August in the rearview

Just finishing up August on a good note!

- Trail running is the best in August - warm mornings and beautiful views

- A broken dishwasher is always the pits

- When you ask your 8 year old to clean out the cupboard...

- Yard care at Aunt Hayley's house

- Feeding 90 band kids looks like this whole roaster full of chicken!

What a month!

 

US Open

Josh and I have always wanted to go to the US Open in New York but have never been able to make it happen.  It always falls right around the time that school starts and is tucked right in between that and Labor Day.  So we've always been busy or had something else going on that we couldn't make it out.  But this year we decided to do it and make it work!  I'm so glad we did!  We had THE BEST week in New York and loved being at the tournament for a couple days of it.  It was so fun to be there in the place we've seen on tv all these years and be able to be a part of it.  We loved just wandering around to different matches, watching the practice courts, eating good food and just being together.  The weather was perfect (warm and overcast) and we couldn't have asked for two better days to be there!  

Chad and Graham joined us one of the days and it was fun to spend the day with them.  We watched an epic 5 hour match at Arthur Ashe between two Americans - Tiafoe vs. Fritz.  It was awesome and such a thrilling match to be there for!  We also met up with our friend Mike McCarlie just as we were leaving the park one night and he was headed in for the night session.  What a fun time we had watching tennis at this amazing campus!

We spent one day in New York City and did all the touristy stuff.  Josh has never been, so we walked around seeing and eating everything in our path!  The cro-nuts were to die for, the bagels were delicious and we almost died when we ate the banana cream custard.  After we were full enough, we continued on our journey through the city.  We stopped at St. Anthony's church where Hamilton was buried, saw the One trade center and the memory pools, Rockefeller plaza and radio city music hall and all the way up to Central Park.  Such a fun walk through the city and seeing lots of new things!

That night we had tickets to see MJ the musical on Broadway and it was INCREDIBLE! So much talent on that stage and we didn't want it to end. We enjoyed every single minute of the show and felt so lucky to be able to see it!

We had such a fun trip together and packed so many things into just a few days.  Hopefully we'll be back again soon!

 

Family Pictures

 

1st day of school

The first day of school is here and the kids were excited to get back to it!  Summertime is ALWAYS great, but nothing beats a good routine and more sleep!  This year is going to be a good one I just know it.  

Rease is starting her senior year :( 

(I have no idea how we got here!)

Rhen 10th grade.  Both of them are at Mountain Ridge High School and so excited to be there together!

Liev is an 8th grader and Keen is starting 7th grade.  Two middle school boys for us at Fort Herriman Middle School this year.  Help them! Middle school is not always the easiest.

Beck and Desh are holding down the fort at Butterfield Canyon Elementary.  We not done with elementary kids yet and I'm so happy about that!  

Beck is in 5th grade and Desh is in 3rd.  

What a year we have to look forward to!

 

Mountain Biking

Keen and Liev joined the junior high mountain bike team this year and have been practicing as a team most of the summer.  This is really new to them but they have learned to really love it!  There are quite a few boys in the neighborhood that ride so they have a great group to practice with.  They had their first couple of races this month and both did great.  Keen has come a long way and has gotten over some of his fears of mountain biking.  He loves to go fast and does a great job on the hills which are not always easy!  So proud of him and trying and learning something new!

Liev has also gotten to really love being on the team.  And without us even knowing it, he has a natural talent for mountain biking.  He likes going to practice and I know he works hard at is, but I didn't know the competitive drive that fueled this boy until we saw him race for the first time.  We were on the course watching and waiting for the first riders to come by and before we knew it, there he was in fifth place!  He rode hard and finished strong and got to be on the podium as a 5th place finisher in his division!  The coaches were as surprised as we were to see him finish like he did!  What a day for this boy and so fun to see some hard work pay off.  

 

Keen's Birthday

Keen turned 12 and officially seems like a grown up kid now.  What happened this year that most of my kids outgrew me?  Love this boy and his energy!

12 year old stats from Dr. Erickson:

Height: 5'7" - 99%

Weight: 113 lbs - 85%

My favorite things about Keen at 12 years old:

1 - Keen has a lot of energy in that tall skinny body of his!  He's constantly moving, jumping, hitting, teasing, laughing, playing or has his eyes on anything with a screen.  He can't sit still long enough to finish a movie before he's off to the next thing.  He's busy, busy, busy and then crashes when bedtime comes.  That boy needs to sleep when he can and he sleeps hard and deep.  Lots of energy running through his blood and he keeps us all on his toes!

2 - Keen loves football.  He loves playing it with friends, flies up is a favorite with his brothers and his newest obsession is fantasy football with a group of boys from school.  He knows almost every player in the NFL and can spout off stats from most teams at the drop of a hat.  If he had his wish he would play football everyday!  Love him and his passion!

3 - Keen is sweet as can be when the time is right - usually that's in quiet moments at home or when he's talking with a stranger in the grocery store.  He's polite and kind and, when he really wants to be, he's helpful at home and one of my sweetest kids.  Sometimes the sweetness gets lost in the craziness, but I always know it's in there!

Happy Birthday Keen Gregory!  Love you to death!

 

Cross country

Rhen is starting something new to her and is super excited about it!  She joined the cross country team with a bunch of her track friends she made last year and they have been practicing and working hard all summer.  They've had 7:00 am practices going every day since June but now the official season and the meets have started.  She has really loved this which is a little bit of a surprise to me.  She has never wanted to run much, despite my best efforts to get her to run a short race or two with me.  But this year it got into her blood and she loves it!  She has a great group of friends, fun coaches and she was the athlete of the month for August!  She has improved her time at each meet and feels a lot of good momentum heading into the season which is so awesome.  So proud of her and all her hard work!

 

Marching Band

Rease's senior year of marching band is officially starting!  They had band camp the first 2 weeks of the month and are in full swing with their show and getting it ready.  She has loved marching band for a lot of years and it has been such a big and important part of her life.  We feel really lucky to be a part of this group that brings out so much good in these kids!  So excited to see how this season goes!

 

Raspberry Jam

We had a raspberry picking day out at my Aunt Leanne's house in Tooele this week.  She has a pretty amazing raspberry patch and we are lucky to be able to reap what she has sown! I took some of the boys with me and we got a lot done in a short amount of time on a beautiful August morning.  When we got home, I grabbed the other boys to help me make the raspberries into jam with me.  It was so fun and we LOVE raspberry jam the very most.  We're so happy to have our shelf full of jam again.