Back to School... All of them!

On August 25th me and the kids filled the mini van to near overflowing.   We packed the essentials and said good-bye to our beautiful Sammamish and drove off to Utah to begin a new life.  We couldn't enjoy this journey quite as much because we had a deadline...

Friday at 2:00 we had school meetings we had to be at in Salt Lake. 

We didn't have a minute to spare as we arrived on the dot.

We spent the weekend getting moved it to Marty's house,

(bless his heart)

going to Seven-Peaks,

getting school clothes ready,

and enjoying our last days to sleep in.

Remember,

I am not a mom who is excited for school to start

It only means schedules

making lunches

waking up early

homework
paper cluttering the house

being stressed about bedtime

and besides that,

I like to relax and be spontaneous with my children.

But, none the less

the first day of school did come:

Here they are all dressed up.

Ady in 6th grade.

Emmy in 3rd grade

Kaden in Kindergarten

Maryn in 9th grade

I have some words to stay about the school uniform, especially since I am writing this after a few months of them wearing their uniforms.

I always looked at families who had children who wore school uniforms and thought they were snooty or prim and proper or rich.

They appeared as if they went to a Girl's Catholic Private Academy.

It just seemed so different and not fun to wear uniforms.

I was a very sceptical at first to become a uniform family and so were the kids,

But now that we are a uniform wearing family

WE ARE FANS!!!!!

Here are my reasons:

There is zero time spent in the morning wondering what to wear.

My laundry has gone down a million percent.

The kids at school all feel like equals.  There are no popular kids because their clothes equalize them. 

Maryn has a few variations of her uniform with 2 skirts or pants and on Friday they all get to wear khaki pants and a navy polo.

They have never, not once, complained about wearing their uniforms.

It has simplified life all over the place.

They don't need as many clothes as before.

Be judgemental if you may about them... I was
 but

I will forever be an advocate of the school uniform.

A huge blessing about going to American Preparatory Academy is that my brother, Merrill works there.  He is able to drive the kids the 38 minute drive (without traffic) to school most days.  So far when 2 of the kids got sick at school

(Emmy barfing on her desk)

they were able to go lie down in Merrill's office until I could drive the 38 minutes (without traffic) to get them.

This picture is the first day of school.

Merrill's office was still being put together so they had to sit on the floor while they waited for me to pick them up at the end of the day.  (38 minutes).

Just as an Afterward to this post:

the kids LOVE LOVE LOVE their school.  They have the best teachers.  They have the funnest ways of learning.  Lots of repetition in many sing songy, rhymes and cheers.

Yea!

I am going through a bit of an adjustment too (although not too difficult) with having ALL the kids in school.

Remember homeschooling Maryn last year?

Glad that's done.

And Kaden's kindergarten is ALL day.

That is hard to have him be gone for the whole day.

But he is happy and loving it so I can't feel bad about that.

We have been blessed SO much with getting these kids in this school

It is a huge answer to prayers in so many ways.

BFF 2011 Reunion

For 2 years we have looked forward to our next BFF Reunion. 

After much anticipation and counting down it finally came.

It was hosted by the Stringhams and held at the Heber Valley Family Camp.

I took a gazillion pictures and am only sharing a 1/2 of a gazillion.

your welcome,

But just know that these were special times...

friends who build and lift.

friends who strengthen and exemplify.

friends who leave you a better person than they found you.

We started our first day off with some team building activities put on by the cute senior missionaries at the camp.

We were so amazed that our 22 children picked right up where they left off from 2 years ago. 

There was no age gap between any of them.

It was like they knew there was something special about their friendships so there was much kindness, sharing and laughter between all of the kids.

Emmy getting hoisted way high to the top of the tree to be let go for a free fall swinging experience.  

Ady going up for her turn.

More games.

Besides eating there were always games and chatting going on at our outdoor kitchen.

And games going on inside the cabins.

The lake was beautiful.

The middle girl's group.

Emmy always finding time to be a reader.



One entire day was spent at Jordanelle Reservoir.

Renting a ski boat and wave runners.

It was so relaxing and so much fun!!

The older girls club!  

The boat going out again packed with kids and a couple responsible adults.

Ady with a Steadman.

No generation gaps.

Emmy with a Smith and Steadman friend.

My favorite picture of the whole week. 

Bishop Smith and Robbie Wood letting air out of the tubes.



After so much sun and water we still weren't ready to be done with this day.

Can't you see all those smiles!

A trip to our new favorite place in Heber to eat...

Dairy Keen.

Check out baby RJ getting ready for bed in his baby burrito. 

He cracked us up every night.

We decided we all want to be wrapped up in a Baby Burrito before bed.

Have you ever seen a baby with this much hair?!

The girls painting each others nails

the

whole

entire

week.

We had 3 of these awesome cabins which slept 19 people each.

More games.

We saw deer every day and a couple of fox too.

More team building games.

Maryn climbing up the ropes course.

Going down the zip line.

Ady going across the ropes course and down the zip line.

Emmy's turn on the ropes course.

I was so proud of her going because it wasn't easy.

Kaden at least climbed up the pole...

and got to dangle for a minute.

The whole group.

Smiths

Steadmans

Stringhams

Slichtas

Woods

(the Debenhams were very missed.)

The handsome husbands.

The awesome teenage group.

I love that Maryn has that great group of kids to be her good friends.

The women.

I love ALL of these women SO much!

I know if I ever needed any one of them,

they would hop on a plane and come to me.

This last day all the ladies went to a park in Heber to have some alone time with no kids to interrupt our conversation.

We all had read, "The Infinite Atonement" by Brad Wilcox and we decided to have a book club meeting to discuss it. 

What an inspiration these ladies are!  

Our discussion was so uplifting and spiritual.

I love these women!!

It was a fantastic week and now we're on the countdown for 2 more years until our next reunion.