The new living room!

So Rachel spent her entire week painting the living room. If you all remember correctly it was a dark green and against our green couches it was so dark. In August we will be in this house 2 years already and it was time for a change. The next rooms we plan to tackle are the guest room and bathroom, and master bedroom. We've already got most of the colors picked out. We agree the new colors in the living room have totally brightened it up and make it look larger.

Blessings in disguise

Well today has been an interesting and exciting day. Let's start out with the morning. We went to Boise to get flowers for the planters, the rest of our garden needs, and potting soil. We are definitely ready for summer and to get things started. After that we went to the Olive Garden for a lunch together. Man do we love that place. After that we went to Cabela's so Madi could look at the fish...at least that was Mark's excuse! LOL!!! Anyways. We got home and Rachel checked her email. She had an email from a guy she worked with when she was active duty AF. He works at base Contracting and is a civilian. Well he sent her an email stating, "get back in College, and I can hire you." He said he had a school to work position working for him. He is in charge of a section at contracting and Rachel really loved working with him before. He said it would be 24 hours a week, making $2.00 more than she works not and 4 hours more than she works now. He said she needed to be enrolled in school part time. Rachel was very excited. As she was sitting there thinking about this, she began opening the mail. A letter from the VA (veteran's Affairs) had come and as she began reading it, she began to get louder and louder. The letter states that a new law was passed giving Veteran's who have the GI bill a better GI bill. Pretty much before her GI bill covered most of her tuition and none of her books. This new GI bill covers 100% of her tuition up to a 6 year college and $1000 in books for the year, in addition it pays for a housing allowance of an E5 w/dependants each month. This is roughly $1000 too! All she has to do is be enrolled in school for 2 courses a semester. This is excellent news. She has been offered a job where she can work part time and go to school, also she can get all her schooling paid for and given a housing allowance. So I guess the cliche, Everything happens for a reason is true!

"Ball"

Happy Thursday everyone! Madi said a new word twice last night, "BALL"! We were giving her a ball and asking for it back and practicing. "thank you" and "please". She then turned and said "ball"! We were very shocked and looked at each other, when she said "Ball" again. Our little baby is growing up so fast!

Remember to keep your calendars open for Saturday, June 20th; for Madi's 1st Birthday party!

Shoshone Falls...Amazing!

Happy Monday! Today Madi is 10 months old. WOW!!! Where does the time go? It's spirit week at the daycare and everyday they have a theme. Today is crazy hair day...well they like the infant rooms to play along too but there is only so much we can do with them...like on hat day, Madi won't keep a hat on her head that long. Anyways today is crazy hair day and we refused to put hairspray and stuff in Madi's hair so we washed it last night, put some baby oil in it and slicked it back. Well this morning it was standing straight up. LOL, it's crazy for sure.

Anyways, Sunday was an amazing day! We ventured to Twin Falls to go see the Shoshone Falls. It's an 1 1/2 hour drive and we had heard on the news that the parking lot holds 350 cars and was packed last weekend. We got there and had to wait about 20 minutes to get into the park, but we parked and hiked up to the lookouts. Madi was a trooper. She let us apply sunscreen all over her and she kept her sunhat on the whole time. The falls are very loud and she was just amazed by them...or the noise!

We are so glad we went in the spring time. It was so beautiful. Shoshone Falls stand 50 ft higher than the Niagara Falls. There was a rainbow at the bottom too that was spectacular. It was just such an amazing day! We couldn't have asked for a better one! Spending time as a family like that are the memories we will keep in our hearts forever! On the way out of the park, the cars to head to the park were back up two lanes for 4 miles. Man where we glad we got there early. We then did some shopping in Twin Falls and I think Madi is set now for Summer clothes. On the way back we took the scenic byway back. The road that leads past 1000 springs. They were also spectacular with all the melt off.

We had an amazing time and look forward to many more family adventures.

A cutie for sure!

Today was a great day. Madi is getting so animated and we think for sure she loves to entertain people. She will do something or act silly and then look at us for a reaction with this little sly smile on her face. We will begin to laugh and then she'll laugh too and clap her hands together. She sure thinks she's funny and indeed she is. Tomorrow we're heading to Shoshone Falls, we'll take lots of pictures and share those later. We got our pathway to the garden completed a couple weeks ago and Mark is putting up lights along the pathway as we speak. We plan to start planting the rest of the garden next weekend and our flowers too. Hope you enjoy the picture of the day and talk to you all later!

Funfilled weekend

Today Rachel has to work until 3:00 so she says after that our fun filled weekend will begin. But Mark's begins with spending the day with Madi. After Rachel gets off of work we are taking Madi to the park again. She really enjoys the swings and slides. The weather is suppose to 75 again today. We're just hoping there is no wind. Tomorrow we are going to Shoshone Falls right outside of Twin Falls and cannot wait. We went there two years ago but in the summer time. Everyone says spring time is the best time to go, because the falls are spectacular with winter runoff. We are going to try to go early enough that we don't have to navigate through all the other cars. It's about a 2 hr drive to get there so we'll see. Monday Madi will be 10 months old...where does the time go. We've been busy planning Madi's first birthday. We have family coming in from all over. Mark finds it cute when he hears Rachel talking to her mom on the phone about the party...just planning away! LOL!

Well we hope you have blessed weekend too! Get outside and enjoy the weather!

Madilynn our future dare devil

Hello everyone,

Today has been a beautiful day. Tomorrow is suppose to be in the 70's and we plan on going to Twin Falls on Sunday to see the Shoshone Falls. They are spectacular this time of year. Madi's first tooth is almost all the way up now and Madi has started walking more. She is taking steps from one side of the couch to the other and today attempted to let go of the couch and take a step. She crashed to the floor but got right back up and kept trying. Glad she's a determined little girl. She'll be walking in no time now. She is also quite the little dare devil. She will climb right up us while we are laying on the floor and attempt to go over the other side. She usually ends up rolling off but gets right back up again. There are little pads the kids can climb up and over at daycare including a tube they crawl through. We think this is where she is getting this from. Tomorrow we are taking Madi to the park and hoping our friend LeAnn can come too with her daughter Katelyn who is 7 months old. Madi and her are turning out to be quite the little buddies. We see many future play dates between them.Well hope you are all doing well and have great weather too.

Madi's 1st Easter

Hello Family and Friends! We have decided to create this blog so everyone can keep in touch and up to date about what is going on with the Barnes Family. We hope you all enjoy it.

Madi's first Easter was wonderful! Madi was lucky enough to get 3 this year. She got one in South Dakota with Rachel's family about a week prior. She was able to spend time with her Grandparents, Uncle Andy, Aunt Sidney, Cousins; Hunter and Tabith and even see her Great Grandpa and Great Grandma. It was wonderful. Then Saturday Madi was able to have another Easter celebration with Mark's parents, Sisters, Trevor and Frank. We had a potluck and visited.

Yesterday Madi woke up and saw her Easter basket from the Easter bunny. She was showered with lots of fun gifts from him. She took a lot of interest in tooking through her basket. We then headed off to church and after church we hid the eggs in the grass outside. They where more hidden in a straight line so it was easy for her to find it. Rachel helped Madi find her first egg and Madi just plopped right down in the yard and started to suck on the egg. She was all done after that. Pete, our dog took quite an interest in finding the eggs too...then eating them. Oh well, it was a wonderful day. We had a wonderful dinner and just sat and enjoyed the beautiful weather. We are so incredibly blessed with Madi and the holidays sure are a lot more fun with her. We look forward to many more holidays.

We hope you enjoyed your Easter as much as we did and that is all for now.

God bless~ Mark, Rachel and Madi