Father and Sons Camping in Heber

This past weekend, Bret, Anders, Tait and Finn headed to Heber for a yearly father and sons camping trip with other fathers and sons from our local church/neighborhood.  We decided Hans needed to wait until next year.  Bret would not have been able to have fun with the big boys due to the constant attention to Hans.  The highlight of the trip was Finn's ginormous fish he caught with his new fishing pole.  He was in heaven.  Finn loves to fish and asks to go often.  The last time the boys went fishing, he caught the 1st fish (typical) and then sat back and enjoyed watching everyone else.  He was completely content to catch 1.  Well, the one he caught this weekend was a lunker.  Check out his smiles in each picture.  I think my favorite was the one of all three boys in front of Bret's truck.  It makes me smile just thinking about it!  I asked Tait if he caught any with his new fishing pole.  He said the fish only liked Finn's pole.  He had an enormous fish on 2 times but lost it both times.  I love that even though Tait and Anders didn't catch anything, they still had so much fun and loved that Finn had such great success.  What amazing boys!  I just realized that is appears to be very apropos that we named Finn what we did!

Labor Day at the Ranch

Labor day weekend was spent at the Ranch.  What a beautiful weekend it was.  Poor Hans hit his nose and mouth on our wood stairs and looked so unfamiliar to us.  Poor thing!  He also was incredibly mellow for a couple hours.  Although it was more calm and peaceful than the usual overactive, opinionated little boy, we couldn't help but miss that crazy little thing!  We also had a chance to go boating at Palisades Reservoir thanks to Jess and Keri.  What fun.  The only problem was it increased our desire to be a boating family!!!!

Enjoying Palisades Over Labor Day Weekend

It's Football Season!!!!

It's here-football season.  The sounds of Al Michaels or John Madden gives me goosebumps!  Here are my two favorite football players and our future football star.  Anders is playing on the 9th grade B team.  It will probably be Bret's last year of coaching Anders.  Anders has improved so much this year.  Even though he still hasn't started growing in comparison to most kids his age, he has found a whole new confidence that has helped him so much.  He focuses on technique to help until his size catches up.  Their team is HUGE!  There are 48 boys on their team.  It is truly a tribute to Bret and coach Goold.  Those boys LOVE them and the parents love the lessons their sons learn beyond football.  That is why there are so many boys on one team.  There was supposed to be 2 teams but there were so many boys and parents that have had such great experiences with Bret and Coach Goold in the past, they had a hard time imagining playing for anyone else.  I'm proud of Bret and the person that he is.  He wants those boys to not only learn how to play football, but to have a fun experience before things get too competitive and they also are incredible examples of good sportsmanship.  I hope this helps everyone look past the fact that this year hasn't been as successful as all the previous years.  Playing 48 boys each game is a challenge.  They do a great job.

College football has certainly been exciting this year!!  How bout them Cougars!!!!  Go BYU!

S'mores with our family and the Ellis Family

Celebrating the End of Summer at the Ranch

We spent a beautiful end of summer weekend at the ranch with family.  Ken's friend Steve Ellis (who I also attended High School with ) and his beautiful family were there as well.  It was a typical, beautiful almost fall day in Star Valley, Wyoming.  Of course the kids had a ball as they always do.

More school pictures

School Starts

The first week of school was quite a crazy one!  Anna and Elli started on monday.  Tait started wednesday and Anders on thursday.  Tait and Elli are in elementary school, Anna in middle school and after finishing middle school, Anders has one year at the Jr. High before he heads off to high school.  I have three carpools this year.  Needless to say, my calendar is of tremendous use to me!  They were all so excited.  Anders went from a very small charter school with 50 students in his grade to an overflowing Jr. High with 1600 plus students.  It has been an adjustment for him.  He actually has adjusted very well.  He misses, however, the quaintness of his old school.  I also think he appreciates more the experience he was able to have there.  Anna is in her first year of middle school and loves it.  She seems so mature for her age and was very ready for the change.  Her aunt Keri got a kick out of hearing that in between some classes was her "4 minutes to socialize".  Here we go!  Elli is in 3rd grade and has incredible confidence and loves her teacher.  Tait started kindergarten this year.  Talk about confidence!  While in line, waiting to go into his class for the first time, another parent commented it looked like his child was going to be sick.  He then looked at Tait and said, "well, Tait's ready!"  He's a powerhouse.  He acts like he is 5 going on 35.  All in all, the start of school has gone smoothly and I'm enjoying my time at home with the little boys.  Now if only I could find a minute or two to quilt!