Baby Brains Can Heal

Just saw this video from TED talks.  It talks about neuroplasticity, and brings me refreshed hope for Kian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WKVbRDJ-nxs

First days of school

Lily started 2nd grade this year.

One week later, Kate started morning Kindergarten.  That bag made it to school the first day, and then she refused to use it anymore.  Good thing we still have Lily's kindergarten backpack.

And one week after that, Kian started morning pre-school, 2 days a week.

Campout

The annual Parkinson family campout was held this year near Palisades reservoir.  As always, we had a lot of fun and lots of good food.

Bobbie brought his Kubb game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubb), which nobody but his family had ever played, but it was fun, and there were some naturals in our group.

Uncle Brett brought his bow and target deer for some practice.  Yeah, that didn't last long before the hosts came and told us to take it down.

Cousin Kylie planned some games for the smaller kids.

The creek was a big hit with the kids, too.  Nice and refreshing.

These are Chris's grand-nephew and grand-niece, Braxton and Olivia.

Kylie and Mikayla taught the little kids some cute camp-fire songs to perform for everybody.

And we got a square ice-cream cone in Swan Valley on our way home.  Yum.

Rexburg

The kids and I spent 2 weeks in Rexburg with my family, and had a great time.  We did all the usual Rexburg things, like...

 ...ride the carousel...

 ...eat at Skeeters (ok, that's definitely not a usual Rexburg thing, but it was fun.)...

...play with cousins...

 ...go to Yellowstone...

 ...and play at the splash park.

You'd never know it by this picture, but Kian loved the splash park and didn't want to stop.  But he was shivering, so I made him warm up.