ScHoOl'S OuT fOr SuMmEr!

Thursday Maggie and I planned a "last days of freedom" lunch for any mom who wanted to get out one last time without kids. We went to Costa Vida and had a great time talking and laughing. We plan to get together again over the summer with the kids but I doubt it will be as fun and that the conversations will  be as *interesting* LOL! Here is Karen, Carrie Ann, Jill and Michelle.

Rees and Vicki
Me and Maggie
Friday was the kids last day of school. They only went for about and hour and a half. Here they are before they left. Really mom? More pictures?
Yes, one more!
When they got home at 10:30 am they got to jump out of the emergency exits on the bus. Here is Andrew.

Emma went out the back exit so I didn't get a picture. Here she is running up to the house.
We celebrated a great year by going to lunch at the best place in town. LOL!
The last picture Andrew had his eyes closed. He made sure that didn't happen again. Emma got a glacier and Andrew got a root-beer float to go with their nutritious meal of fries, nachos and burritos.
Emma trying to mix the ice cream into her glacier. She came away with only one brain freeze. 
The reason I am fat and Taco Amigo is a favorite. The fries and the pink sauce.
Let the fun begin! 

I'm still plugging away...

and have a few more pages to share.

Today is also the last day of school! Hello Summer. I am excited for the kids and excited for me. I hope that I can sleep in a little next Monday. The kids will be back home before I know it. (today is a short day) I am hoping to get two more pages posted before they infiltrate me.

Okay, I got them done! Paul and I have millions of the same standard, posed, pictures so this trip I decided to take more goofy pictures. It didn't come naturally to us believe it or not. We were very discrete and never embarrassed ourselves, well, not until this very moment. I'm not sure if silly pictures will become a vacation tradition or not. I'm glad to have these though.

The template that I used for these pages can be found at Kimi's Scrap Kreations.

Warning! Proud Momma Boasting Ahead

I want to start by saying how much Emma has grown up this year. She is maturing right before my eyes and I love to see what she is becoming. She is the most amazing girl, teetering on becoming a young woman. She is thoughtful, kind, sweet and very intelligent. I have really enjoyed my time with her this year and it just keeps getting better.

She wrote a poem Tuesday in class and it blew me away. It describes her rock climb on Monday perfectly. 

The Rockwall Climb

By Emma 

There are rocks sticking out,

I am strapped in the harness.

I grab the first rock pulling myself up.

My foot, it slips, I yank, I grab, and I keep climbing.

I’m grunting, pulling, yanking and… look the button.

I reach and miss, again I will try.

I reach, I push, and go back down.

I am also proud to announce that she made the honor roll. Last trimester she had straight A's. Most of her scores were 98-100% but her reading grade was 91% due to a missed assignment. That A- kept her from the honor roll. (Boo! Hiss! Spat!) She was so disappointed and a little discouraged that she wasn't on it even with straight A's but she worked hard and turned in everything and got perfect marks. Way to go baby girl! Today she gets to attend the honor roll movie party. She was pretty dang excited about that. 

Thanks for letting my boast. 

Dance Festival

Today was the dance festival. I look forward to this all year long. It is so cute. I love watching my kids do their thing. This years theme was around the world. The 3rd grade dance do Walk Like and Egyptian, there was a Mexican Hat Dance, and the 4th grade did a karate dance to Kung Fu fighting. It was all pretty dang awesome!

The second grade represented America and got to go first. Here is Andrew chillin' before it started.

The fifth graders represented Hawaii. 
Emma with some of her classmates
and some friends from another class
Here is Andrew doing his dance
And Emma doing hers

Memorial Weekend

Very early Sunday morning I woke to the wonderful sound of rainfall. It was around 3:00 am so I forced myself back to sleep but the sound was so soothing I wanted to stay awake and listen to it. When we were leaving for church it was still overcast and I got an unexpected surprise. I found that the pink irises

that I had transplanted from the backyard the year before had survived and bloomed. They looked so beautiful with the raindrops on them. I now have pink and yellow iris in my weedy terraces!

I got through my lesson, sighed a huge sigh of relief and came home where we hurried and changed then hit the road for our overnighter in Park City. We drove up through Provo Canyon. It is so beautiful this time of year. We saw at least four little falls along with Bridal Veil. Everything is so green and there are wildflowers sprinkled here and there.

We got to our resort, Marriott’s Summit Watch, and fell in love with our room. It is a timeshare but since it’s the off-season we were able to rent a room like a regular hotel. It was awesome and the kids were in awe.

If you get a chance to stay in a timeshare do it! It was just barely more expensive than a regular room would have been but we got a jacuzzi tub, fireplace, full kitchen and washer and dryer. It's just like an apartment. We are trying to figure out when we can go back. One night wasn't enough.

This is the little stream that ran right below our room.

There was an "interesting" shoe tree. I wish I knew the story behind it.

After walking around the resort and checking things out we went and stocked up on staycation essentials.

After we had our provisions in order we hit the pool. It was so warm and relaxing. The kids had a great time playing.

After we were done they played in the big tub back in our room and then fell asleep almost instantly.

They both wanted to sleep in the window seats. We let them but made up the sofa bed just in case. Emma moved to the bed in the middle of the night.

Once we got ready to go and checked out of our room it was time to get lunch and head over to Park City Mountain Resort. We all rode the ski lift up so we could do the alpine slide. We also did the alpine coaster. That was our families favorite. The kids did the bungee trampoline and the rock wall. Emma and I did the zip line. (You have to weigh a minimum of 75 pounds and Andrew wasn’t heavy enough so Paul stayed with him while we went.)

Back Flip!



This is the Alpine Coaster
Andrew and I went together

On the chairlift

Paul coming down the Alpine Slide
Andrew on his way down. He had to go slow so he wouldn't hit the people in front of him
Emma right before she went down the zip line

I got stuck about 35’ down the course. Something got caught on the secondary line and I stopped. I was fine hanging up there but was worried about Emma being at the bottom alone. Luckily Paul and Andrew were down there waiting for us so she was okay. It took them a while to pull my fat butt back up but then they got things unhooked and off I went. It was a tad embarrassing. Andrew was in tears when I got to the bottom because he was so worried about me. I explained to him that I was fine but he was still pretty upset. I don’t think we will ever be able to get him to go on that ride.

Here is Emma rockin' my world (Groan!) She was like Spiderman.

They closed up at 6:00 pm so we left, got dinner and then did a little shopping at the outlets. It was a fun filled Memorial Day.