Hooray!

It's the most wonderful time of the year...............
School started! (mostly) Kai starts preschool on Tuesday but the other two have been in school for just over a week now. I foolishly assumed that once they were in school my life would quiet down a little bit. Hah! Now I just have to squish everything in before picking up the kids at 3:20. Sigh. Hopefully it will snow early this year and then I won't have to worry about the yard anymore.
I'm going to the Gardener's Market tomorrow, wish me luck! As per Sis 2's request, I will attempt to take pictures of everything before I sell. I actually invented my very own crocheted edge! Isn't that cool?
More tomorrow (hopefully)

Misc. things

One more post today and then I'm done. I promise. Bear Lake, Cedar City and St. George were awesome. Kudos to the maid staff at the Best Western Town and Country in Cedar City. We lost a gameboy in our room and they found it and returned it to us! Hooray! I was really afraid the world was going to come to a crashing halt over that one. We swam like fish at the hotel and had a great time visiting cousins in St. George. Here are some misc. pictures of Bear Lake (recent!) and Chloe's opera (I don't think we took any in Cedar City/St. George. Sorry.)

You can't tell in this picture, but the wind was just howling!

More empire building...I told you the pictures don't really change from year to year.

My sweet hubby in the kitchen, isn't he cute?

Quintessential opera Chloe.

Dance, children, dance!

I didn't say that!

We were on our way into town yesterday when the kids questioned me about turning on red lights. They mostly get that we can't go when the light is red so they were collectively a little confused when I turned right on a red light (even though I've done it more times than I can count). Anyway, I thought it would be a good teaching moment so I explained that we can turn right on a red light if there aren't any cars coming but we can't turn left on a red light at all. Foolishly assuming they all understood, I put it out of my mind and went on my merry way.
Later, we were taking Daddy back to work after a mostly enjoyable lunch out and found ourselves in a left turn lane waiting on a red light. Graeme started yelling from the back seat, "Go, Daddy, go!" When Brian again explained that we can't turn left on a red light, Graeme yelled: "But Mommy said we could!"
Honestly, I feel like I live with a pack of journalists. I'm constantly being misquoted and taken out of context. I'm even starting to have a little sympathy for celebrities and politicians. Well, maybe not politicians.

The kids' life philosophy

Monday night bedtime was much harder than usual. I suspect this was due to exhaustion from two consecutive trips and getting into bed much later than usual. However, once the kids were in bed, Kai began kicking and screaming and crying. Brian and I both tried to get through to him to no avail. Finally I managed to calm him down some by swatting his behind. I asked him what was wrong and his answer was (and I quote) "I don't want to be nice tomorrow!" I think I can safely say that my three-year-old, in his infinite wisdom, just summed up my childrens' life philosophy. Really.

Chloe's in the news

Chloe's opera made it into the newpaper. She's even in the big picture at the top of the article. Check it out at:
www.hjnews.townnews.com/news/

Scroll down to August 4th and click on The Children of the Opera

Bear Lake Rocks!

Well, we got back yesterday from a fabulous weekend at our favorite home away from home, Bear Lake. I can't believe how much fun I had! One of Brian's uncles graciously let us use his waverunner so we of course felt obligated to kill ourselves playing with it. My mom and dad brought their trailor up and stayed the weekend with us and we invited our neighbors to come up on Saturday.

I very foolishly forgot sunblock on my shoulders and upper arms so I'm still suffering from a terrible sunburn. It doesn't seem that long ago that I would have been tan in a day or two. Sigh. All my muscles hurt, too. Yesterday my hands were so achy and puffy that I couldn't even get my wedding ring on! Man, I'm getting old, but it was totally worth it!

We haven't downloaded the pictures off the camera yet, but here are some from last year. (Don't feel deprived, they don't really change much from year to year) That giant tree in the background is THE limber pine. It's 5,000 years old. Or something like that.

View from the cabin

Chloe and Graeme hard at work building a sand empire

Kai joins in the empire building

Inside the cabin (this is what happens when we don't pay enough attention to them)

Tomorrow we're off to Cedar City for the annual Rural Summit. Brian gets to spend two days in meetings and the rest of us are forced to lay around the hotel and go swimming and stuff. It's rough, let me tell you.