Education Week in a Nutshell

I went to Education Week with my mom this past week. I have been 8 or 9 times. I am not exactly sure. I love it, and I always come home renewed and ready to take on the new school year. This week was my favorite of all the Education Weeks I have attended. My husband is so awesome to take a week off work to be with our kids so I can go. I always stay in the dorms on campus, and it is a mini-vacation for me.

We went to Brick Oven twice, and Cafe Rio once, along with grabbing a sandwich here and there for lunch on campus. We do not believe in taking time off from class to stop and eat, so we are always eating on the run until we stop going to classes at 5:30 p.m. We also get to relax and play in the eveings. We spent our evenings going to Iron Man, The Hulk, and a musical production of Pride and Prejudice at BYU. One night we ate leftovers in the dorm and watched the Olympics on the TV in the lobby.

This year was my favorite because of the concrete ideas in my head and in my notes that I want to work on. I left very inspired.

Things I am Going to Concentrate on Now because of what I learned at Education Week... The Short List

1. I am going to create a list of 100 life goals. I had two different teachers talk about this. I know it may take a while to think of 100 different goals important enough to label as "life goals" but I am going to work at getting that list put together and keep it somewhere where I can be motivated by it.

2. My uncle, Wally Goddard, spoke at Education Week this year and he was probably the speaker that had the most profound effect upon me. He made the atonement come more alive and real for me. He also spoke of keeping a "Samuel" Journal where we record our spiritual feelings and experiences to show the Lord our gratitude of his hand in our lives. In 1 Samuel 3:19 it talks of Samuel not letting any of the Lord's words fall to the ground. I have tried to do this in the past, but not in a separate journal. Here is a picture of my new Samuel journal below.

3. Randal Wright actually made me feel fine about having not kept a journal all my life even though he said he was trying to make us feel guilty. He said that all experiences can be summarized into 3 words to help us recall the experience. He also mentioned that we could go back and record lessons that happened a long time ago. So I am going to record experiences into 3 word summaries to help me to recall them, and then I am going to write out the full experience when I can get to it.

4. Elder Robert D. Hales spoke on the Education Week theme "The Journey of Lifelong Learning." He said "The most important thing we gain from lifelong learning is not the degrees, recognitions, or jobs, but who it makes us become." "Nothing, absolutely nothing, could help a woman develop her talents more than being a mother." I just need to be more actively involved in learning and recognize the lessons I learn with my children and not just let life happen to me.

5. I didn't really attend a class on scripture study, but Wally taught the subjects for his classes using the scriptures. I felt inspired to find a scripture study program for myself and for my family that would make us yearn for our study time. I bought a book to help us in our family study. Dave looked at it one time, and said we need to buy the same books for all the other books of scripture (I just got the Book of Mormon one). After our first scripture study as a family, I have witnessed Lindsay trying to mark in her scriptures, and Bryce asking about important scriptures he can mark.

I can't wait to go again next year!

Back to School

I can't believe my kids are back in school already! I like getting back to a schedule, but I miss having the kids around a little more. Brayden started on August 15, with all the 7th graders. He seems to enjoy Jr. High.
Jaron is now in 8th grade. He has ended up having 2nd lunch both A and B days, so he is unable to hang out with Brayden and show him the ropes, but Brayden doesn't seem concerned by it.
Natalie and Bryce are in 1st and 3rd grade respectively. They are both very excited to get back to school and all their friends.
Bryce is the man in charge now. He is the oldest sibling at Harvest Elementary, so he is in charge of making sure he stays with Natalie and they both get to school and home together. Natalie is very excited to be able to ride her bike to school now. We were in a carpool when she was in kindergarten, so she wasn't able to ride a bike.
The kids didn't really want me to tag along to school, so I sent Brayden biking with them since he had no school that day. He made sure Natalie made it to class.
Everyone seems happy with their teachers, and are excited to be starting a new school year.

Johnson Family Reunion

The Johnson Family Reunion was the usual... catching up on everyone, eating food, and mixing in a few games at the end. We were up at Rock Canyon Park above the Provo temple. The kids ran a mile, but it wasn't much of a race... just running for fun.
The small group before they started running.
Go Bryce and Elise!
Dave was in charge of the horseshoe tournament. Jaron partnered with Jon and had fun competing.
Lindsay loved holding the snake that one of the cousins caught. She did not want to put it back in the box.

Natalie's Lost Tooth

Natalie had been working very hard wiggling her little tooth, trying to get it out. We had a barbeque with a few of our neighbors. Natalie was eating a chip, and chewed on something hard. She took out her tooth, looked at it and threw it in the grass, not sure what it was. It dawned on her in the next few seconds, that she just threw her tooth.We looked for that first lost tooth for quite a while with the help of friends, but didn't find it. Natalie seemed fine about it once we told her she could write a note to the tooth fairy and she would still come and leave money. Natalie wrote her own note, explaining the situation. This is Natalie right before she went to bed. She couldn't stop laughing and smiling. She loved touching where her tooth used to be with her tongue. She thought this was definitely cool.

Deer Creek with Papa

Deer Creek was a blast! We all had fun on the waverunners and being pulled in the tubes. Brayden and I especially enjoyed being pulled in the tube but I was so sore and tired for the next couple of days. Hanging out with all the family is always a lot of fun!

Dad's Visit

My dad, "Papa" to our kids, made a trip up to visit us last week all by himself, which meant we got to spend a lot of time with him. He lives in California, and has a 2nd home in Midway, so he comes up every few months; however, we don't see a lot of him unless he travels alone. When Cathy comes along, they always have a busy schedule and have a lot of things planned to do. I love it when he comes and we just get to hang out with him. All the grandkids love to crawl all over him. I have so much fun watching him interact with my kids because it reminds me of how he was with us growing up. He is such a tease! He came up Wednesday night, and the fun started at our house. We hung out and visited and watched "Nim's Island" on the side of our house. On Thursay, we went to a park out in Highland. Later that evening we went to Classic Skating. On Friday, we went to 7 Peaks. Saturday, we spent the day at Deer Creek. Here is my dad with Lindsay at 7 Peaks.
Here are a bunch of the cousins in the lazy river. When we woke up this morning, it was raining and overcast, and the forecast called for scattered thunderstorms all day. We made the decision to go to 7 Peaks anyway, and we are so glad we did! Even though it was a Friday, it was deserted! It was overcast for just a short time, and then it was beautiful the rest of the day.
Natalie put on her own sun screen and got a little too much!
Here is Tori and Natalie with Papa.
Lindsay couldn't get enough of Andrew (Kelli's youngest). She loved holding him and feeding him and making him smile.

I wish I had more pictures of the activities we did with my dad before 7 Peaks. My dad's visit happened to fall on the week that Jaron and Brayden were at Scout Camp, and Dave took the camera with him on Thurdsay. I'll post about our Deer Creek excursion soon.

Camp Steiner

Jaron and Brayden went to scout camp last week. They went to Camp Steiner up in the Uintah Mountains. They had a great time. Dave went up to spend the day with them one day, so we have a handful of pictures that he took. I know why moms aren't asked to go and chapperone... the boys would miss out on a ton of "boy" fun, things that would give most moms heart attacks. Dave said there was never a shortage of firewood for the camp because there were always boys over chopping wood with the axe. Here is Brayden swinging away.
Here are a few of the boys. Jaron had a lot of fun earning his archery merit badge. He did awesome scoring 261 points. Most boys have a hard time scoring 150, the required amount for the merit badge. He was very happy with his performance.
Brother Kohler challenged the boys that if any of them threw a rock across the lake without it touching the water, they could have anything they wanted from the trading post. Jaron threw a lot of rocks, but always fell short by a foot or two. This is Jaron skipping rocks on the lake. Here is another thing that most moms wouldn't allow. The boys loved to climb up to the top of the cabins, and slide down the roof. Jerry Gocken fell off and hit his head on a rock, requiring 4 staples. Dave said Brayden also loved his woodcarving class, and spent a lot of time carving. He had several cuts on his hand from the pocket knife, luckily nothing serious.

Jaron and Brayden both earned a lot of merit badges. Brayden earned 6 and Jaron earned 4. Jaron didn't need many to reach the amount he needs for his Eagle Scout Award. He has 3 partial required merit badges he needs to finish along with his project.I am glad our boys had fun and got to do a ton of fun activities, but I admit I was a bit nervous while they were away.

Family Pictures

We went and had my sister-in-law, Steph, take our pictures for this year. She always does the kids school pics now. She does such a great job! I love that she takes a bunch of pictures, and makes all of them black and white, sepia, and color, and puts them on a cd for us to print our own pictures. She is also good at Photoshop, which we definitely need. Our last family picture had several people switched from other shots. With 7 people, it is hard to get a picture with everyone looking great in one pose! For anyone interested, Steph's webpage is photographybysteph.com. We haven't had a family picture in two years, so it was definitely time. Here are some pictures of Steph taking the kids' pictures.

I love how Jaron totally doesn't fit on her platform anymore! It was funny to watch his legs hang off.
We had the majority of our family pics taken outside.

I snapped this picture of Dave and Natalie. It turned out pretty great.
Lindsay loved playing on the fence. She fell several times but usually came up afterwards with a smile. This is just a few seconds before she takes a spill into the grass.

We are supposed to get our cd's from Steph today. I can't wait to see how everything turned out!

Loving Bugs

The Wakleys and Gockens spent Thursday evening playing with praying mantises and grasshoppers. They kids had a bucket full of them, and enjoyed showing them off to us. I nearly jumped out of my seat as they took the lid off the bucket, and I almost got a grasshopper in my face. Here is Lindsay with a praying mantis.
Lindsay doesn't seem to mind bugs at all. I know she used to love bugs when she was much younger, but I thought she might have grown out of it. Not so.
Dave couldn't help joining in the fun by using his new iphone to look up praying mantis online to find out some interesting facts. He found out it isn't so great to be a male praying mantis. Dave doesn't particularly like candid shots of himself, but oh well.
Brayden seemed less interested in the bugs, so he started bringing out his rats to see if they would eat the bugs or try to play with them. Two of the rats ignored the bugs. The last one seemed very interested in killing them so we made Brayden take the rat inside. I think we ruined his fun.
Here are Cameron and Lindsay showing off their grasshoppers.

7 Peaks

We have loved having Seven Peaks passes this year, and we have definitely gotten our money's worth going at least once a week, but usually twice each week. We will be getting them again next year for sure, as it can only get easier and more fun the older Lindsay gets. I don't have much to post about our trips to Seven Peaks though, because I rarely take the camera, and when I do, I am busy swimming and playing with my kids, so I don't take many pictures. I did bring the camera this last Monday when we went with the Gockens, Arnolds, and Wilsons. So here are the few pictures I snapped.




We were there from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. and everyone was exhausted after a long day. Lindsay was begging to go again on Wednesday, so I guess they don't get tired of it. We are always there when it opens, and run to ride as many slides as we can before the long lines develop. We pack a cooler of food, and if it is even possible, I think my kids eat a lot more at Seven Peaks than they do at home. Seven Peaks has made this summer fly by even faster than usual.

24th of July Block Party

We had our annual 24th of July Block Party with all of our friends on our cul-de-sac. We had a barbeque and hung out out for a while before fireworks. Here's a picture of all the kids watching the show. Lindsay decided pretty quickly that it seemed much safer on mine or Dave's lap during the fireworks. She started on the curb with all the other kids, but as the first firework was lit, she ran straight to us and never headed back.