September rolled into October

I enjoy getting back to the routine of a school year.  This year has been especially nice.  I get three hours to myself every morning, but also some extra time with just my buddy Jasmine in the afternoons.  I still get my 20 minutes of time with just Tyler in the mornings, since the girls start school earlier than he does.  (That ends next year, and I'm really sad about that.)

Kaitlyn really loved the ice skating lessons over the summer, and begged to continue them.  I wasn't sure at first, but when her gymnastics teacher said that she wasn't going to be teaching this year, we caved.  I wish the rink wasn't a half an hour away, but she really does love it so much.  I decided that if I was already driving down there, we might as well sign Jasmine up, too.  (Tyler told us he didn't care for it.  "It is too slippery.") So Tuesdays were now taken over by ice skating lessons.



A few weeks into school, Kaitlyn asked if we could start violin lessons for her, which was actually a big step.  She had asked to quit piano because she didn't like the extra work of practicing, and she knew we would expect extra effort if she was in violin lessons.  Thankfully, she stepped right up to the plate.

She has even been helping Jasmine learn.  As much as Jasmine's pride will let her listen to her big sister, at least.


Let me see what other pictures I can find . . .

We had a Harry Potter themed meal for September 1st.  I love that Kaitlyn is old enough to share my nerdy love for those books!  The butterbeer was the best part of that meal.

Every time I go to the school carnival, I am really grateful that my girls go to such a small school.  Fun, but not totally chaotic!

Kaitlyn had fun building a castle for her school project.

And then, we lost track of Daddy for a while.

He has been dreaming of putting solar panels on our roof for years.  He's had a lot of practice with the system at the cabin, and then on each of our trailers.  He even planned it out and got the permit with the city a year ago, but we saw the power company trying to make policies that weren't good for homes with solar.  And then he heard about the final version of that plan, which had a very quick deadline for you to be "grandfathered" in.  Which meant it was now or never on the solar system.  Before I knew it, my garage was filled with panels and rails and wire and conduit, and within weeks, it was all up and running on our roof.  We had companies popping up constantly for the last couple of years offering to install a system for us.  He even got quotes from many of them (most of them were rather taken aback at the guy that knew more than them and started quizzing them about every detail about their quotes), but the lowest ones were close to $25,000.  We ended up paying about $12,000 in parts, but will get $5,000 back in a tax rebate.  We decided there was a reason there were so many solar companies- they were making a big profit! It was a lot of work for him to do it himself, but I think he also really enjoyed that project, too.

I started a project of my own, in part just so I could be out there working on something while he was.  I had planned this out slowly for a year, but finally took the plunge.  I found out that it was much easier than I thought it would be! 

From the inspiration wood lath art on etsy (that cost hundreds of dollars) . . .

 To the sketch . . .

To the final project . . .

that looks great on my wall.

It is quite huge, actually.  Which is on purpose, because that wall was huge.  I had put up pictures low by the piano when we first moved in a decade ago, and have since decided that I should have something big and high to show off how tall that wall is.  And since wood lath is cheap, my project cost $40.  I'm really proud of it!

Start school, and then ditch it

The first day of school was a big milestone for our family!  Jasmine started Kindergarten, when meant all three were going to school every day.  Jasmine was a bit nervous, but she kept that all under wraps.  On the outside, it was pure joy.  She stood as big and tall as she could, grinning from ear to ear, knowing that this made her BIG.

Her Kindergarten teacher is just amazing.  She leads that tiny little crew with exactness and never ending kindness, and Jasmine just loves every second that she is there.

But after only a couple of days of school, we skipped town again.  There was a total solar eclipse that would pass right over my brother's cabin in Idaho, and my parents drove all the way out from Ohio to see it.

The funny part about this trip up there was that the house was in the middle of a total renovation.  There were a couple of usable rooms for people to sleep in upstairs, but everything else was studs.  So we spent most of our time in the garage, with a very makeshift kitchen.

When my nephew Nick was a tiny baby, he used to call his mom's friend Sara "RaRa".  So when I came to visit, I became "RaRa Do", instead of Sarah Jo.  I hadn't seen RaRa in a LONG time, so I was so glad her family came up to see the Eclipse too!

My dad had been so excited about this eclipse.  He called to tell Scot about it over a year in advance, and is basically the reason we all knew to come and see it.  He hadn't been feeling well that summer, so my mom was worried they wouldn't make it out.  Luckily, he perked up enough that they were able to still make a slightly shortened version of their trip.

My dad has also always been my biggest supporter in all that I do.  My husband usually rolls his eyes at all my sewing nonsense, but I knew my dad would appreciate an eclipse shirt!  And one for Tyler, just so they could match.

And then Scot found shirts at the local store so we could all match!

The eclipse really was amazing.  I'm so glad we drove up!  At our house, people could see it getting darker, and with the glasses on, they could see the sliver of the sun.  But in the "zone of totality", it was 3 amazing minutes.

It got much colder there, so you can see all of us bundled in blankets in August. We could take off the glasses and see the black spot where the sun had been.  But the part we couldn't describe was how different it FELT.  There was a stillness to it all, even as we could hear neighboring cabins whooping and cheering.  A couple of people said they even felt a bit nauseous, though I just felt my stomach swoop a bit.

Totally worth pulling the kids out of school.  RaRa's family headed out as quick as they could to beat the traffic, since most of Utah had driven to Idaho to see this.  We decided to stay an extra day and have a better drive home. We really had a great time with my family.

But then, we eventually did head back obediently.  Tyler started school a day late.  I even sent him with his Eclipse shirt on, just in case anyone asked where he had been.  I was worried about a new teacher for him, since he loved his teacher (and his teacher's pet bearded dragon) so much.  Thankfully, he got a fun teacher with pet geckos!  So all was right in the world.

Bear lake

This year, we replaced the Lake Powell trip with a trip to Bear Lake.  My brother in law was hosting his wife's family on their houseboat instead, and so it was a good year to try out a new trip.  And while the houseboat is always amazing, I really loved this trip!

I loved that each family could pick a spot that worked for them.  We brought our trailer, and then families either got a tent site or cabin, depending on what they wanted to stay in.  Some families had to leave early, too, which was always tricky with the houseboat.  And while it was by far the most we have ever paid for a trailer spot, it really was a great camp.  Our kids were in the pool constantly, even when it had been raining an hour before.

And our fancy trailer spot came with a hot tub enclosed in a fenced yard.  It made a great movie night!

Jasmine and Savanna played mini-golf almost non stop.  She mostly just pushed the ball around, but as long as she loved it, I wasn't going to impose rules on her.

It really did rain and rain, though.  For a while we were worried we wouldn't get to go outside and play much, which made me even more grateful for my sister-in-law's foresight in buying little crafts for the kids to make.  Those smore's crowns were a big hit.

And then, on our last day, the clouds parted and we had a beautiful, sunny day!

The water was colder than Lake Powell, to be sure, but not as cold as I thought it would be. 

I'm so glad we brought along our kayaks. We had a lot of fun with those.

And of course, I made sure that we rented the mega-bikes!  It was a tradition with my extended family, and so I was excited to try them again.  Which is funny, to be honest, because mostly I remember how awful the event always was!  They were ridiculously hard to pedal when your bike is more toddlers than adults.  This time we opted for the "train", and it wasn't too bad.  If it wasn't for Tyler's shorts malfunctions (they wouldn't stop falling down while was scootering next to the bike, and we couldn't catch up), it actually went pretty well.

The shakes made it all worth it.

Summer skating and a Vegas trip

Kaitlyn has wanted to learn to ice skate since the first time we took her.  Lots of things interest her, though, and since the nearest rink is a half an hour away, we just never signed her up for lessons.  This summer was all about taking it easy though.  Last summer, every single minute was packed.  We were either renovating at top speed, out of town, or I was teaching sewing lessons.  So I signed us up for nothing this summer, and for the most part I didn't regret that.

I had a random thought on a random day though.  We had passes to the Seven Peaks water park, which was right next to the ice rink.  What if we could just ice skate and then swim?  I looked online, and sure enough, they had a session starting the next day.  So I signed her up.

The best part was that her lesson was the same time as Small and Tall.  That's the way we always went ice skating in the past.  An hour and a half on Thursday mornings, year round, just for kids under 12 and their parents.  I was worried that summer time would mean more kids out of school and going, but we often had the rink to ourselves.  So we would drive down together and often go swimming afterward, and on Thursdays, we would skate on the other rink during her lesson, and she would join us once she was done.

We even brought friends with us one time.

It was a really great part of our summer!  Ice skating was a great break from the heat, and when we heard that the gymnastics teacher wasn't going to do lessons this year, we signed both girls up for the next session.

The "entrepreneurial market", however, was a bit more of a flop.

On paper, it was a great idea.  Kaitln begs me to do a lemonade stand SO often.  I feel odd about it, though, because people often give her extra money and we don't really need money!  She just thinks it is fun.  This market was a market just for kids.  The booth fee was cheap, and then kids were supposed to be the ones selling their own stuff.  We had a great time making fidget spinner cases on the embroidery machine, and I figured I would put out what I had made, just in case we got any buyers. 

And she didn't sell a single thing to a stranger.  (I'm SO grateful for her Primary president and teacher who drove all the way down to buy things from her!)

The poor girl suddenly got shy.  Which isn't a problem, and I don't blame her, but it was so unlike her that I didn't know what to do.  She mostly hid in the booth.  At the very end, we had an interested person that I talked to long enough that she talked a bit too, and she realized that talking to to them really made a difference.  But it was just too late.   We also got a feel for the market.  It was mostly $1 items, and since kids were most of the customers, too, little games were also a big hit for the day.  Her $6 Harry Potter fidget spinners were just a bit high priced for that market.

Christopher had a work trip to Las Vegas that happened to be right near our anniversary.  My mother-in-law was renovating her house and couldn't watch the kids, but the girls were able to stay with some cousins (they had SO much fun!) and Tyler stayed with his scout leader's family and went to a scout campout (which was awesome because he became really good friends with their oldest boy).  And so we headed off to have a romantic weekend away!

It wasn't perfect, though.

We were going to go to a fancy dinner, but realized as we left that we wouldn't make the show in time.  So we came back and started walking to the show, only to have my shoes both fall completely apart.  I couldn't wear my fancy red dress with flip flops (the only other shoes I had packed), so I took this picture just to prove that at one point in the evening, I had looked good.

And then we went to see Bodies, which was amazing and I'm really glad we saw.  But I think I picked the least romantic event I could have picked.  Oh well.  I think we still had a great trip, even if it wasn't what we expected.

Payson Lakes

One of the trips we knew we wanted to repeat from last year was Payson Lakes.  It is close to home, has an awesome lake to kayak and fish in, a paved walking path around the entire lake, and our campsite has great trees for hammocks. 

Tyler's favorite part is the walking path.  He has done it all by himself a few times (including one time when I just told him to let the dog out of the trailer to pee, and he decided the dog needed a one mile walk around the lake.)

Kaitlyn caught 4 fish that weekend.  Daddy caught none.  In fact, once when Kaitlyn caught a fish, he handed her his line to hold while he took care of her fish for a minute, and Kaitlyn pulled in a fish on his line in the meantime.

I wish I could remember more context for this.  I think Jasmine was driving us crazy with too much energy on the beach?  All I remember is that we joked with her that she should just go swim across the entire lake.  And the she said "okay" and nearly did.  Look at how far she got!

Fourth of July

I'm behind in my blogging again, so let's see what I can remember.

One of the really neat parts about the Fourth of July for our city was the gigantic flag.  It was not their first year stringing a huge flag up the canyon, but it was a brand new flag this year that was even more massive.  Each star was 5 feet across!  Christopher and I ran a trail run 5K that was part of the celebrations for the week, and we went to an evening concert they held beneath it.

That run was brutal.  Most of the uphill was a walk for me, but it was still a great chance to get a workout in.

We hosted Christopher's family at our cabin for lunch again this year.  That is always a lot of fun.

And that evening, we went to our friend's parent's house.  I would have felt like more of an intruder, but there were hundreds of people there, and more fireworks than most city events.