First Day of School...Again!

It's kind of freaking me out how quickly these "first day of school" posts roll around. The saying, "The days are long but the years are short" comes to mind with all of this.

Landon was a tad reluctant to pose for me this morning, but no one was watching and I wasn't taking no for an answer so here you have it.

The boy is in 10th grade at the high school and the girl is in 7th grade at the junior high...how did that happen?!

It feels like 10 minutes ago, but really it was 3 years ago that Landon started 7th grade!! I can't even deal with the fact that he'll be done with high school and heading on a mission in 3 more years!!

And Whitney was starting 4th!!

 

It was my first official first day of school too even though I worked last week and was there for 7th grade day yesterday. This is my 3rd year in the front office and my 4th year at the school (time warp anyone?!) They had to reduce the hours of all the hourly employees so I will only be working 3 days a week this year (woohoo). It's weird to think of not being there all the time but this will be so much better for my sanity level. I'll be working Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays (cushy right?!). 

I worked 3 hours this morning since we're training two new secretaries, but then was able to go to Costco, pick up Cafe Rio for lunch, clean out the fridge, vacuum the house, do some laundry, put dinner in the crock pot, bake cookies and read in the cozy.

New Family Photo

{click to enlarge}

Every year our family sets up the ole tripod and snaps a few family photos. In years past that meant me running back and forth between photos to reset the camera, but this year we used Amy's fancy camera and remote control so she just kept clicking and we hoped for the best. It is seriously impressive that despite being squeezed into Lori's family room and standing on tip-toes (me in the back) we got a photo with everyone looking (especially Andrew!!).

Gone Country

This weekend has been our annual ward rodeo and it has been even more fun and meaningful than in years past because we know our bishopric is getting released tomorrow. Our bishop is an amazing man and he has a lot of enthusiasm and endless energy to balance out all his wisdom and spirituality, and he is the one that brought back the tradition of having a ward rodeo.

Last night was the hoe-down, which is always so much fun. I don't have any pictures of the dancing, because I was too busy do-si-doeing to take any! I'm bummed not to have photos to document the fun, but I'm glad I was part of it. Under the "Thank the Bishopric Here" sign was a table with 3 homemade scrapbooks where we could write messages to each of them.

We had an amazing sunset to accompany our night of fun.

The weekend's event list--click to enlarge.

Before the 5k with friends Oss and Jackson.

Today's events started with the 7:00am 5k run. Landon has been doing this for several years but this year he beat the bishop (seen in this picture just behind him) which means the bishop will buy him a shake and placed first in his age group and 5th overall!

Woohoo!

The bishop and Landon. (Randy took all the race photos since I was still home getting ready.)

Next up was the "parade". This involves all the primary kids who want to participate, the bishopric, the RS president and a few other cars full of people. It's rather comical because it is so short. Whitney and Madison walked with the activity day girls and their theme was "I Sing With My Heart".

The bishopric ride horses through the neighborhood.

One of my friend's had amazing, huge sunflowers growing in her garden, so of course I had to stop by for a few shots.

They served pancakes, sausage, bananas and juice to everyone for breakfast.

Poor Randy burned a couple fingers on some hot grease while helping with the cooking, he had to walk around with his two burned fingers in cold water for awhile.

It was 93 degrees today, so we were all red-faced and sweaty but Whitney still looked cute.

I love these flags!

I enjoy the rodeo ambiance, everything felt picture-worthy to me.

In between rodeo events they had performances and Randy was part of this group of guys singing a funny song. (I've got video of this, but I'm too tired to mess with trying to load it tonight.)

It was beasty hot, but it was a gorgeous day!

There was mutton busting, calf riding, a cash cow, and a cow milking contest.

I always love the colors of the flag.

They provided lunch for everybody too! After being so busy and so hot all morning the food tasted better than ever.

The kids got to cool off with a big slip-n-slide, but the adults mostly kept sweating.

Me in photo mode.

I love big, fluffy clouds like this.

They had a huge tug-o-war match with the adults verses the youth.

The youth won!

Landon and Oss made it almost to the end of the egg toss, but then the egg broke when Landon caught...ew.

The last event of the day was the hay bale jumping. It starts out with a big crowd but eventually narrows down to just the long-legged sorts.

Landon isn't quite long-legged yet.

Not like this guy! They measured the final distance between hay bales and it was almost 18 feet!

My end-of-the-day, hot, sun-burned, but headache free self-portrait! I took over 800 photos, crazy!

**Does this look like fun to you?

Do you have an affection for square dancing?

Have you ever jumped hay bales?**

Comment Window Tidbit: I was so pleased that I didn't get a headache from being out in the sun all day, but I ended up getting one around 8:00 tonight. I'm wasted.

Festivities

Our 4th of July tradition for the last few years has been to get together as an extended family to go swimming (this is for the kids really) and then to go to Adam and Amy's house for dinner and fireworks. That was the plan for yesterday as well, but as we were driving to Salt Lake to join Adam and Amy and their girls it began  pouring rain. They were already at the pool, but we decided to head over to their house instead (I didn't want to pay $20 for us to get in only to be kicked out because of lightning).

Adam texted me their garage code so we let ourselves in and hung out for 2 hours until they came home (it never did lightning so they stayed at the pool). Robyn and Lori joined us there as well, so we flipped through their magazines and talked.

Lori and Whitney drew a 4th of July mural on the chalkboard wall in the kitchen.

Eventually Adam and Amy and the girls came home and joined us in the family to chat (not the girls, they were busy playing downstairs with Whitney).

 

We were very ready for dinner to get going.

Landon had me take some shots of him flying off the swings.

My parents arrived and we got the food ready.

My plate of goodness.

A close-up of my awesome burger and ranchified salad.

Lori made these all-American cupcakes for the kids.

We also had root-beer floats for dessert.

Landon spent a lot of time adding to the mural so this is what it ended up looking like.

It seemed like it took a very long time for it to get dark outside so the fireworks could begin. I mean, we'd been there since 2:00, so 10:00 took awhile to get there.

The kids did sparklers.

I think this blurred shot is kind of cool.

From their backyard we could see about 6 different fireworks shows going on in the valley (from a distance of course) and then one of the displays was close enough to feel like it was just for us. Good times.

**How was your 4th?

Do you do your own fireworks?

Do you enjoy root-beer floats?

What do you put on your burger?**

Comment Window Tidbit: We spent the day at the pool today and despite two different applications for SPF 50! my knees and forehead got burned!