School Daze

School started on Tuesday and we have been busy ever since. The kids are sooooo tired especially Peyton adjusting to a full day of school.

Bailee has to leave at 7:00

Braden, Peyton, Rowen and Elly

All the kids at the bus stop plus Thomas, Tyson, and Tanner

Boys vs. Girls

This week we went school shopping (for clothes). It is our tradition to take the boys on one day and the girls on another. They are both totally different experiences.

First the Boys--They tell me- "We will be looking over here and tell us when you have picked out all of our clothes." Then the lunch choice is Golden Corral only due to the all you can eat ice cream. When we were there the conversation was way too funny. Braden- "I don't see why our dad can't work here. It would be the best. At least I would work here and at my breaks I would sit back there and eat all the ice cream. I don't know about you guys but this place is 5 star." We are dreaming BIG!! The whole trip takes about 2 hours.

The Girls- We are gone at least 6 hours and probably 100 different clothing items are tried on before a choice is made and lunch is at TGIFriday's.

Both are a blast but completely different. We can't wait for school on so many different levels.

summer is going , going....

We just left Utah but it was fun to spend three days with Biff's parents. They rode out with Skip and Bonnie as they moved to Illinois. It was a fun few days. On Monday we went to the Colts Training Camp which is just 10 minutes from our house. We saw Peyton Manning which was a highlight. But the kids loved playing on the stuff and eating blue snowcones (why are they blue anyway?)

Braden and Peyton climbing the rock wall at the Colt's camp.

Elly and Rowen sliding down the slide.

Peyton Manning running the plays.

We had great weather and even rain. They got a real midwestern weather experience (different weather every 10 minutes.) Grandma and the boys built the temple in Zarahemla in our sand box.
Lea and Rowen at the Clabber Girl museum.

We hit the road to Indy and saw Page and Tayler on Tuesday. It was fun to spend the time swimming and eating pizza. We liked it so much we went back to Indy on Wednesday (took them to the airport)and Thursday (took Bailee to spend the weekend with Page and Tayler. Thanks to Tayler for the cute bracelets she made. We did some school shopping and came home.

On Friday, we hit Walmart for the school supply run. The total was about $100.00 and Braden said, "Wow! Mom how much money do you have left?" I gave him a random amount and said, "Seven hundred dollars." Since then he has kept a running total of how much money I have left if we spend any money. Of course he has some ideas on how we should spend our $700.00. He votes for video games!!

On saturday we spent the HOT day in the pool (thank you Threlfall's) then played a mean game of volleyball followed by watching the movie Forever Strong (a must see) in our backyard (again thanks to Jeriah's projector.) What a great day!! However Sunday morning came too soon.

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N

We are back and had a great time. It started very early on July 14th (4:30) as we flew to Utah. It was the first time to fly for Peyton and Rowen. Peyton thinks we shoud move to Denver so that we only have to take one plane!


We spent the first four days in Park City. It was a lot of fun spending time with all the Price cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. We went to the Oquirrih Mountain Temple open house, swam, hiked Mt. Timpanogous, rode the alpine slide, watched the ski jumpers and ate A LOT!! We had a great time and wish we could see our cute cousins more often.

Then we spent three days in Ogden with Grandma and Granpa Nye. They treated us too good-- it may make us invade more often. They had awesome full size bunk beds which made for great all night kid parties and a great place for kids to stash all of the tootsie roll wrappers!! We toured Weber State, went to the temple, loved a fun day ice skating, played at the park, went shopping, saw the Mormon tabernacle choir and temple square, celebrated birthdays, ran lots of mountains and ate A LOT!!

Next, we went to Avon, by way of a Brigham City tour. We spent a week there relaxing and the kids loved the chores on the farm. They were up each morning before grandma and grandpa in hopes of getting the eggs and moving sprinkler pipe while Biff and I slept in. We made a castle and sheilds, rode horses, fished, went to the opera, played volleyball, had water fights, ran some hills, rode in the boat, built the Eagle Scout Bridge, traveled to Idaho and ate A LOT!!

Then we went back to Ogden for the last three days. We went on the Frontrunner to Salt Lake and Gateway. It was a lot of fun to run through the fountain and shop. Then Elly and Rowen got a haircut at Cookie Cutter (super cute kids salon). We had such a great day! The last day we helped Skip load up some furniture, ate at the Burger Bar (heavenly!!) and seemed to spill everything-good thing we were at the park. We flew home and got here at 1:30 a.m. We are still adjusting to the time change but would love to do it all again tommorrow. We had a BLAST!!!

When in Indiana......

You just have to LOVE the county fair. The Vigo County fair started today. Bailee and Elly both won blue ribbons (thank you Newton's).

Elly's blue ribbon for photography.

Bailee (who we were embarrassing so she couldn't stand by the basket--gotta love it!!) Blue ribbon basket.

Picture of Rowen taken by Hillary and it won reserve champion. (A little glare from the plasstic covering)
Here is one of the fireworks we lit off last night. These are the kind of fireworks you can light off in you front yard in Indiana. It is amazing. We have never lived anywhere that these are legal. We can hear fireworks almost every night and have had a great time watching and lighting them.

Running and Sunning

So we have officially lived in Indiana for one year. It has been a lot of fun and definitely an adventure.

This was a fast week. On Tuesday, Mary and Sam Moss visited from Iowa. It was so good to see them and we hadn't seen them since February of 2007. That is when they left on their mission and then we moved. Time goes way too fast but it was like we just saw them yesterday. I am sad we did not get a picture. I realized that just as they left our house.

The kids played a lot of tennis and swam every day that it did not rain. Lots of rain this week. Bailee won her basketball game on Tuesday and Thursday and really put up the boards scoring 8 points in both games. Just one year ago we took her to every game crying --oh what a difference a year makes. Since we had just moved here she did not want to go but has since told us "Thank you so much for making me go--I love basketball now." So some things are good to force or strongly encourage.

Bailee (51) shooting.
Saturday Peyton and Elly were in a triathalon on a team with friends. Peyton swam 100m and ran a mile and his friend Tyson biked 3 miles. Elly biked 3 miles and her friend Tanner swam and ran. It was a lot of fun and we got the race in before a big storm hit. It was soo cool to watch. Elly's favorite part was that she had the numbers still on her arms for church today--so nice.

Pre-race picture elly, Tanner, Tyson, Peyton

Elly dismounting to pass off to Tanner for the run.

Peyton just finishing the swim.

The boys are all smiles after the race is over. Did I say that they liked the free cookies the best!?!?

Tanner and Elly show off their medals!!!

AWE-summer

All of my pictures that I took this week got deleted so... this is a pictureless entry. so sad!! This has been another fun week of summer. We had a fun time going to McCormick's Creek State Park. It is about forty minutes away and so much fun. We went on a tour with the park ranger and saw an old limestone quarry. I am amazed at how much work they had to do to just get the rocks out. Then we had a picnic by the playground. The highlight was hiking to the waterfall. It was so beautiful and the best part was that the kids could all play in it. We left wet and smiling. On Wednesday, we saw the Hannah Montanna Movie at the $1.oo theater and loved it. Maybe not the theater so much as your feet stick to the floor and it is hard to find a row of chairs that is not torn up. Thursday was a fun filled afternoon at the Library. On Friday, we worked in the yard and the kids had fun playing in the trees (favorite passtime). The Rodebush's arrived from Iowa. It was a fun time! We grilled and then did fireworks with the Gage's (our new next door neighbor's-- who we just love having here!). Fireworks in Indiana are incredible and beyond what we could ever do in Utah as a kid. After we we finished, the kids set all of the remains on fire and had a mini bonfire. They danced around it and pretended to be wild Indians. That may have been their favorite part! On the fourth of July, it rained all day and I mean every minute of the day. It was fun to hang out with the Rodebush's. We miss them already and it was sad to say goodbye. We sure hope to see them soon!