another school year

Oh the joy of the alarm clock early in the morning - Summer is officially over.  The morning started early with most of us waking at 5:30 am - yikes!

The morning wouldn't be complete without our traditional first day of school pictures.

Megan heading off for her Sophomore year.  Before long she'll be off to college and the thought of it makes me terribly sad.  Honestly, I am not sure why the school years seem to fly by so quickly. 

Emily starting her last year of Middle School.  This is hands down my favorite picture from the morning.  Her expression makes me smile.  She was laughing at someone coming up the front walk for a breakfast we were having (more on that below)

Nate, fifth grade - his last year of Elementary School.  My kids are all growing up so fast.
My little Luke is off to 3rd grade and heading there blind.  Late Sunday night his glasses broke and the office was not open on Labor Day.  I had no choice but to send him to his first day of school (at a new school) with poor eyesight.  I took care of it though so you can all rest assured that I am a fairly good mother (post coming)

Since the boys were heading off to a new school because of our move in April there were a few nerves bubbling.  During the Summer I tried to figure out how to make that first day of school a little better and decided to have all their friends from church that were going to the same school over for breakfast on the first day of school.

It worked out really well.  We all met at our house at 6:45 am and all the moms brought food to share.  It gave my kids a chance to start of the morning with familiar faces.

After breakfast we all walked to school together.  It was so nice for my kids to head to a new campus with friends in tow.

coming up with costumes

Halloween is popping up in stores and I have to admit I am giddy with excitement.  We even have 3 Halloween Super Stores opening up in our general area - yippee!  

No Halloween party this year which is currently depressing me a bit but I'm not in a place to handle the work load of a full blown party this year.  I'll have to concentrate on just decorating the house.

I have also started thinking about kids costumes.  Here are a few I ran across today that I love...

the Yip-Yips from Sesame Street - I love these guys

Hello Mrs Butterworth - how cute are you?

I am in no way encouraging anyone to be a YouTube "Drunk Guy At Party" with this next picture but I am encouraging you to imagine the possibilities with this costume.  

Not sure what the costume is on the right but it downloaded with the picture on the left - I'm loving the garden gnome costume - simple and cute.  Put it on a teenager or adult and it becomes simple and funny.

If anyone has fun, creative ideas for costumes please let me know - I'm always looking for good ideas.

we interrupt the trip photos

to bring you Megan's trip to LA. 

A few weeks ago a group of youth from church along with a couple of moms headed out on the train to LA.  Their first stop was Olvera Street for some shopping and lunch.  You have to try the taquitos if you are ever in town - seriously so good!

After wards the group hit the subway and took in the sights in Hollywood.  They visited a few of the stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The King of Pop.  This trip was after his death as evidenced by the make shift memorial by hi s star.

Everyone's favorite movie stars...the Munchkins.  Do you not love that they have a star?!?!  My question about this picture is why are Megan's two shortest friends in this picture?  Offensive :)

After the stars it was all about the footprints (or wand prints as the case may be) at Grauman's Chinese Theater (info here and here)

Are we at all surprised by the next picture?  

Megan gave the trip "two enthusiastic thumbs up"  A personal thumbs up to the person that can tell me where that quote is from and no, it is not Epert and Roper or whatever their names are.

dahl family pride

As I mentioned in a previous post - the Utah trip was for a Dahl Family reunion (a tradition that takes place every two years)  We gather in Utah for two days of fun and reconnecting with family.

Grammy Baker is a Dahl and she has two brothers...Jack and Larry and 2 sisters... Marie and Carol (we missed them at this years reunion)  The reunion consist of the 5 siblings and all their children.

Here is a shot of Grammy and some of our crew.  We missed having Gail, Bryce, Ann and families there.  However they did have some of their BYU/Utah kids there so all the families were represented.

Out of Grammy's siblings I think she is still in the lead with number of grandchildren - 44 grand kids, 22 boys and 22 girls.  

Here is everyone from the reunion, minus a few folks that had to leave before we got to pictures.

It was fun to be together and reestablish relationships with family we hadn't seen in a while. One of my favorite parts of this reunion was the time spent learning about some of the Dahl family history - although not blood related I am grateful to have married into a great family with an amazing pioneer heritage.

We are already looking forward to the 2011 reunion that will be held in Raymond, Alberta, Canada.  Raymond is where Derek's grandparents raised Grammy and her siblings.  Derek has been there often but the kids and I have never been so we are looking forward to going and spending time with all the aunts, uncles and cousins.

a river runs through it

One of the outings we had planned while in Utah was a rafting trip down the Provo River.  We met up with Darryl, Lisa and kids (minus Madison - we missed you Maddie) one cold morning to start the adventure. Yes, it was a cold morning, even in August.  The temp was in the low 60's as we drove to the river and I think we were all a little nervous thinking about the temperature mixed with snow run off water.  In an effort to avoid a bunch of complaining we made a rule - once in the raft you could complain about the cold twice - that was it.  In the end the rule didn't matter because we all had so much fun.

We used High Country Rafting and they were great.  We used guides on our trip because of the number of kids we had and none of us had any idea what the river would be like.  We were divided into two rafts so I can only share my thoughts on our guide - we loved him and he made the trip a ton of fun.

Before the trip was over everyone in our boat (including our guide) braved the ice cold water and jumped out of the raft for a quick little dip.  I don't know if my toes/feet have ever hurt as bad as they did coming out of that water - I can't begin to express how cold it was.  Cold aside - it was still a fun adventure.

Megan and Nate were in the other raft.  Nate had been jumping in and out of his raft a few times but Megan wasn't going for it.  Besides, with the exception of Nate and Jason, her raft was staying dry.  After the trip she told us that she saw Emily and Luke (in our raft) jump in but still held out for fear of the cold.  THEN she saw Derek and I both go in, heads under, and she knew we would never let her live it down if she was the only hold out in the family - gotta love peer pressure in situations like this.  We all ended up braving the cold just to say we did it.

After the rafting trip we crossed to the other side of the river and headed down the train tracks.

(I'm not sure what is up with all the posed walking but were going with it)

The best part of the adventure and the part I wish I had on video was us walking down the track at the end of the day having been told a train would be coming by but it never came.  Towards the end of our walk while still on the track we heard the loud whistle of the train (that finally decided to come) and screaming and panic ensued.  We all scattered off the track but nearly everyone fled to the side of the track that had like 12 - 28 inches of space as opposed to the other side of the track that had more room and a fence with a hole that led into a park - we clearly are not the smartest group.

After a few seconds of panic, everyone was safe on the side of the track with more room.  The one problem...there was some stinky dog piles on the safe side and unfortunately we weren't all able to escape its evil grasp (or smell)  We had however avoided being pummeled by a train so it seems to be an ok trade off.

Had you been there it was all quite funny especially as we stood on the side of the track waiting for the train to come barreling down on us only to see the Heber Creeper come chug, chug, chugging by us at a not so fast speed - we probably could have stayed on the track and outrun the thing.

But back to the original story (see you even forgot there was an original story)  After the rafting we crossed the river and took off down the tracks to find the jumping rock.

The water around this rock is deeper so you can cannonball in without fear of hitting bottom. Derek, Darryl, Jared, Jason and Nathan braved the cold water and made a few jumps off the rock.  

The rest of us kept busy along the shore - playing by the tracks (my mom will love that), playing in the water and battling the occasional wasp.

This is an outing that we would do again in a heartbeat - it was fun to be together as a family enjoying the beauty of God's creations.  It really was beautiful!

stan is the man

I'm not sure who Stan is but his little hole in the wall burger joint is a family favorite.

image via flickr

Usually after our traditional BYU bowling trip we head over to Stan's for a bite to eat. Derek ate here often as a student and then as a young married couple we ate here as often as finances would allow (which if I remember right was not as often as we would have liked)  Our kids now love it as much as we do and I'm sure it will become a favorite place to eat when they are at BYU.

We kept burgers, etc. to a minimum and loaded up on the really healthy stuff - fries, fry sauce and shakes.

The fries are amazing - click on the picture to enlarge and you'll be able to see all the seasoned goodness.  

The fry sauce is an always welcomed trip treat.  I'm still at a lose to figure out why all of America hasn't embraced fry sauce.  Why must we go to Utah to enjoy the pale orange tastiness?  Occasionally it is available at a local Target and others say make your own but it's just not the same.  What is wrong with the fast food world?  We want fry sauce, we want fry sauce!  Join with me in bringing fry sauce to the masses.

late night family fun

The reason for our trip to Utah was for the Dahl Family Reunion.  The reunion was on Friday and Saturday in Provo.  We had a great time with our extended family and appreciate all the work that went into pulling off a successful reunion.

On Friday the reunion festivities ended around 9ish with a stop to the Creamery on 9th for some late night yumminess.  After ice cream we headed back to my parents house in Orem for a quick clean up before heading off to Sparks in Provo to see Cubworld perform.

We had about 25 family members at the concert to support our nephew Nick who is the guitar player in the band 

it was a fun night out with family, although it was a bit late for us older folks (we didn't get out of the club until midnight)

The music was great - the first hour was acoustic and the second hour was the whole band.  You can check out Cubworld's music here.  We are hoping that they make it to California sometime soon so we can invite some friends to hear their music.

oquirrh mountain temple

While in Utah we decided to go to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House.  This was my first Temple Open House.  I served as a volunteer at the Newport Beach Temple introducing the tour and showing a movie to visitors but on our families scheduled day to tour the temple I was home with the flu.

The Oquirrh Mountain Temple was beautiful and I loved having the opportunity to go through it with my family.

photo by Emily

bad blogger

I have been trying to download pictures since  yesterday and Blogger is being difficult - why oh why must Blogger act up like this?

Lucky for you each day Blogger doesn't let me download is another day that you can refrain from being bored by our family trip photos - you must be living right.

a family trip tradition

My mind doesn't compute in order therefor the next few posts of our family vacation will be out of order.

As is tradition for our family when traveling to Utah, we always go to BYU to bowl.  It is cheap, allows you to escape the horrible heat (Summer) or frigid cold (Winter) and we all have a fun time.

The last few times we have gone we started taking a bowling shoe family portrait (photo below from our trip in December)  We thought we were being so creative with the number 6 on the ball since there are 6 of us in our family but we soon realized most of our "bowling shoe family portraits" will all look the same.  Oh well, we still do it anyway.

But hey, look at this - the ball from this Summer's traditional bowling trip says 12, we have a different portrait - Yippee!

We happened to run into the Webber's (who live by us) and some of the Udall's (that used to live by us) in the BYU bookstore so we challenged them to a game of bowling.  Everyone was up for the challenge except Wendy and Beth, something about not eating all day and needing food. Do they not know that truly dedicated bowlers sacrifice their nourishment needs for the game? I happen to think they were just scared - the food was just an excuse. 

We played on 3 lanes, adding up each families score so that one family would be crowned the ultimate winner.  Since this is my blog I feel justified in saying the Bakers swept the floor with the Webber/Udalls.  If you talk to any of the Webbers or Udalls and they tell you different just know it is because they are bitter poor sports.  It was a Baker victory all they way.

To protect the innocent (and the bad bowling scores) names have been changed.  Most of us went with the Harry theme although there were constant name changes on one of the lanes - each time someone would finish bowling they would look up to check their score on the screen and find there name changed yet again.

It was another fun trip to the bowling alley, made better because we got to be with good friends.  Thanks Webbers and Udalls for hanging out with us!

rest stop

We are finally home after a fun-filled week in Utah and a 12 hour drive home.  

Last night we hit a rest stop on the way home and we were all taken with how beautiful the sky was so our quick little potty break turned into an impromptu photo shoot.

beth, who?

I don't know who this Beth Udall person is but she seems to need some sort of shout out (see comments from previous post)

Love ya Beth!

Sorry I didn't include you!

I love you just as much as I love Wendy!

In all seriousness Beth, I was only concerned about Wendy laughing - I have to see her on a weekly basis - you? I don't see near as often and I'm totally ok with you laughing behind my back.

And to my other readers...I do know Beth - she is a friend that used to live in California before she abandoned us for Utah. She owns Blackberry Paper - visit the site and buy stuff from her so she'll forgive me :)

for my friend wendy

NO LAUGHING!

Thanks for hanging out with us today. It wouldn't be a trip to the BYU Bookstore without you guys there.

i think i have finally recovered

I ended up getting to bed at 4am after Harry Potter and have had many a late night since then. I think last night was my low point - major headache and not feeling so hot but after some Tylenol, a great neck massage and a good nights sleep I am finally feeling like I have recovered from the middle of the night festivities.

We had a great time waiting in line for Harry, Ron, Hermione and the rest of the Hogwarts crew.  We ended up having 31 (or was it 32) of us in line to see the movie with a few other party crashers that came to hang out in line with us but left around 9:30ish because they didn't want to do the midnight movie.

Here's a shot of some of the teens that went.  What a great group of kids.  I love that my kids have good friends to hang out with.

You can see more pictures from the night here.

We loved the movie.  I wish they would have included more from the book but I knew going into it that things would be missing.  The sets were amazing (they always are)  I loved the humor in this movie - it was good to see Harry laugh a little.

numbers and etsy - does it get better?

New site that I found that I think I'm in love with.

and we're off

too see the Chosen One, the boy who lived, the wizard we all love - Harry Potter.  I'm guessing we'll be home in about 12 hours (man, that seems like a long night) and then after a hopefully long nap I'll be back to post pictures of the festivities.

my little dobby

Because we have Harry Potter on the brain in our house I thought I'd share this picture of Luke as Dobby, the house elf.  Luke, along with 2 friends from church were the winners of the costume contest at Borders for the midnight release party for the last HP book.

This was a last minute costume.  All my other kids had Hogwarts robes, etc and I just figured Luke wouldn't care - oh so wrong.  To avoid a total melt down we had to come up with something quick and this is what the mom brain pulled out.  Rip up a pillow case, add lots of socks and band-aids on the fingers and we were good to go.  Why do the last minute ideas sometimes turn out to be the best?  I love this costume and the adorable boy wearing it.

buying 28 (revised - 31) tickets today

Tuesday night will be a party as we wait in line for the midnight release - so, so excited!

she's off again

First Girls Camp now another trip with more trips to follow. Megan always seems to have a busy Summer vacation schedule.  This week she is off at BYU enjoying Especially for Youth.  

She looks so alert and happy in this 5 am photo taken right before we headed out for LAX on Monday.  

There have been a few texts back and forth and a brief phone conversation tonight to let us know that she is having a lot of fun and enjoying every minute of it - we knew she would.

A big thanks to Grandma Wood for delivering sheets, blankets, pillows, towels, hangers and a bunch of treats and goodies to Megan and her friend Kenzie - they sure appreciate it.

em owes me $2

I met her at Old Navy - love her!  

I met her only because of Emily.  

I saw her while shopping with my girls - they know who she is and encouraged me to go say hi. Not wanting to come off as the stalker I really am I said no way.  Emily then pulled my parental move and said, "I'll give you a dollar"  Yes, I bribe my kids occasionally - judge me if you must. I then pulled a kid move and replied, "two dollars" and Emily agreed.

I mustered up enough courage to say stupidly, "I think you are so talented", "I'm really not stalking you" and some other mumble jumble and that was it UNTIL we left Old Navy and went to Target.  As we are walking in the girls kept commenting "there she is" (she too was going to Target) I gave the kids the evil eye and begged them not to look at her - my undercover stalker persona was really going to be blown.  I thought we were in the clear until I hear her say "you are a stalker, aren't you?"  Oh man!

Then being the incredibly nice person that she is she had a conversation with me (her stalker) about her weekend plans (her best friends wedding up north), our 4th of July plans and some photography jive.  She really couldn't be nicer.  Now I'll have to stalk her more - maybe I can make it up north for the wedding.

back from camp

Derek, Megan and Emily got back on Saturday from a 4 day fun-filled, no sleep, giggle fest with 24 other girls and 7 other leaders.  Not sure Derek was doing much giggling (do boys giggle?) but he and the girls all had a lot of fun.

Girls Camp this year was just our Ward (our local congregation) as opposed to Stake Girls Camp (with a stake covering a bigger geographical area)  This is the first time we have had Ward Girls Camp and I think it was a big success.  I believe the plan is to alternate each year between Stake and Ward.

The group left Wed morning and headed off to the beach in Santa Barbara for some tent camping and lots of outdoor fun.  Everyone looks so rested and clean is this picture - I guarantee you they did not come home the same way.

This is our great group of girls and leaders that went.  Hats off to all the leaders that did a ton of work to pull off a successful camp.  I am so glad that Megan and Emily have leaders that genuinely love them and care for them.   

An interesting fact about this group - the first two rows are all Beehives.  Beehives is the name given to all the 12 & 13 yr old girls in our Young Womens organization. Did you count them? Yes, we had 18 Beehives in attendance compared to the 8 total Mia Maids (14-15 yr olds) and Laurels (16-17 yr olds).  I am sure the abundance of 12 & 13 yr olds made for a lively camp :)

Since the camp was at the beach the theme was Life is Swell  - get it? a wave or a swell - not sure if some of my land locked readers understand the lingo :)  Just kidding of course, I know only highly intelligent readers frequent this blog.  Swell standing for Stick With Essential Life Long - the essentials being prayer, scripture reading, sacrament (as well as many other essentials that help us build and strengthen our testimonies).

The girls had a lot of great devotionals, scripture reading time, testimony meeting and more. They also had lot of fun activities planned that helped them build stronger friendships with all the girls and leaders.  

They went on a great evening hike to watch the sunset over the beach.  The hike was hard. According to Emily she has hiked enough to last her a lifetime :)  Although hard I think the girls have a better understanding of how even though things may be hard there are lessons to learn and rewards to be had when accomplishing something that may be difficult.

They also went horseback riding and had lots of fun doing that.

Kayaking was another fun activity that allowed the girls to get up close and personal with dolphins and sea lions

Even though I now have a laundry room full of stinky, dirty laundry and a family that is still a bit tired from all the activities I am glad that they all got to go.  It was a great experience for Derek to be their with our girls and I think they loved having Dad there.  I'm glad that my girls have good friends that share the same values and are constantly trying to make good choices.

Thanks to Emily for the above pictures.

creative love

How is this for a creative teachers gift...

I also think this would be adorable in a kids room or an art studio or even hanging in a family room with your family's initial.  Found at Delightful Distractions.

over at the other blog, again

So I seem to be favoring my party blog today.  For whatever reason my personal, family posts have had a party type theme to them and so I have posted at Little Ant.  And since I am way too lazy to post the same thing twice (come on people do you really expect me to do that much, it's Summer after all) you'll have to go here to see the latest news about my little brother.  

Congrats Ryan - we are all proud of you and the boys now feel like they have moved up on the my family is cool meter because their uncle has a cool job.

16 years

A tribute to my perfect husband can be found HERE.

8:43, i love you

Today was a good day when I opened my eyes, looked at the clock and saw those glorious numbers...8:43 am - three cheers for Summer!  No more 5:30 am alarms so that we can make sure Megan gets up for seminary.  No more everyone up at 6:30 am for the hectic morning schedule of getting ready for school.  I highly doubt we'll be sleeping in like we did today but today was joyous anyway.