Back to School!

 We are ready to head back to school today.  Ashleigh and Owen had their school open house yesterday which gave them a chance to meet their teachers and drop off their school supplies.  They are going to have a great year!

 Owen is excited to be in the same school as Ashleigh this year.  I am glad too!  He has the perfect teacher for him, so he is going to have a great 2nd grade.

First day of high school and seminary.  5:00 a.m. wake up call because Dad is his substitute seminary teacher this week and they have to get there early!  We can do this!  Seminary is from 6-6:50 and then high school is from 7:15-2:25, except Trenton doesn't actually get out until 2:40 because he has a funky schedule.  Let's hope we can start getting to bed earlier or we are going to be cranky around here :)

 My sweet boy.  First day of 2nd grade in a new school.  He is going to do awesome!  He is loving the tall athletic socks :)

 Ashleigh's all ready for her first day of 6th grade.  Her last year in the elementary school.  She loves her new purple shoes - size 8 in women's, by the way!!  She completely surprised me this morning when she came downstairs.  This is not the outfit she had planned to wear the first day.  She must have decided it wasn't a good idea to dress up for the first day afterall.  I love that she doesn't worry about dressing up or what anyone thinks about her style.  She prefers to be comfortable and I love it!  Let's pray the girls around her don't change her.

These two are in the same school this year, which should be great.  Owen is fine with Ashleigh helping him around and he seemed to be less anxious knowing she would be with him this morning.

Ashleigh's Big Day

 Ashleigh decided to get her ears pierced before school started.  We told her when she turned 8 she could get them pierced, but she never wanted to.  She started talking about it six months ago, but I think she was afraid to go through with it.  Several of her friends have had infected ears and she was afraid to go through that.  I convinced her it would all be fine and she did it last week!!  This is her before picture waiting in the chair at Claire's.

 And after!  She picked out turquoise gem earrings and she loves them!

And two days later, she got her hair chopped!  It is so cute and so stylish!  She refuses to wear her hair up, so short hair is so much easier to manage!

Here it is from the side.  It is a long bob cut by one of my friends from church.  It looks so pretty!

Iowa/Nebraska Trip

 We got to spend a few days with our cousins in early August.  We had some fun together one evening at an indoor trampoline park.

 We went swimming together one day.   

Owen loved the waterslides at the pool.  He loves swimming and has become a great swimmer this summer.

 We met up with Dad a few days into our trip in Omaha, Nebraska.  We checked out the infamous zoo and found they had named the Gorilla House after Owen.

 Owen loved the baby peacocks.  He named every single one we saw, which was a lot!  Did you know that only the males are called peacocks?  The females are peahens and the babies are peachicks.  Makes sense, but Owen and I didn't know that!

 The butterfly house.  We visited the zoo on an incredibly busy day, so we didn't get a chance to see everything.  Maybe we will go back one day.

 This was the coolest store near downtown Omaha in the Old Market district.  It was called Hollywood Candy.  It had every candy ever made and was also a huge museum and antique store.  It was breathtaking and worth a trip to Omaha for!

This made Owen think of Ashleigh who wasn't with us for this part of our trip.

 Nathan reluctantly agreed that he is my "Big Hunk"

Also in Old Market is this famous ice cream store that makes the most unusual flavors of ice cream.  They are famous for their sweet corn ice cream (only in Nebraska!!).  There is corn everywhere in Nebraska.  I mean everywhere!  The ice cream recipe is published in a cookbook featuring ice cream recipes from all 50 states.  We stuck with vanilla and chocolate ice cream because we are not nearly adventurous enough when we're spending $5 on ice cream!

 The Omaha Nebraska temple is near the airport on the north side of the city.

Ashleigh's Birthday Party

 We celebrated Ashleigh's 11th birthday a week late since we were on vacation on her birthday.  She invited her closest friends for a trip to Orange Leaf for ice cream and the movie theater to see Rio 2.  It was really fun to be out in public with 7 silly girls.  They had so much fun and were a real treat to spend time with.  Have you ever been in a car with 7 girls singing every word to the songs on the radio?  I felt like I was at a concert and wanted to get it on video, but I was already stressed enough getting all these girls where we were going safely without trying to get my phone out.  Take my word for it, it was loud and intense.  I am positive our van was literally shaking as we sat at stoplights and they were all dancing.
 

 Ashleigh and her bestest friend

 At the movies

See what I mean about silly?  There were six of these little rides outside the movie theater and they all took turns squeezing into them.  Happy Birthday, Ashleigh!  She received a Nook tablet and a sewing machine for her birthday this year.

Kings Island Fun

 Of all the times we have been to Kings Island, we had never visited the Dinosaurs Alive exhibit at the back of the park.  It is a exhibit of 65 life size, realistic dinosaurs on 12 acres.  Dallin and I finally checked it out while the big kids rode other rides.  Dallin was very nervous when we saw the first dinosaur.  He whispered to me, "Is it real?" because all of the dinosaurs roar and move as you walk up to them.  They are definitely as realistic as you can get, especially to a four year old!

 He had to get his picture taken at every single dinosaur - did I mention there are 65 dinosaurs?!  He also wanted to know the name of every dinosaur and most of them were dinosaurs I had never heard of so my pronunciation was awesome.  Luckily, the big kids weren't with us to correct me :)

 They saved T-rex for last, of course.  We were on the lookout for him the whole time!

 It was Marvel Heroes Day at the park on this particular day.  Kings Island had advertised like crazy about it and I brought a notebook along thinking we would get Iron Man's autograph for Dallin.  Ummm, I think the entire Cincinnati area had the same idea because 15 minutes after the heroes arrived, the line to get your picture with them was a four hour wait.  What kid wants to stand in line on an incredibly hot day for four hours for a five second picture?  It was pure insanity and completely not worth it.  We snuck up to the front on the outside of the rope and snapped this snazzy picture of the guys with zero wait.  Good enough for us!

 Dallin and Snoopy.  Dallin still loves to get a hug from any character he sees.  He runs right up to them and gives them a big hug whether they are ready for it or not.

The Pumpkin Coaster - Dallin's favorite ride.  He thinks he is big time riding this.  Ashleigh taught him to put his hands up.  He puts his hands up as soon as he gets in his seat even though it takes 3 minutes or so for the ride to actually start moving.

Hilton Head Island

 Our family took a family vacation to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina this summer.  It was an amazing vacation - one of our very favorites.  From the clean, long beaches to the miles of bicycle trails, it is a piece of heaven on earth.  It is one of the most relaxed family vacation spots we have ever been too.  I could have stayed forever and am hoping to make this an annual trip!

 The harbor and iconic red and white lighthouse.  It was fun to spend evenings here to watch the sunset.

 A portion of the beach near our condo.  We rode our bikes here each day.

 The first day we spent at the beach, we found hundreds of these sand dollars in the ocean near the shore.  We collected several of them, which was fortunate because we never found them in the water again.  We think this was because we usually hit the beach when the tide was really low and the sand dollars were out too deep for us to find.

 Dallin spent some time jumping the waves and using his boogie board, but he loved playing with his sand toys on the shore.

This horseshoe crab was washed ashore the first day we visited the beach.  It was a fun experience to see it so closely.  I love the brotherly hugs here :)  

 Owen buried Dallin in the sand one afternoon.  Sometimes we found giant holes dug in the sand, which Dallin enjoyed playing inside.

 Did you know that there are alligators all over Hilton Head?  They are literally in almost every pond and creek across the whole island.  They are not very large and seem to be disinterested in people, but it was rather startling at first to come upon them.  Alligator hunting quickly became one of my favorite activities though.  Where else do you have the chance to get up close to an alligator?!

 Owen had a great vacation.  I think he and I would be happy there all year!

 Of course, we spent plenty of time in our pool.  Owen has become a confident swimmer which made pool time a lot of fun for him.  Dallin is also getting very comfortable in the water, so he enjoyed pool time as well.  His favorite pool time activity was putting his head under water over and over and grabbing rings under the water.  He was a hoot!

 Trenton does not enjoy getting his picture taken by his mother, so I did not get a lot of pictures of him.  Funny story though - two teenage girls asked him if they could get their picture taken with him one day when he was wearing his "Fault in Our Stars" tshirt, and he happily posed with the girls while their dad took their picture with him.

 Dallin's preschool teacher had told me to make sure we saw Greg Russell perform while we were there because he is an amazing children's musician and performer.  He sings every night under a big oak tree in the harbor.  Ashleigh especially loved his songs and even got one of his CDs so she could listen to him over and over.

 One of our favorite parts of the vacation was bicycle riding together.  Everyone rides bicycles all over the island.  It really helps reduce the amount of cars on the road since it is a fairly small island.  There are bike paths everywhere so it was very convenient and safe to ride all over.  The kids loved riding bikes together, especially on the beach.  Dallin was just barely big enough to ride on the back of Dad's bike.  He had a great time pedaling along with Dad and telling him which way to go.

 Climbing trees at the big children's playground in the harbor.  We went here almost everyday for some exercise.

 Nathan and Trenton went parasailing one morning just outside the harbor.  While watching them, we spotted several dolphins jumping out of the water, but they were too quick for a picture.  Nathan and Trenton were able to see the dolphins while up in the air as well.

 If not bicycling around the island, taking the free trolley was the next best way to get around.  The kids and I used the trolley the day Nathan traveled to Charleston to take Grandma Borders back to the airport.

 On one of our rides, the driver stopped the trolley and let each of the kids take turns sitting in the drivers seat.

 We loved the trolley because it was completely open to the outside!

One of the ponds near our condo.  We loved the giant trees that were everywhere on the island. This pond was the home of the largest alligator we saw on the island!