School Begins Again

All the kids have started another year of school. 

 The boys are in 5th grade with Ms. Crockett at foothill. They seem to be doing well and really loving their teacher and class. 

 Liv started Junior high this year. She is homeschooling PE and music electives so that she can skip the 1st period of every day and start at 9am instead 7 something. She seems to love Junior high. 

 She loves moving to different classrooms and having more responsibility for her grades and assignments. Her friends are her life. She has stepped back from COPA companies and went back to Rise up Children’s Chior. So far she doesn’t seem to miss the busy COPA schedule at all. She is currently participating in the school play which she isn’t loving too much. She tells me she may do this play and then “save her talents for high school”.  School pictures: 

Priest Lake Trip

The big long awaited family vacation of the summer we planned for the week before school started. The Wakins invited our family and the Thorsteds to travel with them to their parents’ house on Priest Lake in Idaho. It was a long drive- 12 hours or so. We broke it up. We caravaned with the Thorsteds on the way up. Stopped for dinner in Idaho Falls. We ordered take out and ate it at Annie’s parents house. They have beautiful house with a beautiful yard surrounded by huge pine trees. Everyone enjoyed sitting in their porch hammocks. 

 Then, we drove to Salmon, ID. Stayed in a hotel. In the morning Derek and Tyler found a pioneer marker before we hit the road. The drove through Montana up to Coeur d’Alene was just gorgeous. I would love to spend more time there. First stop in Coeur d’Alene was the Steele’s drink spot in the parking lot of one of her Dad’s grocery stores. Then it was just another hour or so Priest Lake. The Watkins parents live right on the lake. The kids had so much fun playing in the sand and lake and on the doc.

 They did a lot of tubing and boating. 

 We did kayaking and paddle boarding. Every morning generally started with a walk or run, one day we did a short hike to a waterfall and then got lunch and ice cream in town.

 Then, everyone would gather for morning meeting. Everyone took a turn sharing a thought. Amber’s Dad make oatmeal each morning, lunches were usually on our own, and we would join together for a big dinner. One day I kayaked with a bunch of the kids over to a little island just a ways up from Amber’s parents home. We explored the island, ate some snacks and paddled back. We decided to break into teams one day for a sprint triathalon. We swam, kayaked, and ran. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip. We hiked to a granite water slide another day. The kids wrapped themselves in trash bags and had so much fun sliding down it. 

 A whole week vacation in such a beautiful place was super hard to head home from. Poor Derek actually had to fly home from Spokane in the middle of the trip to work for a day and then back.

Summer

 We had a little money to use at RC Willey.  We used to to buy a Roomba vaccum.  The boys came with us and enjoyed the massage chairs while we shopped.  

At the end of school, the boys did a little Pioneer Rondevois and one of the activities was making butter with cream.  This has been a fun summer activity that has continued to entertain the kids through summer bordum.  

I have been having the kids do one bigger cleaning/organization project each week this summer.  When done, they earn a treat.  Crumble cookies have been a favorite treat choice.  Addie and Levi helped organize all the toys so they got cookies too.  

We had Splash Summit Passes which we used a few times this year.Baseball and Softball have now ended for the summer season.  Derek did a fabulous job coaching as usual.  It was busy, but fun and all the kids played great, though Liv missed several of her softball games due to the Mary Poppins play.  The boys helped Derek with the Rotary breakfast again this year.Then, all the kids hit up Summerfest of course.  I mostly sent them alone with neighborhood kids this year. I went over after dark to monitor.

 I took a bunch of kids up to see Footloose at the Kensington theater to see Footloose before they all performed in their own version of footloose.  

Liv and I saw Oklahoma at the Scera Shell with Darcie and Noelle.  We ordered Cupbop and enjoyed sitting on the grass for the show.  The girls were excited to see McCall their dance instructor play Adle Annie.

We took the whole family to an RSL game which was fun.  After the game they let us on the field to watch fire works.  All the neighborhood kids have had many a day hanging on our downstairs couches in the heat of the day watching movies or playing Nintendo together.  We didn't have grass for most of the summer, but the pickleball/basketball court did get poured which resulted in a constant hoard of neighborhood kids at our house (which I loved).  Camden's friend William invited him and Sebastian to go to the zoo with him one evening.  They had a blast together.  

Everyone in the family has been taking turns leading Come Follow Me Discussions.  It is really thrilling to see how great the kids do at taking charge of this.  This week Liv had the boys act out a skit about Phillip and the Ethiopian in their chariot.  After Camden (Phillip) introduced the Ethiopian (Carter) to the scriptures they both busted out into the song "A Whole New World" because the Ethipian's eyes were indeed opened to a whole new world it only seemed fitting.  It has us all cracking up.  Annie, Amber and I had one very rainy hike morning up to Battle Creek Falls.  The river was raging with all the extra snow we had this year.  I was so scared Kota was going to jump in and get swept away the whole hike.