A series of posts long overdue!

The First Day of School
Summer was extra short this year or so it seems. Thankfully everything we put on our special summer calendar the children and I make together and display in the stairway was accomplished and we had a great time but I was not ready to send them back. I guess knowing that the school system has them for 9 hours (2 of that is spent on the bus) and I only have them for 5 and one hour of that is in the morning getting ready for school so it doesn't seem to count; it's hard because they are my children and I don't even get to be around them the majority of the day! I like my family around me and I don't get that excited to send them away. I do however enjoy the time I get to spend with Parker and Savanna alone and getting projects done. But online schooling is ever on my mind!

Brittany is in Middle School this year in the 6th grade. Way too grown up for my liking but proud as ever since it's inevitable. She even wanted her hair done special!
Alex is as handsome as they come going into the 4th grade and the oldest at the Elementary school now that his big sister is gone. His diabetes bag is as much a part of him as the hair on his head.
Abigail is in the 2nd grade, can you tell she loves pink as much as I did at her age? I made this dress for her and 2 skirts also this year for school. I am loving having Savanna a little older so I can do fun things like this!

The following is a downpour of posts since I have neglected journaling these parts of our family for a while...oh did you know, this isn't for you who read it, it's a mini journal with photos for me that I share with you. Kind of handy since the majority of brothers and sisters and 1 set of parents don't live by us and the other set doesn't know what we do either so this works great! Enjoy :)

Fair

This was our first year doing animal 4H...what a huge learning curve we had. A big THANK YOU to Grandma Penfold, Brittany got to do horse 4H because of her and thanks to Wyatt (really his good friend who is the Ag agent in our county roped us into this one) we got into goat 4H Alex and Abigail both had an animal. Funny thing was (except it wasn't that funny to me) Wyatt had meetings in Pocatello during fair week so everything that happened up until Thursday morning I had to do. I wasn't prepared for this and it was difficult to take on the responsibility when I had written it off back when it all started. I told Wyatt I supported them doing it but that I wouldn't be involved. The culmination of everything you do IS the week of fair so this was a bitter pill to swallow for me. THANKFULLY he was there for the showing because if he hadn't, the animals would have been shown "as is." I could write a detailed essay of everything that happened this week that would make you laugh but I don't want to take that kind of time right now but it will end up in my journal, next time you're here you can read it then! I can laugh about it now but I was in tears at the time.
Alex showing "General Grievous" his male Boer Goat
Alex and Abigail in their animals pen. (We had to set all this up down to the last straw) I was at my 'last straw' by the end
Abigail talking to the judge showing her female goat "Genevieve"
Brittany looking fancy on "Fancy"
Here is Brittany ready for her day long debut. She did great and had a lot of fun.

Teardrop Lake

Thanks to my cousin, we were invited to go to this lake. Is is clear water, you can see the bottom even in the deep, so beautiful and secluded. Fun fishing and swimming and we made a fun day trip out of it (we were supposed to camp but farming and camping don't go hand in hand because of the water schedule). We had a yummy dinner and dutch oven cobbler and we will be going beck to this place again!
I just think this picture turned out so beautiful :) The reflection and the lighting are great.
Bathing beauty
I finally caught my dragonfly. I have wanted a real one in my kitchen for awhile now. Abigail and I spent time running around with this net my cousin had. I'm sure we looked pretty silly, lunging, running, missing and turning in circles but our time paid off when we netted the big kind! Abigail got several small ones. Did you know there are yellow, blue and green dragonflies? Beautiful insects for sure!

Amazing this little one even got in the water, as warm as it was for lake water, it was still cold and Savanna doesn't even love her warm bath yet. She enjoyed throwing rocks and splashing.

Camping

I HAD to go camping at least once this summer, we had a plan to go with a cousin and that fell through, I had begun to lose hope until the Friday afternoon before school started we were at our friend's pond and I was telling her my woe and we decided to just pack everything up and go up the canyon overnight. Her husband is also unavailable so we knew we could do it solo if we went together.
Here are the children ready to get in. Remember this is Teton Valley creek water that is COLD. Melted snow this stuff is!
Alex built a teepee, pretty impressive for just a pocket knife :)
Our camping site by the river. No toilets, no running water, no problem!!!
Parker enjoying our pancake and eggs breakfast. We even baked cookies for lunch because of this little oven. No one can say we were 'roughing it' The outdoors is the best!

Brittany's 12th birthday

Wow! How has time gone by so fast? Brittany is 12 which means she gets to go to Young Women's, weekly activities, Middle School, she gets to wear make-up now when she chooses. Wyatt and I look at each other and say I guess having a 12 year old means we're not newlyweds anymore...but seriously we don't feel too much older than when we had this beautiful girl! What do you mean over a decade has past? Oh yeah they do tell you if ya blink you'll miss their childhood. We couldn't have picked a better girl to be our oldest daughter, Brittany we love you.
Here is her swimming pool cake complete with a diving board, lap lanes and inner tubes!