The Canyon

July 16th, we went up the canyon again for foil dinners with Mike's parents and two sister's families.  Great Grandma B came along too.  SO fun!

The girls telling grandma stories about something. 

This cracked me up!  They were telling "Scary" stories.  It was so dang cute!  

Real Salt Lake Game

With our Pass of all Passes, we get into a free Real soccer game. We went with Sharon's family and Grandma.  We went to the game, and then dinner.

We Love Grandma!

Backtracking hopefully for the last time!  Back to July.......

Happy 24th of July!!! Mike's mom's birthday is close to the 24th of July, so we decided to have an awesome birthday party for her on the 24th.  We hosted a fun party including swimming, Chinese take out, ice cream cake and ice cream (of course you have to have both when you own a Baskin Robbins.) and FIREWORKS!  Both Mike's sister's and family came and we just had a fun fun evening.  

We busted out the Splish Splash ice cream.  It's BRIGHT blue and white.  We had to take a picture of everyone's blue tongues! And this is the only picture I have of Grandma at her party. I really need to be better at taking more pictures! 

We really hit the jackpot with fireworks.  We had a bunch of fun ones for kids to do and light off here, but all around us were some AWESOME shows from other neighbors.  Every single direction there were tons of the big huge ones to watch.  We sat outside for hours just watching and the cousins playing. 

What?!  You don't play blocks on the sidewalk at 9:30 at night in your pajamas with your cousins? 

Happy birthday to Grandma!

So it Begins!

Soccer started this week for Isabelle.  When I signed her up, she was begging and excited.  Now that it's here, she was less than thrilled.  I'm attributing it to being tired with the beginning of school.  We will see how this week goes.  I didn't get a picture of her on the first day of practice, but I got the boys.  There's a splash pad next to where she has practice.  Awesome for me! I'm her team mom, which will mean a little assistant coaching, but mostly treat organizer.  Can do. :) 

Rained Out

After we sent Isabelle on her way on the first day of school, we decided to go to Thanksgiving point with some friends since it should have been empty with school starting....well just so happened it was $2 Tuesday.  Everything was PACKED, so we decided to take our chances with Farm Country.  After a few minutes it started to rain again.  We took the wagon ride since it was covered....and sat in the wettest spots and got drenched.  Haha. It was so funny and a fun adventure! After that we called it quits and went to Costco for lunch and shopping. 

First Grade

My little Isabelle started 1st grade last week.  My helper is gone and now it's just me and all these cute boys. She's in a Chinese immersion program.  She is going to a brand new school and it was a total fluke she got in.  Many of the Utah schools have different language immersion programs for 1st-6th grade.  We looked into it when we found out we were moving and I tried to get her into a Spanish one and it had a waiting list of over 100 kids! Just so happened they built a new school that our neighborhood would be going to and the language program they had was Chinese.  We got a last spot.  She has a Chinese teacher that only speaks Chinese for half of the day.  She teaches reading, writing, math, science, and social studies.  Then they switch and go to an english teacher that teaches reading and writing.  She can do a quick recap for math in english, but it's just that a quick recap. I was really nervous that first day for her.  I was worried it would be too overwhelming and all sorts of mother anxieties.  When she came home, she was SO excited.  She loved both her teachers and was already catching on to the Chinese. 

We get to ride a bus here!!  YAY!!!!  Our bus is literally just our neighborhood which is our ward and one other ward (we were one ward just a few months ago). It was a rainy morning and she looked so nervous at first. 

But then she was so excited!  

And yes, I was totally THAT mom.  How many pictures can I take?! 

One of my friends was going to the school, and invited me to tag along.  Mike was home with boys, so I did.  It was so cute!  The school had this "orange carpet" (school color) and music and a big group of people cheering everyone as they went in for the first day.  I really like their principal.  I've been impressed with her so far. 

She was happy to see me one more time.  

NO, I didn't go in with her. :)  I contained myself for that one. 

I worried myself about her all day!  I was so relived to see this little face get off the bus.  I'm glad she had a good first day.  The week has continued and gone well.  She's loving it.  She likes both her Chinese and English teachers. She's making lots of new friends and is happy.  The second day of school, she informed me I didn't need to be at the bus stop to pick her up.  And so it starts...

Stake Family Fair

Our stake had a family fair.  It didn't look super promising, but we were there for 2 1/2 hours, so that leads me to believe the kids thought it was awesome. They had young women at a face painting booth, a bounce house, tractor train ride, hot dogs, live music from people in our stake, carnival games with lots of candy/prizes and even a magic show.  Definitely a fun way to spend the day! 

Isabelle got a heart

Luke got Larry the Cucumber from Veggie Tales 

Michael got a Lightning McQueen 

It was hot and sunny.  Spencer was happy in the back pack for a while, but gave up when it was nap time and was DONE.  Mike took him home and I stayed and played with the big kids.  

Look who was the only one that sat and actually ate lunch. Not surprising. :)  

I love this little face, even when he's cranky. 

They had marshmallows and toothpicks.  We do this at home all the time, yet my kids were there for 30 minutes!  I finally talked them into doing other things we couldn't do at home.  

It was a fun way to spend the Saturday.  They devoured all their candy and love the little toys. The kids are loving the parachute guys they got.  I've decided pretty much all we need for birthday season is an Oriental Trading Company order and they will be happy as can be.  Haha!

Cousin Fun

Our cousin fun for the week included a trip to the Natural Curiosity Museum at Thanksgiving point on Thursday and a trip to the Aquarium on Friday. We went with Jeannie's kiddos.

I took lame pictures at the museum, but it was really cool!  I can't wait to go back again.  Grandma came along on this adventure as well. 

We had a great time at the museum as well.  

Dax was AWESOME with my boys!  Seriously, I need an 11 year old around all the time.  

They have a touch pool.  Isabelle was obsessed.  She did not want to leave. We were here for a good 30 minutes.  

Spencer was a champ, even though it was nap time.  

Isabelle wanted to be a little photographer again.  She's actually pretty good.

We love our cousin time. :)