Back to School

Today was the unofficial end to summer. School days are here again. (Go Lakeview Lions!) Erin is in first grade this year in Ms. Barnes' class and Ethan is in fourth grade in Mrs. Wing's class. I kinda feel like I am the one going back. Now I have a schedule, getting up early, and the homework! I still get to supervise that.

(Note- Because I am an awesome mom I made my kids stand in front of the door in the blinding sunshine. Gotta get the picture! Did not occur to me until much later that I could have taken the pictures inside the house by the door. I told you I am awesome!)

Erin wanted me to walk her to school today. It was sweet. Ethan wanted nothing to do with me; like I would be an embarrassment to a big fourth grader. He's growing up! They both wanted to buy lunch today (pizza). Erin was successful at figuring out the process and remembering her lunch number. Ethan still has his mad lunch buying skillz.

Erin standing outside her classroom. At least she's not embarrassed by me! (yet.)

And sitting at her desk, putting away all her supplies. Erin is so excited to have a desk and her very own personal space to put her stuff. No more tables and buckets like in kindergarten.

Katelyn had me playing playdough, Little People, Jenga, Don't Spill the Beans, and the Wii- all before my shower. I still managed to get that in as well as some dishes and laundry. She is definitely using her one-on-one time with mom well. It should be a fun year. I also get to volunteer in both the kids' classes. I am trading babysitting time with a friend so we can both be more productive volunteers. Now just a few weeks until dance class, choir practice, and more scheduling. I have a feeling I need to ease back into all of this.

100% Pure Adrenaline

**For those of you readers who are eloquent at writing and can't stand to read anything containing poor grammar, run on sentences or every other word misspelled this post is not by Amy. Yes, that's right this is hubs. Gasp!!

What in the world would posses me to dust of my freshman English skills and attempt to describe anything in literary terms? Demolition Derby, need I say more?

So on Saturday, Ethan and I went with my brother and a few friends to the Annual Utah County Fair Demolition Derby. It was 100% pure adrenaline filled fun. There's not much better than a bunch of cars driving as fast as they can trying to crash into each other. I think the boys had a bit of fun too.There were 3 rounds of smash'em up fun and then two rounds of grudge matches, a powder puff round and then the finals. The pictures below happened in the second round. Notice the angle of car 100's bumper and the lack of a nose on the family truckster.

Here is the result. This happened about 10 seconds into the round two, if that long.


Now Derby etiquette is to strategically push one of the cars or to nudge it at about 15-20 miles an hour. This helps to free the mangled twisted metal. Below is what happens when such attempts fail.

See how polite everyone is they all came over to help out. Derby cars are your typical cash for clunkers that never made it to the dealership.


We had a great time. Here is the winning dual as car 44 pushes the purple eFusion car back into the barrier and over the top of it.

Can't wait 'til next year.

Camping

It took us all summer, but we finally made it camping on the last weekend before school started. Thanks to the Gillmans and the Paulsens for letting us tag along! We all had fun riding the Rhino and four wheeler, eating treats, roasting marshmallows and twinkies, making tonka toasters, playing games, and swimming.

Everyone loved riding in the Rhino, and Ethan got a personal ride on the four wheeler. After her first ride, KK wanted to ride everytime. She loved it!
Movie time! The older kids were in the tent trailer and the little kids were hanging out in the Gillman's trailer. Reed, Bennett and K (all about the same age) were giggling while watching Max and Ruby. It was all fun until K got locked in the trailer and couldn't get out. SO sad! All the adults were outside playing Sequence while the kids were being entertained.

Katelyn ended up in the momma's sleeping bag sometime in the night. I had retucked her back into hers several times, but she kept wiggling out and she was freezing. Once she was all warm and cozy she stayed asleep until morning. But I was up early with a sore arm and hip. She's so cute though- and those eyelashes!
It was chilly in the morning when we woke up. The kids preferred staying wrapped up in their blankets.


















Erin all cuddled up. We ended up drinking hot chocolate to help warm from the inside out. (Thanks Hillary- always prepared!)

Katelyn finally braved it away from the blankets and onto her scooter.

When we were packing up the gear and the tent Katelyn was so sad. She did not want to go home! We tried to distract her by letting her watch Dora on the Ipod. No luck. Still sad. We need to head out at least once more before it cools off. It was such a fun trip!

Bowling for Dollars

We went bowling about a month ago for Family Home Evening. The kids were really quite good at it. It had been a while since our last trip to the lanes.

It was not quite as entertaining as the 70's game show Bowling for Dollars. But if you want to check that out first, go here. Check out the fashions, daughter Melissa, and the legs behind the pins. Hillarious!
**Our kids got paid out, not by dollars, but with a gum ball at the end.

What do you do when you are waiting for it to be your turn to bowl? Ethan liked spinning the ball on a chair. Katelyn preferred climbing on stuff, and being surprised every time a ball would come out of the return. She stayed there most of the night catching balls and being entertained by the air puffer. Erin was the cheerleader for everyone.

Here are some action shots of the night:

And of course- Dadio Padio is the family bowling champion. I got smoked by my three year old despite the fact that the bumpers were up the whole time! Maybe next time I should use the rolly ramp thing too. It just might do me some good!

And of course a few videos of KK. She wanted to do it "all by myself." So I have about 10 more videos like this first one:

And success at last:

I think we need to return sooner than later so I can unseat the current champion. Too bad bowling isn't as easy in real life as it is on the Wii!