My Girls

 We were out working in the yard this week and I had the best helper. To keep her from picking all the tomatoes I sent her over to the raspberries. She liked them better anyway!

 After she was done with the raspberries she remember that she really likes strawberries.

 I love that the kids can go out and eat the stuff that I have worked pretty hard to grow. It makes it worth it.

We also have blackberries, rhubarb, blueberries and out back we have fruit trees. We only got a small bushel of peaches and only 3 pears, but the kids still enjoyed them.

Jaycee is playing soccer on the AYSO Extra team. Amber is her coach and I am the assistant. Since Amber knows people at Weber State our team was able to go and be ball girls

 Jaycee loved it! She is even practicing her game face.

We have been practicing for a while now and Jaycee is super excited for her first game on the 31st.

First Day of School

Since we had such a fun packed summer I was ready for school to get started again!

 So was Wesley, Jaycee not so much.

 We had our annual first day pancakes at Amber's house.

 It is hard for me to believe that I have a 5th grader!

 It is crazy that with all the cousins running around the school that none of them have the same teacher! Not one of them! It's still nice to have cousins around and in the same grade.

 It's nice to know that there is a friend around when you need one.

 We are so excited for this year.

Wesley's teacher is Mrs Harris.

She was a kindergarten teacher when I worked at the school 16 years ago!

It is so nice that Wesley loves school. I hope that he continues to love to learn! 

 Jaycee's teacher is Mrs Ailor, who was a brand new teacher at the school when I worked there. She was Emily's teacher, Sidney had her also.

Jaycee was pretty nervous for the first day, but I know she will do great!

Last days of Summer Vacation

This summer was so fun! We did a lot  of boating, swimming, craft days at Grandma LouLou's and much more!

I feel like the kids were doing something fun almost everyday! I don't know how they feel, but that's how I feel. I did want to document the sun flower that Wesley grew. He started it from a seed, from his teacher and took care of it for a long time.  He started it in the spring and it just now is getting flowers. He watered it and even staked it up with a pencil and yarn! It was a good lesson on taking care of things and the end result was pretty awesome!

Because we were so busy I feel like the summer flew by!

We got home Monday from our Eclipse trip and on Tuesday we snuck in one last day trip to Pineview.

We have really enjoyed getting to the lake as much as we were able to. Amber bought a boat this year so the kids were able to get a lot more water wienie and tube time, which was awesome! So a big thank you to Grandma and Grandpa Bailey and Amber and Tyson for all the fun boating this year!

Now we are ready for school to start tomorrow...some of us anyway. :)

Total Eclipse of the Sun

Mike has been talking about going up to the eclipse for months now. He worked really hard to find us a place to stay.

We tried several different RV campsites that were all sold out. I finally found one the wasn't full, but they wanted $269 a night with a three night minimum! I told them that was way too much. After getting off the phone with the lady she called me back and told me $180. I told her that was still too much.

After that Mike took over. People were renting out their fields for $50-100! So crazy. Anyway Mike got the idea to call church camps. Which turned out to be a great idea! We ended up staying in Bone Idaho and Camp Cumorah for $25 a night.

On our way there we spent Friday night at Bear Lake at Trevor's cabin. It is coming along, they are waiting for logs so they can continue. I guess getting big logs like he wants is hard. He's been trying to get them all summer. 

 We went down to the lake for a bit, then we decided to go to a play. 

Me, grandpa Max and the older kids went and saw Shrek the Musical. It was pretty good.

On Saturday morning we headed to Idaho. We took some back roads and ended up on a dirt road for like 36 miles. (We had heard that traffic getting to Idaho was going to be crazy, it ended up not being too bad, Trevor and his kids came up Sunday night with no trouble.) Anyway, on said dirt road we got a flat tire. When Mike went to fix it we found out that our new car didn't have a jack! So we are stuck on this dirt road that we have only seen two cars on total, with no jack and no cell service.

Mike did everything he could so that when someone finally came around we would be ready. Luckily after about 45 min someone drove by and offered to help us. Because Mike got everything ready it only took about 5 minutes to get it fixed! Thank goodness for good Samaritans! Once we finally got to the camp Mike decided to run into town and get the tire fixed. I tried to talk him into waiting until we got home, but he really wanted to go, so he did.

While he was gone Me and my dad took the kids over to the little pond. We had just bought a couple of kayak so the kids rode around in those and there was a fun rope swing.  

  Bensen and Vivian loved playing in the sand.

On Sunday we went on a little hike, which Bensen killed!

 He pretty much ran the whole thing. Then we went a drove around looking for a good place to watch the eclipse. We figured it would be best to be at a park so the kids wouldn't be too board waiting for hours for the eclipse. We found the perfect park in Ammon, it had a splash pad and everything. Later that night Trevor and his kids came and we had a camp fire and smores.

Finally, the event we had all been waiting for, Monday we got up and made our way to the park.

The eclipse is easily one of the coolest things I have ever seen! I can't even describe it! I can tell you that I am ready to chase the next one...well not the one in Africa, but the next one in the United States.

The splash pad might not been the best idea because without the warmth of the sun it got pretty cold and all the kids were freezing.

After the eclipse we headed back to camp to swim for a bit.

Then it was time to go home. We debated on which way we should try to go home and just as we were about to leave on of the missionaries gave us an update on traffic and it wasn't good. So we decided to take the dirt road again. Guess what...we got another flat tire. So Mike was inspired to get the tire fixed and buy a jack, other wise we would be up a creek with no paddle right?

Well long story short the jack wasn't big enough to lift the car, so he put it on 5 of the blocks for the trailer...still not high enough, so after trying for a half hour we tried to flag people down. This time it was a little harder, people were wanting to get home and didn't stop. Then we had two nice guys stop and together we got it figured out. Sheesh.

Overall it was a great trip! It ended up being a little more expensive then we had planned, with two new tires and all.

The next eclipse is in 2024 and we are going!

Pineview Fun!

We have had so much fun this summer going to Pineview. Amber bought a boat this year and the kids were able to go almost weekly.

Growing up some of my best memories are of riding the water wienie.

I love watching my kids ride.

Jaycee is the queen of the water wienie. She rides with the big kids and loves it. They even hope she comes so they can ride with her.

Wesley doesn't love it but he does like the tube.

As I have said before, Bensen and Viv could live in the sand and mud. They love it.

I'm so glad we can make such fun lake memories that hopefully the kids will cherish like I do.