1st day of school (part 1)

Long story, but the kids got reassigned to A track, and since A track starts today I am having them go to school here until we are all ready to move out to Connecticut. It could be next month or 2 or 3 months. So the lucky little darlins' will get two "first days of school"!

McKinley started 2nd grade. For such a social little girl she was pretty nervous. She kept asking me what she was supposed to do on the first day, why she hadn't met her teacher yet, where was she going to sit?
She'll do great. She loves doing something new and exciting!
We picked out a couple of new shirts for the new year. I am glad she still chose "little girl" shirts because I think she is growing up way too fast anyway!
Kindergarten starts next week, so we'll have another first day to report on next week.

Angel Moroni

We got this picture from my sister-in-law just recently. It was when they were taking down the lightning-struck Angel Moroni and putting up the new one. McKinley was with her cousins and they happened to come across it at just the right time.

Girls Camp

Girls camp is over. Now I can take a little break....I think.
This year I was the camp director for the South Jordan area Special Needs Mutual Young Women's camp. Thank heavens I had a great committee to work with and everything ran very smoothly!
I don't have one picture to show for it this year because I was almost always busy doing something or getting ready to do something.
I missed the testimony meeting this year because I got a monstrous migraine and spent the time walking back and forth to the public restroom to throw up. I guess I can cross toilet water splashing in my face off my list of phobias because I had to quickly overcome that. But after finally keeping some medicine down, a head massage, cold packs, and a blessing, it went away and I slept great that night.
I love the special needs mutual and it was a great opportunity to serve there. I think that might be the best calling there is. I am sure going to miss seeing them all at camp next summer.
I am just glad that even with my trip to Connecticut the week before I was able to get things together and I think the girls had a good time.

House Hunting

Well, we got back from a very long 5 day house hunting trip in Connecticut.


The plane ride was about 4 1/2 hours followed by a 1 1/2 hour drive to our hotel. They couldn't get all our seats together so I sat with the two kids while Kent sat across the aisle. Someone must have slipped my kids some crack because they were off the wall. Not even DVD's would distract them for more than 5 minutes...seriously!


The first day we looked in the Monroe and Trumbull areas of Connecticut. There were only 4 options there. One crazy coincidence was when we checked out a rental that happened to be occupied by a former BYU student. Too bad that was a stinking filth hole or I might have sat down to chat a minute. That day was seriously 3 crapholes followed by one "maybe", if the price was lowered. Then the agent passed us off to another agent to look in the other areas. We never heard from her again. We looked in a local newspaper and found a couple listings in the Newtown area that we checked out that were both "do-able".


Our next agent was a hard worker. He had us talk in his office for a few hours while he looked up places for us to check out that would fit our needs. We looked in some shady areas in duplexes and condos, an antique multi-family home that's basement floods frequently, and put in a few inquiries on some other properties that were listed higher than we wanted.


Everytime we walked into a less than nice house our kids would let everyone know. There were many times Sawyer would point out (very loudly) the dirty shower, or toilet, or spiders, or the stinky smell. He was always right though.


I shed a few tears at the hotel while the kids watched cartoons. What a reality check.


On Thursday we were pretty decided on going with one of the houses we found on our own in the Newtown area (about 40 minutes from Kent's work) that had pretty small bedrooms and a stinky basement. Apparently everyone uses dehumidifiers in their basements or they stink. Lovely, huh? Our agent said he had one last listing we had to check out that was very close to Kent's work. So we did. Now, it's still not fancy or my dream home, but it is 2400 sq feet and the kid's bedrooms are huge. We could put all of them in one bedroom if we had too. It's on 2.5 acres, in a nice neighborhood (out of our league neighborhood), 15 minutes from Kent's work, and has good space for our furniture and IT DOESN'T STINK!


So I think we can make it for the next 2 years. The rent is ridiculous, but I hope it's the right place for us out there. Now we need to sell our perfect-for-us-house here :(

the front of the house

the driveway and wooded acres

The one car garage (that is too short for the truck)

A crooked kind of perfect

by Linda Urban

Summary: the story of a little 10-11 year old girl who dreams of one day playing the piano at Carnegie Hall with all it's sophistication and glory! Instead she's stuck playing the "wheeze bag" organ.

My thoughts: I thought this was a very sweet little book and told a cute story about growing up feeling awkward and how truly normal that is. I loved the unfolding of the family dynamics and the understanding you gain of the characters. Short and sweet! Liked it!

4th of July weekend

It seems like we've been cleaning/painting/fixing things around here for months! We did more of that this weekend. We weren't planning anything for the 4th, but after a stressful/ornery week I decided I needed to do something fun with my family.

The plan was to eat a late dinner at Los Hermanos (my favorite mexican food!), then do a little hike up "Y" mountain where we would stay until the fireworks went off at Stadium of fire. Hiking the "Y" is on my list of things to do in Utah before we leave.
We ate yummy food then followed the GPS directions to the "Y" hike, but it left us far from the 1.2 mile hike I knew we could handle. So we improvised to another lookout point on a trail much farther from the "Y" where a bunch of people were set up to watch the fireworks too. And although I can't technically cross hiking the "Y" off my list, it was still a lot of fun with my family and a good vantage point. We could even hear some of the music from the concert.

a view of the Provo Valley from where we sat. The stadium is to the right with the slightly brighter lights.

I think the glow sticks might have been a bigger hit than the actual fireworks.

I love big fireworks!