Random Photos from the Eventful Week!

me with some of the sweetest, cutest kids around!!!

These are some other random photos from our fun week, and a couple that aren't from that week, but we still wanted to share. This is the first night everyone came, and the girls camped out with Grandpa Dennis in the living room with thier Hannah Montana sleeping bags. This is funny, since they camped the last night too, in Grandma Carol and Grandpa John's motorhome in the front yard! They had fun this night with Dennis, and the next day when Mallory got her card games, and they played and giggled for a long time. They also did a puzzle together, of course- but they did it so quick, I didn't get the picture!

here's my gift from the girls on my team- an autographed, pink softball! So cool!!!

Becca's scriptures- blurry, but I had to take a pic to show she had gotten some on her baptism too, just to be fair! They are dark green with gold leafing and her name in fancy gold lettering...

Mallory chose blue with silver leafing and silver block lettering to match the titles on the spine (that is what she chose! :) )...

a crazy graduation shot Kris got...

Mallory writing in the fancy journal grandma Carol gave her

...and Grandma Judy, we are going to get cracking this summer on the Baptism books you gave them!!!! I will be calling and asking for you to email your testimony, etc. It will be a very special book, for sure!

and here are some Easter pictures I forgot I had taken. Don't think they made it into the Easter blog entry...

we had fun coloring eggs!

Mallory going up to bat! This may have been the time she hit a double! She is a slugger when she wants to be :)

The team shirt, compliments of an awesome team mom!!!!!

Okay, so I went over the top with photos and anecdotes, but we have had a lot of fun around here lately!!!!!

p.s.- I forgot to take a picture of my master's degree- that is the only thing missing! You can imagine it all fancy and saying Kim has a master's in school administration services! I am going to get it framed!

YES, I am a dork :)

Grandma took a pic of the girls downtown at the farmer's market. We walked around there for a while, tried to find white corn for our barbeque the next day (before Star Trek/the play/parents seeing friends). No corn to be found, but we had fun listening to the live music, looking around, and eating at the burger/mexican walk-up window place on Main and Church.

a baptism pic including all the cousins and grandparents in attendance- It is dark, arrrgh!

me, tired and thirsty after sitting in the hot, direct sunlight!

Graduation! Woo Hoo!

My Mom trying to adjust my master's hood! It just wouldn't lay right! I didn't get a picture of the dean actually awarding it to me, maybe I will get it in the mail as part of the package- I hope!

If you look closely, you can see me going back to my seat from the podium

with my girls afterwards!

and supportive hubby

and proud parents- I am proud they are my parents!

It was a very hot day to be wearing all black with a velvet and satin thing around the neck, but it was a very nice ceremony. The speaker, the Dean of the School of Education, and the girl who sang, were wonderful. I didn't realize there would be so many graduating from the School of Education, the School of Business and the School of Social Sciences and Religion. Almost half of us were there to recieve a master's too. Afterwards, they served cookies, punch and grapes, and the girls thought that was cool. I also saw a fellow teacher from Castle Rock, there to celebrate with her daughter, who had recieved her bachelor's. I found this to be very crazy, since she was in my reading class the first year I taught, I am pretty sure! Commencement was supposed to be indoors in the event center, but because of all the scare over the swine flu, they moved it outside. It was a great day, and we followed it by eating at Famous Dave's Barbeque, and that was some wonderful food! Yummy barbeque, corn bread, beans, slaw, etc.etc., you get the idea. Woudn't be a Harkey/Stohl celebration without food (yes, Stohls that weren't there, we ate a few bites in your honor, too :) )...

OH, I want to thank everyone that honored me with cards and gifts, for my graduation, and for my softball team gift! The card from Judy and Cammi that said "Master's" was especially cool, and I am glad I could honor them and my parents with my married and maiden names both on the program and read from the podium. I am going to use the certificates/card/check to buy something special to remember them all, and how special they are to me!

A Little Princess

Friday night before my graduation, Grandma and Grandpa had planned to go see a good friend, and Daddy planned to go and see Star Trek, so the girls and I went downtown to see the Enchanted Playhouse's production of A Little Princess. It had been a long time since we had enjoyed a play together, and we had a great time! I saw the main director of the playhouse, and he remembered me from my days of always being involved in a production, either there or at the Ice House. The girls totally enjoyed the story, and Becca really wants for her and I to audition for a play together. That would be so much fun!!! We just may put her in their summer acting workshop for kids. Mal was a little interested too, but I don't think as much...

a couple of pictures we tried to take in our seats, but the theater and an iPhone didn't mix!

afterwards some pix with some of the cute little cast members!

It turned out to be perfect timing too, because not more than five minutes after the girls and I got home, Grandma and Grandpa did too! What a fun girls night out!

Beach Fun!

While Grandma Carol and Grandpa John were here, we chose the warmest day to head to the coast. We ate at the Splash Cafe (the best chowder breadbowls on the central coast, maybe anywhere for that matter!), we braved the wind on the beach, walked around, and had a great time! Yes, that first picture is of this very strange looking crab the girls found, kind CREEPY, but hey, everyone in our family loves sea life! We also saw a dead otter, which made the girls very sad :( Perhaps the coolest find though, was that it was low tide, and there were TONS of sand dollars everywhere! They filled a bucket and insisted on taking it home...

so here is their collection, actually pretty impressive, i think...

It was so windy, but lots of fun!

Lunch at Splash!

okay, they were starting to get annoyed at me insisting on pictures!

And as if that weren't enough fun already, we started talking back and forth on the walkie talkies about stopping at Hanford for some Superior Creamery Ice Cream! I didn't take pictures there, but the peach and the chocolate chip are the beeessst!!!!!! A great day, and a great way to get out of the valley heat!

Visalia Rawhide Game (formerly Visalia Oaks)

One of the days my parents were here, we went to the recently remodeled stadium in town and enjoyed some good old fashioned baseball! I am still not sure why Visalia Oaks had to change their name to the Visalia Rawhides, but they did. In any event, the stadium is ver nice now, they have patio seating along the third base line and stadium seating, as well as a grass area if you want to bring your own blankets or chairs to sit on. They have a VIP box, a few snack barsm, and a gift shop too. We ate nachos, hot dogs and snowcones, so we got our fill of the good junk food that was there. And the kids met Tipper, the mascot. Later they got little Tipper stuffed animals to remember the evening. We had fun cheering and singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and even did the wave a couple of times.

Mal and her friend from school

We had a great time, even with the boys that kept playing chase down our row back and forth repeatedly. Finally, I just put my chair right in the middle and told them this row is closed for running! (ha- don't mess with a teacher, right, lol!). Anyway, the team went in to extra innings because the score was 0-0, and we left before the final score. We found out that the Rawhides got a homerun after we left, so they beat the Lancaster Jethawks 1-0! Woohoo! Rollin', Rollin' Rollin'....RAWHIDES!

Mallory's Birthday/Team Bowling Party!

Mallory couldn't wait for her softball team party, since it doubled as her birthday party too! She got there and immediately got into her bowling game. SHe is the one on the lane in the far right, with the navy blue shirt on. There were so many kids here, and so much going on this weekend with it also being baptism weekend, and me doubling as the coach, that I didn't get very many good pictures. I even forgot to get a picture of the birthday cake, which was a baseball diamond with a mitt in the middle of it. It said "GO Comets!" and "Happy Birthday Mal"

some cousin fun!

Even the littlest cousin had fun!

That was an attempt to get a picture of all the gifts she got. Among them were a toys r us gift card, a movie- Hotel for Dogs, nail polish and lip gloss in ALL colors imaginable, a purse, a High School Musical secret pillow/diary, money, bracelets and beads, a fairy garden kit, and a snow cone maker (which all of us are enjoying!).

The girls got t-shirts with the team picture made my one of our moms, and had fun signing each other's. I gave them each a goody bag with a baseball theme (forgot to take pictures of them!). They had peanuts and cracker jacks, jolly ranchers, a bouncy baseball, a baseball keychain, a little clacker and a baseball pinball game, etc, just little things like that. I also called them up and gave each one a certificate and talked about them. Some of the awards were "No matcher for our catcher", second base- second to none!", etc.n They liked that...

Here I am with my "Thrilling Third Base" players!

my awesome first base, having fun bowling

my girls!

my boy!

fun!

It was a great party, but again, I am sooo mad that I was so busy and everyone was having so much fun that I didn't get a picture of the cake or the goody bags before I gave them out! Oh well. Everyone had a great time, and for the second time that weekend, Mallory felt very special! I am proud of my team, and who knows, maybe coach Kim will return next season!