First day of school!!

Today was the first day of school for Bud and Emma. Emma is now in 1st grade.

She said she was excited, but I could tell she was a little nervous as well. Luckily there are kids in her class that she knows from last year and we got the teacher we requested, Mrs Karakas!


Bud is now in the 4th grade.

Last night he was nervous, but today all he wanted to do was find his friends. He has Mr Grizet and I'm excited for him to have a male teacher.

I had 3, 1st, 2nd and 6th grade. I think it is a fun change and am hoping it's a good fit. Today we had to go back to the classroom twice for things he forgot and make a phone call to a friend for another part of his homework he forgot. I'm hoping that once he gets into the groove this won't be a continual problem!!

Birthday Baby....

Boy has he grown!
From this:

To this:

We love you Henry! Happy 1st Birthday!!

Our Idaho Adventure...

Last Sunday we all went to church, N8 stayed after and counted tithing. The kids and I came home grabbed a quick lunch and packed up the van. Then we were off. We drove to Cedar City, UT and stayed at the Spring Hill Suites. Once small advantage of N8 traveling for work is that we have hotel points, so our night was free! The next morning we were off to Idaho.

Monday we had dinner, unloaded and visited with my Aunt Mary & Uncle Bryce. We also prepped the kids for a morning hike with Grandpa and N8. That evening there was a little rain, but with that rain came a beautiful double rainbow:


After the hike Grandpa and N8 took the older 3 fishing while my mom and I ventured into Idaho Falls and did some shopping!! The kids all loved fishing and caught quite a few little fish.






That afternoon the kids painted rocks with my mom:

On Wednesday N8, Grandpa and Bud headed out early on a longer hike. It was 4 miles into a lake and then 4 miles out. N8 said near the end Bud was getting tired, but handled it fairly well. They had beautiful views and saw a few moose!




That morning Emma & Mo headed out to the garden with Grandma to pick green beans. Her garden is doing great! I wish we had soil like that here!!


After the gardening we headed to Tautphaus Park Zoo. The weather was great and many of the animals we out. The zoo is fairly small which made for a nice simple trip with my mom and the kids.



On Wednesday evening we had a get together with a bunch of my cousins. Many of them live in the area. I failed to get group shot, but N8 to a picture of some of us visiting:

On Thursday mom mom had Chemotherapy scheduled in Rexburg in the morning. She and my dad headed out while we got ready. Our excitement for the morning were 6 horses that decided to hang out in my parents backyard. N8 had to go out to keep them out of my moms garden until the Sheriff found the owners!


We then headed to Rexburg and checked out the Rexburg Temple.


After that we just hung around until she was done and headed to lunch at Wingers. After lunch we went over to Rexburg Rapids, a new small waterpark in Rexburg. My Aunt Debbie and cousins were all there and we got a quick visit in. The waterpark was perfect for our kids. Just the right size and price.






Our waterpark experience was cut a little short due to a lightning storm. N8 took 1500+ photos of the lightning trying to get some good shots (he found the rapid shutter function on our new camera!). He got some fun ones.


On Friday my mom had another appointment in Rexburg to get her immunity shot so we got an early start and stopped in Salt Lake for a quick visit and lunch with our good friend Amy and Iris. Then back to Cedar City for another free night at the SpringHill and then onto home.

It was a quick trip, but I am grateful that we were able to go and visit my mom and dad. My mom now has 2 of her 6 chemo treatments done. She is always in our prayers and we continue to have faith that all will be well.

Mo vs The Coffee Table

And the coffee table won. Today while on Skype with Grandpa and Grandma I heard a loud cry and then a lot of crying. I quickly ran into the room and found him holding his head. I quickly discovered a gash on his head. We got some pressure on it, called a friend that's a nurse and watched a movie. After about 20 minutes passed I realized that he was going to need more than a band-aid. The nurse friend agreed and left his teenage son to watch the kids while I took Mo to the hospital (N8 is conveniently on travel at the moment!)

Mo was great. He kept the rag on his head the entire time:

I decided to take a picture of the wound so Daddy could see what it looked like:

4 stitches later and he's all better:

They even gave him a Spongebob band-aid!

We came home and delivered the Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins I made earlier to friends and now they are quietly watching a movie. What a Sunday!

Ostrich Farm...

My lovely sister and niece were here for the week while 2 of my nephews and a niece backpacked 40+ miles through the Sierras with N8. We kept ourselves busy all week with outings. We made a day of going to the Cat House and shopping, we saw the new Winnie the Pooh movie and worked on some girls camp stuff for my sister. One day we ventured somewhere new! We went to Indian Point Ostrich Ranch in Tehachapi. It's about 80 miles, but at a higher elevation, much cooler. Here it was 105 and there it was about 83! Much more comfortable.

We decided to take the Ostrich tour (which I recommend). It was $4 per person, plus we fed the Ostriches which is $2 per scoop of food. Between the 7 of us we got 3 scoops and that was more than enough for everyone to get a chance to feed them. In all we were there a little over an hour and a half.




After checking out the birds we picked up some lunch (they have a Sonic in Tehachapi!) and went to a park. The first park was more of a ghetto teen hang out. We headed to a second park that was much better! It has a great playground, plenty of shade trees and fun tree carvings!




It was a nice day if cooler weather.