First Days of School

Wednesday August 18 Cutie and Superstar started first and fourth grades. Cutie was SOOOO excited. Superstar was much less so but here they are in front of the school on the first day :) (By the way, Superstar has decided maybe it's not so bad now that three weeks have gone by)

DaVinci started MIDDLE SCHOOL (!?!) on Thursday, the 19th. How did he get so old? He was excited and nervous and all the things that go with moving up to middle school and he's doing fantastic. I don't have to remind him about homework or anything!

Sonny Pie didn't think we should take a picture of him on Friday, his first day as a SENIOR at Logan High School so here's a picture of his belated birthday cake we made for him the night before. He got home from camp Thursday evening and went to school the next morning. No worries about him! He's getting letters from all kinds of colleges(even Harvard!) and just doesn't want to have to choose :)

Magical

Riding, riding, riding in the car

Changing seats every half hour

Missed the turnoff at Idaho Falls

Find a place, turn 'round

Bumpy, rocky, bumpy dirt road

Seems like forever to get there

Trees and dirt and scouts everywhere

Lovely lodge, good food

 

Creeping, sneaking, tip-toeing up behind

Don't let him see us yet

Happy Birthday Sonny Pie!

It's my birthday? It is!

Flickering, shining, glowing campfire

Laughing at skits and cheers

Patriotic thoughts abound

Down the trail to bed

Hiking, swimming, playing outside

Freezing in the lake

Creatures and plants to explore

Thought provoking film

 

Flashing, booming, pouring rainstorm

Shaking the whole lodge

Children playing under the eaves

Love the summer rain

 

Morning, shining, walking to church

In the summer sun

Feel the spirit out of doors

Learn to be our best

Packing, lunching, hugging, leaving

Find our way back again

See him in a few more weeks

When he's back at home

A misnomer

When I started this blog a couple of years ago I decided to use nicknames for my children for privacy purposes. It was so easy to come up with the right names for Juice, Sonny Pie, Superstar & Cutie but Silly Guy was a puzzle. He is rather silly sometimes-- like when he's wearing a chicken hat we got for free from the grocery store and singing "cock-a-doodle-doo" along with the radio in the car, or when he pretends to call me to tattle on his brother and get him in trouble--but silly doesn't really encompass who Silly guy is like the names of the other kids.

So after much consideration and discussion with Silly Guy his name is being changed to......oh let me explain first.

This boy is a little bit of everything---artist, author, athlete, scientist, worker, builder, tease, sensitive, tough---it's really difficult to sum him up in one or two words. So there's someone in history who I think of that way also--he was an artist, scientist, author, philosopher, and who knows what else('cause I'm not really a historian!). From what I have learned this person was so diverse and difficult to sum up in a word or two so we decided to re-nickname(is that a word?) Silly Guy after him.

He never did like being called Silly Guy and so we are thrilled to announce that
his new blog nickname is now DaVinci because he is so diverse just like Leonardo DaVinci.

What is a hero?

This morning Superstar came to me talking all about how a hero never submits. He was very anxious for me to know that he wanted to be a hero by never submitting. I was prompted to use this as a teaching moment and gave him some food for thought by telling him that sometimes a hero is someone who does what's right even when everone else around them is not. Or sometimes a hero is someone who admits when he's been wrong.

I am grateful for heroes in my life who have taught me these concepts and been good examples of them. Especially my wonderful children who are much better at standing up for the right than I was at their age!

6 years old!

I am behind about a week as you can tell but Cutie had a fantastic 6th birthday last week. In between opera dress rehearsals we had tickets to we managed to fit some balloons, presents and cake & ice cream. He was so excited to get a new slip-n-slide, swim goggles, and a really cool shark swim towel. What a great day!

9.3

Well I did it! I ran in the Blacksmith Fork Freedom Run 15k on July 3. It was really hard! Between miles 3 and 4 my left hip started hurting and that made it even harder. The last two miles I was really slow but I finished in 1:52.47 overall which was just a little slower than I had hoped for. It was kind of fun to do this with my hubby although he's much faster and more experienced than me. He asked me afterwards if I wanted to run in the Top of Utah Half Marathon in September and I told him I am done with long runs for this year. But we'll see what might come up next year!

Happy Fathers' Day!