4-Wheeling Fun

Eric, Byron & I went up to Tibble Fork August 29th to enjoy some 4-wheeling fun. We rented two 4-wheelers for a day and had a blast! We left our home around 6 a.m. in the morning to get our moneys worth. We drove up American Fork canyon to Tibble Fork. I have never really been on a 4-wheeler except for the occasional 5 minute ride. I was pretty excited to experience it for more time. I never got up the confidence to try driving it myself, but loved being behind Byron. The only problem with this was that I was pretty much sitting on the rack and every bump we went over I felt it pretty bad (unfortunately I got a pretty big bruise to prove it:). We got smart after the first hour to get a pillow for me to sit on.

Byron drove like a pro. I would have to say he was a great driver and awesome at maneuvering around. Eric and Byron seemed to be in their element - happy as can be!

We stopped at lunch to enjoy a picnic amongst the beautiful scenery. It felt great to get off the 4-wheeler for a while to let me legs rest.

Here were some beautiful wild flowers where we ate lunch.

The two daredevils together. Some of our favorite parts were going through ravines and water. We headed out on some pretty long trails and enjoyed the long rides together.

Another beautiful area we passed by.

I headed back home to get the kids around 3 p.m. so they could enjoy an hour of 4-wheeling. While I was gone, the boys enjoyed going out by themselves and being more daring than they were with me. As we drove up to the parking lot, they had just gotten back about 5 minutes earlier. Eric made me laugh at how dirty his face was - sorry I just couldn't resist. Byron had just cleaned off his face right before we got there. Being in the front, all of the dirt flies up constantly onto your face. I was lucky enough to be behind Byron where I didn't get all the dirt. I did have some pretty crazy hair after taking off my helmet, though. It was a must wear hat situation :).

Carter & Parker are getting a ride with Byron - they were so excited to get in their ride.

Tanner waiting for Eric.

Bradley got a quick ride through the parking lot. He was so timid at first, but after his ride he couldn't quit saying "4-wheelers fun." He had a great time.

Byron & Johnathan

Tanner & Eric

All of the kids were so patient waiting for their turn.

Camille & Byron

After each kid got a 15-25 minute ride, Byron & Eric were beat. They decided to leave around 6:00 p.m. and go get the 4-wheelers back. I ended up staying about one more hour and enjoyed Tibble Fork Reservoir with the kids. They loved throwing in rocks, wading in the water, and just being outside amongst nature.

Bradley & Johnathan

Johnathan, Bradley & Camille enjoying the water - Carter & Parker are back behind. The water was pretty cold, but this didn't stop them from wading around in it.

Bradley enjoyed sitting by the shore playing in the water.

We had such a great time together. We live so close to such beautiful areas - we need to take advantage and visit the mountains more often.

School Begins!

Thursday, August 20th was the first day of school for my kids. They all had mixed feelings about starting, but mostly excitement. It will be quite a huge change having them gone 6 hours each day. Tanner - 5th grade - He has his first male teacher this year, Mr. Cox. Tanner isn't in his class with many of his friends, but seems to make them wherever he goes. He has so far loved his teacher. Mr. Cox plays the guitar and will pull it out during class. I just love when teachers incorporate music into their classroom. His favorite subject is Math. He constantly is asking me to print off math practice sheets at home.

Parker - 1st grade - This has been such a long awaited year. He is so excited to be able to be at school for the whole day and being able to eat in the cafeteria is also such an exciting milestone. I went ahead and put Parker & Carter in the same class again this year. They have Mrs. Skillicorn as their teacher. I am so impressed with her so far. I heard from other moms that she has quite a few boys - including a set of twins - so she definitely knows how to handle boys. I was so happy about this since I know my little guys can be a handful at times. Math is his favorite part of school. He also loves doing centers.

Carter - 1st grade - He likes eating lunch. His favorite meal so far has been pizza and he is excited that he can eat it every Tuesday. He says that Mrs. Skillicorn is a funny teacher. He also loves having 2 recesses (last year he only had one). I just found out that he has girls chase him during recess - funny boy!

Johnathan - 4th grade - This is the first year that he has had so many of his friends in his class. He actually has around 5 from our ward and especially loves that his favorite friend, Tyler Atwood, is also in his class. Johnathan started out the school year with Mrs. Tuckett as his teacher. Then the 5th grade ended up adding a new class and Mrs. Tuckett went to teach that class. Poor Johnathan - he seems to always get the new teachers every year or gets moved around. Luckily the change happened only 2 days into the school year. His new teacher is Mrs. Knutti. She is really into the cowboys and gives out "sheriff badges" as incentives every day. Johnathan has loved having her as a teacher. His favorite part of school is recess where he plays four-square with Tanner.

Johnathan, Tanner, Parker & Carter before heading out to the bus.

Camille - 8th grade - I will have to say that I can't believe I have an 8th grader already. I feel like it wasn't very long ago that I was in 8th grade myself. She is growing up way too fast - I just want to freeze time to keep my sweet 13 year old this age for many more years - Unfortunately it isn't possible, so I am trying to just enjoy every moment. This year was a lot easier for me to say "goodbye" and let her go to Junior High (last year I remember having such a hard time with my oldest going to a new school, having 8 teachers - let's just say the emotions were very high for me). I guess since this was her second year at this school and she had such an amazing 7th grade year, I wasn't as nervous to send her off this time.

She has some fun classes this time around - Chamber Choir, being a teachers aide for a cooking class, Dance 2, Algebra, PE, Health, Drama, Science, Foods, Keyboarding, US History, and English. She was very excited to be able to spend time with her friends she has missed during the summer.

Bradley - home with mom - I am now down to only one child during the day - what a HUGE transition! I almost don't know what to do with myself. I'm not sure that Bradley actually likes the idea of all his siblings heading out in the morning and not coming home for 6 hours. He has adapted well, but some mornings he cries when they leave. The first week he wanted me to entertain him all day long - what a week that was! I tried to entertain him as much as I could, but unfortunately I can't play all day and have things I need to do. Bradley has learned to play by himself more, which has been a huge blessing. He hates taking naps knowing that his siblings will be coming home soon. He must have great radar because as soon as they walk through the door he wakes up or wakes up right before they come home. Once the kids step foot in the door he can't quit smiling and showing them everything he has done during the day. The kids can't get enough of him either and enjoy playing with him for the next few hours.

Last week of summer - random pics.

Bradley is constantly doing something that surprises me. I was sitting at the computer when I heard, "Mom look." This is what I saw - he is such a cutie!

Carter & Parker have been asking for quite some time now when I was going to take them on their night out. Since we were behind schedule and Byron was out of town, I decided to let them both go with me somewhere. After they talked it over for a long time, they both decided up on going to Panda Express to eat and then heading over to Chuck-E-Cheese. The boys absolutely LOVE Panda Express. Anytime I give them the choice to pick they always want to eat there. They love the orange chicken and noodles.


Then we headed to Chuck-E-Cheeses. Luckily I had a coupon to buy the tokens. They were so excited that they would run from one game to another. I was so glad it wasn't crowded. We were able to use all of our tokens in about one hour.
Parker (in gray) and Carter (in blue) on the roller coaster. They were definitely in their own element.

Look at all of their loot.

We had a great time. I am so glad that my children look forward to going out with Byron or I. They have no problem letting us know when it is their month and bugging us until we go.

Since we just recently bought a Thanksgiving Point pass, we headed to the Farm Country for our Monday night activity. We hadn't been there for about 2 years and they did have some fun changes.

Carter & Parker milking the cow.

This baby horse was so darling. Bradley wasn't so sure about it, though.

There is a new area that we had never seen before about the cycle of crops. The kids could pick the crops, put them on a conveyor belt, and then take them to the market. They had a blast going from one area to the other.

My cute Johnathan.Bradley loved this saddle and thought it was his since it was just his size. He wasn't very happy that his older brothers wanted a turn also.

All of the kids wanted to ride the ponies. Bradley wouldn't have it, though and ended up going on a carriage ride.

I think Camille felt a little silly, but had a fun time.

Tanner

Carter

Parker

I am not sure what it is with Bradley, but he won't go on anything without somebody next to him. So he didn't want anything to do with the pony ride since he would be riding it by himself. So I decided that him and I would ride the carriage alone. He still wasn't very happy since he wasn't sitting on my lap - silly boy! He did like it once we started going and he could see the animals as we passed by them.

Tanner and Carter petting the horse.

We always spend about $1 on quarters to get corn to feed the animals. After the money and corn are gone, the kids spend so much time gathering all of the corn that has fallen on the ground by the dispensers. I can't believe how much they always seem to find. Their favorite animals to feed the corn to are the goats. They especially like finding the smallest one and trying to fight off all of the larger goats to make sure this one gets fed. This particular time there was the cutest baby goat. He wouldn't eat any of the corn the kids kept throwing to him - I think he was still only drinking his mother's milk. We spent about one hour at the goats finding corn, feeding them and then looking at this new baby goat - Camille was so ga ga over this little goat she made me laugh. She got so excited every time she saw it move.

We had a great time together and missed not having Byron to share the day with. He was in Asia for a quick trip, so we had to be creative where we went while he was gone. We were sure glad to have him back - just in time for school to start.

Sweet Daughter

I have the sweetest daughter. One evening she informed me that she was going to give me a pedicure. I was summoned to the basement couch where she had everything set up for me. What a huge act of love! I love this girl. She wasn't very happy that I was taking pictures, but I just couldn't resist - I wanted to remember this for a long time.

She started by taking all of my old polish off. Then she had me soak my feet for about 20 minutes in soap and water. Then she proceeded to cut my toenails, file them, scrub the bottom of my feet, add lotion, and then paint my toenails. I was impressed how gentle she was and how she just seemed like a little professional.

Camille - thanks for the hour of luxury. Byron was actually off in Asia at the time and I was in desperate need of "my time." This hit the spot! Camille I love you!