Freedom!!

For me :)

Not for Anna (5th grade) and Jonathan (2nd grade) who were going back to school and Tyler who started Full-day Kindergarten. Brendon is in his last year at the junior high, and he goes to school earlier than the other kids this year, so we missed him for our picture. I'm sure he's so sad about that.

The kids are all loving school and their teachers this year, and things are going great for me at home!! When asked what I do with my time now that they're all in school, I get to reply "whatever I want" with a smile. But really I'm just as busy as ever, and it's nice to have time alone during the day to keep up with all I have going on. Otherwise I would be much crazier than I already am :)

24th of July

Fun ward pioneer breakfast complete with sack race:

Three leg race:

Visiting cousin: (Spencer is on the far right)

and Bike parade:

Phoenix Fun

All summer long we made trips to and from Phoenix to meet grandma and exchange kids so that each of our kids could have some one on one time in Thatcher. Whenever we could, we met up with old friends and had fun while we were in town. Our favorite spot was meeting up at Centennial Pool.

Tenth

We celebrated Suzanna's tenth birthday with a barbecue lunch in the Hualapai Mountains with her friends Rachel and Kendra.

Then headed to Kendra's amazing pool house for swimming.

Anna was excited to finally figure out the rope swing, and we all had a fabulous time!!

Five

We celebrated Ty's fifth birthday a little late. All of his friends were out of town for his actual birthday, and only one in town for his "party," so we kept the celebration simple.

The Trip Home

We drove home through Wyoming so that we could see more of the gorgeous country. I thought Idaho was beautiful, but Wyoming was even better!! Too bad it's so cold there in the winter :)

We stayed at a hotel in Utah to break up the drive, and spent most of our time in the pool. Tyler jumped in and swam back out to tell me he'd forgotten to put on his floaties. I said maybe you don't need them then!! And now he's an official swimmer :)

Idaho Trip: Mesa Falls

After Harriman State Park, we headed over to Mesa Falls, which my kids absolutely loved: gorgeous scenery and...no bugs!!

The weather was perfect, the view amazing, and the kids loved all of it!

Idaho Trip: Harrimon State Park

Cheryl and Robert helped us plan some spots to visit while in Idaho and suggested we go to this beautiful park built by one of the railroad owners as a vacation spot long ago. It was gorgeous!! So green and peaceful. But also filled with bugs.

Our scenic hike around this little lake started out good, but then my kids started freaking out. We're just not used to a billion fireflies buzzing around since we've always lived in the barren dessert :)

We ended up trying to finish the hike as quickly as possible. Brendon carried Ty, Phil helped Jonathan, and I tried to help Suzanna. It wasn't the peaceful communing with nature that we were going for...but it will be a funny memory later on.

Maybe our kids need a little more exposure to the outdoors!!