Caleb and my first day of school activities!

We walked back home after waiting for the bus to pick up Zach and Kirsten. This was a emotional time for Caleb... he didn't see why he didn't get to go too. We played outside in the cars and then moved on to bubbles.
We even got some pretty big sized ones. Of course caleb brought me a wand because "mommy dodit too." Unfortunately caleb wanted to "me dodit" when filling up the dipper and spilled the bottle...that was after his foot landed in the bubble tray while spinning the wand around to get the bubbles out...all the stores are out of the bubble this late in the season.

The First day of school year 2009!

Here's the kids, Caleb, Zachary (first grade), and Kirsten (Third grade), on the first day of school. Notice everyone has a backpack...we have to be like the big kids. Our one year old tree is sure getting big. I remember measuring our growth each new year by the tree in our old house when I was growing up. Don't they all look nice!
"Everyone say Cheese for the camera." Notice Kirsten's brackets on her front four teeth. This is stage one of the process...she is being a good sport about it all at least for the most part.
This is the first bus stop line on the street in front of ours then the bus goes a little farther down and picks up even more...that bus must be really noisy! We are all waiting patiently as the bus is always a little late on the first day of school.
The bus has finally arrived...look at that show of sisterly love and it was even caught on film.
Zach has grown alot, but man this bus it a big step up.

The last Hooray before school!

Becca Laing, a good sport to have her picture taken to try out the camera.




The Monday before school started on the 17 of August, we went with a bunch of friends for a picnic up Provo canyon to Immigration Park. The Laings, Douglas', Tijerina's, Cunninghams, Splattstosser's, Cook's, Wortman, and the Olsen's all came just to name some of the moms and kids. The kids really didn't stay still much with the playground and river so close. They explored the river throwing rocks and then went on the bike trail for a walk until the moms got too hot and headed back. Then we continued the playing and brought Addie and Sophie home with us after a shopping trip to Costco. ( I got a new memory card and was trying it out...Becca was my willing guinea pig)

August 9, 2009 Ellie Woodhouse's blessing!

We returned home from our weeklong vacation reunion yesterday and headed to Lehi the next morning for Ellie's Blessing. She is such a sweetheart! Look at how she poses!

Gale reunion continued: August 1-8

The Gale reunion at Wolf Creek was a ton of fun! On the way out on Saturday August 8th, my parents, Joe, David, Corinne, Spencer, Ethan and us went to the Ogden Dinosaur museum. This museum had lifesize dinosaurs that made noises and were in real habitates along with play parks and digging sites to find barried fossils. The kids had a blast with every one and of course the dinosaurs. They even got to freed the real trout in the pond...now those were dinosaur size! Sorry no pictures...my memory card got damaged and I stole all the other pics from Lisa and Dorothy. thanks for the theft!

Gale Reunion Contiued... August 1-8

We also spent a few days on the beaches at a nearby reservoir. The kids took rides on the tubes and the guys took turns pulling or riding the 2nd jet ski on their own. Found out that according to the rules of jet skiing...we should have only been pulling one person in the tube at a time...You can see in the below pic...top right pic...that we have a rider on the jet ski and two tubes being towed with two kids each...BIG NO NO...HUGE FINE!!
Everyone enjoyed the sun and sand. The kids (and dads) had fun digging out a huge hole...One morning Grandma located someone who was willing to give all the grandkids rides on their horse for a very reasonable fee. Grandpa was a great sport, especially in the pool...
We had gobs of fun playing games, some nights may have been a bit too gaseous, but overall a great laugh!! The girls also enjoyed showing their cousins different things to make with oragami paper. Even Mike & Chris had fun folding away.
Grandma also had several fun projects that the grandkids worked on. Stenciling and thumb-printing a pillow case, gem butterflies, flower clips, and a magnetic family board. One afternoon, after a game of Phase 10 & eating through 1/2 a jug of Jelly Bellys, we gathered the kids together to "feed" them the "discarded, questionable tasting" jellys...perhaps that was a mean prank to play on them...
One night we had a fun game of family jeopordy and learned many new facts about each other. One discovery that night was that Nathan's belly could be "inflated" to be as large as Lisa's preg. belly!!
We spent an afternoon competing in family relays and water balloon games. Learned that David can tie water balloons fast but not faster than using them all up in a water fight. Everyone was a great sport and I know the kids had fun!!
Until next year!! Oregon Coast here we come!!

Wolf Creek Gale Reunion, Ogden UT! August 1-8

We headed up to Wolf Creek-near Eden,UT where my parents were able to rent 3-2 bedroom condos for the 24 of us to stay in...It's been a long time since we'd been able to do this...It was a lot of fun!! We spent a few days hanging around the condos...there was tennis, racket ball and Uncle MJ played tea party with the younger boys...

We also went on a little hike around the wolf creek reservoir. The kids would have gone on and on, but the adults were thinking about the return trip to the cars and having too many kids to carry.