Back to School

Finally my kids went back to school. It was a long summer for me. Mainly because I was potty training an almost 3 year old. I am not the kind of Mom that loves having my kids home with me. Maybe I'll wish I was that way someday, but with everything I've been through, I was more than ready to send my little kids off to school for the day. 

 Aubrey is in 1st grade and in the dual immersion program at Midway Elementary. She learns Spanish half the day and is with and English speaking teacher the other half. She has some good friends in her class and is liking it so far. She came home and told me what turtle is in Spanish today. Tortuga.

 I took their individual shots by the maple tree Cody bought me when we first moved into our house 4 years ago. Look how they all have grown.

 I think I will always love the fact that my kids are so close in age to each other. They watch out for each other. Every morning we read scriptures, say prayers and off they go on their bikes until the weather gets too cold.

 Cole learned how to ride his 2 wheeler last week. He saw his friend Sage riding hers and she is 8 months younger than Cole. We came home, he pulled his bike out and with a little help from Aubrey and Daddy, he was off. He picked it up quickly and spends lots of time out in our circle. We are lucky to live at the end of a long cul de sac with many other families.

 Here is another example of why I was thrilled with the kids going back to school. Normally it's Cole making trouble in our  house, but this time it was really Blake. I thought he was napping and went in to check on him. This is what I found. I  had no idea what it was at first. Finally he pulled out of his shorts a Melissa and Doug dual sided ink pad. He had a hay day and marked up most of his carpet. Then, he peed his pants and hid under the bed. Boy oh boy was he in trouble. I've been trying to control my temper and not scream, yell or hit. But he did get a beating. Thankfully my Mom came up later that day to spend the night for Swiss Days and she cleaned the carpet in his room. It didn't all come out, but looks better. In a few weeks we will get our carpets professionally cleaned. After potty training 3 kids in this house and mud, dirt, sand, etc. It's time.

 My 2 little boys began preschool at Sunshine Circle today. I'm the cheesy Mom that put them in matching outfits. They are adorable. Cole was naughty while I was there (parents stay for the first 30 minutes the first day) and Blake was great! They each know several kids in their classes and I have friends to carpool with so I'm not stuck at the school all morning. Their classes over lap by 30 minutes.

 Now we can settle into our fall/school routine. Aubrey started taking jazz at Wasatch Dance Center and I'm taking clogging again on an adult team with Greg Tucker at Rocky Mountain Express. I love it and have missed it. I still have to run occasionally for my marathon training. My race is in 10 days. September 14th. The opening morning of Cody's elk hunt and the end of my running season for the year. My legs are sore from downhill training and I'll admit I don't love loooong runs. Thankfully one of my best friends from Maryland is flying into town to run the race with me. We ran our first 1/2 marathon in Baltimore together and will finish with the real thing. Bring it on!

Elk Scouting/Camping

As most of you know, Cody has been scouting and camping for his perfect elk spot all summer long. We finally went as a family and towed the trailer up to his spot. I really don't know where it is, except that it's south of Strawberry Reservoir and North of Soldier Summit. It take just about 2 hours to get there. With all the wood that we now have thanks to Cody's lumberjack skills, we had awesome bonfires nightly. The kids were super excited to help build and light the fires.

 Always a happy camper when you get to run around and get dirty all day.

 Couldn't resist a sweet picture of my baby.

 Tucker is all about trees these days. He's informed me several times that when he grows up he is going to live in a tree before he buys a house. He'll fish on a river and have his tree fort. Unfortunately for him, our trees will be big enough to climb by the time he a dad. His kids and grandkids can benefit from them.

 Cody gave him a pocketknife and he spent lots of time making sharp sticks.

 Instead of dutch ovening like we usually do, we busted out the camp chef and had BBQ chicken.

 Cody's parents came and brought their 4 wheeler so we had lots to do.

I've been training for my marathon all summer and did a 7 mile downhill run Saturday morning. It wasn't too bad and I got to my finish point just as Cody drove up to pick me up. Trailer camping is nice because I was able to go back and take a shower.

August Randoms

This picture reminds me of a primary song. I've changed the words just a bit. 

"I'm so glad when Daddy comes home, glad as I can be. Clap my hands and shout for joy as the kids climb up his knee. They put their arms around his neck. Hug him tight like this. Gouge his eyes and give him what?! A great big kiss!"

I've definitely got myself a keeper. Wrestling is a daily activity in our house and Aubrey is not one to be left out. Without getting too sentimental, I just have to say that my husband is a rock star. My rock and shoulder to cry on and he helps keep me positive about my diagnosis and reminds me that I am missing part of my brain when I forget things. I have more and more short term memory loss lately. He might not be what my Mom pictured me marrying back in college, but I know I made the right decision. Love ya babe! 

Newlyweds summer of 2003.

 Every year the Tour of Utah rides through Midway on our Main street. Think of the Tour De France on a much smaller scale. It's always on a Sunday afternoon. We get out of church at noon, so we walked out to Main street in time for all the riders to pass by. Traffic is cleared from the road and stopped in all directions. Some years race vehicles will stop and give us noise makers and other items to cheer the bikers on. Not this year, although one of the bikers did toss his water bottle at our crew and Tucker happily grabbed it and treasures it.

 Here they come.

 The breakaways came first and then the peloton.

 This is the peloton.

 Then the stragglers come through, but we didn't wait around for them. We watched with our friends/neighbors. It's a fun annual event to watch.

 Mid August I took the kids to get their back to school hair cuts. Cole cut his own hair, so he has a more buzzed look, but the other 3 received professional cuts. I never gel or spike my boys hair, so this is all the hair dressers doing. They receive suckers if they are good. My kids are great!

 Aubrey hadn't even had a hair trim in well over a year so I had 4 inches cut off her hair. She was a little worried, but it's still long and beautiful.

 Tucker likes the spiked faux hawk look. He looks so grown up now that he's missing his 2 front teeth. His bottom 2 teeth are adult teeth and fill in the gap.

 Fire season has been around and there was one night where the moon was bright red/orange from all the smoke. My camera sort of shows it.

Scouting for a trophy

I put a trail cam next to a spring in the area where I am going elk hunting next month in an effort to better learn the elk movement patterns and see what is in the area.  It is a motion sensor camera that uses infra red at night to capture the night photos.  It's been a ton of fun hiking in to the camera and checking the SD card with Tucker and Aubrey.  I recently went up and retrieved the camera one last time for the year and came away with some cool photos.  I had over 2,000 photos in all, but I narrowed it down to some of the funner/cooler ones.

I've seen this mutant bull a few times up there.  He has a normal antler on his left side, but his right side is all sorts of jacked up.

I got tons of photos of younger bulls, but not many of bulls that I would want to shoot.

This young bull was curious and was sniffing and checking out my camera.

I really liked this photo because it appears as if the bull is bugling.

This cow elk (pictured in the photo that is all blurred) is the culprit for knocking my camera down.  It was being held onto the tree with a strap and a separate bike chain locking it to the tree.  This cow apparently ate the strap, causing the camera to fall to the ground.

This cow appears to be calling.

I got a few cool photos of this bear.

Some fog rolled in one morning and I captured this neat photo of some cows and calves in the fog.

This coyote wandered by.

And this cow moose hung out at the spring for about an hour plus and took up a ton of the memory on my card.

Only one more month until my hunt.  I can't wait.

Annual Grant Reunion

My Mom's side of the family gathers every July at the Reid Ranch. We've been going there ever since I was a little kid. The activities remain pretty much the same with a few upgrades. It's a Thursday through Saturday reunion. Cody had to work Thursday and Friday, so I drove up with my parents. Cody drove up Friday night after work. He actually got off early and surprised me by getting their in time for dinner.

We had a bonfire the first night with smores. My boys took it upon themselves to find sticks to roast marshmallows. Tucker found some good ones, and Cole came back with this log. It looks like an old fence post. My Mom indulged him and helped him put a marshmallow on it. My Grandpa worked for a company called Bristol Meyers for years before retirement and he still pulls out hats, water bottles and other random "junk" to hand out at reunions and family gatherings. Cole loved this hat because it has a moose on it. He wore it the entire trip.

 I put the kids to bed before I did. We had a room with 2 bunk beds and a queen. We've grown out of the pack n play phase of life, so the boys were happy to be on the bunk beds. Cole indeed fell asleep with his hat on.

 And I initially put Blake in bed with me because I was worried he'd fall off the bunk. This is how I found him when I came in to go to bed. I tried for about 30 minutes to sleep with him and then finally put him on the bunk bed. None of my kids sleep straight and I wasn't about to go all night getting hit by arms and legs.

 My cousins work at the ranch. This is my youngest cousin, Kyle. Parker and Tucker talked one of my parents into buying them snow cones and then they searched out for cousin Kyle.

 There are horses and ponies at the ranch. You can't ride the horses until you are 12, so pony rides were what we did. Yes, Cole is wearing a helmet and life jacket. You can never be too cautious. I think the ranch has had some legal issues in the past so everyone, including adults, has to suit up to ride.

 Tucker caught a frog and was convinced that we were taking it home with us. Unfortunately, Cole took the lid off our "cage" and it hopped away. Darn.

 There is also a small archery range. All my kids really enjoyed that this year. You have to wait until everyone is done shooting before you can retrieve the arrows.

 Robin Hood.

 I failed over and over at this. I was much better when I was younger.

The ranch has each group that comes up get their picture taken to put on the wall in the cafeteria. This is our family portrait. 80 of our 91 family members. My grandparents have 7 children, 26 grandchildren and so far 33 great grandchildren. I still have 10 cousins waiting to get married someday. With all of my cousins having babies, the Grant family seems to grow by 2-3 each year.

 A little self portrait and a photo bomber.

 Blake, Cole, my parents and cousin Hayden.

 Random brotherly love with 2nd cousin Zach watching on.

 Zach and Cole waiting in line for a meal.

 Blake's first miniature golf lesson.

1st cousins. Melanie, Loren and Me.

2nd cousins. Ethan, Ashley and Aubrey

 Growing up, the 5 of us cousins were named the Party of Five. I think we were are all born within 2 years of each other.

 Jeff is the only one not married and Cody had left to fix our flat tire when the photo was taken.

 My cousin Melanie and I. We've been close our whole lives. She is a year and 2 days older than me. We visited each other growing up, were pen pals, attended Ricks, each have baby Aubrey's and were cheerleaders. We used to dress the same and have my Mom do our hair alike. We just happened to both have tank tops in this plum color that we wore on the same day.

I have been so blessed to have an amazing extended family. They are all so supportive of each other. We've been to baptisms, farewells, homecomings, weddings, funerals, etc. Family is forever!