Back to School...

Welcome to Lexie's salon! First Payter, then Brooklyn, then herself!

I can't believe my summer is over!! I think I am still in denial, though its bound to hit me when my kids walk out the door for school tomorrow. Lexie is a fourth grader (okay, that made me feel old), Kobe is in second, and little Brooklyn is a kindergartener! Even though I've done this twice already, it still made me sad to send Brooklyn to school. She still seems so young. At least she still lets me call her 'Baby'.

Lexie was insistent on doing 'facials' the night before school. Jeff couldn't understand why that was an excuse to be up late on a school night. I told him it was a girl thing. (Mary, I think she got the idea from your blog) I told Lexie I didn't have any face mask stuff so she, being the resourceful child she is, used a variety of lotions. She reminded me like 50 times before sunday night that I had better have a cucumber on hand. Then she laid each kid out on the couch -except Kobe, I guess he's too manly- stuck on the cucumbers, gobbed on the lotion and pampered them.

Look out school, here they come! See if you can guess their favorite sports team (by matter of brainwashing) by their choice of color. Not sure? Check out Brooklyn's shirt. I thought it was an interesting choice for the first day of school. Maybe she just wanted all those Bronco fans to know where her loyalty lies!

Lake Powell

Here I go reporting on another great vacation! It seems like that is how my summer has gone. Pack, vacation, come home, LAUNDRY, pack, vacation, & so on. I hope that didn't sound like I was complaining! (except for the laundry- that's legit)

Anyway, Lake Powell - or as Zack says "Powell Lake" - is one of our families favorite vacations. I love the beautiful red rocks, the breathtaking night sky full of shooting stars, the warm water (a must for me), and the good food - okay, okay junk food. (But it's way to good to call junk!) Most of all, I know Lake Powell means a week of relaxing and spending time with family and friends that I love.This is why I could never get tired of returning to the same place each year.

There were a few things I felt made this a memorable trip.First of all, my kids went bananas with catching lizards. I bet they caught like at least 10. Even Zack would head off and like 5 minutes later come back with a lizard in tow. They made them a nice little habitat in a 5 gallon bucket, and were so mad when I made them release the ones that didn't die. (go figure)

Every morning we had ducks come quacking for scraps. I think Zack and Griffin had the most fun throwing them bread scraps. They also had fun seeing what else the ducks might want to eat. Too bad most of it was not edible and had to be fished out later. There were 3 ducks that seemed to keep coming back so I asked Zack what their names were. He answered me immediately as if he had already thought it out. Their names were Shmarshshmello, Bread, and Hotdog. Notice all 3 were named after food. Anyone who knows my Zack is not surprised.

I have to mention the crazy downpour that left 3-4 inches of water in our tent. Our rainfly lasted, oh - like 30 seconds into the storm before it blew off. Mom and Dad your tent is the bomb. Luckily we all fit on the boat that night. The next day all of my stuff was strewn everywhere- pillows, bedding and clothes!

Our beach had an amazing sand sculpture when we arrived. We snapped our pictures quick because we knew it wouldn't last. I still think Nate should have left some kind of Olympic badger sculpture. That would have been cool.

One fun surprise was Jeff's mission buddy Josh actually found our camp (they were there also) and got to take Jeff waterskiing. What are the odds of that?!So anyway- we had a great time. Thanks mom and dad!

More Reunion Pics

I couldn't get all the pictures I wanted to share in my last post, so here's a few more!

Reunion Time!

Last week we had the chance to go to 2 family reunions- one on each side. It was so good to see all of you again! And thanks to Mel for helping me get my blog up and running!! I am so excited to have it- it has already turned out to be a blessing. I am hearing from people I haven't heard from in awhile.

Although the whole trip was pretty fun-(minus the fact that we moved locations 6 times in 7 days) there were 3 blessings that stand out --

First-Lexie rolled the go cart down the hill at the cabin and lived to tell the tale- don't worry only minor bumps and bruises

Although Jeff's mom came down with a hefty diagnosis of major health problems during the reunion, we are relieved there is no cancer (big scare)

And last, when our neighbor let the spider spray guy in our house while we were gone she found our cat livin' his life long dream of being a house cat. (must've snuck in while we were loading the car) Yes, we will have to clean the carpet, but at least he survived the week. That would've been even stinkier.