehre was sooo cute this morning. (Ben too but he just played along) I was upstairs getting dressed, Jeff had just left for school. Ehre was hungry and I told her that I would be right down. When I came down, she had set the table with bowls and spoons, and was pouring out the cereal. She even went as far as to make sure that each of us received our favorite. Ben= Honey Bunches of Oats, Mommy= Banana Crunch, and Ehre= Rice Crispy's. She told me to sit down and I poured some milk. Then after a little bit she told me that she was thirsty so she got up and pulled out the juice and a cup.....

..... that is when I realized where she had gotten the dishes, from the dishwasher....minor problem....we forgot to start it last night.

So we had breakfast in dirty dishes, but that's OK, I had a big helper and I was so proud of her!

Gospel Principle: Praying for Help

Thank goodness for the Friend, it really helps us teach Ehre gospel lessons. Yesterday the Aug. Friend arrived, so we sat down during Ben's nap to read. We read a bunch of different stories then we came across the Matt & Mandy. The story went something like this....

Family in the Car
Car breaks down
Frustrated Dad looks under the hood
Matt: Lets say a prayer.
Dad insists on checking cables
Matt: Lets say a prayer.
Dad wants to call a tow truck.
Matt:LETS SAY A PRAYER!!!
Surprised family agrees.
Prayer is said that the car will work, and they'll be able to continue on their way.
...car starts....happy family
Dad realizes that he should have prayed first.

So then Ehre and I discussed the story and what happened. I wanted to apply it to Ehre's life, so I asked her if we needed help with anything. I gave her a clue that sometimes we ask for help when we can't find something. She remembered that we were missing our camera. I asked her if she wanted to say a prayer that Heavenly Father would help us find our camera. She said OK and offered the sweetest prayer.

Later we were driving in the car and she was really happy and talking to herself. I asked her what she was talking about. She said that there was someone at our house. I asked her who, and she said.

Jesus, and he's looking for our camera!


...While the camera is still missing and my lack of faith may be the problem ( I still think that Ben threw it away) Ehre learned a lesson, and I hope that she doesn't forget it.

:)

My two beautiful kids. Life wouldn't be as wonderful with out them! They both are growing up so fast. Ehre watched Beauty and the Beast with me for the first time this weekend. She loved it! Ben was fascinated when we watched Peter Pan. I have so many fond memories of watching Disney movies with my siblings... I hope that my children appreciate the good story lines as much as we did.

Benjamin still doesn't say much, we get a ya and na (yes/n0) but that's it right now...hopefully more words will come soon. Ehre is doing well with learning her letters, we work on them every day. She loves helping us out, and is very obedient.

Jeff and I are so blessed to be stewards over these two, hopefully we'll do things right and make our Father in Heaven proud of our efforts!

This week...

Summer is almost gone, its crazy, it seems like spring semester just ended!

Jeff has spent a lot of time at work this week working on his iontraps and had some god success with making them. He works so hard, and our family is so proud of him. It looks like if things go well his next projects will be incorporated with this one under the field of " microwave spectroscopy"... ( I don't really understand it). So hopefully the new proposal goes well.

The kids have been sick most of the week, there is a bug going a round that's not quite unavoidable. Ben is also cutting two more bottom teeth, which adds to the misery. We gathered friends together on the 24 to celebrate "Pioneer Day". We had a great turnout and a lot of fun. Jeff and I made homemade root beer, and just under 4 gallons were finished off at the party. Yesterday our ward had a Pioneer Breakfast, supper good food and a lot of fun and games. The kids loved it. We even had one little primary girl, crying at the end because she didn't want the games to end.

We've got one more week till we fly out to UT. We are so excited. Since, this may be our last trip out before Jeremiah and Erin go on their missions it will be good to see the family all together....actually who knows when we will go out after this one, its cheaper for us to pay for grandparents to fly out than to fly our family of four.

So its short and sweet but that is about it. We're relaxing and enjoying the last few weeks of Summer, and mentally preparing ourselves for the fall. Things are going to work out great, Jeff and I both feel strongly that this is where we ares supposed to be right now, and that both of us should be in school. With the Lord backing us up, how can we go wrong?!

We love you all, and hope to see a lot of you soon,
Ann & The Family.

Text Books and Pioneer Day

.sorry no pics the camera is still missing, and after rearranging the office and our bed room and cleaning the house its still is no where to be found....I may have to settle with this horrible feeling that Benjamin may have accidentally put it in a garbage can!....

Well, I've now been able to acquire 1/2 of my needed textbooks...and I already have 8 !!! Gosh, these professors at Purdue must be nuts. I've ready two of the supplemental books all ready and they were interesting I'll try and tackle another one this week....it can't hurt to have a head start on this "light reading".

Today is Pioneer Day, we will be celebrating it hopefully with a TON of friends. We've sent out an invitation to all in the area, to have a potluck dinner at 5. We'll provide the homemade root beer and ice cream so hopefully that will be a good incentive for people to stop by!

Thinking of Pioneers, Jeff and I recently spent an evening perusing through Grandpa Joe's Life History, what a man! A missionary, father, husband, good friend, frugal, wise, self sufficient, and even a friend of Ronald Regan! I am so thankful for my ancestors who have left me such a wonderful legacy to follow!

Missing Camera

Ok, I KNOW that I put it in the drawer after I uploaded our last blog pics...now where did it go?
I have this terrible horrible feeling that my kiddo's may have pulled it out...and who knows where it went....I am desperately looking anywhere, a few days ago I rounded up all the trash, please please let me find it... I hope it wasn't in there when I sent everything out!

...so yeah this means that we will have some boring posts until I can find that camera!!!

Tasha's Blog

Tasha just started her family's blog, so check it out!
http://tashajill.blogspot.com/

This week....

Hi Friends and Family-
Ehre's hair looks cute again, I took her to the stylist and she trimmed everything up. Ehre had a blast sitting in the "cool" chair with a safari cover spread over her. :) I hope that she learned her lesson, but something deep down inside of me says, maybe not. Ehre has been my big helper, I have 3 friends due in the next week, and as I started counting up how many other friends were pregnant, my list ended at 22, with 23 babies coming! So she has been helping me make burp cloths for all the babies, and its been a lot of fun. Benjamin, is transitioning, hopefully you can tell (on the blog) that his baby face is disappearing, and he is training into my toddler. Its so cute. He is ever more his mothers boy, he is slowly transitioning to nursery but still wants me as soon as its done. I feel loved, I just hope that day care doesn't kill him in a month.... a month...yeah its coming up fast. Jeff and I have everything set. I just added another class, so I'll have 15 credits and Jeff will have his 6 + research. We are both anxious for school to start...and get finished, while enjoying the time We hope that you all had just as wonderful of a week as we did, we look forward to hearing from you all. The Maas FamilyPS. As always the blog is being continuously updated.

BUNKO Group

This group of girls are SO MUCH fun, this is a monthly highlight!

Playing in the back yard

Filling up the Truck Pools Ben surfing on the wagon
Teaching Ehre that getting her head wet isn't a bad thing.

Jeff Working Hard

Its not a great picture, but here he is working in the lab near the SLA machine!

Dunking Heads

The kids love doing this whenever we get a bunch of rain and it fills up the Truck

... go figure!

Update on my Garden

Its looking good!

Jeff's Parents come for a visit.

The Water Globe...Ben loves it! The Elephant fountain
Mambo and The kids looking at the monkeys.

Happy Us!
Ehre petting Nigerian Dwarf Goats
Ehre is much smaller than a Bald Eagle
Grandpa and kids in a goffer hole.

Jeff's Parents come for a visit.

Ehre's Personal Haircut

She did this by herself, and I was quite sad when I found her....all her long curls GONE!!!...eventually they'll grow back right?

4th of July: Wisconsin

Jeff and the girls waiting for the parade to start.
Family Picture
Ehre and Sofia

Getting along...pretty well! :)

Funny Clowns...
They're getting tired allready...
Marcella and Nicho

Getting a little nap after the parade while the kids play in the pool, and Jason grills ribs and brats.

Fireworks, sorry no pics with our kids, but these two are friends of Sofia's.