First Day of school

School started this morning.This year the first week of school is half days, so the kids were back home for lunch.  Kyle left first, he left before 6:00 for Senior Sunrise, the Senior class got together and watched the sunrise. Because of the half days the high schoolers only went to one class and then had an assembly, so Kyle doesn't know much about his classes yet but he thinks they are going to be pretty easy this year.  He is also busy with football practices, and has a couple of injuries and has to meet with the athletic trainer everyday, so we didn't see much of him today

Hailey, Katie, and Nicole left next, they rode the bus and left at 7:00.  Normally Hailey will ride with Kyle to seminary and then to school, because they are both at the high school.  Hailey didn't go to classes today either, it seems like she will have a pretty hard schedule, Pre calculus, chemistry, and honors English.  But she is happy that she has friends in all of her classes.  She is also trying out for the volleyball team right now so she had to go back to school this afternoon for practice. Katie and Nicole are in 8th grade so the same school as last year, they have 2 classes together, which will be fun.  They both seem most excited about art class, and science.  Nicole has a history teacher that she isn't too happy about, but I'm sure it will be fine.  They are both planning on doing cross country this fall, it starts next week.

Lydia left next, at 8:15, she is in 4th grade.  She is going to have an adventure this year.  The school she has been going to, is being torn down so they can build a new elementary school, so her school and another elementary school have been moved to the Freshman campus (the Freshman have been moved to the high school), they have worked hard to turn this school into a place for 2 elementary schools, it seems like it will work, but is going to take some getting used to.  Her teacher is the same teacher that all of the other kids have had for 4th grade,  She is a great teacher and Lydia loves her so I think it will be a good year. She spent most of the day going on a tour of the new school.

Summer Vacation Week 10

Summer is over, it went by so fast, like it always does.  It was a such a good summer, the weather was perfect, we had the right amount of fun and adventure and family time and time to relax.  This last week was good.  The girls did tennis lessons again so that made our mornings busy, they are getting good and really enjoy it.  Kyle started football so he was busy with practice. Kyles best friend left this week for college, they hung out one last time Tuesday, before they said goodbye.

We spent Thursday night with Katie, Nicole, and Lydia visiting their new classes, and going out to ice cream after.  The girls also did some painting, and a puzzle, they played outside with water balloons and sprinklers.  Friday night we had a church party, Saturday night Marc and I chaperoned the church dance.  Sunday we had fun looking at all the pictures from summer and talking about all the fun we had.  The week went way too fast, and we are back to school on Tuesday.

Summer Vacation week 9

I cant believe we only have one more week, it went way too fast.  This past week was good.  The girls kept busy with tennis lessons every day.  We had visitors Tuesday night, my parents drove over to get fruit, it was fun to see them again, we got in some 4 square and volleyball.  Kyle stayed busy working and with football stuff.  Marc tried out a mustache for a couple of days, some of the reactions he got were pretty funny.  Friday we got more visitors, My sister Rachel drove over with her 6 kids, we played at the park, made a trip to the temple, ate lots of ice cream, the kids stayed up late telling stories and playing games, watched funny movies and had a great time together.

Family Vacation Day 9 and 10

Saturday morning we started the long drive home, we were all pretty tired and the weather wasn't great so the drive was going pretty slow, we decided to drive to Portland and stay the night with Marcs Dad and Diana.  We got there at about 8:00 they had a yummy dinner for us and we visited for awhile, then went to bed.  They had church at 12 so we stayed and went with them and then did the final 3 1/2 hour drive home.  It was a great vacation, we had tons of fun, and made lots of memories.  The driving was long, but also full of fun and funny memories.  It is nice to be back home, but we will miss all the fun and family time that we had on vacation.

 Lots of naps in the car

dancing in the car

Family Vacation Day 8

This morning was a little rough, our plan was to drive to Yosemite which was a couple of hours drive, which we did, but I think everyone is a little tired and Kyle was car sick the whole way, and the drive was longer than we thought, but we made it.  It was beautiful, we didn't have a lot of time so we picked one hike to do, it is called mist trail and it goes up to the top of Vernal Falls, it is a pretty steep hike, and the last part is all stairs cut into the stones, there is a lot of mist coming from the waterfall, so you get kind of wet, and there were a lot of people.  We all enjoyed it, it was a great waterfall, it was worth the climb.  We were able to see some of the well known sites in Yosemite, Yosemite falls, half dome, and El Capitan.  After exploring Yosemite for awhile we drove to Sacramento to stay the night.

Family vacation day 7

We left Anaheim first thing this morning.  The plan for the day was to drive to Modesto and stay the night.  We stopped a couple of times on the way, the first stop was at some outlet stores to get the kids new shoes for school.  Then we stopped in Fresno at the temple, it was a nice stop.  We made it to our hotel and swam for a bit, and now the kids are watching some TV before bed.

Family Vacation Day 6

Today we went to California Adventure, the plan was to spend the morning there and then spend the afternoon back at the beach, but Kyle ended up pretty motion sick, so we never made it to the beach.  The park was great, we loved the cars ride again, and the kids rode the river rafting ride 3 times in a row without any wait, Lydia was super brave and rode the guardians of the galaxy ride with us, it was another great day, lots of fun family time.

Family Vacation Day 5

We got up early and took off for Disneyland, the kids got another surprise when we got to the front gates Grandma and Grandpa Beck were there, everyone was so excited.  We had a great day, of course it was hot and crowded, but we still had lots of fun.  We rode all the rides, and didn't have to wait very long for any of them.  grandma treated us all to a corn dog from the corn dog stand that has been there since it opened, they were very good.  We found a list of tho top foods to eat at Disneyland, so Grandpa got us started on a mission to  try all of them, so we spent the afternoon sampling some of the top foods at Disneyland.  We tried lots of yummy stuff.  It really was a very fun day, having Grandpa and Grandma there made it extra great. 

Family Vacation Day 4

We started the morning off with surfing lessons.  Most of the kids were a little nervous, but they all loved it, they wished we could have done it all day.  The teachers were great, the class lasted for 2 hours, and by the end everyone was doing pretty good, they were able to stand up on their board. 

 Nicole

 Lydia and Nicole

 Marc

 Hailey

 Lydia

 Hailey

 Katie

 Lydia

 Kyle

 Nicole

 Katie

 Lydia

 We spent the rest of the day playing on the beach, we played in the sand, played on the boogie boards, and jumped and played in the water.  We all came home very sunburned.  We had fun telling the kids about our plan for tomorrow, we surprised them with Disneyland tickets, they are super excited.

It was a really fun day, everyone had a lot of fun together.