First day of School!

The first week of August is just so early for school to start!  The kids were all excited, though, and ready to start.  Tink is in 6th grade this year, and loves the middle school.  She loves that she doesn't have recess and that they don't put up with kids acting up.  She loves all her teachers as well. 
Bucko and Minnie started a new school, since we've moved to a new house.  We are still in the same district, so Tink's friends from her old school are at her middle school.  The neat thing for Bucko and Minnie, though, when we walked into their school, it is setup exactly like the one they were in last year.  That made it a bit easier for them since we had missed Open House because of the reunion.  They were a bit nervous, but all was well.  I did well the first day too.  The second day got to me, though, and I teared up as they walked right in and didn't need me at all.

The picture in the lower left is to show you the crazy traffic for the middle school.  The cars fill the entire road. I know it's hard to see, but it is crazy. And this picture is taken about 20 minutes before school lets out!
Goofy started preschool the next week and I forgot to take his picture the first day, but the bottom right picture is at his second day and they are pretending to be ants.  His preschool consists of four boys and the teachers are the parents. We each take a week, and we only do preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays for three hours.  So it works out wonderfully!  My first week of teaching is next week and I'm really excited!  We call it "Busy Boys Preschool" and it fits perfectly. 

Coleman Reunion in Idaho

July went by with a lot of unpacking and getting settled.  We enjoyed our community pool a bit and tried to keep cool.  Tink had a registration day at middle school where she got her schedule and picture taken for her ID.  She was so excited.  I had a hard time getting used to the idea of doing school shopping in July!  (School started August 6.)  PC stayed busy working night shiftwork.  Not much fun for him or us.
By the end of July, we were so excited to go to Idaho for the Coleman Family Reunion.  We took two days driving up, staying the night at a Holiday Inn in Rock Springs, WY.  We arrived in Rexburg a bit earlier than when we could check into the place we were staying, so we went to their park downtown that has one of the oldest carousel's in the world and let the kids ride it and play in the park.

Then we drove up the road a bit to St. Anthony and arrived at Three Peaks Lodge, where we were staying for the reunion.  Two years ago at our last reunion, everyone had decided that it was too hard for everyone to fit at Nana and Papa's house, so we found this place that would hold us all and had lots of activities for everyone. And boy did it!  We all had a blast!  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves and explain a bit as I go.

 This was the gym area.  They had basketball hoops, this superfast slide you see PC going down, a ton of ride on bikes and toys, balls, cones, and hockey.  The kids spent most of their time here. When they weren't here in the gym, they spent time in their "bunkhouse" that was filled with foam cubes to build forts, dress up clothes, and these cool magnetic toys.  For the most part, they all got along.  With over 25 kids running around, that was pretty amazing!

 The pond just beyond the lodge was another fun spot.  It did worry us as parents, but we made sure all the children understood that they were not allowed to go down there without a parent or other adult in charge of them.  They all followed this rule very well and we enjoyed time on the two canoes provided.

The lodge was stocked with games, equipped with foosball, air hockey, and shuffleboard, tennis and basketball courts outside, along with volleyball net, a small creek, and a play fort/swing area.  We were never bored. Though you can see by the picture of Bucko in the lower right, that we were worn out by the end of the day.  We had a family talent show the first night.  Tink played the piano and she and Minnie both sang the song from "Tangled" entitled "At Last I See the Light."  They did a great job.  Bucko did a great handstand for his talent and held it for a long time.  We were pretty impressed. I think it was his best handstand yet!
Another night we did kareoke, which is always fun.  And the last night we did a family dance.  We played games outside one day, had a pinata another day, and enjoyed each other's company every single day!  We did have a scare as PC's brother-in-law got very sick.  They live in Canada and decided they had to get him home and to the doctor immediately. He has some serious health issues and can recognize when things are getting bad and he needs help.  So they left really early on Friday morning and started driving home.  We were all very concerned for them and kept them in our prayers the whole day. We called several temples to put his name on the prayer roll.  By the afternoon, he was better!  They had made it the Grand Forks and decided they would drive back to finish out the last day of the reunion! We were so glad it all worked out and he was ok.
We drove the whole way home on Saturday as PC had work on Sunday.  The kids started school the next day as well, and we needed to rest up and get ready for that big day!

Belated

Yes, I know, I have not updated ANYTHING for a very long time.  Buying a new house and finally getting our household goods after not seeing them for 8 months could be a good excuse, but I won't use it.  There's just no excuse for me.  But we did do those things and it has been wonderful seeing our stuff again.  We received our stuff five days later than the "no later than" date, which was mid-July.  So we said it was like Christmas in July to see all our things again.  It has been nice, but a lot of work.  We closed on our house on June 22.  PC's mom bought us pizza for dinner and we all had a "party" to celebrate our new home.  We got our new stainless steel appliances delivered the next day.  It took about a week before we had them all installed, but PC did a great job with it and they all work wonderfully and look beautiful.  I haven't taken pictures of the house yet, but I will do that soon and get some posted. 
The first couple of weeks in the house were nice, except for one thing: the Waldo Canyon Fire here in Colorado Springs.  This is what it looked like from our front door the first day, which was June 23.

It filled the sky with smoke that first day and covered the sun.  The fire continued for the next 2 weeks and the air was awful.  My asthma has never been so bad.  I would walk up one flight of steps and then lie down at the top until I could breath again.  I was so tired as well.  Ok, I guess I need to mention that I am pregnant as well.  We found out the day after I got back from Utah and have been suffering with "morning sickness" mostly at night.  So I know that had a lot to do with being tired, and I couldn't take the Advair I had been given because you can't take it when pregnant.  I have since been to see my ob doctor and he has me on some medicine that I can take and it has helped. 
Anyway, back to the fires.  It was crazy. We would watch the news and see it spread.  We would hear amazing stories of rescue and bravery.  It was amazing and we were glad when it was finally contained.  
For Independence Day, though, we could not have fires or do fireworks, so that was kind of a bummer. We went to PC's parents house for a barbeque and had fun there, but it really didn't feel like the 4th without fireworks. 
A few weeks after moving into our house, we finally received some rain and looking out our back window, we saw this beautiful rainbow.  That is one thing I really do like about Colorado. It seems like every time it rains, we see a rainbow.  This one almost seemed like a welcome home gift.

Utah Finale

Our last Saturday at my sister's house, their ward was having temple night. So the older girls watched all the kids and I was able to go with my sister and brother-in-law to the Draper temple.  That was so nice.  My sister and I were even able to do work for two sisters from Ohio!  That was neat, since we are sisters from West Virginia. :)  The temple was beautiful and reminded me a lot of the San Antonio temple. 

On our last day, we wanted to do a Pinterest Day.  My neice and I had come up with a few things that were easy that we had both pinned and wanted to try.  We made jersey knit bracelets, which were a bit confusing at first, but once we understood how to make them, they were super easy and we made a ton. I think we probably made at least 5 for each of us, then the littler girls all wanted some, so I know we made at least 10 more.  Then we worked on the five-strand braided headband out of jersey as well. My sister had some old t-shirts she let us cut up, and when we wanted different colors, we ran down to DI and found a few more.  The directions for the headband that we had pinned were in Chinese and the pictures weren't really working for us, so we found a YouTube video and watched a few seconds of it that showed us how to braid the five-strand.  I think they turned out pretty nice.

 My sister made some marshmallow popcorn as her contribution to Pinterest Day. She looked through her pins for some yummy treat and it turned out yummy, for sure!  It tasted a bit like caramel popcorn, but didn't harden. It was just sticky and yummy.  Another thing I learned from them from Pinterest was to pop popcorn in the microwave in just a regular brown paper lunch bag. No oil needed and it tasted great, just like air popped.  And a lot cheaper than buying microwaveable popcorn. 
I had picked up some sparklers at the dollar store, so we did those our last night there.  I love sparklers and was having a hard time finding them.  I love the dollar store sometimes!
The kids were a little scared of them at first, but they enjoyed them by the end.

Our trip home was pretty uneventful until we were almost to Colorado.  We could see the wildfire smoke in the distance and saw where some parks were closed.  Once we made it into Colorado, the smoke was so bad, my eyes were burning.  We stopped in Fort Collins and it was pretty bad.  It was dark and gray as if there was a storm coming, but it was just from all the smoke from the wildfires.  I had to keep the AC off in the car because it just kept burning my eyes.  Then, of course, we hit traffic in Denver, so it took us an extra half hour to get home, but that's not bad. We were so glad to get home, but we did have a great trip.  I love my family!

Utah, Part Deux

Wednesday we got to spend the day with one of our favorite aunts. It was so fun to catch up. She is so sweet and fun. We all love talking to her and spending time with her. She is one of the sweetest people I know. She even brought me a little present of a dishrag she had made and jello molds. I told you she was the sweetest, didn't I? I'm so glad she had time in her busy schedule to come and visit.

Yesterday we went up to Salt Lake City via the Utah Trax.  The kids loved riding the "train."

Our first stop was to the Church History Museum.  Bucko thought it was so cool to see some actual manuscript that Joseph Smith has translated from the golden plates.  He said, "That proves Jesus is real!"  It was so cute.  They loved the children's area. Goofy liked the tortilla toss and spent a lot of time there.  They all liked the dress up but were a bit embarassed to practice the dance. They even had a real log house set up outside that was pretty cool.  The kids liked "holding up" angel Moroni as well.

Next we met up with my brother-in-law.  He works on Temple Square two times a week.  We took pictures in front of the temple and then headed over to the Conference Center.

The kids liked seeing the Conference Center.  I really liked the Book of Mormon pictures. I remember that from going there five years ago. The detail on those original pictures are just amazing.  Goofy loved all the water fountains. They couldn't walk by one without getting wet.  Our tour hostess even got in on the action and kept splashing the kids!

We ended at the City Creek Center for dinner.  The kids liked the play area.  A bunch of other kids kept following them too. You can see in the bottom right picture how they are all piled onto the pink dinosaur.  What was really neat was as we were walking out of the mall, I hear my name and look up to see a friend from our ward in England!  They were just out here visiting as well. I love it! It was so fun to run into them.  The kids were exhausted by the time we made it home, but we had a great time.  I even got my sister and brother-in-law to start watching the BBC Masterpiece Mystery series, "Sherlock."  :)

Utah!

Saturday we went up to the northern part of Colorado to attend PC's nephew's baptism. That was great.  Always great to be with family and see other "family" we haven't seen in a while.  The kids and I spent the night there and then left the next morning for Utah to visit my sister.  Yes, it was a long drive.  Thank goodness I don't have any babies anymore!  They all did great.  (The dvd player we borrowed from Nana and Papa helped out a great deal as well!) 
This was our first pit stop, right after we crossed into Wyoming.  The kids wanted their picture taken with Abraham Lincoln (except for Goofy who did NOT want his picture taken).

It was so great to get to my sister's house safe and sound.  The kids just love their cousins, aunt, and uncle so much. It was fun to see their new house.  Minnie and Bucko both told me how much they loved being at their house!  Which was good to hear because Minnie was having a hard time leaving Daddy.  She did not want to come without him, but it was just not possible to bring him with us.  We sure have loved having him all to ourselves for six months, though!
Today we spent the day with mine and PC's good friend, Shorty.  She's the one I did the blog partnersintime.wordpress.com with while PC was deployed.  It was so fun to see her and her sweet children!!  We always talk about how fun it would be to get our kids together, and it finally happened! It took a little bit for them to warm up to each other, but once they did, it was so much fun!!  We played in the backyard with water guns and slip-n-slide, etc.  It was so much fun to just get to talk to Shorty in person and see their day to day life that I hear so much about.  Shorty treated me to Cafe Rio for lunch.  Yum yum yum!! And we also walked down to their little pond by their house.  It was so much fun.  A day I will never forget!  Our only regret was that our husbands couldn't be there.  Next time though! For sure!

Memorial Day

We had a wonderful community pancake breakfast and car show at church to celebrate Memorial Day.  Papa took his bike to show and PC cleaned up his car to display as well.  The kids all took their bikes for a bike parade. They decorated them and rode them in the parade. They all had fun. 

Cousins came over and played in the afternoon. We had a yummy barbeque and enjoyed the nice weather.  Tink and I played Rummikub with Dan and Shar and then convinced Dan to play Quelf with us.  That was fun and weird, like usual with that game.  We ended the day with a fire and smores.  Yum!

Note our table decorations here.  Nana and I put this together for the breakfast.  I thought it turned out great!