Hallie's First Day of 3rd Grade

How can this be that Hallie is in 3rd grade. She has been so excited for the school year to start and to get back to learning and seeing her friends. I have really been enjoying the summer with her. She has changed and is growing so quickly. This summer was so great for our relationship. We have laughed and played and really became friends. She is such a sweet girl, she loves soccer, reading, and being a leader. I hope she makes great friends and continues to be her own self as the year progresses.

I have never had her say she wants to be a cowgirl until this morning when I asked. She said becuase she loves to ride horses

She had a great first day and loves that she is in a class with her friend Paige. She loved riding the bus and eating school lunch. She said she didn't have a bad part of her first day

Happy 11th Anniversary to Us

Matt and I celebrated our anniversary in style this year. Joy was great and came to stay with the kids. We left Friday afternoon and stopped to get couples massage before we headed to Ogden. It was a great way to start. We stopped to test drive some new suburbans but they're all so dang expensive we are going to wait a while. Then we grabbed dinner at the Bluebird where we had our wedding luncheon.

They gave us a free milkshake to celebrate

Then we drove to the spot where Matt proposed and sat on the bench and watched the sunset over Cache Valley and talked about our future and what our plans are. I love this man and making plans for our future always makes me excited to see what happens and a little impatient

We tried to take a picture when it was darker in hopes you could see the temple but it dond't work very well.

Saturday morning we got up and ran a few errands before we headed on the trek to get to Bloomington Lake. It ended up taking us a super long time because of how crappy the road was and all the traffic. But once we got there it was as beautiful as I remembered. The mountains that surround this snow run off late are breathtaking. Matt brought the drown and he flew that around while I soaked my feet in the lake. We decided after putting our feet in that it was much to cold to swim for us

Shortly after we headed for home since it had taken us so long to get there we weren't sure how long it would take us to get home. I loved having the one on one time together to catch up and really have a conversation without interruptions. Although I was unsure and nervous when I met Matt I made a better decision than I could have ever imagined. He is the best match out there for me and someone that makes my life better

Treehouse with Cousins

The kids love getting together and their constant reminder keeps Nic and I planning stuff. We decided we would meet up at Treehouse and play for a couple hours before school starts. Em is still obsessed with babies in general and loves Griff. She insisted on holding him and after she asked so many times we agreed and then she was mad when Nic wouldn't let go. We decided to do the museum backwards from how we usually do it so we got to spend more time in the places we usually don't. It was a great idea

They had a great time at the art garden....painting. And of coarse Nic and I forgot to pick them up and we left them there

I think Gracie enjoyed it the most and spent the most time painting and perfecting her picture

Then we went to the play that is put on by the kids in the audience. All the kids participated including Em who chose to be a bush...with no speaking part

Kinner's was a troll and Gracie was a talking bush

Rigs was the woodsman and Hallie the old woman

By this point everyone was hungry and getting tired so we went outside and ate the lunch we had packed and then we didn't go back. We called it a day and headed for home. It was a fun time with Nic and the cousins 

Boating with the Holmgrens

Friday evening Mindi and Corey arrived and we had a great dinner and visited while the kids played. Saturday morning we got up and down to the lake about 10am. We weren't sure what the lake would be like since it was a Saturday. It ended up being so great. The water was decent and it was great temp to be on the lake

Matt and Corey knee boarding

Emy took this pic of Gracie

Mindi and Corey both tried knee boarding

Then Nathan and Hallie gave it a try...they did great

Then Matt and Corey both tried wakeboarding

Then Nathan taught Hallie how to do a Karate Kid pose

Then the boys tubed and it was the most entertaining thing we'd seen all day.

After the water got choppy we came in to the beach for snacks and to play in the sand

We played for about an hour before the wind really picked up and lets be honest we were all pretty starving for real food since we had only packed snacks. So we got everything packed up and off we went

As we pulled the boat out of the water that afternoon the strap on the trailer broke. It freaked me out but Matt was able to secure it to the trailer and we got home safely and a new strap ordered.

Later that afternoon Nic & Kyle dropped off the kids so they could go to Nic's high school reunion. They had a great time and so did we. The kids had a fun time playing and we snuggled Griff. While eating dinner Rigs found blood on his corn on the cob and we quickly realized that he had lost a tooth. After looking for it for over 10 minutes we decided he must have swallowed it

I had a hard time sharing the snuggles from this little guy and once I gave him to Matt he wouldn't give him back

We had a great dinner and hung out until dark and then Mindi and Corey had to head for home since they were speaking in church the following day. Its funny how some friends you can go a long time and never see or talk to but when you get together its like you were never apart. Cherish those friendships they are far and few between

A Week of Boating

While getting all the prep done for our week of boating our garden has come to life and is putting out a bunch of veggies. I have found the kids are way more into eating them if they grew them

Now onto boating so Nic and Ky took the boat Tuesday for the young men, we took the boat Wed and went to Amy, Perry, Teann, and Kade as well as their families, Thursday we took Nick & Brit, and Sat we went with Corey and Mindi. We went after work and ran out of light but had a great time

It was fun to put Nick and Brit on the tubes and throw them around a little. June said boating was his favorite thing he did in the US so of coarse we had to go again

Matt showing them how to knee board

Hallie knee boarding again

Trying the 360

Each night we boated until dark and we used every minute of the light we could get. It was a lot of fun. We did a ton of tubing, skiing, and knee boarding. After we got off the lake we had a fiesta for June to celebrate his leaving and his birthday