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I am a horrible blogger!  I don't even know if anyone even reads it.  I have an entire summer worth of activities (and now fall) that I need to blog about.  I hope to get caught up!

Springtime Jam

The summertime fruit was ripe early this year, so before school was even out, strawberries were ready.

We get our strawberries from Boxx Berry Farm and they are delicious!!  I get the processed berries, they are cleaned, stems taken off and then sliced.  It isn't much more than picking and saves my back and me listening to my older kids whine "Are we done yet?"

E and I made the jam this year!

She is quite the helper.  She enjoyed smashing the berries and being in the kitchen with mom.

I think we ended up with 52 jars of homemade strawberry freezer jam this year.  I wish that I could say that would last us for more than a year, but my kids love homemade strawberry freezer jam, so we will be lucky if it lasts us until next strawberry season.  YUM!!

Camping at BP

We had the opportunity to go with some friend out to the BP Refinery in Ferndale at the end of July to go camping.  There were 4 families that went and we had a blast!!  It's too bad that we didn't get a better group picture of all of us.

Where we camped was right by the baseball field and across the the playground.  All of the kids had so much fun. 

They rode bikes:

Played Badminton

Played Frisbee and Kickball

And the adults were able to sit around and visit

We stayed up really late playing games around the campfire and didn't get a lot of sleep, but that's what makes it fun.

We hope to do it again.  Thank you to our friends that work out there and make it possible for us to camp there.

Trip to Disneyland

This May Kendall and I had the opportunity to go to Disneyland with the Ferndale High School Marching Band.  They had the opportunity to march down Main St. in Disneyland.  It was a fun experience and I'm glad that we had chance to go.

The first place that we went was to the Grammy Museum.  Then we went to Santa Monica and went to the Santa Monica Pier.  I have never been there before and it was so nice and warm!  The beach was gorgeous with all the white sand.

We went on to the pier and had some lunch and walked to the end of the pier.  There were a lot of interesting people there!

After we left Santa Monica we were stuck in traffic for 2 1/2 hours!  I am so glad that we don't live in California.  We got to the hotel and went to dinner.  After dinner we walked over to Downtown Disney to explore and stretch our legs from being in the bus so long.

We went into the Lego Store.  T would have loved it!!  All of the statues outside of the store and inside of the store are completely made out of Legos.  It was amazing!!

We walked around Downtown Disney for a while, then went back to our rooms and crashed!!

The next day, we got up and went over to Disneyland.  As soon as we walked into the gates, the Disneyland Band was there performing and Mary Popins happened to be with them.

This was our first ride (and my favorite):

I even went on Splash Mountain and for being afraid of heights I thought I did pretty good.  There were actually alot of rides I went on that I had never been on before, maybe it was because of the group of people that were with us.  They were the best!

 We had so much fun together!  This is some of them:

I loved the fireworks at night over Sleeping Beauty's Castle.  It was magical!

We also went over to California Adventure and went on rides over there.  I DID NOT do the California Screamin' roller coaster or the Ferris Wheel.  But I did go on the new Cars ride.  I even went twice!  That is big for me.

The main reason we came to Disneyland.  All the kids in the marching band had a workshop to go to the first day we were there.  We weren't allowed to go backstage with them, but we heard from the kids that it was a lot of fun. During the winter concert we were able to see/listen to what they did.   They got to act like they were in a recording studio and were handed some disney music they had never seen before.  They practiced it for about 5 min and then they recorded it.  The people of disney then took the music the band played and put it into the movie that goes along with it; like they played the music from Lion King when Simba goes up pride rock to take his place as king, it totally sounded like the music from the movie and not the band playing.  It was awesome.

The next day was Sunday and that was the day they marched down Main Street, Disneyland.  It was so excited to see C marching playing his Alto Sax!!  I didn't get a good picture of him, but I did get a few pictures of the band.

My son even let me take a picture of him before we left :)

We all had a lot of fun.  I am excited to go on T's band trip in four years.  It may be back to Disneyland, it may be somewhere else, but wherever it is, it will be fun!

Trip to SLC

We made our annual trip to Utah a few weeks ago. What a beautiful place Temple Square is at Christmas time. It was short time, but we were able to see everything we wanted to. We even had snow!

We went to This is The Place monument and were able to walk through the little town that they have built up there. Emma even got in some snowballs!





On Sunday we were able to go to the Spoken Word. Kendall, my dad and the boys were able to be in the conference center with the choir while the taping was happening for the actual broadcast, while Emma and I were in the conference center theatre.



After the broadcast we went over to Temple Square and took some pictures.





I can't think of a better place to be to start the Christmas season than with my family on Temple Square at Christmas time. What a wonderful spirit you feel on Temple Square.




Here is part of the talk written by Lloyd D Newell at the Spoken Word:

" At this festive time of year, we go to great lenths to assure that we have a happy holiday. Family traditions take on special meaning as we prepare favorit foods, light candles, hang ornaments on the Christmas tree, and sing the carols of the season. We do all this because we want to have a "good" Christmas. But how do we really judge theq uality of our celebration? We might consider the cost and number of gifts we give or recive. We could compare our elaborate decorations with those of our neighbors. Is our Nativity scene larger than the one down the street? Does our Chirstmas tree have more lights? Or maybe we could judge the quality of our Chirstmas by things that are harder to measure but more important. Do our friends and family feel remembered, included, and cared about? Are gifts lovingly given withou exceeding the spending limits on credit cards? Is the focus only on fun or on the real meaning of the season? Successful holidays are determined not by the size and expense of the production but by the little things that may even go unnoticed - the light in the eyes of a child as he wraps a homemade present, the smile and laughter of one who is often lonely, the joy of lovingly seving someone in need. When the material gifts are worn out and forgotten the memories of love and the feelings of joy will still be cherished."

First day of Kindergarten

Last week Thursday E and I went to preschool orientation. She was able to explore the room and meet some of her classmates. She met her teacher, colored her name tag and listened to a story called "The Kissing Hand". The story is about a raccoon headed to school for the first time and his mom gives him a kiss in his hand, so if he ever feels lonely or sad remember that his mommy loves him. E gave me a kissing hand that night before bed.




On Friday, it was the first official day of kindergarten. She was soo excited. We made a cold lunch and got all ready to go to school. We got to school on time and went to her classroom. She emptied her backpack, found her seat, looked up at me and said "Bye Mom". She was totally ready to go to school. We got her picture taken with her new teacher and she is excited to go to school every day!

As summer was at a start, I was ready for her to go to school full time. As summer was coming to a close I was ready for her to start school. Then as the time came to drop her off, I wasn't quite sure that I was ready for her to start school. I now realize that both of us were ready for her to go to school, it's just hard letting your baby go. There will be many times in both of our lives when neither one of us will want to let go, but will realize that it is best in the long run. My hope is that this is the beginning of her enjoying many years of school.

Fishing and first day of school (Cody)

Fishing

This summer I did the Fishing Merit Badge at scout camp. I had to catch two species, but the lake only had one species. So I talked to my uncle to see if he could take me fishing and he agreed. So about a week later we went fishing out of the Blaine Harbor. I was very surprised when I caught a few sharks and a half eaten fish by a shark. It was an amazing experience and was very, very fun.

First day of school

The first day of school was really cool but all we did was get to know the teachers. I like all my teachers but my favorite teachers are my band teacher, language arts teacher, and my social studies teacher.