School is in Session...

And my kids could not be happier!! My three sweeties ready to start a new school year.

Gone are the glasses, say hello to contacts!!

(He has been wearing contact for about 7 months now, but this is the first time since 2nd grade starting a school year without glasses.)

John in his "perfect 1st day of school" outfit to start 7th grade. It took a long time to find just the right outfit, not only for the first day of school either. He and I went school shopping and John had to try on everything before we could consider buying it. He had to make sure it fit just right and looked GOOD on him. It is so fun to watch the changes he is going through and that he actually cares about his appearance. He is a wonderful young man. (Just a side note, John is now 5'5" and is wearing a size 11 shoe.)

Jessica is now in 5th grade and is still my spunky little girl. She is quickly becoming a young woman though and is caring a little more about what she wears as well. Once we bought her school clothes I told her to put them away. A little while later she called me into her room to show me that she had hung up all of her shirts in the order she was going to wear them for the first two weeks of school. Jess and Abbi switched Elementary schools this year and Jess was a little nervous about going to a new school. She had a great first day of school though and has made several new friends, one of them is a girl named Grace who just moved into our ward. She is a very outgoing young lady and makes friends so easily, for that I am grateful.



Abbi is in the 2nd grade and loves school! She is always so excited to pick out her outfit and has always worn a skirt on the first day of school. She loves any occasion that she gets to dress up and look pretty. This year it was a little more of a casual outfit, but she looked darling. Abbi use to be a very shy little girl and I was a little worried about her starting a new school, but she surprised me and was not even nervous. I thought she was going to have me at least walk her to her class, but she didn't. I helped her find her place to line up and she said "bye mom, you can go." It almost made me cry to know that my baby does not need me anymore. I am so proud of her though, she is growing up so fast. She too made new friends very quickly and loves her new school. Her teacher is great!! He seems to love what he does and so far has made Abbi's 2nd grade year great.

One More Week of Summer....

How Can That BE??

It seems like we wait most of the year for summer to come and then summer comes and goes in the blink of an eye.

~This summer has been a busy one, but one filled with fun adventures~

Here is a run down of our fun from this summer.

We have pool passes and went swimming a couple times a week. The kids and I are officially fish.

We went to Reptile Gardens several times!!

Twice this summer we were able to go camping with friends at Angostura Reservoir and had a great time.

The kids and adults enjoyed playing in the sand and keeping cool in Angostura Lake during our second camping trip. The first trip was fun but a little cool and rainy.

We all love going to Spearfish Park and playing in the river,on the playground, and feeding the fish at the hatchery.

Abbi was not sure about going in the river at first. The water was really cold!!

Jess was having fun on the rocks in Spearfish River



Some of our hiking adventures!!

There were plenty of hikes this summer. Two of our favorites were Roughlock Falls trial to the water fall and Harney Peak. Here is Jess on the trail to Roughlock Falls.

We were able to hike Harney Peak which is a 7 mile hike. All of the kids did great and it only took us 4 hours.

This is the troop at the beginning of the hike....

And they made it to the top!!

I'm Here!

It has been awhile and I have been neglecting my blog.

I am here and I am alive.

It has been a very busy summer so far trying to keep the kids busy, having fun and out of trouble while I take three classes. We have been managing though. I will update my blog in more detail later, for now here are a few pictures to prove we have been having some fun this summer.

We have taken several trips to Reptile Gardens

This is Abbi at the dog park. I think the kids enjoy going to the dog park just as much as Sabrina does.

John and Jess at Sylvan Lake after we had hiked Harney Peak