First Day of School

All of our kids started school last week. This year, Alyssa is at Lehi High School. There was quite the excitement on the first day when one of Alyssa's teachers was recorded by a student saying some rather inappropriate things for a 10th grade chemistry class. She used some colorful language while telling her class her opinions on topics such as Trump, the COVID vaccination, how stupid all of their parents are, how the administration doesn't care what she says to her class, about how much she loves gays and lesbians, and that if any of them don't believe in global warming then they need to get out of her classroom right now. The video made national news. Alyssa was not in the classroom where the video was taken, but she had the same teacher for Marine Biology for her very first class that day at the high school. And she said that she discussed most of the same topics in her class as well. Danny sent an email to the principal that evening about his disappointment in the experience his daughter went through that day and how something needs to be done about the teacher in question. Almost seconds after he sent it, the principal sent out an email to the school community about the issue and said that it was being investigated. The teacher was let go the following day. Other than that, Alyssa is learning that high school classes are hard, especially since we made her take AP US History as well as multiple honors classes. Not to mention her tennis season is in full swing so she is at practice and matches until 5 or 6 every day. 

Camden and Tyler are at Snow Springs Elementary again. Camden is experiencing his first year of full day school and he seems to be loving it. We were sad to find out that he is not in the same class as any of his friends from last year, but we are confident that he will make new friends. His teacher is super nice and he likes her a lot.

Tyler loves school, too. He has a hard time making friends and we were sad to find out the his best friend from last year is not in his class this year. She isn't even on his bus this year. So hopefully he is able to find another good friend. He loves his teacher, as well.

I escorted them to school the first day, but I really didn't need to. Tyler was able to teach Camden all that he needed to know.

Ashley started school a day after the others. She is at American Heritage again this year. Her teacher is brand new to the school, but so far she seems to like him. She was so sad to find out that she would not be in the same class as her best friend again this year for the 3rd year in a row. But she does have a couple of electives with her, so at least there is that.

She was also excited to get a locker for the first time this year since the high school classroom space was finished this summer and the 9-12 grades were moved over to the new building. She hasn't had much need for her locker, yet, because she is able to keep all of her books and notebooks in the different classrooms where she has class.

Ashley was the only one NOT excited to start school again. She just wishes it wasn't quite so long. We also have worked out a carpool for her this year with a family that has a very quiet 9th grade boy. But at least it is half the driving that we used to do, so that is good.

Here's hoping they all have a good year.
 

End of Summer Fun

We squeezed in a lot of activities during the last couple of weeks of summer. We spent a lot of time at the pool. But I also took the kids to Thanksgiving Point a couple of times. I helped Tyler and Camden build their own maze...

They each got to ride on the same pony(that's just the way the numbers worked out). They were the biggest boys in line at the time, so they each got the biggest horse.

(This one is just because he is so cute. :))

We went on the wagon ride.

I also let them try out the ropes course at Thanksgiving Point for the first time in a long time. We haven't had very good luck with ropes courses in our family. The kids tend to get scared. But this time was a complete success. No one chickened out and they stayed on it the whole hour. 

Danny took both girls in to work for a big dinner. After dropping a car full of kids(Alyssa's friends also worked the dinner) I took the boys to a splash pad park. When they got bored of the splash pad and park, we headed over to try out a nearby mini golf course. They had fun.

They talked me into getting them snow cones afterwards and then we ended the night with happy meals from McDonald's. We had a fun night together.

We are all sad to see the end of summer. But it will be good to be back on schedules with a little more structure in our lives.

Tennis Tournaments

July was filled with tennis tournaments. Alyssa is trying to get a USTA ranking and so she talked me into signing her up for multiple tournaments. This has also helped give her experience with match play. She used to get really nervous for matches and play poorly, but I think she has improved a lot over the summer. The first tournament she did was a Utah County Tennis Tournament. They have singles tournaments every other week and double tournaments in the off weeks. She was unranked the first time so ended up at the bottom of the bracket, playing some of the best girls there. It was double elimination and she lost both matches, broke a string, and went home really upset.

Less than a week later, she had the tournament and the end of her summer tennis camp. They started with a round robin and she had the most points in her bracket. So she got to play a single match to determine first place. The girls she played against did not look like much competition, but Alyssa's serve was off and she ended up losing. That was also disappointing for her. 

A couple of days later, she had a tournament at Ivory Ridge(a tennis and swim club here in Lehi). She was still unranked for this one and when we got there, we realized that it was a tournament for all ages. Her first match was against a 10 year old girl. Alyssa played easy and still dominated.

Next she played a 12 year old boy. He gave her a little more competition, but she still dominated. The last opponent was a 9 year old boy. She beat him as well and got to take home the prize, these tennis ball looking bath bombs in a tennis ball tube. 

She felt kind of bad beating all of these little kids, but it did give her confidence a little boost.

The following week, she had a 2 day tournament up in Salt Lake. The first day, she played 2 different girls. This time, it was all high school tennis players. She beat the first girl 8-5. The second girl was such an even match for Alyssa. They were neck and neck, with super long rallies and a lot of Ad/Deuce battles, all the way up to 8-8. Then they played a tie break and Alyssa came out on top 7-5. It was fun to watch and took a long time(like and hour and a half). She ended up in the top bracket (out of 3) after the first day. She was super sad to find out that she would be playing her first match against that same girl that she barely beat in a single elimination tournament. They were still evenly matched and fun to watch, but this time Alyssa was playing on fresh legs and won the match 8-5.

And finally, she went back to try the Utah County Tennis Tournament one more time. This time she went in with a ranking(2.9 something). She made it to the final this time, but the girl she played was from Timpview (the state champions), and she lost by a lot. 

Now she is full swing into tennis season. Her head coach from last year resigned this year after 30 years of coaching to take a job at the Rafa Nadal tennis academy in Spain. His plan was to do that for a year and then hopefully come back to coach again next year. But I think that the high school administration had other plans. Alyssa now has 2 brand new female coaches, which she is really excited about. Both of them are mom's of girls on the team, but she is really excited about them. However, because they are new, they haven't been watching the girls play all summer so they were relying completely on the 3 days of tryouts to choose their team and to rank them for the line up. After tryouts, Alyssa ended up in the 6th position which puts her at the bottom of Varsity. This was a bit of a blow to her ego, because she sees herself as 3rd or 4th. And to make things worse, after the first match, against Timpview, the coach moved her down to position 9, putting her on JV. She was super upset. We tried to tell her that they are just trying new things and still figuring out the girl's abilities. Today, she has been moved back up to position #7, so she is much happier. And her doubles partner today is someone with a lot more experience playing doubles than the one she played with a couple of days ago. 

Sorry for the long and boring post(for anyone not interested in tennis). This was more for our family records than anything. And now, I think I am finally caught up with all of our summer activities. School starts next week and they will all be attending in person, full day. Not sure what my plans are to fill the days, but I am looking forward to it.
 

Stadium of Fire

We got to go to Stadium of Fire this year. They always put on such a great show. We weren't super excited about the musicians performing (Lee Greenwood and Collin Raye), but all of the patriotic stuff leading up to it was fun to watch. There were the usual Skydivers carrying flags...

And the dancers...

And Nitro Circus was really fun to watch. Camden called them the real life Mariokart.

And, of course, there was the fireworks show at the end. The boys did well staying up so late and really enjoyed the fireworks. They got really bored during the Lee Greenwood and Collin Raye performances (but I got a bit bored during them, too, so I don't blame them).

Alyssa stayed home because she wasn't excited about the noise and the crowds. She kept Lula comforted with all of the fireworks outside.

Tyler's Baptism

On July 3, Tyler was baptized. 

We invited family and some of our neighbors to come. 

The program was short because we were only allowed 30 minutes in the room. Ashley gave a short talk on Baptism and the Holy Ghost, Camden sang a song "I Will Walk With Jesus," and Tyler bore a short testimony at the end. We were grateful for those who were able to attend.

We had a luncheon afterwards at our house so that we would have more time to visit with everyone that came. It was a special day and we are so glad that Tyler made the decision to be baptized.

Tyler's 8th Birthday

On Tyler's birthday this year, we were on our Oregon Coast trip. It was a busy day of traveling up the coast to the northern sites. We went on that long and difficult hike, we stopped at Tilamook, as well as spending some time at the beach exploring tidepools. We had asked Tyler what he wanted to do to celebrate his birthday that evening and he said that he wanted to have a campfire and hot tub night. We didn't make him a cake because our resources were limited in the rental. The tiny store in town didn't even have premade cakes or cupcakes, so we got him a package of these pink frosted cookies. 

We also brought 2 of his gifts along, that were smaller and easier for travel. We decorated the house with blown up balloons, as you can see in the background of this picture. We managed to pop most of them without him noticing, but 2 of the balloons came with us when we continued on our trip(one for Tyler and one for Camden).

On the night we got home, we let Tyler open the rest of his presents. We also got him a bike, which we couldn't wrap so it is not in this picture.

The following week, we let him have a birthday party with some friends in the neighborhood. He chose a water party with a Harry Potter theme.

The cupcakes were sorting hat cupcakes. Each was filled with one of the 4 colors representing a house at Hogwarts. I took a couple of closer up pictures of them, but I can't find them now. We also made butterbeer for everyone to try. Both the cupcakes and the butterbeer were gone before the party was over.

We played a lot of water games. This one is "duck, duck, splash."

Almost everyone he invited came to the party. He had a lot of fun with his friends. This is the first time that we had a friend birthday party for him because there haven't been very many boys in the neighborhood for him to play with. Recently, we have had 3 families move in with boys around his age. Plus, he made a few new friends at school this past year. We told him, after it was over, how lucky he was to get to celebrate his birthday 3 times. 

Lehi Round Up

Every summer, the different cities in Utah take turns having a week long celebration/festival. Each does their own thing and we pick and choose the events we wish to participate in. Sometimes we will hit up the carnival rides from different cities. Our city, does not do a carnival. Instead, they do a rodeo. People around here LOVE the rodeo. We have lived here for 10+ years and we have still not been to the rodeo. It is not our thing. However, this year, Alyssa participated in the doubles tennis tournament. She found a teammate to enter it with her(as we encouraged her to do). I would have played with her if she could not find anyone from her team, but I'm glad she was able to find someone else. They did a round robin to determine skill levels in the morning and then they were divided into 3 tiers. They ended up in the bottom tier, but they did end up making it to the semifinals, which made them happy.

We also participated in the miniature float parade. The kids like it because they throw candy and have a lot of floats. We don't love the marching bands, so much, but the other stuff makes it worth it.

Ashley was all set to participate in their "Animals Got Talent" event this year with a routine she planned out with Lula. The event was cancelled, this year, so she was pretty sad. But she put her show on for us, Gawbie and Grandpa, and the Kilgore's. 

We went to the carnival in American Fork as part of their city celebration. Last time I took the kids, a few years ago, the lines were so long that we didn't have enough time to ride very many rides. I had to buy the tickets ahead of time to get the best deal and after we got there, I was wishing I had bought twice as many tickets. There were no lines and the kids had burned through my ticket supply in less than an hour. And they still wanted to ride more. And, of course, they just wanted to ride all of the big, expensive rides.

We also participated in their splash party.

We are enjoying summer mostly from home, since we went on our big trip right at the beginning of summer.

Lagoon

We did our annual(with exception of last summer) camping trip to Lagoon in June. We sold our trailer, so we borrowed one from Gawbie and Grandpa. We left Alyssa behind this time because she didn't want to miss tennis, and because she doesn't really like going on roller coasters. She stayed with Gawbie and Grandpa the first night and then alone at the house the second night. We had neighbors, on call, in case she had any problems arise. The rest of us had fun at Lagoon. 

There were only a couple of rides that Camden couldn't ride, so it was nice to be able to mostly stick together this year. The park changed their hours from what we were used to and we didn't think to check ahead of time what they would be. As a result, we were out of the park and back in our trailer before 9pm the first night. And then the next morning, as we were lazily getting ready to go around 10:15 am, we realized that we could hear people screaming on the roller coasters nearest to the campground. The park opened at 10 am instead of 11am. We rushed to get in the park asap after that. and that night, we figured out a way to sneak into the Wicked line over and over again, so we didn't leave the park until 9:20 the second night. We had a lot of fun and missed having Alyssa with us, but she survived fine on her own at home. The kids have asked multiple times this summer to go to Lagoon again. 
 

Swimming Lessons

The boys did 2 weeks of swimming lessons at the beginning of summer. Tyler is able to stay on top of the water, but Camden was still struggling a bit with it. They somehow ended up working on the same level, which covered the freestyle stroke. They have been getting more confident in the water and are pretty good at staying on top, except when there are waves in the water.

Camden even got brave enough to go off of the cliff jump this summer. 

Tyler got brave enough to try it for the first time this summer, as well.

I've been trying to give them a lot of water time this summer to improve their skills.

One morning while Ashley was out on a walk with Lula, she caught a snake. She tricked Alyssa into thinking that the snake just slithered into her backpack and that she had no idea it was there, but I knew better. It sounds exactly like something Ashley would do - catch a snake and bring it home for Lula to play with...

They had fun with it in the backyard for a couple of hours. But they were starting to get attached to it, so I encouraged them to let it go back into the wild so that it could live...somewhere besides in our backyard. Ashley and the boys shed some tears, but finally let it go. They had named the snake Joey. Danny hates snakes and I knew that it needed to be long gone before he got home from work. 

Then, last week, Lula actually caught a bird in our backyard. She chases them all of the time, but they usually fly away before she gets to them. But this magpie did not get away fast enough. We think she may have injured it a bit because it stuck around our yard for a few days. The kids named it Bluey and it was not scared of Ashley, at all. It even hopped onto her lap one time.