Ready

I've decided that I'm ready for fall. Today I got a glimpse of colder weather as it was probably the first day that hasn't been in the 70's, 80's or yes, even the 90's. This summer has just been so hot. I love everything about fall. I love the back-to-school atmosphere. I secretly miss being able to buy new notebooks, folders, glue, markers, pencils, and maybe even the occasional protractor, for school. When I was younger I used to match the color of my notebooks with the folders. Each subject had a certain color- I can still remember some of them (yes, I know I am a complete dork and by confessing this am becoming vunerable to being made fun of for weeks to come). Math was red, geography was green, social studies was blue and science was yellow. I even miss having to go home the first day and make book covers out of paper bags for your textbooks (do they still make kids do that?)

But even more than back-to-school, I always get excited for the fall wardrobe. There's nothing more comfy to me than your favorite pair of jeans, a hoodie sweater and boots. It's definitely my favorite outfit. And then there is the start of college football, the beautiful turning of leaves on the mountains and of course, my birthday month (October). Hooray for me!! So how can you just NOT absolutely love fall??

My Birthday Boy

This past Sunday Tyler turned 5 years old. I can't believe that I have a 5 year old now. It sounds so wierd to say. I still think of him as my little boy, although he's definitely not so little anymore. He started preschool this year (he just barely missed the deadline for Kindergarten) and loves it. He's still all boy- loves cars, trains, spiderman, balls, and sports. We made him go on a treasure hunt to find his presents this year. It was so fun to watch.

My sister and brother, April and David, came over on Sunday night to help us celebrate Ty's birthday.

So grown up!

End of Summer

There's nothing like ending the summer with a fun-filled trip to Lake Powell. Mike's uncle and aunt, Richard and Lynne, invited us this year to join them down on their houseboat for a week in September. We decided to bring along Tyler and leave Makenzie. The trip was so much fun!!! It was perfect weather and so nice to just relax. We went swimming, laid out in the sun, read books, played games, went hiking to Rainbow Bridge, cliff-jumping and ate about 20 lbs of snacks. Once again we left with a week's worth of sunny memories to last the year.

Tyler and Mike on the waverunner.

Tyler loved swimming in the water down at Lake Powell. Since he had a life jacket on it was easy for him to just float and hang out with all of the rest of us in the water.

Our cousins- Ryan and Sarah (nice face Ryan). We love hanging out with them! They are so much fun to goof off with. They always make us laugh so hard!

This is me trying to get fancy jumping off the cliff. Tyler yelled at me from the boat to do a back-flip but I thought better in my old age :) So I did a cheerleading kick instead. Tyler was proud of me anyways and told me what a good job I did when I got back in the boat.

We bought Tyler a new spiderman fishing rod for this trip. He was so excited to try it out and we did catch a whole bunch of fish. Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture of the HUGE fish that I caught. I was so excited to catch a fish (on my first try by the way) that I started screaming at the top of my lungs. I'm sure I scared all the other fish for miles and woke up anyone who was even the littlest bit sleepy. I couldn't help myself though. It was the biggest fish we caught. I still am so proud!

Mike's grandparents- Oma and Opa - came on this trip and we are so glad they did. They were such a hoot and I'm still amazed at all the things they can still do. I hope I can be as active when I get older.

The rest of the crew - The group that came to Lake Powell with us was so much fun to hang around. I'm still smiling at all of the funny jokes and stories that took place. We can't wait for next year to go back and hang out with everyone again. What a perfect way to end the summer!! Thanks again to Richard, Lynne, Ryan and Sarah for the invite. We love you guys!!

A New Beginning

Well, now that we are officially back to real life here in Utah, I have decided to start out fresh by making a new blog. So welcome!!! This site is currently under construction so bear with me as I make changes and add this or that. You know me, (or maybe you don't) - I'm not quite a perfectionist but pretty close. I hope you enjoy the pictures and thoughts that I share here. I love comments so feel free to leave them early and often. I read all of them. Thanks again to Jodi who helped me start out in the blogging world and to my good friend Alyssa who helped me figure out how to get my music on this blog.
ENJOY!!!