cousins and retirement

Congrats to my little sister for retiring from her paying job effective this Friday afternoon! She's swapping out her old title and changing to full-time-stay-at-home-mom. I'm happy for her. She came to SLC on one last "business trip" a week and a half ago and we got to play with Emma. We won't see each other as frequently since there's no company bank rolling her visits, but this is, of course, the greater good. The kids had a ball playing with their giggling, smiling cousin.

The Cat From Outer Space

We checked out an old classic from the library this weekend, Disney's The Cat From Outer Space. I watched it gazillions of times as a kid and thought it was great. It's amazing how computer graphics have changed since 1978. And it's interesting to me that the parts of the movie that I recall laughing at, my children also thought were hilarious. Good fun.

wheels

Zachary started flag football this week and his first game was delightful fun! He's on a new team with a coach he's not played with before and a few kids who he knows from soccer. He played very well. With five minutes left in the game he caught an interception at mid-field and ran it in for a touchdown! Then a few minutes later, in a trick play, the QB threw the ball to Zach who then completed a pass to a teammate. It was a fun game to watch and he had a great time!

Bridger Lake

We had such a fantastic summer and a great first week of school so we went on our grand finale, goodbye to summer trip with just the 6 of us to Bridger Lake in the Uintahs.

We had a very nice campsite, roasted hot dogs and smores, played games, enjoyed a good rain storm, walked around the lake, and slept in.

We went to the Mountain Man Rendezvous at Fort Bridger. We toured the original buildings, saw reinactments, looked at cool gear, listened to a storyteller, pet (and fed sunflower seeds to) the Sheriff's horses, learned about beaver trapping, and lots of other cool mountain man stuff.

We hiked part of the Red Mountain trail which was beautiful. Griffin had a little mishap with the mushy mud, Zachary and Jeremy pushed over some dead trees (feats of strength), and we enjoyed the cool (and perfect) hiking weather.

We drove home along the Mirror Lake Highway. It added an hour to the trip home, but it was well worth the beautiful drive. I appreciate that Jeremy appreciates beautiful things and that he provides good opportunities for our children (and me) to value God's amazing creations.

"costume"

If you were wearing "costumes" and "period clothing" you got into the Mountain Man Rendezvous for free. There were some really cool, very authentic costumes and some people really took it seriously and looked the part. Others, however, took the Rendezvous as an opportunity to express their creativity. Zachary's favorite "costume" was the little dude with feathers sewn onto his underpants. There were other various very-caucasian women in scantily clad Indian buckskin and a family with four small boys and the dad (toting a beer) all without shirts. Not sure how that's a costume, but okay. Who walks around barefoot at an outdoor fair anyway? Were there really ladies of leisure wandering around the Fort in the 1860's? We saw this "Indian" who, quite possibly, was wearing (?) the most over-the-top costume. The pictures speak for themselves.

5th grade

At dinner tonight Zachary mentioned that his teacher is requesting that they all wear deodorant to school. We enjoyed a good laugh.

3 simple steps

Step 1: plant a garden













Step 2: pick ripe tomatoes













Step 3: bottle said ripe tomatoes

I tried something new this weekend: I dehydrated some tomatoes. I read that if you include dehydrated tomatoes in soups and stews that it acts as somewhat of a thickening agent. Let me know if you've tried it with success.

first day of school

The first week of school was a good one; three days for Zachary and Anna and two for Griffin. Griffin said of his new teacher, "I think she's going to be great, but I don't know if she'll be super great."

So far, no homework and the chocolate milk is better than last year. It's a good start.

goal!!

We're back into a routine! We started school, soccer, and dance this week. Jane is playing her first season of soccer and had a ball the first game! Go Watermelons!


Here's a picture of Jane scoring a goal!











All three of our soccer players scored goals in their first games. It was a great first week of soccer!

Lagoon

The week before school started we went to Lagoon. We played at Lagoon-a-beach for a while and Jeremy played sand volleyball with Sam and Rachelle.

The kids rode ride after ride and had a grand time. The lines were quite short so it was an ideal day to go. Griffin, of course, picked the labrador on the Carousel.

I love this picture of Rattlesnake Rapids; Grandma LeiLani is such a trooper. She spent the whole day with us and got drenched on RR.

Our kids enjoyed riding rides with their cousins; this is in Pioneer Village.



Michael spent the day with us as well. He and Zachary rode lots of big kid rides together.















Zachary spent some of his hard earned money to drive a race car. Money well spent, he said.

It was a great grand finale to a good and eventful summer.