First Cheerios

It was a day full of first at our house. First day of school for the girls and first time eating Cheerios for Dallin!

Back to School

Time to head back to school! Aliza got to attend Kindergarten Camp for a week before school even started. She loved going and meeting all the teachers and learning her way around the school.

 This was after her first day of camp. She drew a picture of her giving flowers to me!

 We got to go and meet their new teachers a take a look around their classrooms. Here is Aliza at her seat and below with her new teacher, Mrs. Franklin.

 Here is Carmen at her seat in 2nd grade and below with her teacher, Ms. Williams.

 Aliza on her very first day of Kindergarten! She was very excited and even a week after school has been in session, she still pops up out of bed every morning. 

 New backpack and shoes - she has never worn tennis shoes before. She prefers to wear fancier dress shoes all the time. So this was another 1st for her to have to wear tennis shoes.

 Dad wishing the girls good luck on their first day. 

I should add that they both were attending a new school for the first time. Our neighborhood got redistricted into a new school. So even Carmen was feeling a little nervous about the first day.

 We waited for the bus for a LONG time. It was very late and the longer we wait to closer Aliza clung to Carmen.

 And no joke - there were about 40 kids at our bus stop! You should have seen the bus drivers face when he pulled up.

 These two stuck pretty close. It melted my heart that they were holding hands.

 I don't know what Carmen was telling Aliza, but it seemed like a pretty serious big sister pep talk. And out of all those 40 kids, Aliza was the last one on to the bus.

And here is how they looked when they got home. It was a wonderful 1st day for both of them!

Oh, and Carmen did have new school clothes, but for some reason hasn't chosen to wear them yet....

California Trip

Oh, how I will always hold a special place in my heart for California. In an effort to end summer with a bang, we boarded the plane and headed to California for a week! I loved how natural everything felt for me there. As if we never left. Yet, at the same time it felt odd to feel so at home, yet not be at home... I had to keep reminding myself of what our house in VA looked like, or where things were found in our Target...

 The Beans and the Foberts had a happy reunion once again. We can always pick up like no time has passed. Almost right away they were in their swimsuits and playing on the trampoline. 

We also stayed at Grandma Bean's house for a couple of days. I had to get a picture of the jelly beans, because I think that is my girls favorite part of her house! 

We also took a couple of days to adjust to the time difference. Dallin woke up very early each morning, so the two of us would snuggle on Sandy's couch until everyone else woke up.

 We absolutely could not leave Mountain House without going to Central Park. We skipped out on the park during our last visit and David and I have not heard the end of it since then. So we had to make things right this time. The kids loved playing in the fountain and the sand together. But mostly they just wanted to leave to go get a Slurpee.

 Ammon and Dallin are only 3 months different in age. They were cute together.

 Danelle and I ventured out with ten kids to Happy Hollow and had a fun and exhausting day there.

 This place has some fun kid rides and this amazing playground that anybody could get lost in! All of my girls were so proud that they rode on the roller coaster!

 Carmen and Sariah held hands most of the day. It melted my heart to see that they were still such kindred spirits! I hope they always remain BFF's!

 Aliza and Dallin riding on the dragon train together.

 What a great group of kids!! I just love them all. And I love this picture because they all seem so comfortable with each other. Sariah has her arm around Carmen, who has her head on Eli's shoulder, Eli is holding Dallin and Charlotte is holding Eli's hand.

 

Saturday night we went with Foberts and Leikoinens out to dinner. We stayed in the restaurant for 4 hours just chatting and enjoying good old times! Hopefully, someone will pass the picture from that night along to me.

 We went with Grandma Bean to see Ice Age 3 and afterwards got dinner and ice cream at Fudrucker's.

This was a pretty horrible attempt at getting a picture of the kids with Grandma....

And David is always thoughtful about taking every opportunity to get to the temple as possible. I love that about him! We enjoyed a quick trip together while Sandy watched the kids. (It's still so hard for me not to say "the girls")

We were able to attend the Chester Ward on Sunday and see so many wonderful old friends. It felt  great being greeted with hugs from all our old friends. It made me a little homesick for that amazing ward! After church we had lunch with the Foberts and dinner with Sandy and Tim and Kathy. Then we caught a red eye flight home. We got home with just enough time to rest and readjust our train of thoughts in order to start school!

Pranksters

 My kids think they are sooo funny....

They've been banned from ever watching American's Funniest Home Videos ever again.

And I've told them to sleep with one eye open...

Camping Trip

One night after David and I had been on a date, we took a little walk up our street before heading in and relieving the babysitter. :) We realized summer was quickly ending and we needed to pack in some more fun. So we decided to be really spontaneous and take the family camping. We packed up the van and headed to Sherando Lake. It was a really quick trip and everyone had a lot of fun.  We all agreed to stay longer next time! (but with air mattresses next time!)

Cousin Pictures

For my parents 35th wedding anniversary, my sister and I decided to take some nice pictures of all the grand kids together. We took them up onto "The Lawn" at UVA to get some nice pictures. Little did I know, the "lawn" had been torn up and was under renovation... so we did a lot of improvising and still came up with some great pictures. It was about 100 degrees this day and the kids weren't totally in the picture taking mood, but it was still fun. And I loved seeing my parents reactions to the surprise.