Is it just me?

I remember growing up and the school years and summers both seemed so long. I realize time seems to go faster when you got older but I think some where along the way I thought for some reason it would slow down again once the kids got into school. I guess because that was how I remembered it. And yet, here we are... back in school. And this is the third week! Wow. How did it all go by so fast???

First day of school pictures (FYI- Luke starts his preschool program in two weeks):

Can you tell how EXCITED she was? To say the least.

July

Hello world! We have been away for a while- like most of the summer! But we are home now and getting back into the routine of life and school and schedules again. I have tried to figure out how to break this up but maybe I will just give you the basic run down of the month of July.

We had two family reunions- one in Logan, UT and the other in Cooke City, MT and the thought of driving up and back for both with the kids seemed a little ridiculous. So while Jason did come home and work in between the two, the kids and I stayed in UT and played! And of what fun we had swimming, hikes, late night walks, playing with cousins, going to parks, grilling and dutch oven dinners, parades and new toys, girl lunches and boy's day out, and lots of laughing and late nights.

Fishing Grandma Payne style from the loft (these "fish" were full of omega 3 fructose).

Fishing for real at a local fishing pond in Logan, UT. They stock the pond with fish but I think they must have forgot to restock that day.

Dutch oven cookout at Selman's ranch. Oh yum!!!

After our Payne family reunion in Logan, we headed south to Spanish Fork. We stopped at a train museum and the kids (boys especially) were in heaven!

We had to drop off Jason at the airport after this. :( We got to stop and see our cousins one more time before we headed back to Spanish Fork, our home base for the next two weeks.

And what did we do at Grandpa and Grandma Jackson? Well these shots should give you an idea of what we did at least once every day:

We also got to go to the park, play with the dogs, spend the night at cousin Peter and Vic and Molly's house, and see Peggy, go to a 24th of July carnival and parade and the children's parade in SLC to see our Miles cousins marching! After the SLC parade they had a carnival for the kids with a bunch of free things to do and see including bounce houses, slides and a miniature Union Pacific train.

Luke was not ready to leave the caboose. That was so fun!

Do you know what else we got to do?! I know you are thinking to yourself "YES! Tell me more"! Allie, Camille and I got to see Molly's show "The Wedding Singer".

Jason flew back into town on the 24th, we picked him and drove to ID, spent the night with our friends/cousins the Klinglers and then went to Yellowstone National Park. It was so fun and so beautiful (oh the wildflowers) but oh so crowded. I don't think we will ever be going back in the month of July. The Klinglers made us these great t-shirts to remember the trip by and as it turned out, it also made it so much easier to keep track of everyone. Thanks Klinglers!!! And why don't we have any photos of your family?

Buffalo traffic jam.Scary bear cubs in a cave!

It took us 3 days to get a camping spot inside the park. We made it to a lot of great spots- Old Faithful of course, the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone as seen above, boiling river (one of our favorite spots) where we got in to bathe- I mean wade- and Mammoth hot springs to name a few. After 5 days of camping and sightseeing it was time for our Montana Jackson reunion.
Turns out that is the end of the photos from MT (I know what you are thinking... Thank Goodness!) but we do have some videos that I hope we can get to post. We will save that for another day.

It is good to be home but we loved every minute of trip!

Rico Suave

My family just sent out some hilarious "Rico Suave" photos of me as a kid. I assured them them the dork inside is still alive and well.

Joy is so poised and beautiful, somehow she fell for this hunk of a guy!


And... well... it seems like Luke is following in his father's footsteps...


(This is the daughter of a family friend of ours in Logan that gave our kids horse rides).

We have misplaced our camera charger but we'll find it or buy one and be back in the blogging business soon!

Women Drivers

Grandpa Jackson surprised us several weeks ago when he called to see if it would be ok if he flew in that very night. We were thrilled of course and that was only the beginning of the fun! It was the last week of school for Allie, her first week of piano lessons, and time to get to work on our backyard but renting some serious equipment. Just in case you were wondering... bobcats are really fun to drive. Except for when they tip over. And stump grinders are very heavy but they get the job done. Jason had to work, a class and go to LA during the week so he ended up missing out on a lot of the fun.

Ok, here are a few before shots of the backyard. Well, this is after it was mostly destroyed by last years remodeling adventures but before Grandpa's visit:
We are taking down the apple tree in these shots.
The shot below is the wall that used to separate the backyard from the front and where the garden plot was:
This is of course a bobcat... on it's side.

And now our wonderful neighbors coming to the rescue... again.
It's all fun and games once everything is righted again.

The not very fun stump grinder working on the apple tree stump. Ugh that thing was a beast.

A casualty of the bobcat. No not the roll over accident, the yanking the old sprinkler pipe out of the ground and having a piece fly off and hit you in the face which made you lip swell up and turn black and blue and blood everywhere and you are afraid you broke some of your teeth accident. And sorry about the horrible close up- it doesn't even look that bad in this shot.
Our good friend Sam taking down the tree out front which means you longer have to worry about sap dropping onto your car.
And now for the tractor. Who knew my backyard was big enough to plow a field in?!
Each of the kids got the chance to drive the tractor all by themselves (they were NOT interested in riding in the bobcat- too scary). The tractor was really really exciting on the other hand.

Oh what an exciting future awaits our backyard!