First Day of School 2013

School is underway, and the kids are finishing their first week!

Ains is in 4th grade this year and is thus far really enjoying her new teacher, Mrs. Walker.  I get to hear lots and lots and lots about her every day. 

Owen is in second grade and has 2 teachers.  Mrs. Mouser and Mrs. Rowe.  The only things I know about Owen's teachers come from other moms.  According to Owen everything is "fine". 

Emmie didn't technically start school yet.  Her preschool starts on Tuesday.  But she did get to meet her teacher on the kids first day of school!  I was just grateful for her to have something to do that day.  I was worried Emmie would be bored, but thus far I think she has enjoyed having the house be her domain again...plus she has had several playdates in there as well to keep her busy.  These are a couple of the girls Emmie will be spending a good deal of time with this year....

A Little Break for the Moms and Dads

I'll start this post by telling you about and incident that occurred about 6 1/2 years ago.  John was walking in the foyer at church with baby Owen.  While he was there he happened to started talking to a guy sitting our in the foyer as well.  We'll call him Jake McCarney, which happens to be his actual name.  That day Jake invited our family over to his house that evening for scones.  Little did he know he was starting a long lasting tradition.  John told me about this on our way home from church.  I freaked out...mostly because I was nervous.  I don't like meeting new people.  I remember being nervous about what to bring.  This is comical to me know that I know Jake's wife Katie...there should have been no pressure.  Over the years we got together for many Sunday dinner's and bbq's and outings with the McCarneys and the Oakes families.  Always rotating houses, always fun.  We have added 3 children to the group since our initial get together years ago. 

This spring everyone was at our house and we started talking about how we needed to get together with the adults.  An adult date night didn't occur to us.  We went bigger than that.  We went straight to, we need to go on a vacation together!  So Jake used a hook-up in McCall and we rented a cabin and planned our little weekend getaway.  It was as wonderful as I thought it would be.  There was never a dull moment, never a plan, never a child to worry about, and not very much sleep.  I think we might need to make this an annual tradition!

Please enjoy our engagement photos taken on a random river we discovered while bike riding.  It was begging to be climbed and photographed.

 

 

 

We went to some cliffs on the edge of the lake and watched the cliff jumpers. Cliff jumpers are braver than I ever intend to be. 

We celebrated Katie's birthday.

We spent hours on the beach.  And even more hours bike riding.  But it's hard to take pictures while riding a bike, so you'll just have to imagine that in your heads. 

Owen's 7th Birthday!

Owen turned 7 on Thursday.  And I'm pretty sure he had his best birthday yet!  Owen shares a birthday with another little boy in our ward.  The boys were born within 30 minutes of each other in the same hospital.  So we combined our efforts for their party this year.  We had a party at a park and then rented out the Meridian pool for an hour that evening.  The party was a hit and everyone was all smiles all night.  Especially Owen. 

After playing in the park, eating cupcakes. playing games, and opening gifts, it was finally time to swim. The kids were excited to have the pool to themselves.  And they took full advantage of every minute!

These are Dan's legs...he was the only one brave enough to dive off the high dive that night.  Impressive!

I can't believe Owen is seven already.   Although in a lot of ways he already seems much older.  He adds a lot of "boy" to our house, which at times we desperately need.  He's full of energy and rarely stops.  From the moment he wakes up (early) in the morning, to the moment he goes to bed (late) at night he is wanting to play with friends and could play hard all day and never tire. The kid loves his electronics like few others I've seen.  His favorite game right now is Skylanders, and he was sure to tell everyone that he wanted Skylander figurines for his birthday.  He got 13 for his birthday...he was in heaven!  We are happy to have him in our family. I'm loving watching him grow up, even if he does cause me to lose some sleep at night :)

Welch Family Weekend *Part 2

We woke up Saturday morning and headed down to the Greenbelt for a bike ride.  We surprised Owen with an early birthday present.  We opened up the car for him to get his bike out and his new bike was sitting there.  He has completely outgrown his old bike and wanted a bike with gears and a kick stand more than anything for his birthday.  We found this one on craigslist and it fit the bill.   I think he was really excited.   

While we look like we were all having fun (and we were...mostly) please rest assured that there was much whining and threatening going on.  On this day John and I decided that we would consider selling our oldest child. Possibly all three for the right price :)

After the bike ride, even though we were near exhaustion, Kortney convinced us to go up to the lake with them for the evening.  I was honestly a little reluctant, due to my severe tiredness, but I have issues turning down fun things.  John stayed home with Emmie because the thought of Emmie on a boat sounded a little less than fun, and since John is a self-proclaimed party pooper he was more than happy to stay home with her. 

In hindsight I wish I would have made them come.  The water was so low that there was a perfect little beach that Emmie would have loved to play on and it ended up being my favorite part of the weekend.  Because of the low water we would pull the boat right up to the beach area and we could start the kids on their tubes or knee boards right there.  And while they weren't on the boat they were perfectly happy playing in the sand and mud.

Bria and Ains were quite the little knee boarders.  Bria was a seasoned pro and I was surprised that Ains hopped on and rode forever!  She did great!  Owen tried but had less success, but He was just as happy with the tube ride.

I haven't successfully wake boarded since college.  In fact the last time I tried, about 5 years ago, I didn't even get up.  This time I got up.  But never quite got my footing.  I had about 5 pretty hard crashes and probably stayed up the longest for about 10-15 seconds.  My neck and back were SORE for the next 2 day!  I'd love to take some time to relearn.  It's just hard when there's 15 people all waiting for their turn. 

You'll notice that Kort has maintained her wakeboarding skill.

And although this picture is blurry, you'll notice that Dan kicks our trash in the wakeboarding department.  One day maybe I'll be that cool.  But probably not.

And that concluded Welch Family Weekend 2013!  Successful weekend I'd say!

Welch Family Weekend *part 1

It has become a tradition in my family that one weekend a summer we get together and pack it full of family fun.  This summer we all got together last weekend for our weekend o' fun! 

 

We always start on Friday afternoon with swimming, a BBQ, and a movie in the back yard.  We spent hours in the pool. Most of those hours were spent playing the game I like to call "launch the children." In fact I'd say the bulk of the time in the pool for the last few summers has been spent playing this game.  Owen is a great little launchee and flies across the pool at various heights and lengths while preforming various tricks.   

 Emmie spends her time on the stairs playing games like "hair."  She waits until she finds an unsuspecting victim and then does their hair for a very long time.  She loves it....everyone else....not so much.

 Then we eat and set up the big screen and eat some more while we watch a movie.  Usually it's an old classic.  This year it was Brave. I think the kids liked it better this year. Owen asked if we had to watch a black an white movie or if it was in color.  He was not interested in a black and white movie.

The kids sleep over on the pool chairs and the adults go home and we all go to bed tired and then wake up the next morning for another full day of fun!

Owen's First Tooth!

Owen FINALLY lost his first tooth!  He has been desperate to loose one all year. According to him he was the only kid in the entire first grade that didn't lose a tooth last year.  This might be true, he definitely was the last one among all the kids I knew.  Look how happy his is....bloody smile and all!

Another Trip to Salt Lake

We were in Utah twice this summer. We made the trip again so that we could see John's sister Melanie and her family.  We Rarely get to see her family (In fact I don't think I had seen her husband Burke since Owen was a baby), so it was well worth the drive!

While we were there John had a book signing at Benchmark Books for his new book on the Book of Mormon that came out.  I have never been able to go to anything that he spoke at but John's mom volunteered to watch the kids so I got to go!  I really enjoyed his presentation, it was actually very interesting.  And while I'm hoping he takes a break from writing for a while, I know he already has ideas brewing around in his head :) 

One of our days there we drove down to Provo to walk around BYU.  I always like being on campus and remembering my times there. 

We were even pleasantly surprised while we were walking around the BYU bookstore to see his book sitting there on the shelf...Cool eh?!

Another day there Melanie planned a beach party to go along with the new Disney movie that was coming out on the Disney channel. I honestly can't remember the name....Teen Beach Movie maybe?  The party was more memorable for me than the movie!  Mel plans a mean party.  The kids got to make sand art, leis, play water balloon volleyball, bowl with coconuts, and do battle while balancing coconuts on a spoon.  The kids had a blast!

And then on our last day there we went downtown and walked around temple square and the gateway. 

It was a fun trip but waaay to short.  We need all of our cousins to live closer so we can see them more often!