First Day of School

The first day of school is always fun, exciting and a bit scary.  The kids were looking forward to going back to school after a crazy and hectic summer (with a crazy and hectic mom), so we didn't have too much complaining.  Gavin wasn't excited about a few of his teachers, but aside from that, we were all happy that school was starting.
We always have French Toast and bacon on the first day.  The kids are usually a bit nervous, so they don't eat a lot (well, except for Gavin).

 

 

We are always rushed in the mornings, and the first day was no exception.  I did make the kids get their pictures taken.  We went outside and Gavin said, "Oh darn!  No pictures this year because you ripped out the picture bush.  Too bad, Mom."  Not so fast, just stand there and smile.

 

Gavin is going into ninth grade and is so grown-up!  Really.  Not to much and he will pass up Greg.  He is excited to be the oldest at the school and is looking forward to Jazz Band.

 

(What kind of smile is that?  It's a hurry-up-and-take-the-picture-Mom smile.  He looks like an evil genius about to get his way!)

Enoch is going into second grade and he is in Mrs. Humphries class.  He really liked her at back to school night and we both think that this is going to be a great year for him.

 

He is excited that Mom finally trusts him enough to ride his bikes with his friends, Miles, Oliver, Hazel and Seth.

Kate started at the Treehouse Preschool this year and really likes her teacher, Mrs. Skousen.  Enoch also went to our neighborhood preschool and told Kate all about it.  She was really excited.  She kept telling me this was her third preschool.  Her first preschool was Miss Natalie and Miss Cynthia and then during the summer she went to the Legacy Center preschool with her friend Nathan and now, the Treehouse Preschool.  She really does love school and was so excited to go.

 

Not what I would have picked out for her first day, but she wanted to wear it.  She also did her own hair.  Oh, it's hard to see her grow up!

I am so proud of my kids!  They try so hard in school and do their best.  They are well behaved and are good helpers.  Great job and good luck, Gavin, Enoch and Kate!

Scattered Thoughts

1.  I love listening to Enoch's prayers.  He is so genuine, sincere.  He is truly thankful for the things in his life.  He recognizes the power of prayer in his life.  He is always telling me stories about how he was scared or nervous, or looking for something, or needed help with something and he said a prayer.  He expects an answer and is grateful when he gets one.  Lately he has been asking Heavenly Father for help to make good choices.  I love to hear it.  It reminds me to pray for that in my life, too.

2.  The other night, Greg was watching Firefly on Roku and I was brushing my teeth.  He was rubbing his hands along his jaw and looking puzzled.  He looked at me oddly and said, "I just realized that my jaw is uneven.  One side is higher than the other.  Umm....okay.  Don't know what that means.

3.  When Greg was ordering his Father's Day present from ThinkGeek, he told me he had also ordered a surprise for Guard (he was only two weeks old).  I couldn't wait to see what he got a newborn from ThinkGeek.  I should have known.

 (Oh, how I adore those Winston Churchill jowels!)

Greg has been eyeing these Star Trek oneises since Kate was a baby, but I refused to put my baby girl in one.  He finally got his wish.

4.  After this summer I now know why God sends us squishy cute newborns and not 14-years olds, or seven-year olds or four-year old.  Just kidding (sort of).  I adore all my children!

Guard at 3 months

I will admit I am far behind on blogging  - two months behind.  When I think of Guard a few months ago, it is hard to remember what he was doing.  Really?  It's a good think I am writing some of this down because there is no way I could remember it in 20 years!  I'm chalking it up to my sleep deprived haze that I am constantly navigating this summer.

Of course, he is still so adorable.   I find myself just staring at his blue eye, chubby checks and gummy grin.  He is amazing to me.

 

He is a smiler.  It doesn't take much to earn a smile from our little guy.  He is naturally happy.  We got lucky with this one.

 

He has been, and continues, to sleep through the night.  His naps are short and sporadic, but I'll take the big chunk of sleep at once.  He is a good eater, it you can get his attention.  He doesn't like an audience when eating and gets distracted easily.  We sit on the same spot, on the same couch to eat.  Usually that works.

He does like to be held - all the time.  And I do it.  Yep, he's spoiled.

 

His brothers and sister adore him.  His biggest smiles are for Gavin.  Enoch love to play with him and Kate picks out his jammies and clothes every day.

Guard is fascinated with Coal.  He watches her constantly.  If she is around, Guard is fixated on her.  He loves to 'pet' her (or pull her fur) and Coal is very patient with him.  When someone throws the ball for Coal and she catches it, Guard flails his arms and legs and smiles.  His little laugh is so cute when Coal is around.  I think they will be good friends.

 

He is growing well.  He reminds me a bit like Gavin when he was a baby - long body, long feet, small head.  We will see what happens.

We are crazy in love with our little guy!

The Olympics

Our family loves the Olympics - especially Summer Olympics.  We look forward to it every four years.  This year was extra special because the Olympics were being held in London.  Greg served his mission in England and was hoping to see some familiar sights.  Greg served in Southern England and Wales, so he didn't see much of his area, but we all enjoyed the Britishness of the Games.
Greg made a list of British food and we ate as much as we could throughout the Games.  We started with his favorite: fish and chips with mushy peas.  They weren't really authentic, but I did find some malt vinegar for him.  And check out the super fun Union Jack plates I found at Ikea.

 

Next up we had strawberries and cream (on French Toast).

 Then, apple crisp with vanilla ice cream.

And, more strawberries and cream (we had this almost every night while watching the Olympics).

 And, Cornish Pasties with roasted brussel sprouts.  Greg really liked the brussel sprouts roasted, but he said most people in England just boil or steam them and they are disgusting.

 

And, your basic dinner of roast and mashed potatoes.  Lots of potatoes - Greg said potatoes of every kind, usually two types of potatoes at every dinner.

 

And finally, Eton Mess - a combination of baked meringue, whipped cream and berries.  Very good, but oh so sweet.   We skipped trifle, because my kids really don't like it.  They really enjoyed every else we had.

You know I love to make ties, so I couldn't let this opportunity pass to use some fun fabric I found.  The kids were such good sports (especially Gavin) and they looked so cute on the first Sunday of the Olympics.

 

 

 

 

I don't have good pictures of Enoch and Kate; they weren't too keen on getting their pictures taken.  But, even Guard got a cute tie with his onesie.

 

And, perfect timing!  My dear friend, Carrie, brought me the most amazing, amazing, amazing birthday present that she made - a crocheted patriotic blanket.  I couldn't believe it!  I started crying when she gave it to me.  It is so beautiful and I love it!

It was a wonderful two weeks!  We loved watching swimming (can't Micheal Phelps compete in one more Olympics?), Kate adored the gymnastics, Enoch really liked the canoeing.  We watched every opportunity we could.  We loved it!

Lake Powell

When Greg was growing up, Lake Powell was a family tradition.  His family would head down at least once a summer, usually more than once.  He loved it and had great memories.
When I was growing up we had a houseboat for a few years. I have some memories of Lake Powell.  While it isn't my favorite place, I do have fun, fond memories.
Greg has been pining for Lake Powell for years (he has gone down a few times with his dad and brothers, but we haven't been down as a family).  We had the opportunity to buy into a time share for a houseboat and we took it.  We get two weeks (one summer, one spring or fall) every other year.  Not as much as Greg would like, but as much as I was willing to do.
Getting ready to go was so much work!  I now have so much more appreciation for my mom!  It's like packing for camping, only more.  We packed clothes, food, sand toys, sleeping bags, entertainment for the car, etc, etc, etc.
We left on a Wednesday morning.  We drove until Green River and stopped at a small park to let the kids get out and run around and feed Guard.  Back into the car and we drove until Hanksville where we grabbed lunch.  We were anxious to get on the water, so we didn't stay long.
We finally pulled into the marina, where we loaded up Greg's dad's speed boat that he let us borrow.  We made out way out the the docked houseboat.  We transferred everything to the houseboat, tied the speedboat to the houseboat and headed out to find a spot.
We were surprised at how crowded it was.  We decided to stay in Hall's Bay because we didn't want to spend a lot in gas.  We finally found a decent spot and stayed over night.  We moved the next day to a better place.  We affectionately named it Dog Island.  The people staying across the way had a big dog that would swim over every morning and say hello.  We named the dog Perry and looked forward to his visits.

 

 

We had a wonderful time.  Rather than doing a timeline, I'm going to list all our fun activities.

Kayaking

These blue kayaks are kept on the houseboat.  When Enoch saw them, he was thrilled.  He hoped in and paddled all over.  He made me quite nervous how far away he would go.  He would paddle to another island, get out and explore and then hop back in the kayak, come back, get Kate and show her what he had discovered.  I kept reminding myself they had life jackets on, but I was still nervous.

 

 

 

 Even I got in on the fun.  You can imagine how much sunscreen we went through with pasty white legs like those!  I'm not sure why my face it so red (I didn't end up getting that sunburned).  It must be the complete panic from being in open water!

Gavin and Jarom also played kayak jousting.

 The Speedboat

Gavin was determined to learn how to water ski this trip.  I was amazed at how well he did.  He got up and stayed up the second time he tried!  He had a blast and can't wait to do it again.  Greg was planning on skiing later in the day, but that didn't work out (see below).  Unfortunately, we didn't get in enough water skiing or speed boating time.

 

 Enoch and Kate had such a great time tubing.  They were both iffy at first, but it only took them a few seconds to love it.  Even Guard had a turn, but he really didn't love it like the others.

 

After a short time in the boat, it started making a funny noise.  After a few more minutes, we started to smell smoke and then a short time after that, we saw the smoke.  We were stranded in the middle of Moki Canyon.  Yuck.  Some kind soul finally pulled over and agreed to tow us back.  We were quite far from the boat and we felt bad about them taking so much time to tow us.  We saw a park ranger and flagged her down.  She radioed for a tow.  We met the tow boat and she took us the rest of the way.  About two hours and $500 later, we were back at the houseboat with a broken speedboat.  It was quite disappointing, but we were thankful that the kids were okay, we had extra food and water on the speedboat and Guard slept through most of it.

 The Houseboat

The thing that I love about our houseboat is that it is very livable.  It is clean, but not so nice that you worry about every grain of sand the kids drag on to it.  The best part is the top.  We loved sitting up there and relaxing, talking, watching a bit of DarkWing Duck.  We also completely enjoyed sleeping up on top.  The weather was perfect for outdoor sleeping.  It's a great houseboat and we feel very lucky to be a part of it.

 

 

 

 

Defiance House

When Greg asked if anyone wanted to go to Defiance House, I asked him what that was.  He was surprised that I had never been there before and declared that we were going that morning.  We jumped in the speedboat (this is the trip that it broke down) and headed for Forgotten Canyon.  It didn't take too long to get there and the kids enjoyed the ride.  Once we got there, parked and hopped out, we started the hike.  It was hot, but thankfully, the hike wasn't too long.  The kids were troopers and did great.  Guard did not.  Greg carried him the whole way and he screamed the whole way.  He was already hot and we had to keep him covered up from the sun with a lightweight blanket, so he was miserable.  You can imagine how his screams echoed throughout the canyon.  When we got to the top, a man said, "Oh, so this is the little guy we could hear clear up here."  Yep, in all his red-faced glory.

The kids thought the ruins were really fun and enjoyed exploring them.  They ran around in the shade, loved to go down into the pit house (where it was cool) and thought it was quite fun.

 

 

 

 

 

  

On our way back to the houseboat, we stopped in a little cove for some swimming and cliff jumping. This is where the boat started causing problems.

 

 

 

Can you see Jarom jumping?

 Can you see Gavin jumping?

 

 

Playing in the Sand

 When Greg visited Lake Powell with his family, they spent most of their time water skiing and sightseeing.  When I visited Lake Powell with my family, we spent a lot of time relaxing and playing on the beach.  When we initially picked a spot to stay in, the beach wasn't very good.  I wanted somewhere better, and Greg didn't understand why the beach was so important to me.  When we finally talked it over and figured it out, Greg was very accommodating and found a better spot.  Probably a good thing, since we only had the speed boat working for a few days and had more time to play on the beach that Greg would have liked.

The kids had a great time building sand castles and getting sandy.  Guard loved laying on the beach towel under the awning and, I'll admit, I took a pretty long nap in the shade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guard Duty

I was really nervous about taking a baby to Lake Powell.  Next year, I'll be really nervous about taking a toddler to Lake Powell (and quite honestly, that might not happen.  Guard will probably stay home.)  This year, he did wonderfully.  He loved being on the boat, he slept through the night, and really enjoyed the water.  He loved all the attention he got.  We all took turns being on Guard duty (aren't we clever!) and he was such a happy little guy that no body minded.  It did help that he isn't mobile yet (although he rolled over for the first time on the boat, almost right off the bench if Aunt Michelle hadn't caught him).

 

 

 

 

 I love this picture of Gavin and Guard!

Swimming

I was surprised how quickly the kids took to the water.  Gavin hopped in without a problem and wasn't happy I made him wear a life jacket (too bad, so sad - yes, you have to wear one!).  Kate wanted to play with Jarom and Stephanie, so she was in the water without a problem.  Enoch was a touch hesitant.  He had no problem with the kayaks, but being completely in the water was a bit scary for him.  When he finally discovered he could do it, he had a blast.  His favorite thing to say was, "Trust your life jacket".  I think he was saying it more to himself than anyone else, but I love how he overcame some fears.

 

 

 

Lake Powell is a wonderful place.  Our family had a great time on our vacation and can't wait to go back!