Welcome Home, Jacob!

We arrived home from Yellowstone on Monday and left Wednesday morning for California, to visit Dave's side this time. We had enough time to do laundry, pack, and we were off again. Our week was packed with family and we loved every minute of it!

I heart frequent flier miles and free lap-riders! This was McKenna's first airplane ride...well, not counting when I was pregnant.

Dave's youngest brother, Jacob returned home from his LDS mission to Lima, Peru. We sure missed him!

Here's Jacob with most of his nieces and nephews at the airport. There were four that were born while he was gone.

Got to love the awesome souvenirs! It was so thoughtful of Jacob to spend his time and money on the kids. They loved their authentic Peruvian hats.

We were in California from Wednesday to Monday and the days were filled with all sorts of fun activities like volleyball at the church, In N Out for lunch, facials, swimming, playing cards, shopping, and a lot of late-night chatting. We used the neighbors' pool quite a few times. It was a little cold for swimming, but we did it anyway.

Jacob before impact.

Little Kenna Girl with her Grandpa David.

Jason put together the First Annual Brock 5K. I woke up for the 7 AM event to be time-keeper with Judy. :)

David, Jason, Dave, Janene, and Jacob at the starting line.

And who do you think won the first family title of 5K Champion? Any guesses....It was Janene, the award-winning marathon runner with a time of 21:03. Wow!!

The after picture...gee, can't you tell? Janene, was brave to pose for this picture. :)

Sunday was Jacob's Sacrament Meeting talk. He gave an amazing talk. After church we took some family photos.

This was almost a complete shot. We were missing Janene's husband, Devin.

All the cousins! Campbell, McKenna, Emery, Clayton, M'li, Taylor, Griffin, Derek, and Ryker.

The Sweet Granddaughters!!

After most of the crowd left on Sunday night. The boys were finally able to play some football with their uncles, Jacob and Jared. Fun!

We flew home on Monday morning on a 6 AM flight! Ouch! It was amazing to watch the sun rise from the plane, but NEVER again do I want to experience that. Getting up before 4:00 AM was way too early for all of us. It was an awesome week, but I only wish we could do it more often!

Natalie did what?

You might remember THIS post from a couple months back. I was in search of suggestions on good books to read. Well, I did it! I finally read a book and not just one, but I've read two in one month. I am on a roll.

My first was "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier. It was a great book, but definitely not what I thought I was getting into....huge amount of suspense! I really related to the main character. I became very addicted to the book, but the ending left me a little irritated. (I won't say more and ruin it for anyone.)

And just tonight I finished reading "Austenland" by Shannon Hale. It took me about one-third of the book to really get into it (and get past some annoyances), but when I did...wow, I couldn't put it down. It would definitely make a good "chick flick" movie. It did describe two characters making out, which I didn't appreciate, but overall it was a fun read. And a great ending.

So, it turns out that I do enjoy reading. Sure these aren't really deep books, but they are a fun start. On to the next!...or maybe spend some time updating my blog...hmmm?

One More...

...of my family at Yellowstone. Sorry, but I just received this picture from my sister and it cracked me up!! I just had to add it.

I'll add a new post soon...I sort of promise. :)

Yellowstone Family Reunion

WARNING: There are a lot of pictures to follow!

Over Labor Day weekend our family attended a reunion for my side of the family...in Yellowstone! Everyone was there except my younger brother. We missed you, Jeff!
Day 1- We arrived at the cabin in the evening and had dinner outside and a campfire. The kids had fun running in the woods and exploring the cabin.

Real men build fires while holding a baby.

Day 2- We drove for 3 hours to get to our first stop. Thanks to a road closure, it took us twice as long as it should have. But what a beautiful drive.

Here's just part of our caravan, starting with the black car. There were two others somewhere.
One would think that Dave was viewing wildlife, but no....license plates. Each family battled against each other to see who could find the most plates by the end of the weekend. Oh yeah...we won!

My awesome sister, Laurel designed these matching shirts. We got quite a few comments and stares from other tourists. What like people have never seen a huge herd of white shirts before?
The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Day 3- We attended church at the local branch. It was the most people I have ever seen at one Sacrament Meeting. They counted more than 1900 people and they still passed the Sacrament which took about 50 minutes. We sat in the kitchen, but others were lined up outside the building, lined in the halls, packed into every classroom, and outside huddled next to windows to hear the testimonies. They even held a second meeting which hosted about 1200 more. What a cool experience.

After church we drove to Big Springs and fed fish and walked the bridges. It was a beautiful scenery!

We then drove to Old Faithful and walked the boardwalks to Morning Glory Pool.

We sure got an up close look at some Bison and watched one roll in the dirt. Really cool! In fact some tourists got a little too close and a couple Bison came to protect the baby. They growled and stamped the ground, but did the tourists get away...no, they wanted their pictures. Crazies! It was like a train wreck...I couldn't look away.

Day 4- Sad day. We ate breakfast, packed up, played a little more, and said our goodbyes. I dread this part. But it was a great weekend together!!

I love my family!!

Taylor's Day Came

I am slowly getting caught up. Sigh...

Taylor started school on August 26th (one week after Derek). He wanted to start with Derek and it tortured him to watch Derek go without him. Finally his day came and he LOVED it.

Once in his classroom we took his weight and height, found his cubby and coat hook, and turned his frog in his attendance chart. Then the teacher prepared a hat for them to color at their table. Taylor was happy to see that he sits next to one of his friends from church. McKenna decided that she REALLY wanted to sit and color as well, so I caved and gave her a paper and crayon. She loved it and I knew she would cause a scene when it was time to go. So I said my goodbyes to Taylor and grabbed McKenna (who did cry..surprise, surprise) and ran....well, to the hall. I just had to spy on Taylor for another 5 minutes. It's so fun to watch kids interact with other kids. I would have stayed there all two and a half hours, but I had to cut the strings.

It was very quiet without Taylor.

They were so cute, all lined up, when I came to pick him up. I don't know when Taylor grew up, but this milestone surely crept up on me. He still loves school and says "I love homework, Mommy. I wish I could do more. I love projects." He does his homework immediately after walking in the door. I think it's a great habit to encourage. I am so proud of my little guy.

Go Lions and Mustangs!

There is just one week left of Fall soccer for my boys. I better blog about it before it's over. This is the first time the boys played for Spanish Fork. They were ecstatic when they saw that this league uses goalies. They've each had their turn in that position and it was like a dream come true. This is the first year that Taylor has played. For the first 4 games the coach told him to play defense and to "stand by me". Taylor took this instruction literally and followed his coach all over the field like a shadow. Funny.

Derek's team has a lot of players on the field at all times, so he really hasn't had much of a chance to touch the ball. However, he is great at defense and nothing gets past him!

Soccer is fun to watch when they are this age, however, it will be nice to have our nights back again.