First Day of School

This little man {when did that happen?!} had his first day of preschool yesterday!

I had such mixed emotions about Jacob's first day of school.  I had a really restless night sleep the night before just thinking about it all.  I was anxious about whether or not Jacob was ready, excited for him to start school since it's something I loved so much, and definitely a little sad.  Even though it is just preschool we are starting a new chapter in our family life and we will never be able to go back to the old.  We will now have "school-aged children"!  It is crazy and exciting and sad all wrapped up in one.  

Jacob was so excited though.  He was thrilled to FINALLY get to wear his Darth Vader backpack (his favorite!) and go to school.  As we walked to the door of the preschool, I could tell he was a little nervous.  We sat down and talked for a minute and he asked me if I could stay with him for a little bit.  Of course, I said I would.  

Walking into the classroom felt like a big moment for both of us and I was glad we got to hold each other's hands and do it together.  He was such a big guy though and loved finding his desk with his name on it.  

Walking back into the house with only Sarah was a sad moment.  I missed my little big guy.  But I am so excited for this new chapter to start for him too.  

Love you, Jacob.  

Happy First Day of Preschool!  

Back to School Feast

For the last several years I have followed Stephanie Nielsen's blog.  She is so inspiring to me and I admire her a lot.  Every year she does a "Back to School Feast" with her family and I have always thought it was such a great idea.  

Every year before the start of school her family gets together for a nice dinner and then Stephanie and her husband present a theme for the school year.  This can be a quote from a general authority or a scripture.  They then present their children with gifts and personal reminders of the theme and talk about it throughout the year.  

I told Mark about it a couple weeks ago and he liked the idea as well.  I love a lot of things that they do in their feast but we also wanted to make it our own.  

We thought about a theme that fit our family right now and that we felt like we should focus on.  We were drawn to President Monson's recent conference talk when he talked about choices.  We have talked about choices a lot with Jacob the last year and felt like this was a great thing to continue and was also a concept that I think Jacob could understand.  

Our theme for the year is:

"May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong."

The wording is a little confusing for Jacob still but I genuinely think he understands the concept.  We talked a lot about making good choices even when it's hard to and some examples of that.  I hope that Jacob can be a good example not only to his younger siblings but also to his friends.  I want him to be someone that makes the good choice no matter what others are doing.  I want him to be that rock.  

After we talked about this we gave Jacob a little gift.  We got him his first CTR ring.  He was so excited to have a ring of his very own.  We told him that every time he looks at his ring it should remind him to make good choices.  He was so happy.  

I love this little family of mine.  I know that as each of us strive to make good choices in our lives - even when it's hard - that we will be blessed.  

Beach Day

Last week we just KNEW we had to take advantage of one more day at the beach - and it did not disappoint!  Do you want to know the great thing about the last week in August?  The weather is great but no one {almost} is around because school is back in session!  

It was so perfect!  We quite literally had the ENTIRE beach to ourselves.  It was so wonderful.  We played in the sand and made some pretty perfect memories together.  I had this moment sitting in the sand with my feet in the water watching my little family and it just felt like perfect.  I just had this overwhelming feeling that this is what heaven will be like - that moment with my family, the people I love most was just simply perfect. 

I love this family of mine.  I love that we will have another precious child with us in a few short months.  And I can't wait for an eternity of more memories like this one. 

Mark's 34th Birthday

This man had a birthday and we LOVED being able to celebrate him!

Mark wanted to go on a family hike around Bloomington Lake and it was pretty perfect!  It was a beautiful day and it's always a great day to be in nature.  Jacob and Mark went climbing on some rocks around the lake while Sarah and I explored a little.  It was awesome!

We came home and the kiddos had a nap and some quiet time while Mark and I took a swim in the pool.  We then went out to dinner at Firehouse and came home for cake and presents.  It was a great day - and we hope it was great for our favorite man around here.  

Happy Birthday handsome!

50th Wedding Anniversary

A couple weeks ago we were able to celebrate Gus and Darlene's 50th Wedding Anniversary!

I was so glad that we were able to be apart of it and so grateful to have such a great example of love in the family.  50 years is an amazing accomplishment and I feel like it is going to only be more and more rare as time goes on.  Celebrating them made me think of Mark and I and how we have only scratched the surface of our eternity together.  It makes me so excited to think of where Mark and I will be when we get to celebrate our fifty years together.  

I hope it was a wonderful day for them - it was wonderful to see.  It was so much fun that almost everyone was able to be there (Keith and his family weren't able to make it) and we got to celebrate this amazing family.  

Happy fiftieth! 

Bear Lake County Fair

A couple weeks ago we went to the Bear Lake County Fair.  I was so excited - I grew up going to the Oregon State Fair and it was one of my favorite traditions.  Mark reminded me like a million times when we were driving over there that this was not going to be like what I was used too.  Of course, I knew that and we still had a blast.  

We first took the kiddos to look at the animals and they were a little unsure about the whole thing.  I think Sarah was totally freaked out by everything except the bunnies.  Jacob seemed to like looking at everything until we were looking at the cows and one almost got away from its owner when it was getting weighed and we were standing in their path!

We then walked around and looked at the different exhibits and checked out the ride situation.  Mark and Jacob went on a couple rides while Sarah and I looked on.  Sarah was not very fond of this arrangement - maybe next year she will be tall enough for something! 

To help Sarah cope with not being able to do any rides we thought we'd do one of the games.  Before we even knew what was happening we ended up having to spend way too much money on two inflatables but it was all for fun and the kids were ecstatic so it was all worth it.

We had a great time and are so excited to be apart of this community!

Minnetonka Cave

A couple weeks ago, Mark had the day off and we decided we needed to just go and do something fun.  Probably not the what we should have done (given all the unpacking we still had to do) but it was definitely needed in other ways.  Mark had the idea to go to Minnetonka Cave.  I had told people about it countless times while working at the KOA but had never actually gone.  So I was very excited.  

Jacob probably topped me with his level of excitement though - when we told him we were going to a cave he could not stop talking about it.  He was thrilled at the idea of going into a cave {like a bear} and of seeing bats.  He could NOT stop talking about the bats!

The cave was super fun and interesting and I even managed to do over 800 stairs without feeling like I was dying!  Seriously, if you knew how inactive the last five months of my life have been you would know this was quite an accomplishment.  

The only downer was Sarah HATED the cave from the moment we went in.  Mark and I were totally stumped as to why she was having such a hard time but she just screamed and screamed (NON-STOP!).  This is never fun but in a cave it was really not fun.  Finally, once we got about halfway into the cave I took her and she was immediately fine.  It was bizarre.  Sarah has never been clingy at all - she will go to ANYONE! - and she has never shown any favoritism with Mark and I.  But the response was immediate and that meant that if we wanted Sarah to stay quiet I had to lug her around.  It all worked out fine and luckily our tour group didn't act like they completely hated us!  ;)  

Jacob thought the cave was AWESOME!  We didn't even make it home before he asked when we were going to go back to the cave.  Although I think he did have mixed feelings about not seeing any bats.  He told me bats are a little scary but he couldn't stop talking about them either so I think he was kind of hoping to see them too.  

Despite Sarah's emotional roller coaster we had a good time!  We also had fun chatting afterwards with one of Mark's old high school teachers who is a tour guide for the cave during the summer.  I love that we will be raising our family in the same place that Mark was raised.