Back to School

I figured back to school was as good a time as any to start a blog on the family so everyone far and wide can keep up. Really, you all know how horrible I am at returning email so this will hopefully be a good filler until I have the time to scroll through the hundreds of messages I have waiting. I just started on this blogging thing a few days ago with my own literary blog called You're Gonna Have to Feel at gonnahavetofeel.blogspot.com (don't put www before it). I am very excited about it. Gives me a good outlet. Anyway, here ya go...

Well, it has happened. Jaden, my youngest child, has started junior high. He was nervous as he got up this morning and got dressed. I put together his binder for him, got him his pencils, solar calculator, pens and class schedule. I told him to change out of his wrinkled t-shirt into something more appropriate for the first day of school (although it is just a day for the 7th graders) so he could impress "for the good." He rolled his eyes, took another bite of coco-puffs and went upstairs to get a slightly lesser-wrinkled, long-sleeved shirt, which I think he likes because he said that his arms are so huge that it almost doesn't fit. How on earth did this happen so fast?! He shuffled outside to wait for the bus, which thankfully picks up right on our corner. We called his friends, Kaden and Brenden from across the street and took these pictures. Wasn't it just a few years ago that I was standing on the front porch with my binder, in between Charlotte and Kasi, going to my first day of junior high? Hold me.

In a couple of minutes I will be taking Danielle and her friend, Kirsty, to the high school for their walk-through day there (high school is 10-12 out here). Dakota is done as of last night with his two-a-day practices for the 9th grade football team, thank goodness. His "hell week" was actually two. It was literally killing us to drive him to practice at 7 am, go back to pick him up around 9:30-10:00, run Heather (Tom's second oldest who is living with us until we can find her a job and get her into UVU) to her financial aid and scheduling appointments and job interviews in Orem, get Jaden off to practice at 5:30, run Dakota back over to practice at 6:00 and then pick Dakota back up at 8:00. And, there was no down time in between because their friends literally call every 5 minutes to talk about.... what?! You actually have more to say now than you did 5 minutes ago?! Sigh.

Things are uber slow in the mortgage field right now, although I am still getting calls. I am enjoying the time to get stuff done that I have wanted to for so long, but the tightness of the budget (like most people's now-a-days) is a bit daunting. We were smart to build up a good 3-4 month food storage for just such a case and it has been a blessing, especially considering how much the boys are eating right now.

Quay, Kathleen and Tiger's son (Kathleen is my cousin) will be staying with us tonight through Sunday or Monday as he is in between semesters at BYU, and they want to paint his apartment. We are excited to see him and he is always fun to have around. Maybe I can get him to pose for a pic to post later. He and Tiger stayed with us for a few days in mid-June while they were getting him registered for school. We had a blast, although none of our kids were here to see it. Tom and I took them up to the Timpanogos Cave, which I had never been to in the 10 years (yes, you read it right) that I have lived here in Utah. Here are some of the pictures.