Back to School time

We chose A track this year, so Hayden and Josh started back to school on July 25th.

Hayden is in 6th grade this year, and Josh is in full day school as a 1st grader!

McKinley is starting her first year of high school as a sophomore!

And Sawyer gets to be an 8th grader this year!

Playing in the storm

We love a good storm around here. This firefighter kid decided to play out in the rain...until the hail got a little crazy.

Girl's Camp

This Wednesday-Saturday was Girl's camp. We went with the stake to Maple Dell Scout camp. The girls got to do all sorts of activities like challenge courses, lake time, archery etc. Then, the canyon next to us had a bad fire and all the smoke drifted over our way. Multiple girls had headaches, bloody noses, nausea, asthma troubles, etc. So our ward packed up late Friday night after the hike/singing and headed home.

Lacrosse

Josh has been participating in a Lacrosse clinic this week. He has not liked the clinic portion, but he really enjoyed when they got to play a 'real' game.

Lake Powell- the rest of the time

On Tuesday, the rest of Kent's family made it down and we boarded the two houseboats. We parked in a nice little cove. 

A few days that week we spotted some bighorn sheep that came down the mountainside for some water. We also had a coyote swim across the channel as we were coming through in the boat. 

We did some cliff jumping. Even Josh jumped off!

Someone brought paddle boards that they shared with everyone.

Here is some of the paddleboarders in the channel.

Such a beautiful place!

Here are the two housboats parked.

I'd say we had a pretty perfect vacation....until Friday night. On the last 1 minute of the last run of the night, Hayden bounced in the tube and broke his arm. We took him to the hospital in Page. He had it wrapped and put in a sling. We will find an orthopedist on Monday to see what we need to do next, but the ER doctor was confident that he won't need surgery.

Poor baby.

Lake Powell- day 2

Our little family went down a couple days ahead of everyone to get a little more fun time. So we spent today trying new things on the lake.

Josh tried a pseudo-knee boarding activity. Dad dragged along behind him while Josh held on to the knee board too. Josh also tried waterskiing and got up a little for a second. 

McKinley got up on the wakeboard! She even made it outside the wake and back inside.

Hayden got up on the wakeboard for a second too. He's so close!

Sawyer stuck with the kneeboard. He had a lot of fun.

Lake Powell trip day 1

Marked a few bucket list items off our list this trip. Today we visited Antelope Canyon near Page, Arizona. It is on Navajo lands, so you can only see it if you book a native guided tour. It'll cost you.

But, wow, it was gorgeous! We went on the 6:45 am tour so we weren't too rushed through the canyon and it wasn't unbearably hot either.

This was just a cool graphic board at the tour that McKinley wanted a picture in front of...

Since it was only 5 miles away, I made us go to Horseshoe Bend as well. It was around 9:30 then, so it was already HOT outside. So although the hike wasn't really that long, the kids weren't excited about it. I thought it was beautiful to see!