School Has Begun

We officially started a new school year on August 15th.  This is a big year for us as we are now homeschooling all four of our kids.  By age, Craig is 5th grade; Jared is 3rd grade; Zach is 1st grade; and Branden is preschool.  But everyone works at different levels depending on needs, fit, etc.  I am excited and hopeful and nervous and stressed all at the time.  There is so much I want to see happen in our family; there is so much I want our children to learn.  But I don't feel prepared enough, patient enough, smart enough, or in control enough to do all that I want to.  I pray that we will have a good year and I can go with it and we will all be the better for it.

Here are some pictures from the first day of school.  I sure do love these boys and am grateful they will have me as their teacher.

End of Summer

Summer was not long enough.  Not nearly.  We only had 2 months.  What happened to 3 months?  Now, I guess I shouldn't complain too much.  I homeschool.  So, we can still do a lot of fun summery things.  But the no-schedule, freedom of summer is past and it's time to get into the groove of school.  I still needed a few more weeks to finish planning, but even then I probably wouldn't really be done.  So, it's all good.  Here are a few things we did to wrap up our summer.

I let my kids each plan a day this summer.  You can see the article I wrote about it here.  One of the days in the last couple of weeks was Branden's and was a random sampling of fun activities.  We went geocaching...

...had some spy training with laser beams...

...and played a water game, which of course, led to a water fight.

A local hotel had free swimming Friday and Saturday evenings and then a movie on the golf course.  We took the kids swimming there a couple of times.

We also had some late(r) nights watching movies, playing, and reading.  I found Craig and Jared one night in their closet playing Lord of the Rings Risk.

We had a lot of fun celebrating the Olympics. You can read about our fun with that here.

And, of course, we had many more fun days at the beach.  

One of my roommates when I lived in San Francisco was in San Diego for a week with her family for a reunion.  We were roommates when she got married, almost exactly one year before Jesse and I were married.  We met up with them at the beach one day, and another friend from our SF days that lives in Orange County now, also came down with her kids.  Between the three of us, we had 11 boys and 1 baby girl.  Quite a count.  It was such a fun day visiting and catching up.

Summer break is officially over.  We had a great time.

Craig Family Reunion

It's been almost a month since my last post! It's been a busy month finishing up summer and starting school.  I have some catching up to do!

A couple of weeks ago we had the Craig Family Reunion.  This was our first year at my parent's new home in New Harmony, UT.  It is just west of Zions National Park in a small community with farming, animals, and a lot of space.  It is always such a great week visiting with family.  With over 30 cousins to play with, our kids have so much fun playing.

We headed up Saturday to get an early start, especially since our church time is late enough on Sunday that if we left after church, we would get there really late.  It was nice to visit with a few family members already there also.

That also meant that Monday morning we got to go out early with my brother-in-law on his boat.  We got up early and left by 6:30 am so we could get out while the water was still.  I went first to ski.  And I got up on the first try.  It's been a few years, but it came right back and felt so good.  The water was glass and I had a great run.  I so love water skiing.  Craig tried two skis and did pretty well for his first try.  And he and Jared had fun out on the tube.

The rest of the families arrived Monday and the party really got going.  My parents have chickens and the kids loved helping Grandpa collect eggs.  They also set up a tetherball, a sandbox, horseshoes, and a swingset.  Plenty of fun to keep busy.

Everyday had other activities to go and enjoy.  The neighbors let us go over and have the kids take a short ride on their horse.  They also fed him carrots and other "treats" and had a great time.

The neighbors are also avid hunters and have been all over the world hunting.  They have created a small museum of some of the animals that they have local schools visit for a field trip.  It is a pretty impressive room.

They gave each of the grandkids a small stuffed animal to hold so they wouldn't touch the stuffed animals, which the kids could then take home.  On the property they also have goats, rabbits, an amazing garden, and a big play area with a zipline.  The zipline, although a little scary for a lot of the kids at first, turned into quite a highlight.  It was so fun to see kids who were pretty nervous and not sure they wanted to try it, finally get the courage to do it, and then LOVE it and go over and over.

We spent one whole day at Sand Hollow near Hurricane.  We played on the shore, swam, and took turns out on the boat.  I got another ski run in and Craig tried skis again.  The other kids took a turn on the tube.  It was nice to be in the water with it being 106 that day!  We topped off the day with In-n-Out and milkshakes.

Another day we enjoyed a short hike in Kolob Canyon.

There was also face painting, games, minute-to-win-it games, talent show, Family History, Family Home Evening, and of course, lots of good food, including s'mores one night.

It is always nice to catch up with my family.  And I love watching my kids with their cousins.  I love to see the relationships growing.  Zach and Olivia were super cute to watch.  They were best buds all week.  Too bad Olivia is living so far way in Kazhakstan so they only get to see each other once a year.  We will have to get on Skype for them to chat more.

The week went too quickly and we already miss everyone.  Thanks for another great year!!

Not quite all the cousins