First Day of School!

And here they are in the order of disappearance :) 

Ally headed off to the Sixth Grade at 7:05 this morning.  She is now in Intermediate School and rides the bus with the High Schoolers-yikes! I'm not too excited about that, but what do you do?  She was way excited to go and not nervous at all.  All of her classes ended up being right next to each other so she knows she won't get lost.

Her teachers are Mrs. Perea, Mrs. Neilsen, Mr. Barker and Mr. Ward.  Josh and I have known Mr. Barker our whole lives and he used to be our Bishop.  We know she's in good hands!

Logan departed for Fourth Grade at 7:20.  His teacher is Mr. Pedersen.

He was a little nervous because he doesn't know anyone in his class and he has to go to the bus stop without Ally.  He is also going to miss going to work with Dad.

Jensen arrived in style on a golf cart to First Grade at 8:35.  His teacher is Ms. Davis.  His teacher is battling cancer right now and is bald.  She has Non-Hodgekins Lymphoma and her blog address is mich-michellesblog.blogspot.com if you want to meet her.  She is super nice and the best First Grade teacher at Jensen's school.

Jensen has been pretty nervous for all day school, but he jumped off the golf cart and ran in like a champ.  He told me I didn't need to walk him to his class.  Yet another sign of my growing kids. :(

Well, now it's just me and Holden until 3:00.  What to do, what to do?  I'm a little giddy with the possibilities!

August Happpenings

There wasn't much happening in August this year.  Usually August is pretty slow at our house.  The kids spend their time bickering and complaining that they are bored and I count down the days until school starts. My kids were very uninterested in any of the things we normally do in the summer.  They are growing up. Sigh.

This is Nimbus having a turkey snack.  We are trying to teach him good manners by making him use utensils.  However, that plan backfired.  Holden decided the turkey was free game because of the fork and decided to share with Nimby. Dirt, cat germs and all. YUM! Just building up his immune system, I guess!

We had some pretty crazy storms in August.  On this particular day, I was on my third time of bailing out the basement when I looked up and saw all these new waterfalls coming down the face of the mountain-amazing!  We had a lot of rain that day!

Ally and I got crafty.  These are pocket sized Book of Mormons that we decorated.  It was fun and they turned out really cute.  We also decorated binders, mine for Young Women and hers for school.  That reminds me about my new calling!  I am now the Second Counselor in the Young Women's Presidency.  Yay for Beehives!  By the end of the year I will have 21 Beehives!!! Yikes!  One of them will be Ally, though.  I think I'm more excited about that than she is...

Ally decided to join summer band and play the oboe.  She ended up hating the cello (anyone want to buy a slightly used cello?) and researched instruments until she decided on the oboe.  Let me tell you, oboes are VERY expensive.  Thank heavens I don't have to buy one yet.  Sixth graders get to use them for free!  She was the only person in summer band who chose to play the oboe, so she got private lessons for two weeks-sweet!  She was playing songs after only three days. That's my Ally!

Last week I decided to take the kids on one last "fun day".  It took forever for them to find something that sounded fun to them, but we finally ended up at "Fat Cats".  We bowled, played mini-golf and had pizza.

This is Holden's victory dance.  He loved playing "ball".  It didn't matter if he knocked any pins down, he just liked pushing the ball off the ramp. Aren't his shoes cute?

My boys.  This is what happens when you tell Holden to smile...

Me and my girl.  We have to stick together, there are too many boys in our house!

It was a fun summer, but we are all ready for school to start again!

Something Fishy

Tuesday was our annual trip to the Uintah's to go fishing at Washington Lake.  We usually go the week before the fourth of July, but because of the heavy snowfall this year the campground didn't open until July15th.  We were joined by our friends the Kotter's and Josh actually took the day off work to join us as well.  It was so much more relaxing having more adult hands to help out this year!

We started out with our traditional hot dog roast, followed by smores.  Holden was really enjoying his lunch of a pickle with a chocolate bar-yum!

After about a half hour, Jensen finally caught the first fish of the afternoon!

Holden got to catch a "pishy" and you should have heard him squeal with delight.  He is obsessed with fish and was so excited to see and touch one!  He loved checking on the fish and "helping" us with our fishing poles.  He was so much fun to watch.

A rare moment of patiently waiting for the fishies to come. 

Ally and her catch.  She hung around long enough to catch a fish and then went back to the trailer because she was bored.  

Logan was all about helping us get our fish in because he was wearing Grandpa's boots.  Gotta love the beautiful scenery.

The catch of the day!  We did throw quite a few back so this isn't an accurate count.  The only bad thing?  I didn't catch anything!  Oh, well.  There's always next year!

Angel Moroni

We have been looking forward to this special family moment for months!  July 12th at noon was the day and time the Angel Moroni would be placed on "our" temple.  I thought long and hard about when we would leave for the temple and where we would try to get a spot to sit.  We left our house about 10:40 and found a pretty decent parking place and a way decent place to sit! I was super excited.

As we were walking to find a place to be, it started to rain very lightly.  So I grabbed the umbrellas out of the van.  Good thing I did because it turned into a downpour!  It rained until about 11:50 and then it stopped!  What a blessing, I thought.  Perfect timing to set the angel Moroni.

What are they peeking at through the fence?

Why, Angel Moroni, of course!  He was so beautiful-glowing almost!

Well, after the rain stopped, the wind decided to blow.  Noon came and went, 12:15 came and went, then 12:30 came and went. The wind was still blowing!  By then the rumor mill was working pretty hard. It was passed around that it was postponed because of the wind and they would continue when the wind died down.

Bummer!

I wasn't sure what to do.  By 1:15 my kids made it perfectly clear that they were starving and wanted to leave.  It was still windy, so we headed out to get lunch.  After we were done eating I noticed the wind was gone. So we headed back over and it was already lifted to the spire!!! Aughhh!  We missed it!

We walked back over to our awesome spot-which was taken of course-and waited for him to be attached to the temple.  By then it was getting hot and muggy, so my kids were not in the best of moods.  I gave up and headed back to the van.  As we were driving away, I noticed he was being attached.  Good grief!

Oh, well.  We will definitely remember that we were there for the occasion, even if we didn't get to see the action.

Rainbows are Scary

We've been having a lot of thunderstorms in the afternoons.  After one of them we were greeted by a beautiful rainbow in front of the mountains.  I called to the kids to come out and see.  Holden took one look at it and said "rainbow scary"!  He seriously started shaking with fear and made me take him inside!  So funny!  I have finally discovered my wild little boy's weakness.  Who knew it would be a rainbow!

I also have to throw this picture in.  It cracks me up too.  This is his "I didn't get my way" pouty pose.  He seriously stood like that for 10 minutes because Grandma June wouldn't let him drink a Coke.  Life would be so boring without him in our lives!

What I Missed

Ally had her ballet recital in June and I never got to blog about it.  I had my friend Kristen take some pictures of Ally in her costume because the ones the studio took didn't turn out very well and my camera is crappy.  I had to do it the day of the performance because Ally HATES getting her hair and make-up done.  I give her a year to a year and half before that changes ;).  Anyway, I lost the cd of pictures she gave me because I am awesome like that.  Ally found it for me on Sunday so now I can blog about it.  What would I do without her?

Her ballet teacher made up her own ballet called "La Danseuse de Ballet".  Ally was a Museum Mademoiselle.  It was loosely based on the children's book "Madeline" and Ally's job was to show the students around the museum while dancing beautifully, of course.

Side view of my pretty girl.  She looked like a different person without her glasses and her hair pulled back.

She got to dance with one of her best friends-Breonna.  We tried a new ballet studio this year and have enjoyed it.  It's ran much more organized than the previous one and it was cheaper. :)

I was going through pictures and realized I didn't have any good ones of Jensen.  So I had her snap a few of my happy guy.  He tends to do the "oversmile" a lot, but we did get some good ones of him.

And of course Holden had to get in on the action.  Logan was at work with Josh, so I didn't get any of him.  Ally really enjoys performing and she is a great dancer.  It is always a lot of rehearsals and practices, but it's worth it in the end.

Summer Vacation Day Five

I can't blog about this trip and not mention the playground in Woodland Park. We had to make a second trip to it before we left. The kids LOVED it!.  It was at the Elementary where Josh went to school.  He says it was similar when he was there but it was bigger now.  

Castle turrets, slides, a ship, tires, boats, swings etc.  Awesome!

Balancing Jensen.

Swinging Holden.

Every kid's dream!

Holden was not as happy about the ride home as the ride there.  We went home through Wyoming this time and the drive was much faster.  We made a stop at the "American Girl Mall" (not sure what it's really called) and let the kids pick out souvenirs at the Colorado Store and then hit the road home.  I lost count of how many movies the kids watched. Thank heavens for the DVD player!

It was a really fun trip, but we missed Willard.  There really is no place like home!