This week Tanner's fourth grade class went to the Cincinnati Cyclones v. Toledo Walleye hockey game.  They offer a program called Hockey in Education.  At the breaks between the periods, they have educational spots on the jumbotron.  The one I actually listened to taught mean, median and mode using hockey scores.  It was interesting.  

I arrived late, but found Tanner easily.  Thank you to his teachers for asking them all to wear their class shirt.  Unfortunately, he had already planted himself in a seat with no open seats around him.  I asked him to come sit with me and I thought he was following me back up, but when I sat down several rows up, he hadn't moved.  So I spent $10 to park, $13 to get into the game and probably 45 minutes of driving to watch a game that I don't even understand all by myself....

 Our neighborhood is only about eight years old and our house is only three years old.   We are surrounded by farmland, so I don't think there were a lot of trees here to begin with.  Fall is disappointing for the kids because there really are no leaves to rake (yes, thank you, I got enough of that in Toledo!).  The kids were off of school yesterday so we headed over to grandma's to see if we could scrape together a leaf pile to jump in.

It was sunny but pretty chilly outside but some of the kids worked pretty well (they are pictured!).

 Tanner practiced his rake guitar.

 When we were done, there wasn't much of a pile.   Tanner decided to lay in it!

For Brent and Diana....what we've been doing, in pictures.

Participating in the National Day of Service.  We raked leaves for some elderly folks around town.  The kids actually said they had fun!

 Visiting a local farm with our preschool class.

 Trying to carve pumpkins.  The carving tool we had broke halfway through and we never finished them!

 A little begging for candy.  It is a good thing we have a dress-up box because Mary was something different for each of the three costume-wearing occasions that we had.  Here she was a ballerina.  Belle also made an appearance as did a fairy.

 Traveling with the Comet Skippers jumprope team to North Carolina for a workshop.

 Walking to The Mason Veteran's Memorial with Tanner's fourth grade class.

 This quote made me a little misty-eyed.  In case you can't read it, it says, "Rest only in the knowledge that your grief, the grief of a parent or of a sibling, or that of a child, provides us the blanket of freedom and security which all of us sleep under so peaceably at night."

Thank you to all who serve.

 Going to bed too late!  Mary actually fell asleep eating a cookie!

 Casting 215 kids at the Mason Heights Carnival.

I think we got a picture of everyone on this post!

Toothless!

In August when we went to the dentist for checkups, they hygienist told Sarah that she had a loose tooth.  Since then she has been wiggling that thing with her tongue and yesterday at lunch she finally got it out. She popped it out on the table in front of her, got an excited look on her face and screamed, "This is AWESOME!"

Just as cute even without one tooth!

Today was Mary's first dance class.  She has been so excited.  We went and bought her shoes on Saturday (because of course none of the other three pairs we have in the house from her sisters fit her!) and she practically carried them with her all afternoon.  She wanted to take them to Tanner's football game, but I drew the line.  She woke up this morning and could hardly stand it until after lunch when it was time to go.  She was very sweet.

Marc said I should post this story so I will.

Sarah came home from school on Friday and told me that she saw her friend Jack in the hall and he had kissed her on the cheek.  We were talking about it on the way home from grandma's house last night telling her that boys could not kiss her until she is 32 at the earliest.  The kids were all laughing and teasing and then we heard Tanner from the back say, 'Oooo, Sarah, did you go wash your face?'

It made us laugh.

Rise and Shout!!

For opening day for the BYU football season my brother-in-law Kevin organized a little trip to Oxford Mississippi for the game.  So, Tanner and I joined the Wilson clan and headed south.  When the question of where to stop for dinner came up along the way we consulted the GPS and found a name that could not be ignored...

In case you can't make out the words it's: Big Bubba Bucks Belly Bustin' BBQ Bliss.  It was the quintessential dive on the side of the road (i think the sign says it all).  But the ribs were outstanding.  I just wish I had the bad manners to take pictures of the inside because it can't be described in words.  

The following day the kids got face-painted and hair-sprayed in preparation for the game.

It is apparently tradition at Ole Miss for the ladies to dress up for the football games.  They have this thing called "The Grove" before every football game which is a huge tent city on the main areas of campus along the "Walk of Champions" where people sit, eat, and mingle before the game.  I imagine tailgating in fancy clothes just seems silly.  I will say that the people there were extremely friendly to us cougar fans and went out of their way to shake our hands and make us feel welcome.

Finally, after three agonizing quarters of football the cougars decided to play and we finished up with a one point victory. Sorry the scoreboard turned out blurry.  Afterwards, we went down along the field and after Heaps was done doing his post game interview he came and high-fived those of us along the fence.  For those who happened to see that on the post game show I was not shoving my son or nephew out of the way to high-five Jake Heaps.  It just looks that way.  He actually did hit my hand as he was going along so I assume if I were to play football this week I would tend to throw it behind my receivers or right on the numbers of the other team.  

It was a great weekend and I can't wait for next year at Notre Dame.

First Day of School

Eighth grade...that 6:30 bus sure seems early after sleeping in all summer!

 Fourth grade and a new school but he has at least two friends in his class and mastered the combination lock in no time.

Third grade...lamenting the fact that she doesn't know anyone in her class AGAIN!  (Once she got to school she realized that two of her classmates were in her kindergarten class.)  Excited to have lunch at the same time as her besties from last year!

 Why does she have to grow up so fast? 

Kindergarten.  She says she is nervous but I think she is excited.

 Here's the evidence.  As soon as the bus pulled up she never looked back!

 We got to see her at the other end too since we were volunteering as hallway helpers to guide the little lost souls to their classrooms!

 Mary needs to be included in the post too...disregard the cinnamon on her chin...we spent the morning at Costco (how I have missed you this summer!) and shared a churro!

While we awaited the bus, we played with the camera.

Happy faces...

 Silly faces...

 Surprised faces...

 Angry faces...

 Scared faces....

I finally decided to stop going to the cheapest photography place in town and hired a professional photographer to shoot our family.  Check out our sneak peek here.  I am excited to see the rest!

We've had a birthday....

...shout hooray!  We have a lot of birthdays in July in our family.  Add grandma and two cousins that live close and we are eating cake all month!

Ella turned eight!

One of our kid's favorite birthday traditions is breakfast in bed.   They look forward to that almost more than presents.  And the fact that I will buy them a box of their favorite sugar laden cereal, makes it super easy on me.  Ella was up early waiting for breakfast!

 Dad got to bring it up before leaving for work.  She had cereal (apple jacks), fruit and hot chocolate!  (yes, it has been 95 degrees here!)

They also get one gift to open in the morning.  Ella loves this game on the ipad, and was dying to have it for her DS.

A note on her birthday shopping.  I had of course procrastinated until the last minute and expected to have all day Saturday to shop alone and find the perfect gift.  What's that saying about the best laid plans?  Marc ended up having football coach training all morning and then a surgery after that.  There was something going on that night that I wanted to do so when 2pm rolled around and I hadn't done any shopping, I took matters into my own hands.  I loaded all the kids in the van and we went to Toys R Us. I texted Marc and told him to meet us there.  We walked around the store and I told Ella she could put anything in the cart that she wanted for her birthday and then after Marc picked them up, I just put most of it back and kept what I hoped she would really love.  It worked out great.  All her shopping was done in about an hour!

A wonderful visitor brought donuts!

She went to our favorite pizza place for lunch with dad!  (another birthday tradition)

 We also planned a friend birthday for later in the week, but one of Ella's friends from school couldn't come, so she went there to play in the afternoon.  Her friend actually had a mini party for her complete with cupcakes and a Happy Birthday banner.  It was really cute!

While she was gone we made a banner of our own.  It's great to be eight!

Family party was that night.  We made some delicious pizzas (yes, she did have pizza twice in one day!) on the grill and then a little party.

 Ella's friend birthday party had a plants vs. zombies theme.  Here are her friends that came.

Happy Birthday Ella!  We love you so much!

Two weeks later...

..here is my post about the 4th of July.

Not far from our home is the Little Miami Bike Trail.  We have heard that it is about 75 miles long and runs along the river where railroad tracks once were.  We snagged one of the teenagers from church to sit with Rylee and took the other four down for a family bike ride.

 We had been down there before, but hadn't ever made it to Loveland where there was rumored to be a snow cone stand.  Sarah was a newbie at the two-wheeler thing but she did a great job.

It ended up being about 4 miles from where we parked to Loveland and sadly the snow cone stand wasn't open yet.  It was only about 10:30 in the morning.  So we rode the four miles back to the car and stopped for an icee on the way home.  It was a great way to start the day.

We also spent the afternoon at my brother's home for good food, a sometimes not so friendly game of kickball and some fireworks.  His neighbor must have spent a truckload of money because it was an impressive show, but you'll have to use your imagination for this part because I forgot to take pictures!

Rockin' with Kenny

Rylee turned 14 this past week!  Yikes!  How did that happen?

Marc and I really struggle to find gifts for her that she will like.  Lucky for us Kenny Chesney, Uncle Kracker and Billy Currington were in town the week before her birthday.  So we went!

Rylee really liked Uncle Kracker and Billy Currington.  Kenny Chesney played a lot of his new songs that she didn't know so she didn't seem as excited for him.

I had a great time listening to the music and watching the crowd!  Wow!  I think Billy Currington's song is right...people are crazy!

Garlock Reunion Part 2

We spent a lovely day at Niagara Falls.  What an amazing place that is and we didn't even see it from the Canadian side.

 We did, however, get on the boat, the Maid of the Mist that takes you up close and personal with those falls.  The captain of the boat takes you to the bottom of horseshoe falls and parks you there.  I asked why he sat there so long and Marc said that is what we paid for.  Rylee loved it!

 After we got off the boat, the kids wanted to go up these stairs that go right next to the American Falls.  Rylee and I watched from below.  They are waving at us in this picture below.

 They were completely drenched when they came down, but all smiles.

 We walked over to a little island next to the Bridal Veil Falls.  It amazed me how close you are to that water.

We had briefly considered not going up to Niagara at all.  It was 3 1/2 hours from where we were staying and we weren't sure it would be worth it having heard that it is so much better from Canada and while it may be, we had a GREAT time!

 I guess it was pretty tiring getting pushed around in the stroller all day long!  This is Mary about 10 minutes into the drive home.

 We also went to Amish country which the kids said was BORING.  I kept pointing out all the little kids that were out working in the yard or helping out in some way.  I got a lot of eye rolling from the back!  This is the only picture that I took!

 I think my favorite part of the week was that our cabin was directly across the street from Beth and Doug's cabin and the kids played constantly. 

 Sarah Margaret with her namesake, Great Grandma Margaret.   She is a crack-up!

We had a great time Garlocks.  Can't wait for 2013!