Our New Addition

Nope, it's not a baby this time! But, it does cost a lot of money, it "eats" alot, and needs lots of "hands on" attention. It's our new Tahoe! To give you some background info, I have been driving a 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee for the past 7 years. While I love my Jeep, it has 162K miles and is falling apart...literally. The windows no longer roll down (drive-thru restaurants have been fun), the radio comes and goes, the speedometer only works sometimes, and my power steering tends to quite working when I'm in parking lots (try turning into a parking spot with a 4 wheel drive vehichle and no power steering)!! So, we've been talking about getting me another car for awhile now, but we were hoping to make it another couple of years. However, I guess my husband changed his mind and didn't tell me!

Darron came home last night and told me he had a surprise for me. He told me he already had all of the financing worked out and he had a Yukon and a Tahoe picked out for me....I just needed to go look and see which one I wanted! I guess with the Employee Pricing and rebates, he decided this was the time to buy. And we did get a good deal...we got a brand new, 2008 Z71 Tahoe for about $11,000 LESS than the original price.

I am so excited. THis is my dream car. It has leather interior, bucket seats in the back, a third row seat, sun roof, power everything, 6 disc CD changer, and other stuff I don't even understand yet! Here are a few pictures of my new "baby". I guess Darron can leave for his hunting trip now without me giving him too hard of a time! :)

Alaska State Fair

The Alaska State Fair comes to town every August for about one week. It's a HUGE deal. Everyone goes to the fair. Now, growing up in Texas, I know what a fair should look like. We didn't go all that often, but when we went, we would have to spend an entire DAY (or more) just to see it all. And I remember "Big Tex" standing in the middle of the fair grounds talking. While I love the Alaska State Fair, it's just not quite the same. It definately has a small town feel to it. Basically, you could walk through the entire fair grounds while browsing through the shops and be done in a couple of hours. To make it even more small town feeling, the fair grounds are in Palmer, which is about an hour drive from Anchorage in "the Valley". This is an area of spread out homes, lots of land, and farms (yes, we have farms in Alaska). But, we love the fair.

So, yesterday was the fair day for our family. Darron took off work early and we headed out in the early afternoon. We had a great time in the petting zoo, eating all the great fair food, watching the lumber jack show, and riding rides. This was Preston's first year to ride rides and he LOVED it. When he would get off of one ride, he would say "I ready go to the next ride mom!" And he would take off. In fact, he loved the fair so much, he melted when we left and cried most of the way home. I guess that's what no nap and lots of sugar will do to a kid!

Northern Exposure

Thank you for all of the name suggestions for my blog. I had been thinking about Northern Exposure and North to Alaska....but wasn't quite sure. While I like the suggestion of "Baked Alaska" I just don't feel it's too appropriate considering how WHITE I constantly stay....especially with all the cool, cloudy days we've had all summer. So, I think we'll go with Northern Exposure since I will be "exposing" our family life to you (cheezy or what??)! April...you won! Congrats.....:)

Preston and Payton

Here are a few of the latest....

Name Change Contest

So, normally I'll try and post pictures of the kids (because I know that's what you all want to see), but first, I need to get this blog up and looking good. For those of you that know me well, you know that I am so NOT a creative person. So I need help with a name for the blog. "Rizer Family" just doesn't cut it. So, let's hear them.....

And since this is a "contest" there needs to be a prize. The prize will be the internal satisfaction of knowing that you won and I'm using your suggestion!! :) Isn't that enough?? Seriously, did you think money would be involved??

And we're off!

So, I've been reading friends blogs and thinking about starting my own for quite some time now. Several things have kept me from starting my own blog:
1. Will I have anything to really blog about?
2. Fear of not being funny like Amy B.'s blog?
3. Do I really have the time to dedicate to blogging?
4. Will anyone want to read my blog?

Well, as you can see, I decided to finally face my fears and just jump in and blog. Here are the answers I came up with to the above questions:
1. My children are the most entertaining and interesting part of my life and most of what I do is because of and for them. So, my of my blogs will probably be about my children and what we are doing.
2. No one can be as funny as Amy B so I won't even try.
3. I guess I'll finally give up watching Days of Our Lives while my kids nap and I'll use that time to blog. It's going to be hard giving it up...seriously....but maybe this will be a good diversion for me as I attempt to let go of the Brady and Horton families....
4. Hopefully some of you will want to read occasionally (come on mom....bookmark this site). But mostly, I'll be blogging as a way to record our day to day happenings. My friend Stacey gave me a great idea....she prints her blogs and makes a journal type scrapbook to pass down to her children. So, that's the main goal of this blog......

With that said....we're off and going! And to all you expert bloggers, I could really use some help on changing my background and font, etc to look "cooler".....