First Day of School :(

Where has the summer gone?? We moved, went to Seven Peaks a couple of times, Collin went on a few scout trips and now school is here!

This little girl has been counting down the days ever since she found out she got in.

Collin was NOT excited about school starting. He takes after me and was nervous and worried:

Yesterday though he had 7th Grade (I can NOT believe I have a 7th grader!!) orientation and couldn't get the combination right (what my nightmares are made of) and the sweet girl a couple lockers down helped him. After he got it he said, "I don't know what I would have done without her!" (after I showed him 35 times how to do it the day before.).

Collin was going to Freedom Academy before we moved. Grace had gotten into Kindergarten and couldn't wait to start. Where as the time gone? After 3 years of home schooling it is a big adjustment for me. I shed a few tears after dropping them off and have missed them and worried about them all day.

The best part of today was right before I dropped them off. . . . Collin said, "Well, at least my pits smell good!" Thanks AXE for Collins' good smelling pits. One less thing for him to worry about.

The Move. . . . duh duh duh

I know it's only been a month since we moved but it seems more like 6. How does that happen?We had friends in town over the 4th of July and they left on the 5th. The 6th we packed up, the movers came on the 7th and we left on the 8th. Whew! I found this on the driveway after the washing machine got moved and we found the long lost sidewalk chalk: (the movers tried to step around it as much as possible. :)

I call this picture "How many men does it take to get a Mini in a moving van?":

We had a "great" idea of taking the kids to Target before we hit the road and giving them some money to buy a toy for the long journey. I guess we should have given more guidelines because Collin got an RC car (for the 3 day car trip) and Grace got a dog as big as she is (for the 3 day road trip in an already stuffed car).

We had to stop at the Collin Street Bakery in Dallas - of course!

We made it to Amarillo the first night so we could go to The Big Texan. Home of the "free" 72 oz (that's 4.5 pounds!) steak. You might have seen it on Man vs. Food and some other shows. If you can eat the 72oz steak, a baked potato, roll, salad and shrimp cocktail in an hour, it's free. A teen age kid tried it while we were there and Discovery was there interviewing and filming it.

They have a huge cow (that Jon cut out in the pic above) and a huge boot out in front:

Because:

We saw this scenery for miles and miles and miles . . .

We planned activities every day to break the drive up. We stopped at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico and even though we got rained on, it was so cool. Jon had been there before and has always wanted to go back.

This was in Southern Utah and I'm not sure what it's called, but we called it Water Bottle Rock because Grace had just gotten a short round water bottle that was this same shape.

We stopped at Moab on the 3rd day - one of my Favorite places!

We got rained on again, but we had a great time.

It was a great, leisurely road trip and we had a great time. We are glad to be back in the mountains and by family again. We have been having so much fun with cousins and friends that I am busier now than ever! It's good to be home . . . well in Utah. We don't have our own home yet, but we're working on it.