First Days of School

It's that time of year again when kids pack up their backpacks and lunches and head back to school. Because we moved in the spring we are at a new school so we are having to figure out a new school with new teachers and another new experience...

the bus...


The boys of course love it although if you are at all familiar with Giggles you will understand my angst about sending him on the bus.


He has a difficult time following rules and to be riding a bus with no seatbelts in it is just asking for trouble. He has his older brothers with him on the way to school to help keep him in line though. Or will they????





So when the boys started coming home with all of their homework in the 2nd week of school ... and believe me it was a lot... and I started commenting (aka complaining) to Brett about how much they had and did the teachers understand that kids need time to play?? I also said that soon Giggles would be starting and he would be bringing homework home as well. Brett said "kindergartners don't get homework". What the what??? Where was he when Sheriff and Wannabe went to kindergarten??? Apparently I did my job altogether too well and he was totally unaware of the cutting and pasting, the spelling tests and rhyming homework as well as reading homework the boys had in kindergarten. So on Tuesday when we met with Giggles' teacher she gave him an assignment (homework) and some questions for the parents to fill out. There was a question on it I needed to ask Brett's help with.

"what's that for?" Brett asks.

"Giggles' homework" I reply.

"But he hasn't even started school yet" says Brett.

"I know, but we met his teacher yesterday and she gave him some... you were saying something about kindergartners not having homework?"

I know, I know... I'm a smarty pants.

Uncle Jeff impresses kids

Recently my brother-in-law Jeff participated in a fund raiser called Over The Top which was raising money for the Special Olympics. The idea was to sponsor these individuals (donate money to the cause) and they would repel down a very high hotel in return and hopefully stay alive in the process.

Jeff wore one of his favorite shirts for the occasion:



We couldn't believe how high the starting point was....


Some of us were more concerned about who we wished we were sitting beside but weren't because someone else got there first...




Finally it was Jeff's turn and he made it look so easy...


How high is that???



It was amazing to see Jeff come down from that height! Of course we had to stick around and see a local celebrity do the same...



As an added bonus the boys got to meet him later:




Thanks for a great morning Jeff and for taking time for a worthy cause.

Family Reunion Bound

After Brett's parents rescued (towed back) our busted boat from Lake Powell last week end, his mom said to him "now you're going to the family reunion - right?" Hahaha!!! There was no getting out of it now. Actually we were already going to it anyways but this cinched it FOR SURE!!! Only death or worse could have prevented us from attending after that favor!!

So I made up a pasta salad, we packed up some chairs and all the kiddies and headed out for Brett's grandpa's family reunion.

There was lots of great food: (sorry Roxy... I'm famous for taking pics of people in the middle of eating... just ask Dede)
and the kids had a great time playing:



Of course everyone thought Brett was still single because he wasn't wearing a ring...
just kidding (he did get teased a lot for losing it though.)


I have to say that I love Brett's family and did from the very start. They are wonderful people full of generosity and love that welcomed me in and made me feel a part of the family. I am family.
Families come in all shapes and sizes but nothing beats the love of family.

You lost what???

The ring is a symbol of fidelity and its shape of a circle represents eternity. If you look in your drawer or perhaps on your hand you may find different kinds of rings.

There is the school ring:
the CTR ring:

the engagement ring:

the ring that grandma gave you:

and rings that only fit on certain fingers: (please ignore the knobby knuckles ... I'll never make it as a hand model)

last but not least is your wedding band:





but wait.... where is the picture of the wedding band???

THERE IS NONE.

In my husband's line of work it can be dangerous to wear a ring. You can lose a finger that way. However, he is in the office most of the time so he decided recently to put his wedding band back on. A couple of days ago he noticed that his wedding band was not on his finger. Where did it go??? This is where he thinks it is ....



I suppose I shouldn't be surprised because every year Lake Powell takes something as tribute from us. I guess this year it was more than just an earplug or a flowbee (frisbee). Still, perhaps he is wrong and his ring is just in his truck somewhere or even in the house in some odd place. My fingers are crossed.

Monday Night Fun

Our Monday nights are typically taken up with Family Home Evening - as they should be right??? Of course there are the occasional Monday nights when it doesn't work out and I feel the overwhelming guilt of not having fulfilled my responsibility as I should have. But this Monday was not one of those guilt-ridden nights fortunately!!! whew!

Of course, having just done a Lake Powell trip my brain was dead and I could not come up with a decent post Family Home Evening activity. Really... I was trying and trying. I couldn't even climb the stairs to look in the game closet and pull something down. So I did what any mom would do and turned the job over to dad. And then he had to wrack his brain all through the opening song, opening prayer, and lesson. When they were done he was still wracking his brain. No idea... Then I told him the boys were talking about racing earlier in the day and a light when on in his head. He had them do a regular race, a crawling race, a wheelbarrow race.

Then they had to wheelbarrow race HIM:


That didn't quite go as planned - and turned more into a tackle dad fest:



Only a couple of kids got hurt in this activity.

Don't you just love Family Home Evening??? :)

Farewell to the Lake... or so I thought...

It turned out to be our last Lake Powell trip this past weekend unbeknownst to us. If you recall from my last post about our last Lake Powell trip, we ended up with a tow out of a canyon when our boat broke down. This was our view:


It was painful for me to fork out the money to pay for boat repairs but I really wanted it fixed to vacation with my sister and her family. It's funny isn't it how some things you don't mind paying for but other things it REALLY HURTS to write those checks for. I'm sure all of you can think of things that you wouldn't bat an eye at handing cash or the debit card over to pay for something but it's like having the money ripped out of your hands to pay for other things. (I just saw my airconditioning bill today and I'm dying... I raised the temperature in the house a couple more degrees... poor Brett was already struggling).

But we love Lake Powell and the boys have so much fun there so we could not miss our August trip. We were assured that the boat was in good working order. So much for assurances. Brett was already down at Powell on a job and while I was driving down with kids he tested it out with his dad. After only 30 minutes he knew something was wrong. By the time I got down there he was waiting for someone to pick up the boat to take it to a shop to get it checked out.

Worse yet, my sister came down with the flu and could not come. She sent her personal chef instead (her husband Drew) with all the food sacrificing her own comfort as he could have stayed home and taken care of her instead of enjoying the company of loud noisy kids, being locked out of the houseboat the first night and sleeping up top in the cold with no bed or blankets, standing on a dock for 3 hours waiting to find out about the status of our boat and loading and unloading the millions of containers on and off the houseboat. April and Drew your certificates of honorary sainthood are in the mail.

But you have to make the best of your situation even when things don't turn out as you planned. I was sooo grateful that the day we arrived it was not blazing down on us as we waited on the dock to find out what was going to happen with our boat. Ominous clouds kept circling around close by but never rained on the dock. Instead we were rewarded with this beautiful view:


Not having a fast boat means a slower pace like...

building sand castles or in this case, a sand roller coaster:


sneaking up on people from under the houseboat:



sitting by the campfire:



and of course... swimming (or splashing) in the water:




Brett's parents came down on Saturday and towed our boat back (our car can't pull the boat). So hopefully it will be fixed properly this time... but it means we are done for this season.

Powell is still on some boys' minds however, for when I called them up for lunch today I turned around and saw this...



I don't know how they will wait until next year. -sigh-

Injury Math

What do you get when you take two cute boys shooting fake guns (using their hands)


plus a great big jump .... (to get away from the fake gun fire of course)

plus hard tile



EQUALS =

1 splint on Sheriff's foot for the fracture below the third metatarsal



1 boot on Sheriff's foot which replaced the splint the following week



1 pair of crutches



2 $30.00 co-pays (more bills to follow I'm sure)

and

3 trips to After hours instacare (one for the initial Sunday visit and two so far for follow-up visits)

That doesn't stop him from having fun though...