Mission Reunion

This weekend I got to go to my mission reunion. It was fun to be there and see all these great sisters that I served with. It was amazing to me that so many of them came from so far away. In all honesty I don't think I would have traveled the great distances that they did, but I am so happy they did. It was great to see my mission president again, it had been many years (he has been serving as a member of the seventy in Africa for the last 4 years). President and Sister Snow spoke to us and I'm sure that all that were there were spiritually fed, I know that I was.

I wish I had been able to take more pictures but it was a busy night, not only was I attending the reunion I was also catering it. I am grateful to all those who helped out in the kitchen, thank you. For dinner we had 3 soups (beef stew, corn chowder and chicken enchilada soup), white and wheat butterflake rolls and foccacia squares, and two salads. For dessert we had chocolate cake and cheesecake. I just recently bought these new soup chaffers and they worked out great, it is nice to finally have a solution on how to keep soup warm at an event. Here are some pictures...the tables are not decorated as much as usual, I had brought all these pumpkins, gords and indian corn to decorate with but they totally did not go with the other decor, o-well what's a girl to do. Thanks Kelli and Amara for the decorations (even if I didn't use them).

Temple Square

After church yesterday we decided to drive up to Temple Square. We don't go there very often but decided it was a perfect afternoon for it. I served my mission there so it is always fun to go back and see it, although both visitors centers are completly different. It is crazy to think how long it has been since my mission. I think I've been home for about 11 years. Wow. I am getting old.

Trying to catch up

So since it is alot easier to post things on facebook, I have kind of been neglecting my blog. But today I thought about my reason for blogging being that it is somewhat of a journal for me, so I have decided I need to try to be better about it.

Ward Campout

About a month ago we had our Ward Campout and since it will probably be the only campout for the summer I feel like I should post some pictures. I am (or was) in charge of it so in all honesty it was more of a stress then it was really fun. I went early that day to actually set up our little campsite, because I knew that later I would be busy organizing and what not. So this was the first time I ever set up a tent all by my lonesome. I was pretty proud of myself. I was excited and optomistic that Sydney would be a good little camper like the rest of my kids...So just about when everyone started to head to their tents for bed time, Sydney freaked out, lets just say it was a good thing that home was only 15 minutes away. I had to be back by 6:3O am to start breakfast, so the whole night I was afraid my alarm would not go off, so I barely slept a wink.

Reading
I go through phases in my life were I read...I just recently got into one of these phases again (yes even with the start of tv). The first book I read was the Time Travelers Wife, although the story is good I did not love it because in my opinion it was an R-rated book (don't get me started on my I wish books had ratings thing). Next I read My Sisters Keeper, I liked this book, obviously it was not very uplifting but it definelty got me thinking about a lot of things. After that I read The Undaunted about the Hole in the Rock pioneers. I had never heard of this little expedition so it was really interesting to learn the history behind it (I'm a sucker for historical fiction). It overall was good, but certainly not my favorite. Today I just finished reading Hunger Games, so good. I was into it from about page 3. If you haven't read this I highly recommend it. When I heard the plot I never in a million years thought I would like it, but I never thought I would like books about vampires either. So next up on my reading list Catching Fire (which is the sequel to Huger Games) and then the These is my Words series. If anyone has any other recommendations I'm open to some more suggestions.

Sydney

Sydney is getting big she is almost 6 months. That is just crazy. Time flies when your having fun. She has just recently learned to sit up. I am not sure if she is getting teeth but she has been very fussy lately.

Back to Zion and More

We went back to St. George this weekend. Since we purchased the National Parks pass, we decided to take another day trip to Zion. We had a lot of fun hiking, but had to limit ourselves because we had all 4 kids with us. Here are some pictures.

Some family photos

We also spent a lot of time at the pool. I really need to find an indoor swimming lesson for Noah, because the kid has no fear when it comes to the water. He is crazy. Tanner is finally getting to a point where he can swim without a life jacket and I don't worry the whole time. Isaac thinks he can swim without a life jacket, but he most definetly can not.

Like I said NO FEAR

One day we went to Sand Hollow to do some boating. I have extreme fears of my kids drowning, so this is not a relaxing thing for me. But everyone got out on the tube (except for Sydney) and Kevin did some wake boarding. Isaac is a little daredevil on the boat. He was very excited to get on the tube all by himself, unfortunatly the front of the tube went under and kind of flipped him off, this kind of scared him (and me as well).

On Moday Kevin hung out with the kids at the pool and I went shopping and got a pedicure. What more could a gal ask for. This was a fun holiday weekend. We really enjoyed our time with the Jacobsons.

A Few Firsts and Other Stuff

So Sydney just recently turned 5 months old, so here are a few recent pictures of her.

In other Sydeny news we decided to start feeding her rice cereal. Of course she gobbled it right up (not really at all). She made a sour lemon face and shuddered, I guess that means she didn't like it.

On Wednesday it was Isaac's first day of school. We tried to make a big deal out of it, so Kevin worked from home for the morning. We took Isaac to lunch at his favorite place to eat, IHOP. Then we got home and waited and waited for the bus, that was 20 minutes late. Those poor kids were all late for the first day of school. Isaac loved it and absolutley loves riding the bus.

Let's not forget Noah and his own "first." So this is a picture of Noah the first time he wrote all over his face. Yes, proud mama must include this on her blog.

Now I wish that day he limited his writings to his face, but my dining room has lovely black crayon all over it. Looks like I need to head to the store to buy some magic erasers.

Southern Utah Vacation

A few weeks ago we went down to St. George with my sister and her family to visit some National Parks. The first day we went to Zion National Park. My mother-in-law was nice enough to watch Sydney for us, which was great since it was over 100 degrees that day. The kids were awesome we did 3 different hike (about 5 miles) and they all survived.
The next day Rob was sick so we took it easy. We did a small hike to some petroglyphs that are near my in-laws house. The kids loved this. Then we went to eat at Pirate Island. We spent several hours in the pool (the kids would have spent the entire day there). We ended the day with a raging session of Rock Band.
The next day we headed home. We took a big detour to Bryce Canyon, so glad we did. This was probably the most amazing thing I ever did see. We did a cool hike down into the canyon (the only tricky part was coming back up). We had a great time and love vacationing with the Kunzs.

Tanner's Ist Day of School

I have been a major blog slacker lately, it has been about 2 months since my last post

What better time to get back into blogging then the first day of school.

Sorry not the best pictures I've ever taken, but it was very sunny and Tanner was not thrilled to be getting his picture taken. I was one of the only cheesy moms out there with my camera (thanks Valeree for not letting me be the only one) and I could see it on his face "come on mom please no more pictures."

Tanner has been sick the last few days, so I am happy that he was feeling better, it would have been sad for him to miss the first day of school. I got up and made scrambled eggs and pancakes for breakfast and the poor guy still does not totally have his appetite back.

Tanner is a great helper for me and I will miss him during the days for that reason, but with school back in session, we can start to get back into routines and that is really what I need. Kindergarten starts next week, that is when the fun really begins.