Last Day of Summer, First Day of School

Friday, August 10th
Monday, August 13th

Here are pictures from the last day of summer, and the first day of school.  (I guess I might never catch up . . . )

I'm not sure if this is actually from the last day of summer, but I liked this picture and it's reminds me of summer, so . . . there you go.

On the last day of summer vacation, we went down to the school to meet the kids' teachers, and bring all our supplies to their classroom.  We pulled up the hill our little red wagon laden with bags of crayons and markers, glue and pencils, paper towels, clorox wipes and reams of paper.  And went to each classroom delivering supplies and meeting the teachers.

Sean, 1st grade, with Mrs. Chavez

Daphne, 3rd grade, with Mrs. Altweis

(She was really busy with lots of other students and their parents, so I felt bad asking for one more picture--hence a dark one.) 

Dallin, 5th grade, with Mr. Dolan

After our trip to the school, we went to Pop-Pops to enjoy one last cold treat of the summer!

First Day of School!

(Hayden snuck into the picture)

All ready to go for the first day!

I think we are in for a great year--the teachers are all seem great, and the kids are enjoying being with their friends again after the summer break.  Daphne has jumped right back into public school without a hitch.  She is making new friends and comes home with a smile everyday.  Hooray!

Hayden and Sydney were excited about the first day of school too, and each of them found a backpack that they wore around all morning.  Hayden even took himself on a pretend field trip to ITZ (the backyard).  

Here's Hayden on his first "First Day of Preschool."  That's a whole story in itself.  I put him in the same preschool that Sean went to, but Sean and Hayden have very different temperaments.  Sean is pretty laid back and is happy to play by himself.  So he was a great peer model in the Autistic-Specific Preschool, where many of the children are not verbal yet.  But Hayden, who loves to talk and interact with other people, has not adjusted well.  So after two weeks of fighting with and bribing him to go to preschool, we've decided that not everyone is cut out to be a peer model, and Hayden is one of them.  So, he'll have a second First Day of Preschool this Tuesday.  Hopefully he'll do alright in this one . . .

Some projects

Okay, here are some projects I've worked on the last few months.

This first one is a project Jenny showed us when she was out here for the 4th of July.  What makes this project remarkable is that she was only here for 2 days, one of which was the 4th, so of course we didn't do any projects on that day.  But the next afternoon, during our sister's outing, Jen convinced us that we could make these cute little sign posts.  With nothing but a picture on Jen's camera, Emma, Julianne, Jenny and I went out and got the supplies, cut, sanded and stained the wood and even started assembling these sign posts.  

Unfortunately Jenny had to leave the next morning, or we probably would have finished these puppies in about 2 days.  So what makes this doubly remarkable, is that Julianne and I actually finished our posts a couple weeks later without Jenny to help us be brave and figure out what to do!  

Jenny took her pieces to her new home to assemble, so below are pictured mine, Jewels' and Emma's.  We also made one for Mom, but didn't have the right colored door-knob at the time of the picture, so hers was still in the garage.

They turned out pretty cute, if I say so myself.

The following are more of those fun table runners that Mom and Jenny taught us to make:

April/(Easter)

May/June/Summerish

4th of July

Obviously, not a table runner or a project--just a cute little Sydney

"Arise from the Dust!" Trek 2012

July 26-28, 2012

Albuquerque, NM Stake Youth Trek

Arthur and I had the privilege of going on our Stake's Youth Trek as a Ma and Pa this year.  We loved our experience four years ago, and I was, I confess, a little sad when all the Ma's and Pa's were announced and we weren't among them.  I know there are many wonderful and capable couples who should all be given an opportunity to be a trek Ma and Pa, and they wanted to get new people this year, but I was still hoping . . .

Then about a month before trek, the couple in charge of Trek asked so come meet with us, and asked us to be a Ma and Pa because there had been so many registrants and they needed to create 2 more families.  I think I squealed when they asked if we would go.

So I had 1 month to whip my butt into shape, and it still wasn't in shape when we went, despite my walking almost everyday for the month I had to prepare.  Oh well.  

Our family flag, held by our "daughter," Conner

Pa and some of the boys

It started raining right when we pulled into camp the first night.

Huddling under the tarp waiting for the rain to stop--

which it did, after not too long.

Ma and Pa Gariety

The Gariety Family

5 girls, 6 boys, plus Arthur and I
Oh, and our rice baby, Hezzakiah

The families were bigger than they were hoping, but I tell you what, it was a blessing they couldn't recruit any more Ma's and Pa's because we needed those big families to push through miles and miles of sand.  Everyone had to have a hand on the cart to get us through much of the 2012 trek.

Brother and Sister Mortality waiting to distribute death or disease.

We actually had quite a lot of REAL trials, and didn't need their intervention very much to make things hard for us.

I love this picture of the company stretched out.  The ranch where we did trek this year was BEAUTIFUL!

Trek is an amazing experience--there are so many life lessons to be learned from pulling and pushing a cart.  I wrote the lessons that had the most impact on me in my journal, so I won't elaborate here, but the two key points I took away were:  

***Teach my kids to work!  

We need doers to put the gospel in action, doers to build the kingdom, doers to build a family.  And doers who don't wait to be asked, but who recognize a need and fill it.  We have a saying in our family, "Find a need and fill it" that I have been ramming that down my kids' throats since I got home from trek.   We have been on a major work campaign lately, that might be making my kids wish I hadn't gone to trek this year.  ;)  They'll thank me when they're older.  

***The foundation makes a difference.  

I couldn't believe how much more difficult and slow and heavy it was to pull the cart through the sand as opposed to hard packed dirt.  There was a point when our whole family was pushing the cart through a flat, sandy arroyo, and on the other side, was a steep incline.  When we got to the hill, the earth was firmly packed, and we actually accelerated up the hill.  It was easier and faster, and took less people to push the cart up the firm hill than it did through a flat area of sand.  My take-home message was that we can choose to live our lives based on a firm foundation by keeping the commandments and utilizing the Atonement of Christ.  When we are built on a firm foundation, our steep inclines are not as difficult to traverse.  Our burdens become lighter and yoke easy to bear.  But when we choose to do wander from the path our Savior has shown us, our foundation becomes sandy and it is much more difficult to face the challenges and obstacles in our lives.  

{ha!  okay, I said I wouldn't elaborate, but Sean, who is patiently waiting for some computer time would beg to differ.  He keeps saying, "How many more letters are you going to type?"

I wrote more than I intended--sorry}

My sister Emma volunteered to come out and watch the kids for us while we went on trek, and we are so grateful for her willingness to take that on.  Our kids ADORE their Aunt Emma. 

This is all of them saying good-bye Monday morning before I took her to catch her plane home.

THANKS EMMA!

Visit to CA

July 20-24
Nona's House,
Stonehaven, Northstar
Lake Tahoe


Alright, ALL of my sisters have posted since the last time I have.  (including the one who just moved across the country)  And the one who hasn't posted in 4 months.  ( ;) love ya Jewels.) So I have no excuse.  I've been a pathetic blogger lately, I know.  I think I am losing my touch, to be honest.  We're still alive and busy, but I just can't think of anything to say about it.

Anyway, I have a string of posts lined-up to finish with pictures in them and nothing else.  I'm starting to think maybe I'll just post the pictures and you guys can guess what we've been doing . . .  Or maybe I'll have the kids tell me what to write . . .  Or maybe I'll just . . .  whatever.  Here it goes.

We took a trip this summer to visit family in California.  The first night we got there we had an amazing dinner with Mike and Amber, cooked by none other than the amazing Chef Mikey!  It was delicious!  And then we went on a walk down by the river where the kids ran around and Sean nearly ran into a humongous beautiful great dane named Chewy.  His head was the same height as Sean's was and his face was pretty funny when he turned around and was inches away from that giant dog's face.  Unfortunately I must not have had my camera with me, cause we have no pictures of that.  But thanks for the fun time, guys!

Then we spent a night at Nona and Papa's, where we got to see Mom's new Chicken Palace.  For her birthday, Mom asked for chickens and a chicken coop.  So Reed and Nathan got busy building her one over the summer.  Reed designed it himself and he and Nathan did a GREAT job.  It's quite luxurious, (hence the "Palace" endearment,)  and Dad said those chickens are gonna have to lay a LOT of eggs before it pays for itself.  We were lucky enough to be present when a couple of eggs were laid, and our kids were super excited about it!

The chickens

The Chicken Palace

The next day we drove up to Stonehaven where we got to hang out with Mom and Dad, Reed, Emma, Jacob and Nathan for a few days.  It was so fun to spend some time with my youngest siblings!  While up there, we played lots of games, ate delicious food, watched movies, relaxed and read books (Emma, Mom and I passed around lots of fun books between the three of us) prepared for trek (both the ABQ Stake Youth Trek and the Turlock Stake Youth Trek were the next weekend) and of course went to beautiful Lake Tahoe.  The rest of the pictures are at the lake . . .

These guys don't look related at all.

Mom and Emma with their books.  I think that might have been one of my favorite things that we did up there--just relaxing and reading.  

The studly Stone and Gariety Men

I was really surprised that Sydney liked the water so much because it is COLD!!!

Dallin jumping off some rocks

Sisters

We had an experience that day at the lake that I think my sisters would appreciate hearing.  So, we were all at the lake having a great time.  The brothers were out in a raft somewhere, Mom and Emma on the beach reading, Hayden and Sydney were playing in the sand, and the rest of us were out in the water at varying distances from the beach.  Daphne had gotten out onto a rock and was scared to get off, and since I was the closest to her, I started making my way over to help her down.  I looked back to check on Sydney, who was still playing in the sand, before wading further out into the water.  I was almost to Daphne, (just a couple of minutes later) when I looked back to check on Sydney again.  

Despite the water being dotted with other kids and adults, my eyes went directly to where she stood in the water, where just her face, head tilted back, was out of the water, her feet having lost touch with the bottom.  Amazingly enough, Mom and Arthur did the exact same thing at the exact same time--no voice, not even a concrete thought, per se, we all just looked right to where she was at the exact same time.  Arthur was very far from shore, but Mom and I both darted to her immediately and Mom got her out of the water before she went under.  

In thinking about that experience since then, I've of course felt grateful that we got to her before something scary happened.  But I've also thought a lot about how the Holy Ghost works.  As I mentioned before none of us "heard a voice" or even had a specific thought to check on Sydney, we just all looked  right to where she was at the same time.  I haven't had ever had a Holy Ghost experience quite like that.  But I am very grateful, that Heavenly Father was looking out for our Sydney and somehow let several of us know at once that she needed help.