Off to camp she goes!

It's hard to believe that she is old enough, but Madelyn headed off to Girls Camp this morning!  Our ward goes with our stake up to Camp Stimpson at Mount Charleston.  Madelyn has been looking forward to Girls Camp since she turned twelve and entered young woman's!  They have some fun leaders up there with them this week and I'm sure Madelyn will come home with lots of memories and stories to share (and pictures, I hope)!

National Junior Honor Society

A few weeks ago we received an email stating Madelyn was eligible to apply for the National Junior Honor Society.  The application included an essay she had to write, recommendations from two of her teachers, and a recommendation from a member of her community.  Madelyn completed her essay at school (so we didn't get to read it) and she asked her teachers, Mr. Miles and Mrs. Natoro, and April Leeper, one of her young women's leaders, to do the recommendations.

We didn't know when she would hear back about it, but she received a letter from the principal stating the she was selected to be a member of the National Junior Honor Society!  Congratulations Madelyn!  We are so proud of you and the goals you are making and accomplishing!

Palm trees

Today we spent most of our day doing yard work!  Something that no one likes to do, but needs to be done!  We can't believe how tall our palm trees have grown and will probably have to call a professional to do it in the future, as out 15' ladder is not tall enough to go any higher!  It took a full load in the trailer to remove all the palm leaves, but the trees look so much better now that we have cut the back!

Donuts for A's

The kids received their report cards a few weeks ago and have been begging to take them to Krispy Kreme's to turn all their A's into donuts!  They each maxed out with 6 donuts and were beyond excited to pick out exactly what they wanted! We are so proud of their hard work and the efforts they make in school!

Salt Lake, take 3!

This last weekend Jon was working hard on our rental properties, so the kids and I took another trip to Salt Lake for Mindy's baby shower and Camryn & Taylor's baptisms.  The kids were so excited to be able to spend another weekend filled with cousins!

Friday morning we went to Ella's school for the Kindergarten Nursery Rhyme Festival!  All the kindergarteners were given a nursery rhyme to learn and then they dressed the part and recited the rhyme when someone tapped them on the shoulder.  They had backdrops for all the different nursery rhymes and the kids looked like they enjoyed sharing what they had memorized!  Ella was Jill from "Jack and Jill" and she did a fabulous job!

Friday night we had Mindy's baby shower!  It was so fun to see my cousins and Aunts (that I haven't seen in years), to see Rebecca's twin girls (they were so cute) and meet some of Mindy's family!  Julianne and Morag did a great job on the deserts, mini bundt cakes and swiggs sugar cookies (my new favorite)!

Saturday morning we headed to Camryn's baptism and then we headed over to Taylor's Baptism.  Both girls looked so beautiful in their dresses and it got Aubrey thinking about what she wants for her baptism dress!  After Taylor's baptism we went back to the club house and had a luncheon with family!  Julianne and Andy did a great job on the food (bbq chicken sandwiches, two pasta salads, and lots of yummy cookies)!  After the luncheon we were all a little tired and head back to Julianne's, but the kids didn't take a nap like I thought they would!  They played, while Julianne and I ran a few errands!  Jason came by to hang out and the kids were starving and begged Uncle Jason to make macaroni and cheese!  The kids loved the homemade macaroni and cheese and talked and giggled the whole time he was cooking it and while they were eating it!  Ella was the silliest, I think it may have been from lack of sleep!

Sunday morning the kids all slept in a bit and then we hit the road to head home!  The kids were disappointed that we had to head home, but insisted that their cousins should come to our house next week!  I love that our kids are good friends with their cousins and they all get along (for the most part)!

Day at Sea

At Sea

Today we were at sea!  The kids had a great time participating in make your own pizza lunch, wacky tacky night, and the amazing arial show in the showroom!

Pizza making!

While waiting for the pizzas to cook we looked out the window to see some animals swimming along side us!  We think they were baby orcas!

Enjoying our personal pizzas!

We noticed a lot of custom painting on board our ship and wondered how they keep it looking so bright and pretty.  They are constantly repainting and touching up the paintings by hand!

As part of wacky tacky night, the kids had their faces painted!  Madelyn was a cheetah, Carson was a tiger, and Aubrey was a puppy!

Can't remember why Aubrey was so upset!

I really liked the colors on our ship!  The row of cabin doors in our hallway!

Towel monkey attacking a cheetah!

Skagway

3rd port day: Skagway

Today was the coldest day of our trip, it was 54 degrees out and it was quite windy!  Jon and I decided to get off the ship on our own to see what there was to do in Skagway before we got the kids off.  We found that there wasn't a whole lot to do in Skagway.  One thing Skagway is known for is the White Pass Train.  We were unable to ride the train because you cross into Canada and must have a valid passport!  But we were able to go into the old train station and look around and mail Grandpa Arnold a birthday post card with a train on it!  We also walked down to wooden sidewalks and just looked in the windows of the old buildings.   

They have a "smart bus" that drives you from the ship into town and then you can take it to this gold mine, old graveyard, and a garden.  We were told the gold mine would be a great place for the kids, but after being told another bus would be back in about 30 minutes and we were off the bus we realized it was a tourist trap!  We ended up just waiting for the bus to come back and get us and then we took the kids to pick out a t-shirt before heading back to the ship!

Once back on the ship we went to the Blue Lagoon for a snack to tide us over until dinner!  I would have to say that was to worst service we received on the ship, but the kids had fun as we had a great view of the helicopters that were landing and taking off every 15-20 minutes from the helipads just off the docks!

All the sidewalks on the main street were made of wood!

Couldn't resist taking this picture!

One of the church buildings we saw on our way to the gold mine.  I think that's the smallest meeting house I have ever seen in person!

The front of one of the White Pass trains.  It was used to carve through the ice!

This sign was found in the window of almost every store on the main road!

Waiting for the Smart Bus!  Seems like we waited forever!

Playing with our silverware!

Madelyn's bracelet collection, its become quite colorful!

We decided to let the kids decide if they wanted to eat dinner in the formal dinning room with us or have dinner at the buffet and go to kids camp!  Tonight Aubrey decided she wanted to get dressed up and go to dinner with us, but opted to go swimming before dinner!  She is quite the fish and played on the slide and in the pool for about an hour!

She loved the water slide!

In the formal dinning room we were seated at the back of the boat with a great view of the water trailing behind us!

10:30 pm and it's still light out!  Sunset was usually between 10:30 and 11:00pm!

Perfecting her form on her ice cream cone!

Can't go to be without a sweet treat!