Ryan and Kennedy off to school again

My two oldest started school yesterday. Ryan is in 8th grade and Kennedy is in 6th grade. Both are in middle school. Lewis & Clark is where they go. There are probably close to 1000 kids at that school. A good stepping stone to the probably close to 2500 kids or more that will be at Mountain View next year when Ryan goes to high school. Yes, next year I will have kids in high school, middle school and elementary school. That scheduling is going to be the death of me.

Ryan is going to have a fun year I think. He starts yearbook today after school, so that should be a good time for him. He's not so sure about his TA class with his PE teachers. Yesterday they made him sweep the gym and the weight room. He and all his friends met up at their regular table for lunch. I think he's got a few classes with Thomas and Chase, a couple of his friends.

Kennedy was really, really nervous yesterday. I think she got lost a couple of times and had a few issues opening her locker, but I think she had a great day. She was smiling when she came out to the car yesterday. Saw the boy she's got a crush on, so that would have been a great day anyway. She's got a few classes with her friends Megan and Kelsey. I think she knows somebody in every one of her classes, which is nice. She's getting a PE locker today, hopefully she'll be able to remember two combinations.

Where I went to middle school and high school there weren't any locks on the lockers. They were A LOT bigger and taller as well. The lockers at our schools here are tiny. My friend Tresa's son Braden is a senior this year and he didn't even get a locker assigned to him because the school is so huge and he doesn't have time to go back and forth between classes.

This is what stinks though, Kennedy and I get up at about 6 a.m., I get Ryan up at about 6:20 and Chris up at about 6:40 so that he can get the kids to school by about 7:30. Carter can get up by 8 and still get to school. It makes for a long morning, but it's good for me. I'm trying to convince myself that I should start walking while they are all getting ready, but haven't quite done it yet.

This is Ryan's "I can't believe you are taking pictures at my school" look yesterday.

Backpacking

Ryan and Chris spent three days backpacking through the Sawtooths near Stanley last week with Ryan's scout troop. Only two of the boys ended up being able to go, so Kody, one of Ryan's leaders sons came along. That gave them three boys and three adults. Pretty good numbers I guess.

Chris and I followed Ryan and the rest of his group up to the Grand Jean trail head to drop off a vehicle and then I took everyone and their gear to the Iron Creek trail head where they were heading off on their trip. It was a nice 7.5 hours in the car for me that day.

They hiked for about a total of 17 miles during the three days. They camped at different lakes along the way. They did some fishing and had a pretty good time I think. One morning when they woke up there was frost on their packs. Good thing they took thermal underwear cause neither Chris nor Ryan took jackets. Their sleeping bags are pretty warm though, so that was good.

We've been slowly buying up some backpacking equipment, I think next summer we are going to attempt to go as a family. Definitely not 17 miles, but if I keep losing weight the way I have been the last three months I should be able to go without too much trouble.

They only came home with a few blisters and banged up toes between them. I did have to go and buy Ryan another new pair of shoes though because his feet have been growing like crazy and the ones he wore on the trip were pretty nasty when he got home.

Here are a pictures that Chris took along the way.

Brian, Gordon, Ryan, Kaden, Chris and Kody at the Iron Creek Trailhead.

Doesn't this look completely comfortable. There were actually snowbanks by some of the mountain lakes. 

Isn't this a beautiful sight. 

They took along some fishing gear (thanks Gordon) so they had fish for dinner one night. Lots of fun.

We love camping

Chris was also able to get back some of the pictures that we took camping last weekend. Yeah. Ryan, Carter and I went up to Grimes Creek near Idaho City Friday afternoon to get a spot and set up our tent near the creek that runs along the road. We were able to get a spot a ways away from the road, but still pretty close to the creek. Ryan and I managed to get our two-room cabin tent put of by ourselves. Quite an accomplishment we thought.

When Chris got home from work we packed the food and headed back up for the night. It was a quick trip, but the kids seemed to have a great time. We did the basic camping fair. Hot dogs, chips, s'mores, bacon and cold cereal. We hung out by the fire and played in the water. I actually slept in quite awhile Saturday morning, which is good because I never sleep very well in a tent.

Looks like fun, doesn't it. The only downside is that there weren't any bathrooms around. That's the only roughing it part that I really, really didn't like.

Swimming lessons

Chris was able to salvage a few of the pictures that I took at Carter's swimming lessons. I have no idea how, I am completely illiterate when it comes to trying to fix things when it comes to electronics.

He takes swimming lessons from the Williams family. They were in our ward before they split it the last time. They have four girls and a son that is Kennedy's age. They taught Ryan and Kennedy to swim when they were young, so it's fun to see how they've grown up now that Carter is old enough to take lessons.

Melissa is the youngest of the four girls. She taught Carter this year. Here's a few pictures that were salvaged. I'm just bummed that the ones I took of him going off the diving board couldn't be found.

Carter free diving for a diving rocket. He can go down about 7 feet to retrieve the diving rocket.

He's also learned his freestyle stroke really well. He actually passed the swim test at a local pool so that he could jump off the diving board at our ward party. He had to swim across the pool and back without using a doggy paddle. He was really excited.

When he dives down further than about 7 feet he has to get a push down from Melissa.

Crap

I had taken a bunch of photos of Carter at swimming lessons and of our camping trip over the weekend to Grimes Creek near Idaho City and when I put the card into my computer to download it totally messed up and deleted all but about 5 of the pictures and those won't even open on my computer. I am majorly p.o.ed. Here's hoping that Chris can work some magic or something and get them back.

Carter's News

 Carter has had a few exciting things happen in the last few weeks since we got home from vacation. He lost his first tooth a few weeks ago. I had no idea it was even loose when he came and showed me how it was hanging loose. Ryan and Kennedy never lost teeth this early. He was really excited and couldn't wait for the Tooth Fairy to come and visit him. It's not a great picture, but you can definitely see the gap on the bottom teeth.

He also started Kindergarten this morning at Spalding. He was so excited. His teacher is Mrs. Longpre, she was his first preschool teacher in the MEI program at Spalding, so that was fun for him to see her. He gets to ride the bus home so that has added to the excitement. Hopefully he will still be excited about going after a few weeks.

Woohoo, my baby is finally going in school. The last time one of my kids started kindergarten I was pregnant with Carter. I'm not sure if I feel relief that this is the last time I will go through this or be a little sad about it.

Disneyland & DCA ... finally

We had a really great time at Disneyland and California Adventure. We got 3-day park hopper passes. I wish we would have scheduled a rest day somewhere in there, cause dang, that's a lot of walking (which was good because I totally ate the fried food at the park and needed to walk a lot). We spent the first day completely at Disneyland and the next two days we spent half the day at each park. The kids had a great time, I think we hit almost every ride at Disneyland and quite a few at DCA. Carter went on all the rollercoasters except for California Screamin' and seemed to really enjoy them. I think everybody's favorite ride was Space Mountain and Kennedy and Ryan also really enjoyed the Hollywood Hotel's Tower of Terror.

The kids on the treasure on Tom Sawyer's Island and all of us in a cage. We actually saw Captain Jack on this island. It was fun because we were always running into people dressed up as cool characters. I think Chris saw Indiana Jones on Tarzan's tree house fighting somebody.

 

Chris and Carter on the flying Dumbo ride.

The only thing that Carter really wanted to do when we first got there was the Jedi Training Academy. He got chosen to go up, which was cool because then he didn't want to go through it again. He had to fight Darth Maul. I would have been a little scared of this guy. He kept coming up and getting right in our faces, it was a little intimidating. Way to go Carter.

 

Kennedy on the Rocket ride. This was actually Carter's favorite ride. I think he went on it about 4 times.

This was the submarine from the Finding Nemo ride. I only put it in because I stood in line for about 90 minutes for this ride. Definitely not worth a 90 minute wait. Maybe 5 or 10, but 90, heck no, won't do that again. (Notice I said "I" stood in line. I let Chris and the kids go on rides while I waited).

Autotopia ride. Carter had a great time. He could steer, but Chris had to push the gas. Kennedy had the same problem. Ryan went by himself and had a fun time.

The kids on front of the Tower of Terror ride. Below is a picture of the picture that was taken during the ride. Yeah, we don't buy the pictures they take, and we saw everyone else taking pictures of the screens showing the pics. Is that stealing??

Handy Manny!! The only character that Carter would even go near. We saw everybody there, Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, The Incredibles... and this was the only one that he didn't hide from.

OK, I admit it, I bought the kids mouse ears, had them embroidered, and made them wear them for awhile. I figured they would be fun souvenirs for them.

Us in front of the F at the DCA entrance. Don't I look enthused. This was the last day, my feet were killing me, and Chris was still taking pictures of everything.

Carter and I on the ladybug ride at Bug's Life in DCA. It's kind of like the spinning tea cups, only it doesn't spin around. It went pretty fast though.

A picture of Chris, Kennedy and Ryan on California Screamin'. I have to tell this though. The rollercoaster was broke down when we first got there, so Chris and the kids went on another ride. I took Carter on the Merry-Go-Round and then noticed that the coaster was going again. So, I left Carter with my in-laws and jumped in line assuming that Chris and the kids would be back before I got too far. Nope. I ended up going on it by myself. Yeah for me. It was pretty cool. Lots of drops and a loop.

Drenched from going on Splash Mountain.

Thunder Mountain Railroad. This was the first coaster that we went on. Carter was screaming AWESOME when we got done. Kennedy just screamed through the whole thing. Well, she did that on every coaster we went on.

The Caterpillar ride in Bug's Life. When you go under the watermelon is squirts water down on you.

This is what they did when we would get back from the park. Listen to their iPods.

And this is what Carter would do.

Carter got 2 light sabers in Disneyland. And guess what, they were both broke within 2 days of us getting home.

Sorry this is so long, but we had a great time and got along so well I just had to share :)

Hotel pools

Since we spent 7 nights in hotels on our vacation and my kids love hotel pools there definitely had to be a separate post with pictures of my kids in hotel pools. I won't put anymore from the pool in Las Vegas, though. Pete, my father-in-law loves cameras and bought a new water-proof digital one to take on vacation.

I don't know if I ever explained that my in-laws were going to the same wedding that we were and when we decided to drive down and take a few extra days to go to Disneyland they decided to join us. That's about all I'm going to say about it. We are all still talking to one another, and I figure that's got to count for something.

This is how a lot of our days ended, sitting in various hot tubs and relaxing. My feet definitely needed to soak after three days walking around Disneyland and California Adventure.

More hot tubbing. We met another family at our hotel that had a son around Carter's age, so they were able to give us some pointers about what he would like to do.

I definitely have some posers for kids. They are complete fishes. And I can't believe how much Carter has his eyes open under water. I'm going to have to invest in a good pair of swim goggles for him.