Dragon Dash

Discovery Elementary did a fundraiser called Dragon Dash today for the students and their families.  We decided Dustin would run with Ella and Alissa and to the 1 mile fun run.  They all got Tshirts and numbers to wear.

 

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And they started off strong.

 

I'm pretty sure that Dustin packed Alissa most of the mile, but here they are coming back through the finish line with smiles on their faces.

 

This is Ella's 3rd race and Alissa's first race.

 

Molly and I were cheering them on! :)

Bubble Bath

It's been too long since we have put bubbles in the tub!  I have had so many moments lately where I just wish I could freeze the moment.

 

This was one of them.  These cute kids are getting big way too fast!

 

They are so stinkin much fun, I just love them!

 

Fall Bucket List

I LOVE FALL and I love bucket lists.  I just threw away the bucket list for summer which we crossed off 23 of 39.  We had a pretty darn casual summer. 

I just wrote up our fall bucket list which I am excited about.  I'm going to try to have these items done by the end of November.  Here it is:

make an apple pie     play flag football     trick or treating     attend the temple     carve pumpkins     color leaf prints     make personalized plates     make a thankful tree     handprint turkeys     laminate leaves and put magnets on them     have family photos taken     play in the leaves     bake a turkey     apple stamping     roast pumpkins seeds     corn maze     service project     thankfulness walk     window paint     family movie night     "boo" a neighbor     laminate pictures of kids faces for drawing     have a date with each kid     Christmas shopping done     make a water filter     stock up on baking items     go to general conference in SLC

Marriage

It was such a good time spending the weekend with Dustin a few weekends ago.  When we got home my eyes were opened again to how busy life with kids is.  It's hard to find time to sit down and talk, uninterrupted talking.  I find myself frustrated in the evening because Dustin is tired from working and wants to rest and I'm tired from being mommy all day and want to DO SOMETHING!  I want help with dishes after dinner and then want him to sit and listen to me talk about the day.  Sounds pathetic when I'm writing it down but it's the truth.

I also think about some conversations I have had recently with friends who stay at home in the evenings with the kids while the husband does other activities - coaches, church callings, etc.  They were saying it was hard sometimes to be supportive because they need him. 

A few nights ago I read this on a blog and thought it was pretty powerful. "We are both working for our family, just in different locales.  It doesn't matter who is working harder or longer.  Marriage is not a contest.  It is a mutual work, for the same purpose, with the same goals."

Made me think about our different roles.  Made me want to be more understanding of the evening veg in front of the TV while I clean up dishes.

Joy School

A few years ago I was invited to participate in a Joy School with 6-7 other moms and their daughters.  I thought it sounded like a great idea and something Ella would love.  It was such a positive experience in every way.  Alissa turns 4 this year so I decided to try and arrange some friends to do a Joy School with us.  We ended up with 6 little friends.

 

We take turns rotating houses every week and teach two days that week.  We started this week by learning letter A at our house on Monday & Wednesday.  The fun yet tricky part is the 2 year old at our house gets to participate too.  Here they are waiting for the kids to show up.

 

I split them into "centers" which they rotated through doing different activities.  It turned out just great!  I know we're going to have a lot of fun!

 

This is where we do most of the learning at my house.  My priceless "COPY" table as Ella calls it.  It is perfect size for this little class.  Each day we start by singing the days of the week and months of the year song as well as the ABC's and saying the Pledge of Allegiance.   We are going to try to teach them the ABC's in sign language too.

 

I'm sure we'll be posting more on this later.  I'm just glad my lessons are done this week.  It takes a lot of preparation to entertain 7 little kids enough to keep them seated for 2 hours. :)  So much fun!

 

Bug Collection

One of the items on our Summer Bucket List was to have a bug collection.  We had way too much fun building this thing.  I think it may become a summer tradition.  My favorite part was that the neighbor kids loved to look at it progress when they'd come over and try to catch new bugs for us to pin on.  We actually had a monarch butterfly, but we lost it while we were camping so it's not pinned on.

 

Ella got to take it to school today to show to her class before we threw it in the garbage.  I know it's gross, but we kept it in the freezer all summer so the bugs would not shrivel up.  It cracked me up every time a guest would open my freezer to see a board full of bugs.

 

So fun!

 

Just as a little side note.. I sent Ella to school today with a little macaroni cup for lunch.  She mentioned that some of the kids would eat them and she'd like to try them.  I haven't taught her how to make it, but thought she would be able to figure it out because she has watched her friends.  When she got home and I was going through her lunch box I found most of her lunch still in there.  I asked her how the macaroni went and with a sad face said, "I burnt it and had to eat hot lunch."  She proceeds to tell me that she cooked it for 1 minute.. 3 times but never put any water in it.  She said it had 19 seconds left when she saw it smoking so she opened it up and had to go eat hot lunch.  Made me laugh a little.

 

One day that will be a funny story to her.  Poor girl, I debated whether or not she would be able to figure it out on her own.  Should have played it safe I guess.  :)

Happy Anniversary

I have been slow to post this, but Dustin and I celebrated our 10th anniversary on the 9th of August.   We were hoping for a vacation in September so that night we celebrated by going to Olive Garden and then racing go carts at Riot Zone.  It was a great time!

 

We couldn't decide what we wanted to do for our weekend away.  All we knew is we were going to leave Friday night and come back Monday morning and mom was going to watch the kids.  Friday night came and we still didn't know what we were doing so we decided we'd make a plan and leave Saturday morning.    Here is what we did:

 

Saturday morning we headed to SLC to have lunch at one of Dustin's favorite restaurants, Rodizios.  It was great, except watching him try out the chicken heart.  Gross..

After lunch we headed to the temple to do an endowment session.  It's always fun to do endowment at the Salt Lake temple because the patrons memorize everything and do it live.  We really enjoyed the peaceful time and I caught myself in tears a few times.  So blessed to have the gospel and eternal families!!

 

From Salt Lake we headed to Park City where we checked into our motel and headed to the Alpine Slide and Zipline.

 

The view from the top of the zip line.  The anticipation is the worst!

 

The Alpine Slide.  As we rode the lift up to ride the slide, it started to thunder and lightening.  I will admit it made me a little nervous being all the way up there and watching lightening.  We were one of the last 3 sets to go down the slide before they closed the park due to the storm.   So we rode the slide down seconds before it started to pour rain.

 

We had purchased tickets for the Alpine Coaster too, but because the park was closed we had to go back Sunday morning to use them.  

 

After breakfast Sunday we went back to the park to cash in our tickets and waited in about a 25 minute line to get on the coaster. 

 

We rode the coaster all the way up to here:

 

When suddenly it stopped and we sat for a long time. 

Then we see this up ahead... an EMT with a gernie in hand hiking down the hill.  Of course nobody tells you anything other than there was an "incident" on one of the turns.

 

Eventually we were asked to get out of our carts and hike up the hill because they had to shut down the coaster due to an injury.  Here comes Dustin.  After being out of breath from our little hike they allowed us to go to the front of the zip line and ride it down and also be reimbursed for our tickets.

 

When we got to the bottom we found the ambulance had arrived.  The rumour was that a lady that was not buckled into the cart fell off one of the turns and broke her leg.

 

We decided we were not supposed to be at Park City after the storm and the accident on the coaster and we hit the road.  We headed to Logan where we spent the rest of the day driving around and reminiscing about the college years.  Of course we had to drive by our old house.

 

And the Logan temple.

 

I made Dustin pose for me a whole bunch while I tried to take pictures of us. :)

 

 We stayed at the Anniversary Inn in Logan.  We rented a Redbox and checked into the motel.  You can tell we are celebrating 10 and not 1 year because we were asleep at 7:00!  We both woke up at 11 and decided to watch our movie and then went back to sleep until morning.

 

We made a couple quick stops at some fun stores in Logan and then headed to Bear Lake where we had reserved a jet ski for 4 hours.  Dustin has never driven a jet ski and he was first driver.  It was a little insane there for a while as he was hooting and hollering and laughing his head off as he hit the waves.  I was holding on for dear life and getting a little motion sickness. :)  We took turns driving and his driving got much less insane or maybe I got used to it.  We had fun chasing the ducks, hitting waves and then got lost and couldn't find the rental center on the beach.  We looked for about an hour and half to try to find where we were.  Made for some good laughs.

 

I didn't dare take the camera or ipod on the jet ski so we propped it up on top of the car when we were all done and here is what we got.

 

I sure do love this boy.  I can honestly say that the past few years have been the best of all 10 years we have been married.  I love him now more than ever and I didn't even think that was possible.  I am so grateful for the opportunity we had to spend the weekend together and laugh and talk.  So grateful for my mom and dad for letting the kids stay at their house and for looking after them.  It's such a blessing to not have to worry about them while you're gone.

 

I know the next 10 years will be even better than the last 10 as we have become even better friends.  I truly am grateful to know that we can be together for eternity.  So blessed!