School starts

This year, our first baby is in high school and our last baby is in preschool!

The first day of school was Monday for our 9th, 6th, 3rd and 1st graders.

Millie starts preschool after Labor Day

Don't ask me how Ben got his hair to be that awesome.

Max leaves pretty early for high school - it starts at 7:45 AM. The elementary school starts at 8:25 AM. 

I was doing back-to-school stories on Monday morning and slipped over to our house in-between live hits to see the kids down the sidewalk.

It has been a week of adjustments.  Max is learning how to juggle all his new high school classes and A and B day schedules and the homework that has already begun.  James is learning that sitting in a class at your best behavior and wearing shoes all day can be hard. He has come home quite grumpy and weepy every afternoon.  But I believe it will get better.

JB's birthday

Our grill went on the fritz the first week of August. I think we'd had it for almost 17 years. I told JB, "I haven't been able to think of a good birthday present for you, how about you pick out a new grill?"

I've never seen him log onto the computer that fast: "I'm on it."

And he got a good one! He's a good cooker.


That Saturday morning on his birthday I got him a treat and his own roll of tape to hide from the kids. And he got group-kissed.

He says I'm a good baker of carrot cake, so that's what I made him again for a Sunday dinner with everyone. I asked James what I should put on top, and he said to write "We love you" in green.

And that's the last of our summer birthdays!

Max's birthday

Maxwell is now 14, and will be starting high school in a matter of days.

The traditional birthday kiss. (My parents used to do the spanking machine, and I never liked it.) 

Max's friend Andy was over and took a picture of all of us with his cake. It looks like a basketball court. Kind of.

Not long after his birthday, his grandparents needed his help at their new property in Escalante. He says he helped Nona with all sorts of chores and projects. He also watched his nephew Carver so Uncle Jeff could do work around the cabin. But he also had time to play.

Last Sunday he got his patriarchal blessing, and it was a joy to be there with him for that spiritual experience. I hope it is a guide and comfort to him not just now has he starts high school and prepares for a mission, but for his whole life.

Max is a good oldest son and oldest cousin. He sometimes becomes another parent, with discipline and yelling voice awfully like mine. We are excited for this year and the memories he will make.

40

Any time someone turns a new decade, I'll say, "10 new yards! Move the chains for a fresh set of downs."  

Nobody said it to me when I turned 40.... 

At any rate, I kind of spent all of 39 expecting it would come, and I feel like I cheated that 9 out of a full appreciation.

I don't feel any different now, although I had one co-worker with lots of experience tell me that from now on, it's going to be harder to fight the body's changes, ya know? Like, invest in face cream, really fight to keep the weight off...  I just kind of stared at him.  oooookkkkaaayyyy

The day before was Pioneer Day and I was off work so we went to Lagoon A Beach water park.

That night I posed in a new Jazz 40 t shirt (they moved to SLC in 1979) with my children. They are going to keep me young. Other 40 year old women have missionaries out or at least all their kids well established into school. But I've still got one in diapers.

On my birthday, my in-laws invited us over for dinner and DELICIOUS cake JB made. He uses lots of butter and eggs like a good man.

My dad said when Robert D. Hales was my age, LeGrand Richards said to him, "Oh, to be 40, and have your whole life before you!"

Millie is three

The morning Millie turned 3 years old, she was tucked inside my sleeping bag in the tent at Fort Casey on Whidbey Island.

Since we were on a trip, I didn't think we'd make a big deal of it until we got home. But the brothers all remembered...and told the princess all day that it was her birthday....and when Aunt Bethany found out that afternoon back at their house, she jumped into action.

She made a cake!

Here are the girls mixing and baking and adding pink sprinkles.

And the happy birthday girl!!

It was a really good tasting cake -- gluten free and dairy free and who knew.

A few days later, Sunday, when we were home again, she opened her presents.

Notice her poor forehead. That afternoon, James tried to give her a piggy back ride....starting from on top of the kitchen chair. They both toppled to the ground. Millie cried so hard she held her breath almost passed out. I put ice on it right away but it was a huge goose egg and nasty bruise for almost two weeks.

What would we do without this stubborn, sassy, silly, sweet princess? 

She posed like this below, unprompted.

Our Washington trip messed up her sleep. She thought she should be right by me at night. And when we got back home, she started climbing out of her crib. Violently flopping out. But she couldn't get back in. One night, she fell asleep on the wood floor beside her crib.

So, we disassembled the crib, and took it out of the bedroom it's been in ever since our first baby 14 years ago, and sold it.  And we brought down the toddler bed from the garage attic!

So far....kinda good. She is getting out at naptime and playing and sometimes even leaving her room. But Sunday she crawled back in and covered herself up and slept solid from 1-3pm.

She adores her older brothers, giggles constantly, LOVES pink and ponies and princesses and my lip gloss and nail polish and has no interest in potty-training. That will have to change pronto, because pre-school starts in September.

Museum of Flight

We had the great timing of being at Seattle's Museum of Flight on Friday, July 19, 2019 -- almost 50 years to the day that man first set foot on the moon (July 20, 1969). They had a large display of all sorts of things related to that whole mission.

I felt like an expert because of watching and reading "The Astronauts' Wives Club" (wink face emoji). And remembering a lot from school. So it was really neat to see the actual capsule, and Buzz Aldrin's helmet, and things like that.

We spent 6 hours at the huge museum, breaking for lunch outside underneath this baby.

The outdoor hangar seems a lot larger than when I was there 10 years ago -- so many more planes of all sizes. We could go up into almost all of them.

Selfie outside Air Force One.

I think this is the Concorde below. Or the 787 Dreamliner?

Over at the main building, they had a big Lego display from the Seattle Lego Users Club.

Then we helped with a huge build. They had kids come in shifts and build a layer of what a few days later became a 12 foot tall replica of the  Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo 11 astronauts to the Moon. Grown men had envisioned the whole thing and broke it down into instructions for each layer. 

I looked up the final product a few days ago and found this online from the Museum:

That took a big chunk of the day. We were tired, but I really wanted to see the rooms with the WWI and WWII planes.  I got a little choked up when I walked in. I just kept thinking of all the men and women who sacrificed so much during those wars. And seeing those small planes up close made me realize that people had risked their lives, learning to fly and daring to take to the skies.

One of my favorite books by L.M. Montgomery is "Rilla of Ingleside." Anne and Gilbert's son becomes a pilot in WWI, and talks about how when he first took off flying, it felt like the ground was just dropping away from him...and he felt so small.

I took a sneak shot of JB by this plane because I liked the name.

Rush hour hit on the way home, and we crawled back north to Lake Stevens along I-5 in our matching minivans. But we had mixed the cousins up to sit by each other. Then the boys all built the Lego model Saturn V that they earned from the build at the Museum.

It was a nice end to our Seattle trip!  Early the next morning, we left at 6 AM and drove 13 HOURS back to our house in Salt Lake City.  I was proud of the kids; they were tired of sitting but could have complained a lot worse than they did. They watched 7 movies each way, and JB and I listened to podcasts and music.  While JB drove, I did all the coloring books and word games I had purchased for the kids to try. They didn't want them.

Deception Pass

Thursday morning we woke up, had oatmeal and pop tarts, broke camp, and drove up to Deception Pass State Park. 

We parked below the bridge and hiked up through the awesome woods, which almost have a rain forest feel to them.

When we got up the stairs to the entrance to the bridge, I took this picture (James was hugging my leg), and then JB and the big boys walked across.

I took this picture of them leaving as I led the littles back down the path.

JB took pictures on the bridge. Look at that view 18 stories up.

The littles and I went back down, and then the others joined us on the north beach.

Mountain goats.

It is so beautiful. I kept talking about how weird it was to be wearing jackets in July, but I could get used to that. But I could not get used to all the rain the rest of the year.

We had a great time on the island, but the boys were anxious to get back to their cousins.

Fort Casey

Fort Casey State Park on Whidbey Island is awesome.  It brought out the history geek in me, the camper in JB, and the adventurers in my children.

We camped there Wednesday night. It's in the middle of the Island, on the western edge looking out to sea.

Here's an areal view from the internet. We camped right on the beach, right by the huge ferries going by. Up the hill is the Fort, and down the beach (or across the fields) is the lighthouse.

Fort Casey was built in 1899 or 1900-ish, and in the 40 years of operation it never had to fire at an enemy. But they were ready to just in case. Now you can go all over the huge cannons and ladders and cells and everything.

Then we walked over to the lighthouse.

My koala

And we all went up. Then came back down carefully.

But our favorite thing was the beach.

Finding crab shells

Skipping rocks

When the ferry went by, the wake came up and over the boys' shoes, despite my warnings.

The campground was just my style, because of the running water and nice bathrooms. 

JB cooked us hot chocolate and s'mores and all the good stuff.

The boys' shell collection. They wanted to reconstruct a full crustacean.

Many thanks to Michael for letting us borrow his huge tent. Too bad Millie didn't want to sleep that night unless she was right by me.