End of Summer Bang

We have had a lot of fun playing in water that last bit of Summer break. The children had fun playing with water balloons, I was impressed that they did it all by themselves. I was unable to help them with all that I am doing around our home, and they figured out how to do it themselves.

For a long time Andrew would just crawl to the window and look outside at everything. He loves watching his brothers and sister as they play.

Benjamin was excited to join the balloon fun. They pretended the balloons were their babies.


We took one last trip to the beach before school started. Clark really had a lot of fun in the sand, as you can see his amazing sand picture!

David made a picture too, since we have been talking about jelly-fish safety he made a jelly-fish.

I was so amazed that we had the beach almost all to ourselves. We love getting to the beach in the morning when the sun is coming up and the weather is cool. It is a beautiful time.


Having fun together as we walk along the beach. Andrew became so relaxed he even fell asleep in my arms which hasn't happened in a long time.


The school started and I have half of my children in school now! My children seemed to jump right into the school thing, even at a new school.

We tried the bike riding thing, unfortunately the first day didn't go well, but we tried again the next day and found that riding the two miles to school by bike was faster than any other way. We received some amazed looks as I pulled three children on my bike (two in the trailer and one in an infant seat) and followed David on his bike. Rebecca is going to practice riding before she tries riding again.

The children are very excited that Rebecca has two class guinea pigs, Pinky and Cocoa (Cocoa is pictured)



And now we are already one week through school. I am always shocked at how fast time goes when school starts, I know that the holidays will be here soon. As my high school English teacher told us seniors, "Christmas is next week, and graduation is the next week." We didn't believe him, but here I am more than ten years later... Who knew time could fly so fast.

I feel like my children are growing fast and will be becoming adults, serving missions, going to college, and getting married sooner than I expect. At least we know we are a forever family, it makes growing up a lot easier.

"I love to see the Temple..."

Our family has a tradition that the minute we see the temple we sing "I Love to See the Temple" (link to listen). This was our first trip to our new temple. The temple fills me with joy and peace, and I know it is the "House of the Lord". Everything is so light it is really like being in heaven.

My sister and I were able to be there together. What a neat experience to share with our families.

I loved that our children are excited to visit this new temple and that it was the high light of their day. I hope they will always remember the importance of the temple and that our family is a forever family.

Irresistible Morning

Some mornings (or all mornings) you wake up and look at the world around you and all you see is beauty. I see mornings like this frequently at our house. As I see tiny details on dew covered flowers, it all amazes me.

The children love this little lantern, and I love the plants that surround it.

This flower smells so delicious and could keep my nose to it all day.

So beautiful yet dangerous.

This flower is what caught my attention for me to grab my camera. It is the first flower to bloom on this bush since we have lived here, and the morning was wet with dew.

Beautiful.

Dream Land

Flowers the children picked for me from our yard, they smell so amazing.

We took our first trip to the beach and the children loved playing and splashing! We loved making castles and decorating them them shells, digging holes that fill with water, and just enjoying a beautiful morning. I still cannot believe all this is right where I live. The world is truly full of beauty.

A strange story: I love watching birds and trying to learn the different kinds. I was standing there on the beach when an ocean bird came into view. I was watching it fly closer overhead when it pause mid-air over my head (I thought I was doomed to have droppings land on my head), to my surprise it started regurgitating and dropped a fish on my head! We explored the fish and found it to be rubber, probably for fishing. I was so surprised that it purposefully dropped it on me. Pretty funny!

A New Home

Meeting our new home.

Ready for a long drive!

Good bye Texas, we will miss you.