Just Catching Up....

I don't have any first day of school pictures to post ( I could lie and take them now and say they were first day, but that still involves taking out the camera) - I just didn't get them done, but the kids looked great!  Here is what's been going on in our little corner.

McKaleigh is going into 9th grade and is really responsible and feeling very balanced.  She is taking some very difficult classes mixed in with Seminary, sewing and creative writing.  She is excited for the challenges that lay ahead this year.  She attended her first real dance, a seminary back to school dance, and was on Cloud 9 - she danced with four boys!  That was two more than her besties, so she was just elated.  She has been following the Weight Watchers plan and has lost almost 7 healthy pounds (I don't think she realized how much junk she ate and how large her portions were before).  McKaleigh is all about the boy band - One Direction- and yesterday Brett came home and told her that he bought two tickets for her for her birthday present NEXT JULY!  Wow, the excitement was amazing.  She is going with two of her best friends all by themselves (that's a big step, but I guess I have a year to get used to the idea).  She is happy and grounded.  She still loves reading and we can always find her on her Nook either reading or watching t.v.  She is taking tennis lessons and would like to take volleyball lessons this fall - but i'm not quite sure where we will fit that in.  She is filled with positivity and excited about the coming year.

Colton is in the 6th grade this year.  He loves all things sporty and can be found playing basketball, jumping around with the Wii Sports games or Just Dance, or finding neighbor friends to jump on the trampoline, bike ride or have Nerf wars in the yards.  He has decided that he is going to take up snow skiing and has a new pair of skis and boots for Christmas just waiting to be used.  Colton is also taking tennis lessons and waiting for basketball season to start.  He also loves reading and devours books.  He and some of his friends (about 6 of them) had a Summer book club and read one book every couple of weeks - then they had a meeting about it that usually ended in treats and water fun.  He has a great group of friends.  Colton is a math whiz and turns much of life into a counting game, addition or subtraction problem, or finds some math relation to most conversations.  He is excited about this being his last year at the elementary school, and it nervous about Jr. High. I secretly thinks he wishes McKaleigh would be there with him, but he will do fine, he always does - he just goes with the flow.

Alex is beginning kindergarten on Monday and has met with his teacher and is excited about it.  He has a few neighbor friends in his and the other class, so he will have old friends and will make new friends.  He usually does because he is pretty even keeled.  So far the playground is his favorite part. Alex missed out on t-ball season due to his head injury and is currently playing soccer.  He wants to play tennis with the big kids, but we will probably wait until next year.  Alex loves what he calls "creatives".  Any art or craft type project or item.  He likes to collect sequins, rubber bands, string...anything you can make something with.  I have piles of his "creative junk" everywhere around the house.  He loves a good board game, Wii game, or anything that involves another person playing with him.  He is a great kid, and when I tell him so he often responds "it just my pleasure mom". 

Brett and I are good...we love each other, have happy kids and a happy home, what more could I ask for?

Oregon Country

Last week I fully enjoyed my Mother's Day gift...a trip with the kids to my parents home in Oregon.  I LOVE Oregon, and as I said before, if Brett were with us, I might not have come back to Salt Lake City!
When we go to Oregon, it is usually for a family get together at the coast, it has been years since I have actually been able to just enjoy my parents home and spend time with them.  It was such a great time!

The first full day we were there we got up early to pick berries.  The kids loved picking berries and they were good at it.  After we got into the fields and started filling our buckets with berries it seemed like only minutes before we heard grandma and McKaleigh calling our names to head home, when in fact it had been hours.  We came home with more than 30 pounds of berries and spent the rest of the day cleaning them and getting ready to make jam.


 In this picture Colton and Alex are racing to catch up to grandma and McKaleigh out in the distance. I think they thought they might beat them to better berries, so they were hurrying up!

There is a little farmers market out in the country that we usually visit...because it has the best cherries I have ever tasted - and the best homemade donuts - and the best shortcakes (they are homemade too).  Here is a picture of the kids sharing a shortcake, right after we all had homemade donuts.  Oh, I might mention that if you can't already tell, if I lived in Oregon I would probably weigh 500 lbs!

All of our "loot"!  If you are wondering what Alex is doing with his hand...well, after eating a few pounds of berries himself - fresh off the vine, he is asking if he can have a tiny bit more!

My parents have a small neighborhood pool that we love to visit in the afternoons right before dinner.  The weather was just perfect around 3p.m. everyday to go over and take a little dip, or lounge and read a book and catch some rays!

 My younger brother David and his family still live in Oregon.  We spent a lot of time with him and his wife and their baby Charlie.  (I might add that Alex has never gotten attached to a baby like this.  He could usually care less...but he LOVED Charlie, to the point that he is begging Brett to have another baby...he even asked if we could buy one!  Every day he would ask my mom to call Aunt Sarah to bring Charlie Pants over to play).  We really enjoyed their company and wished they lived closer!

Here we are on a picnic at Riverfront park with my parents and brother's family.

 Feeding a family of ducks, naughty white geese and an assortment of fish some of our picnic.  We were limited on bread, but had brownies and Pringles that the ducks and fish quite enjoyed!

 Aunt Sarah, Charlie and I.

 After the park, we went over to David and Sarah's home to spend some time together, swim and have dinner...I wish I would have gotten a picture of the homemade pizza's that they made...I have the recipe and hope to be able to duplicate it, they were amazing!  Pizza number one was a cheese, mushroom and olive for the boys, but the second one he made was a pesto, sundried tomato, artichoke heart, olive one (I know, sounds gross right?) Well, let me assure you...it was so very yummy, but I am not sure I will be able to recreate Aunt Sarah's amazing homemade pesto sauce! 

One of Many dips in the jacuzzi!

 I really wanted to take the kids on a hike while we were in Oregon.  There are so many beautiful places to see and visit, but the kids wanted to go to the beach.  It is an hours ride out there, and the weather is always so iffy (cold, windy, etc..).  After studying the weather for the week, we decided on a day to go when the weather was supposed to be warm and sunny.  Well, the sun was out, but it was so windy that the sand beat your face, stung your arms and made it pretty... um not fun.  But we climbed the big sand dune - which is steep, collected a few shells, had lunch at the Pelican Pub (a family favorite) and after about an hour and a half, headed back home.

 Heading out to the large dune.

Alex was a climbing machine.  As we climbed, he talked about how fun it was going to be to run back down.  There were many kids he saw running back down the hill once they reached the top...and he was looking forward to that!

 We made it...McKaleigh was sketchy as to whether or not she was going to, but I am proud to say that the view from the top was beautiful!

 When we climbed back down, on the cliffs there were these huge rocks with climbing like holes, so the boys climbed up...they got pretty far!

 We love everything about Oregon.  It is always so sad when we have to leave it behind, but we have so many great memories (and jars of jam and bags of berries) to tide us over till next year!  Thanks for all of the fun Mom and Dad!

Annual Camp Trip

Every year, for the past several, we have made it a family tradition to go camping.  We have chose Tanner's Flat, which Brett had dubbed "city camping".  It is great because it is just far enough outside of the city up in the canyon, but still has a few comforts (which is great with kids that are still little).  Let me say though, we still have to set up tents, we still get really dirty and eat "camp" food (it's real camping to me!).  We always have a great time when we go (2 nights and 3 days is just right).  Once we got up there and got camp all set up the kiddos realized that there were a lot of "potguts" hanging around looking for handouts.  They spent the better part of the afternoon constructing and trying to trap one of them.  They were not successful, but had  so much fun in trying to.

A rare shot of the whole camping family.  I want to add that this is early on in the trip, we did not look like this towards the end!

Alex and mom

Colton was able to amuse himself for most of the trip with his magnifying glass.  He burned the table, leaves, pine cones, more leaves...and whatever else he could.

During the camp trip, we take a day and go up to Snowbird.  We usually have a good lunch (city camping) and let the kids pick a few of the activities, but this year we (Brett and I) decided that we would ride the tram to the top of Snowbird (which is the top of the mountain) and hike down instead of riding the chairlift down (which is what we usually do).  Let me just say, that we bit off WAY more than we could chew.  The trail was much steeper than it looked, much much (like many hours) longer than we anticipated, and just all around difficult.  However, we did finish...tired, thirsty, hungry and SORE!

There were some really pretty patches of flowers, waterfalls, and rock formations along the way though.

That night we were really glad to be back at camp to spend some more time together.  McKaleigh read the entire book "The Host" (again) during our time up there.  Alex and dad created all kinds of mischief, and we just generally had a great time!