Utah Trip Part Two!!

We were so excited to get to Utah!!  The second half of our 17 hour day driving from Kansas to Utah our aircondition blew out-what!!  I DO NOT COPE without airconditioning!!  It is a serious character flaw!!  I was NOT happy about that but truly what can you do, the references to the pioneers by my sweet husband did not really help!!  At one point I made him open the hood and just shake things hoping that it would magically start (it didn't!!)  We survived the old fashioned way with windows down and the hair not looking great!!  The aircondition was completely blown and cost alot to fix so shaking things truly did not help!!  We stayed with my wonderful cousin Missy and her family in Murray Utah and got there around 9 that night.  We were excited about our day in Provo and Amy's 17th birthday the next day!!  We packed alot into that day and sweet Amy's birthday!!  We had a tour of the campus with Amy.  She loved BYU and would have stayed there if I let her.  She loved the spirit she felt there and all the cute boys did not hurt!!  Sarah went off to meet up with one of her roommates and see their apartment while we took the tour.  Then we did the Bookstore and other things on campus, got the famous chocolate covered Cinnamon bears, my favorite!!  We walked down to Legends restaurant for lunch, Amy loves burgers and Phil had said this had great ones, Amy loved it!!  From there we went to the creamery for icecream and headed to Sundance, what a gorgeous drive and view there.  We had a wonderful time!!  The mountains are gorgeous!!  We then went to my favorite quilted bear and then took Amy to get a burger at the famous Training Table!!  That won her top rated burger!!  It was a fabulous day!!

Trip to Utah/Road trip 2012

Our trip out west is going to take several blog posts!!  We crammed so much into being gone for 9 days with 4 of those on the road, all day!!  The purpose of our trip was to take Sarah back to BYU and for Amy to see BYU before applying this year.  I felt so bad last year that Sarah never actually saw the campus except when she was 8 years old and not looking at it as a place to go to school until we were driving down that hill as a freshman ready to drop her off!!  It broke my heart!!  I wanted Amy to go on a tour, see the campus and get excited about what she was applying for knowing BYU Idaho has the same feeling to their campus as Provo does.  We decided to leave Abby and Jenn here since we were spending VERY long days in the car, neither of them like the car and it worked out well, Abby REALLY missed her Mom, Jenn LOVED having no parents and noone telling her what to do and coming and going as she pleased.  Abby stayed the whole time with Julie and family and Jenn split her time between Julie's and the Overtons.  We drove first to Kansas and spent 2 days with the Shipps.  It was SO much fun to spend time with them and see them in their own surroundings and their school stuff since it is always them coming here.  They were so good to us and we had a wonderful time.  The kids were in school but we enjoyed spending the day with Sue and met Phil for lunch.  We went to the St. Louis Temple and did some fun shopping!!  Here are some pictures of our stay in Kansas!!

Back to School Dance!! (Nerd Dance!!)

Amy and Jenn had so much fun at the Stake back to school dance which they and their friends have turned into a dress as nerds dance.  I don't think going back to school is for nerds but apparently it is!!  They just love their friends from Church so much and have such a great time with them and the dance was no different!!  Here are some fun pictures from the night!! 

Ice Cream Social!!

How is it already time for the HHS Choir back to school Ice Cream Social??  That is the true sign that summer is coming to an end and school is starting whether we want it to or not!!  I can't believe that this is Amy's last ice cream social!!  She was so cute and such a leader to the new people to choir.  I was very proud of her.  We had a huge number of people this year and everyone had a great time!!  Jenn was not able to come since she spent this week at the beach with her friend Caroline and was on her way home during the social.  It was a great way to kick off an amazing year in Choir!!

First day of School!!

My goal for the new school year is to catch up on my blog and journaling on our life!!  I am way behind!!  If I do one blog post a day I can start to catch up!!  That is one of my goals for this year.  I am starting with the very recent and going backwards and you can't be more recent than yesterday which was the first day of school here in Virginia.  Sarah started over a week ago with her sophmore year at BYU and tomorrow will be my blog post about out trip out west and Sarah!!  Yesterday was a sad day in the house as NOONE wanted school to start.  Monday night Jenn layed on the floor moaning saying" I hope you are happy, you know you are sending me back to jail tomorrow!!"  It is really not THAT bad but the girls had maybe TOO much fun this summer, that is a blog post to come as well!!  Jenns other comment was at least she would get really good grades this year since she had not ONE friend in any classes so she might as well pay attention!!  Abby started middle school, did not even have to look at her schedule yesterday, so different from my other girls who I had to write directions out for and where to turn, not sure Jenn ever knew her way around!!  Everyone came home happy and dove into the pumpkin squares I had made.  Amy stayed after school for show choir dance captain (yes she is so pumped!!) practice coming up with the warm up song, and came home for 15 minutes before working from 4-8 at her new job at Sweet Frog and then home for dinner and homework, busy day for her!!  We are ready for day 2 and the start of Seminary!!  I miss my girls but glad to have that first day behind us!!

Oliver pics!!

Summer 2012

I am so far behind in my blog that I have been avoiding updating but there is no time like the present!!  I don't want the stories of our family and this time to slip by!!  I will start at the present and work backwards!!  It has been a busy summer and I can't believe that it is already August, how is that possible.  I truly feel like school just got over.  I feel like the summer so far has been me getting girls ready to leave, cleaning up, packing them up again, cleaning up again and starting over!!  So many great experiences for them!!  Amy, Jenn and my baby Abby all went to Girls camp this year and had such a fabulous time.  I will add a ton of pictures soon from camp.  Amy was a YCL and worked SO hard!!  Amy is just amazing.  I was SO worried about Abby being so young and having a hard time at night but she did a great job and I was so proud of her.  Amy was her YCL which really helped.  Jenn went on high adventure (caving and zipling and horse back riding, caving really!!)  Jenn just chilled the rest of camp with her group of friends which is now called "the quad"  They are a very tight knit group of girls.  We left the very next morning for the beach after the girls coming home in the middle of one of the worst storms we have seen in years, winds over 80 miles an hour knocking power out all over the area.  It was horrible trying to get packed at midnight in the pitch dark with all the girls camp stuff dumped on the floor.  We still left at 6 in the morning, still no light or power (the power did not come back for 4 more days, we lost all food in our fridge and freezer!!)  What a mess!!  So glad we were at the beach!!  We had a wonderful week and pictures to follow.  We got back and then it was time to get ready for Youth Conference in Palmyra (I was SO sad to miss going to that, I was in charge of the food 4 years ago and this was the first youth conference I have not gone to in years!!)  My girls had SO much fun, truly life changing!!  They made so many friends and their testimonies were strengthened so much, exactly what you want to have happen!!  Abby has been involved all month with a production of Oliver at the high school and just finished the performances.  She had so much fun, did a great job and made so many great friends.  Jenn is off this week to EFY with Jenson and Jonathan in Kansas (she flew there last Sunday with Grandma and Grandpa) and from all reports is having a blast!!  We leave 2 weeks from tomorrow to drive Sarah back to BYU.  She has had a great summer working at sweet frog and it has been so much fun having her around.  She looks so good, has worked so hard this summer on healthy eating and is such a good example to all of us!!  Tom and I leave in the morning for 3 days to New York for our 20th anniversary, how is that possible??  We are really excited!!