Everyday Life

Things have been moving so swiftly lately, I just can't seem to keep up!

October is already half way through!

The fall colors have moved from the mountain to down here in the valley, and it's beautiful!

The kids are so, so excited for Halloween!  Fortunately, I think they are dialed with their costumes...that's record time for me!  Although, I resorted in buying all the girls' costumes this year, so that helps.

 Last week we picked out our pumpkins.  It doesn't feel like a Halloween until you have pumpkins on your porch, am I right?

I have hardly taken a single photo in the past few weeks.  However, my girls seem to swipe my phone on occasion and snap a few.

  Such as this photo of Haley's cup of tea.

Speaking of tea...I swear I cannot watch an episode of Call the Midwife without a cup of tea in hand!

Anyone else do that?

And these two photos, taken by my darling Rory.

She snapped this photo of my classroom this morning.

I work every morning up until Rory is released from Kindergarten and then sometimes I have to bring her to my room to finish a couple of things before we leave for the day...and she apparently snaps photos while she waits, ha!

We have just one more day this week and then the kids have fall break!

I think we're going to head south for a few days to find some warmth and maybe, just maybe, do some swimming!

Hello October

I love summer...I hate to see it go...I really do.

But I have to admit, fall is beautiful around these parts!

It's peak season for fall colors, and we knew if we didn't get out this weekend it would be gone and we'd miss it!  So we devoted Sunday afternoon to driving through the mountains and soaking in some of this beauty.  Unfortunately, about a million other people had the same idea!  So we aborted our original plan of driving the Alpine Loop  (seriously, the road was backed up for miles!) and decided to go off the beaten path to Squaw Peak road.  This is a dirt road that follows the ridge of the mountain behind our house.  It was much quieter!

Squaw Peak Overlook.

It was stormy and pretty ominous for most of the day, but it made for some amazing views!

We drove the dirt road and got out at various places to walk around and check out the views.

It was quite chilly!!  The temperature sunk down into the 30's at one point!  We even saw a few snow flakes!

After our little walkabouts, admiring the views, we'd jump back in the car and turn the heat full blast to warm up again.  And then when we got home we all put on warm pj's and cozied up on the couch to watch some TV.  I don't think any of us are ready for the cold season yet!

Happy October!

Hiking and Feasting

 A couple of weekends ago we took the kiddos hiking to Stewart Falls.  We started at Sundance and took the lift to the trail and hiked to the falls (ate a picnic lunch) and then hiked back to the base of Sundance...so basically the entire hike is downhill!  The perfect hike for little kids!  Plus the weather was amazing...not too hot, and not too cold.  It was so beautiful!

Stud.

That evening I planned our Back to School Feast!

I know I'm a bit late, as we've been in school for a month already, but it just seemed something came up every weekend!  So finally we got to it!

As you can see, I kept things pretty darn simple!  Ha!

But the important thing is that we dedicate the evening to a fresh school start and discuss goals for the year that each person wants to achieve.  It's never too late to make goals!!

 Gumballs are a major hit in this house!  My kids (and maybe Ryan) are obsessed with them! 

 We made personal pizzas for our feast.  And for dessert (which I forgot to take a picture) was personal pan cookies with ice cream on top...I seriously was looking forward to this dessert all week, Ha!

And yes, 3 out of 4 of my kids are in their pajamas.

It's not uncommon for my kids to come home from church or an outing (hiking) or school, and throw on pj's.  We're all about comfort in this house!

Our new saying for the year:  Stay Posi or in other words, Stay Positive.  

Always a good reminder to stay on the bright side when things get rough.

And our new glass star.

Hope everyone is having a great start to the school year!

Happy Thursday!

New Job!

Some fun new things are happening around here!

As you know, this year Rory started half day Kindergarten, she's a year away from being in school full day.  So, I've been thinking about returning to teaching when that takes place.  However, I'm not yet licensed for Utah.  I received my teaching credentials from Indiana and then got my license for California to teach when we lived there, but once I moved to Utah, everything kinda took a backseat while I took care of my littles.

Well, a few weeks ago I was just poking around online seeing what I had to do to get my Utah license and I discovered that my kids' school had a job posted for a half day Kindergarten teacher!!  On a whim, I went ahead and applied for it and then went in for an interview the following week.  Well, I did not get the Kindergarten teacher position...sad face.  BUT, the principal was impressed with my upper grade experience in Long Beach (years ago) and offered me a position where I'll be working with 3rd-6th graders in a newly adopted reading intervention program at the school.  It's part time, as I will only be working while Rory in her class...the schedule is perfect!

I was hired on Friday and then that afternoon I went through a quick orientation through the district.

Monday, I went though a crash course of the program with a trainer, and then hopefully on Wednesday I'll be working with the students!

It's a little weird, having been a parent in the school to now an employee.  But it's nice too because I'm pretty familiar with everyone as I've been involved with this school for the last 8 years.

I look forward to this year and I'm excited for what may come!

Perhaps this will be a little stepping stone that I need to get back into the classroom as a teacher again!

Wish me luck!

Squaw Peak

 I'm six months out from my ACL reconstruction surgery!  However, I'm STILL not fully recovered...crazy how long these darn ligaments take to fully heal.  I still lack full motion of my knee: deep bends such as squatting down or sitting cross legged I still can't do.  And I can still see the muscular difference from my good thigh and my gimpy one...it's amazing how much muscle loss happens with this type of injury!  Anyway, riding my bike has been great for my physical therapy.  I try to ride a couple of times a week (I know, not much).  Most of my rides consist of cruising on the bike path up the canyon...basically, pretty easy stuff.  But last Saturday I bumped it up a notch and decided to tackle Squaw Peak, pretty much the hardest climb in the area.  Why I didn't start with something less daunting, one will never know. 

I figured if it was proving to be to hard on my knee I would just turn around.

But really, who was I kidding?  Once I started, I was going to see it though!

My knee handled it just fine!  The rest of me...well, not so much...I'm a little out of shape in the cardio department to say the least!

But I made it!!

 For the record, Ryan set a goal for his 40th birthday to climb Squaw 40 times this summer.

He met his goal early that morning...and then, just for kicks did it one more time with me later that day making it 41.  Pretty cool!

I discovered I was only about a minute slower than my time from last year when I did Squaw.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.  Either my recovery is top notch and I'm on fire or I really sucked last year, because honestly I felt as slow as molasses going up that darn climb this time!

But in any case, it feels really good to be making progress with my recovery.  And honestly, I find that when I challenge myself I'm surprised how much I can actually do!  The healing process is pretty neat that way!

Solar Eclipse

 Last week we were able to see the solar eclipse!

Some people that were really dedicated drove up to Idaho to see it in 100% totality...which sounded pretty cool!  However, we stayed put in our town where the eclipse was around 95% totality (don't quote me on that, I can't remember exactly!).  

We decided to check the girls out of school for lunch to picnic in the park because most schools kept the kids inside in fear that they would look directly at the sun.  I really wanted my kids to be a part of this cool event!!  And we weren't the only ones!  Classes were pretty deserted at lunch time!!

Morgan with our trusty paper plate projector!

11:34 was the peak of the eclipse.

These pictures don't show how cool the lighting actually was and the shadows were pretty trippy!

And it got so much cooler, so much if fact that I was wishing I had a sweater!

So weird!

By 12:30 it was all over.

And then it was back to school for the kids...which they weren't that trilled about.

First Day of Kindergarten

 Rory started Kindergarten today!

Hard to believe my baby is in school.

 She has been looking forward to Kindergarten for so long now, she is just thrilled to pieces!!

It's also hard to believe that I get three (THREE!) hours to myself everyday.

Although, here I am, missing her...counting down to when I can pick her up and see how her day was.

I can't wait to hear all about it!

Happy first day of school wee one!