First Day

Summer flew by, but we were ready for school to start. Damon is in 7th grade, at Lakeridge Junior High (gulp!), and really loving junior high so far. He rides the bus, and has 8 classes. What a new, fun experience for him.

Allie is in fourth grade with Miss Gurr. She is in the Spanish program again, and really adjusting well to the 8:00 schedule. I didn't know how she'd do (she loves to sleep in), but it hasn't been a problem so far.

Kyla is in second grade with Mrs Simmons and Senorita Monterrossa. She is also doing the Spanish program, and can only speak Spanish in Srta Monterrossa's class. It will be a good challenge for her. She claims she doesn't like school, but I think she really does. Especially the social part of it.

Carter didn't get into preschool at BYU or Cherry Hill, and is still on the waitlist at Orem. So for now, he is doing his Rusty and Rosy (computer preschool) and waiting for his turn to go to school too. 

Zoo

End of summer means one thing when your dad is an orthodontist and you are going into 7th grade--BRACES! Damon had a rough couple of days (like all kids who get braces on), but he is doing well. And he looks older now.

We took the kids to the zoo the weekend before school started. Just another excuse to stay in a hotel with a yummy breakfast and swim. Even if it was only 30 minutes from our house!

24th+Others

We love the 24th of July! We get to swim all day with cousins and then party all night in Mapleton. Allie, Aubrie and Kyla loved the band (they were awesome)!

Cute little boys ready for church

We went to see Monique in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at the SCERA, and she was awesome!

Family Trip '14

With Jeff spending so much time in New Mexico the past few months (and especially during the summer), we didn't have a lot of time for our family trip this year. So, we decided we'd meet Jeff in Las Vegas after one of his New Mexico trips and spend a couple of days there. We stayed at the Cancun Resort, which is about 5 miles south of the strip on Las Vegas Blvd. We needed two rooms, so we got a suite, and it was nice!

The best part about the hotel was the awesome pool. It was huge, with a fun waterfall, and four water slides. Carter and McKay, sadly, were too small for the slides (which caused a lot of sadness for them), but the other kids spent a lot of time on them. 

We also braved the heat and spent some time walking down the Strip. We found some interesting characters to take pictures with.

Statue of Liberty made of chocolate

M&M World was crazy busy, but fun to see. I think the green M must be Asian. :)

Jeff was pretty fond of the Jelly Belly Statue of Liberty

We wanted to take the kids to a show, but didn't want to spend a ton of money. We found a perfect show--Laughternoon with Adam London. We got cheap tickets ($10 for the kids and $13 for us) and spent an hour seeing a show. He was a lot of fun, with magic and comedy. 

When we took a picture with him after the show, he asked if we were LDS. He saw my CTR ring. He is also LDS, from Ogden, living in Vegas trying to make it as a comedian. Small world. 

Our suite had its own hot tub on the balcony, but we never even bothered trying to fill it up, though, because we had two huge jacuzzi tubs in our bathrooms. The kids could easily fit in the biggest one.

It was a quick trip, as we had to head home after two nights. 

After a day at home, we drove up toward Strawberry Reservoir for a night of camping. The campsite was full of cows and deer, which made for an early wake up call, but since we were going fishing, it was fine. 

It was the first time our whole family had been fishing together on the boat, and the little boys had a blast. Carter especially loved reeling in a fish and constantly asked when we could go again. 

Fishing started a little slow, but picked up later in the morning. We kept a few of the biggest ones to eat, which we did quickly when we got home

We were planning on staying for two nights, but Damon really wanted to go to Sam's birthday party, so we decided to come home early. Not that I complained too much--sleeping doesn't happen much when you are camping with five kids. Still, memories were made and bonding occurred. That's what family trips are all about. 

7-11

Who doesn't love free stuff? July 11th is a great day for that. We made our cow "costumes" and stood in line at Chik fil A for a free meal.

On our way home, we stopped at 7-11 (across the street from Chik fil A) for our free slurpee. Damon missed out on all the fun because he was at scout camp, but the rest of us made up for it!

July 4th

The girls and I wanted to get patriotic for the Fourth of July, so we copied an idea Kimmy had and made some flag shorts. We used bleach to get the denim shorts while, then used painters tape, glow in the dark stars and fabric paint to paint the shorts. McKay "helped" by painting some of my shorts and I was pretty mad. 

When we got up in the morning, Jeff was sick, so we left him home while we went to the balloons. This year, the weather was great and they went up. 

We spent the afternoon swimming at Colleen's, which always ends with the adult volleyball game. Jeff stayed in bed all day, poor guy. He missed all the fun!

The shorts finally revealed 

We had an awesome night of fireworks back at our house. Jeff sent up some amazing ones and then we went back on the deck to watch the fireworks all over the valley. We have an amazing view, and there were literally hundreds of fireworks all over that we could see. 

I love the Fourth of July. It was sad that Jeff had such a bad day, but the rest of us did our best to enjoy it.