Back to life

And now, I can get back to the routine of life.  A new school year!

Tyler is in First Grade this year.

Well, mostly.  He is still in his small-group special class, and this year that is 13 First graders and 4 kiddos that are old enough for Second Grade, but still struggling.  Unfortunately, that is a much larger class than the teacher is used to - usually they try to keep these classes at 12 or so, with a teacher and 3 aides.  So I really liked his new teacher and her aides, but all of us are nervous about the class size, and there isn't anything we can do about that.

But I had to get my traditional picture by the mailbox before the bus comes.  It is his third year of going off all day on a school bus.

I'm guessing the head tilt blocks the sun, since he has the same tilt two years apart.

And that night, we went to the Cougar Kick-Off to start a new BYU Football season.  They had a sale beforehand where they sold off used or extra BYU gear from the Athletics department, and that was actually fun.  Cheerleading uniforms were $5 each piece, so now Halloween will be awesome.  Kailtyn really wanted an old gymnastics uniform, and even though it is huge on her, it was $1, so why not?

After that, there were fun games for the kids to play, like trying to score a goal on the Women's Soccer team.  Our kids were so bad that they kicked, and then had to be prompted to kick three more times before the ball made it to the net.

I swear Kaitlyn looks like an evil dictator here.  In actuality, she just didn't like the helmet on her head.

Tyler wasn't really into the games.  In fact, he was SO not into the games that when they got to the race, every other kid took off and Tyler just slowly sauntered his way along.

I took this picture when everyone was already past the first turn, and there is Tyler, all by himself.  The next group had to wait for him to finish so they didn't trample him, but nothing could convince him to go any faster.  La, la, la.

He did like meeting the cute cheerleaders though.  He wandered away from us to go meet this one, but Daddy wasn't able to convince him to get any closer either.  He just wanted to go admire her from five feet away.

And Kaitlyn asked to meet the Cougarettes, but then wouldn't answer any of their questions.

And then Daddy waited in this line . . .

To get some more signatures on our basement curtain.

Yeah, we really are a bunch of BYU nerds.

And finally, here is the classic shot of the day.  This is what happened when Kaitlyn said she wanted a picture with the Cosmo Balloon, and so I told them to go over there and smile for a picture.

Yeah, just hide behind your frowning brother and eat the sharpie you found on the ground.  Good call.

Lake Powell

I have to admit that boats in general are outside of my comfort zone.  Up until last week, I have only been on a privately owned boat once before.  I had never seen anyone try to water ski before.  I'd never seen a houseboat, been to Lake Powell, or even seen the appeal.  When people described Lake Powell, it was always the same.  "It was SO HOT!  You had to jump in the water every half an hour, or you would just burn up.  And sand just blows into everything you ever owned - you eat sand in all your food for a week!  There was no need to even brush your teeth, since the sand does that for you. < yadda, yadda, more complaints > But it was SO MUCH FUN!"

Really?  What part, in all of that, was fun?  I don't like swimming, getting sea sick, fishing, eating fish, or doing fast-moving or dangerous stunts (and wake-boarding looked like it fit that category quite well.)

So when Christopher's older brother announced that he bought a time share on a houseboat in Lake Powell and invited the whole family to come, I pulled the "I have a baby" card and said I wasn't going.

Until I realized that this baby is really easy going, and if I am going to skip a year, next year she will be toddling all over the place, trying to walk off the boat, and eating sand.  Currently she stays right where I put her, sleeps a lot, and doesn't require any extra food.  Not to mention, Jasmine has two cousins a couple of months older than her, and both of those families were going.  Kinda ruins the excuse.  And Christopher's work had an even scheduled for Thursday night, so we would only be going for half the trip.

So off we went.

Sort of.  We got delayed on the way out of town, so to keep the kid's spirits up, we went to Chuck E Cheese and used up an old coupon.  That wore out the baby.  I was really impressed she fell asleep with that amount of noise.

And then mini golfing with our passes, and then FINALLY got out of town.

The houseboat was lined up with hundreds of others in rows.  And while it was nothing fancy, it really did great.  And saved us from camping and all of that sand.

All told, we had the houseboat, the rented boat that we towed down with us, and two rented wave-runners for 9 adults, 8 kids and 3 infants.

We launched the houseboat and sent out the boat and wave-runners as scouts to find a good spot.

The boat was great, but the wave-runners are my favorite.  They are just like snowmobiles, but on water.  As long as you don't do stupid stuff, they are a blast.

We found a beautiful spot called Annie's Cove.

The rock nearly formed a dome over our heads, which meant we were (relatively) cool in the shade the whole time.  It was really great!

The kids quickly found their favorite spot- swimming behind the houseboat.  Tyler was in love with that black float, and spent the whole time kicking around and peering out from there.

Kaitlyn, however, didn't like feeling so . . . un-anchored.  We got her out on a big float once or twice, but mostly she spend every moment she could "swimming" while clinging onto the ladder.

(Notice, in the background, her cousin freaking out because she just spotted the dragonfly. :)

We even took the kids out in tubes behind the wave-runner.  Daddy gave Kaitlyn and I a bit of wild ride while he figured out a good speed, so she wasn't too into getting pummeled with water in our faces. But Tyler loved hanging out with me in the tube.

And then when the earliest baby woke us all up the next morning, David announced that the water was perfect for water-skiing.

And told me I was coming.  I had to pause and stare at him for a while.

"You've . . . met me before, right?"

And yet, off we went.  Christopher went first, and had a blast.

And then he stayed in the water to help me.  The first day I got up a bit on my 2nd and 3rd tries, and then all the way up for 10 seconds or so on my 6th try.  But the next day, I stayed up for a solid minute on my 3rd try!  (I am seriously one of the most uncoordinated, scaredy-cat people you will ever meet, so this is shocking, I promise.)

Now, my brother in law took pictures of me, so I swear I can prove this - but the pictures are on his camera.    I was waiting until he emailed them to me to post this, but I really don't like my blog getting behind, so . . . I'll edit this later, even though no one will think to come back to it.

Anyway . . .

I wasn't as good as Christopher or anything, but I'm really proud of myself for getting up at all.  I'll leave the tricks to him.

We certainly didn't run out of things to do.  Christopher went cliff jumping with a big group.

They also went fishing late at night and caught a couple of big stripers.  Which no one took a picture of, so we can now pretend they were as big as we want them to be.  There were even a lot of fish that hung out around our boat hoping for leftover food.  Kaitlyn kept asking for some food to eat and then running out to give it to the fish just so she could watch them.

Jasmine did just fine hanging on the boat with me.

Tyler loves travelling with Grandma Skarda, because she sets out all the snacks on a big table for a week-long free-for-all.  Not only did he eat at least 20 of those muffins in two days, he also made patterns and letters out of the food.

"Muffin, goldfish, muffin, goldfish.  What comes next?"
Well, you ate the rest of the costco-sized muffin container, so at this point, nothing . . .

Christopher had fun tipping the older kids.

And one of my favorite parts was when Christopher and I left the kids behind to go exploring on the wave-runners.  We found this really secluded campsite area that was just beautiful (if only I could have brought my camera on the wave-runner!) and found this abandoned and broken lantern that we took home and brought back to life.

And by the end, I became a convert.  Lake Powell is awesome.  In fact, all I could think about on the way home is how much a lot of my family would love everything we did that week.

Oh, but the work event we went home for was well worth it too.  After a nice sushi dinner, we got to sit on the second row for Wicked.  Pardon the awful camera phone picture, but this was the view from our seats.  We could see every detail on the costumes, and it was amazing!

It was a great way to end the summer, because after hosting people at the cabin for over a week and hurrying through that trip, I am more than ready to get into school and routine at home.

Grandma and Grandpa come to visit

My parents usually try to come out west for a couple of weeks during the summer so they can see us, my mom's family, and my brothers in Vegas.  It looked like they weren't going to make it this year, but when my nephew's Eagle Court of Honor was scheduled, they decided to go for it.  The best part was that they came for an entire week when we had nothing much scheduled, so we pretty much spent it all hanging out at the cabin.

So I don't have as many pictures as usual, because mostly we played Apples to Apples and Canasta and took naps.

This will, however, be remembered as the week that Jasmine discovered toys.  At the beginning of the week, she didn't care very much, and by the end, she was whimpering in boredom until someone gave her something to hold onto.  And her very favorite of all, born out of desperation at a restaurant: a plastic spoon.

She honestly picks the spoon when given a choice between an infant toy and a regular, clear spoon.

We also had some epic games of Ladderball this week.

And Grandpa humored the girls by swinging Kaitlyn . . .

. . . and letting Jasmine eat his shoelaces.

One more week of playtime, and then Tyler starts 1st grade!

August already?

Summer is running away from me.  The last few weeks have been the type where I felt really busy the whole time, but looking back, I have no idea what we have been doing.  We've spent a lot of time at the cabin, and Tyler is now all done with summer school.

I do know that we went up to Idaho for a quick triathlon.  This was Christopher's second year running the Spudman, and since he really hadn't trained since the Ironman, he did about as well last year as this year.  He was happy with it though, and said it was a lot of fun.  I was mostly loving how much we learned from last year.  Last year we were in a hotel room an hour away, and I spent my whole morning trying to keep track of the kids while watching bikers zoom past me and never finding Christopher.  In fact, I think the first time I caught him was the finish line, and the kids were beyond bored.  This year, I knew right where to watch for him, and he knew to look for me in those spots.  We were so relaxed that we had a great time, and we even got a box of our favorite doughnuts to cart around with us.

Hence, Tyler's chocolate smile while we waited for Daddy to finish the swim.

Of course, this was another reason the day went so well.  We got them these little computers to play with, and they honestly play with those things for hours.  Especially Tyler.

I have no idea who Kaitlyn was shooting death glares at, but I thought it was cute that they drifted off to sit under a tree while I waited.

Anyway, Daddy had a great day, so all was well.

Jasmine also hit five months old.  She has entered that hilarious stage where she can roll from her back to her front very quickly, but typically hates being on her tummy.  So then she cries and flails like a stuck turtle.

She's getting better at tummy time though.

And of course, she has found her toes.  They are always fun to grab and play with.

She still doesn't believe me about the "food on a spoon" bit though.  She gives me weird faces and kicks the food out with her tongue.

But the smiles make up for it.  Such a sweetie.

We had some friends up to the cabin this weekend, and that was lots of fun.  We love any excuse to have a campfire.  Even if it is a bit cold, and Jasmine has to wear a hilarious hat to stay warm.

And they sure loved the swing.  These two girls both have wispy, blonde, curly hair about the same length, and are both skinny little girls about the same age.  In fact, they got mixed up more than once this weekend by their own parents.

Such fun.