The most perfect Saturday: 30 miles of cycling, family, and Keith Urban concert!

 Yesterday, I experienced the most perfect Saturday!  First, a 30 mile bike ride from my house, up Provo Canyon and to Bridal Veil Falls.  It was a hard ride and I was pretty beat when I arrived home at 9:45 but I was proud of my achievement.  The kids and I worked quickly to complete our chores.  We spent the afternoon together running errands and simply enjoyed being together.  While we are running here and there, we talk together and I can find teaching moments with them.

In the evening, Dave and I got to go watch our FAVORITE singer, KEITH URBAN, perform at USANA in Salt Lake City.  He is amazing and puts on an incredible show.  We finished off our evening eating at trendy Iggy's Sports Grill in Sandy and arrived home around midnight.

Really, it was the perfect day!

Bounce back to the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium

 We had bounce-back passes to the aquarium in Draper so we left after school on Friday to go enjoy learning about the world at the living aquarium.  It was marvelous!  We learned in depth about anacondas, parrots, and penguins.  Here are some of my favorite pictures of the kids:

Kindergarten Begins for Alyssa!

 How could I cry?  She was soooo ready and soooo excited for school to begin that our drop off for Alyssa's first day of school was celebratory rather than tearful. She glowed with excitement.  I realized how independent she has become and how brave she faces new experiences and circumstances.  I met her down at Rocky Mountain along with the other parents as we sent our babies off.  Alyssa and I have had a joke over the years that when I drop her off at Kindergarten, people will ask if she is my granddaughter.  As I looked around, I figured I was about the 3rd oldest mother! :)  In fact, one of my former students was also dropping her son off for Kindergarten and he is in Alyssa's class!

 Cookies and other fattening food for the kids!

Here is the mascot welcoming the kids to school

 Alyssa's teacher, leading the kids in to class.

Alyssa, we are so excited for you and your new journey.  You are going to ROCK it!

My Favorite Guy!

 I love spending time with this guy more than anyone in the world!  We have so much fun together.  Period.  With all of the demands of our family and life in general, it can be hard to find time to steal away together.  But it is a priority for us and thanks to our Taylor, we can get away for little bits of time.  Over the summer, as I have fallen in love with the cycling world, I have wanted to go with Dave for a ride.  So we did.  We only went for an hour but we had a great time!  Here we are in Orem-

We LOVE where we live!  In a county filled with 600K people, we have these trails and paths in our backyard with spectacular views of the lake and county.  Our little walks allow us to clear our heads and focus on what really matters:  our family, the gospel, our careers, our blessings, and our dreams for the future.

School Rocks! The 2014-2015 kicks off in a wonderful way!

 School started for all of us (except Alyssa) on August 19th.  I made certain I was ready to go by 6:30 so I could make the kids a yummy breakfast.  We all ate pancakes, eggs etc and had family prayer before we took our traditional 1st-day-of-school pictures! The kids were just beaming with excitement.  I love them all so much-

 My first day of school had a little extra excitement.  At 11:00-11:30, half of the student body...650 kids or so.... goes to lunch while the other half goes to class.  Around 11:15, the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the building in the drizzling rain for 20 minutes while we waited for the fire department to sweep the building to make certain was safe.  The AC hadn't been working and something ended up getting too hot and malfunctioned which made the fire alarm go off.

When the kids arrived home, I had their traditional candy bar posters ready!  They LOVED them and the messages of success from mom and dad.

Dave sent me some pictures of the kids getting on the bus in the morning since I was teaching.  He knows I hate to miss anything that has to do with my kids, so he is sweet to keep me in the loop so I feel our children have hands-on parents!

Here's to another great school year!

Wrapping Up our Summer Break with Family

 My sister-in-law and I made plans for the kids to spend the day together before the new school year begins.  We drove to their home and just played and played and played!  We went to Fat Cats where we enjoyed a game of bowling and afterward a few minutes on the bumper cars.  The kids were in heaven.  Downtown Ogden is beautiful with the newly renovated temple and all of the western flair:

 (Kaden and Aunt Jody's favorite horse:  patriotism at its finest!)

 Back at the house, the kids headed to the river for some tubing.  The river was cold but not very deep.  The kids loved floating with their cousins.

It was the perfect day to wrap up 10 weeks of hot summer days and evenings.  Thanks Justin and Jana for a wonderful experience!