the 1st day of school

Preston and Abbie started school last week:) I LOVE the starting of school. The new clothes, the backpacks, the anticipation. It is a good time around here!

Preston started the 5th grade this year. His teacher is Miss Smith and she is really great. Super organized, soft spoken, kind and funny.

Preston said the best thing about going back to school was getting to play with his friends he missed all summer:)

Abbie started the 3rd grade. Her teacher is Miss Mitchell and Abbie adores her.

She is VERY organized, super kind, and had no problem understanding Diabetes:)

Abbie loves that she wears heels to school ( she might want to higher her standards)

Abbie said the best thing about going back to school is hanging out with her friends.

These two are so happy to have each other. I LOVE that they always know someone on the first day:0)

Hope your 5th and 3rd year is the best ever!

thursdays thoughts...

1. Last night Mckena slept with confetti under her pillow. When we went to meet her teacher she gave her the cutest poem and a small baggie of confetti. In the poem it talks about being nervous the first day and how the confetti helps you to sleep and wake up fresh and bright. Cute idea and she thought it was awesome.
2. When I go somewhere with out my purse I have issues about where to carry my phone. Well I usually stick it in my bra. A friend of my saw me pull it out and decided we should invent a bra with a little pocket for the phone genius. We will call it the pock-a-bra.
3. I didn't vacuum my floors for 4 days this week!!! Only because my vacuum was broke. If you know me very well you know that vacuuming is my FAVORITE chore and so this was not my happiest day. Josh tried to fix the old one and it was a no go SO... I got a new one. Not a Dyson but it sucks!!!
4. I painted my toes last night. Not perfect but not to bad for my first time trying something new!
   

5. I am loving Josh's new schedule! All we have left is 1 week in Washington D.C. a week in Vegas for a chiefs conference and 1 class on every other Thursday for 2 hours! I think this has been the longest 2 years of our lives. So happy we are almost done:)

girls camp July 2009

I know that some of these pictures are so small but I had to download from fb and couldn't enlarge without making them blurry. So this is what I ended up with! These are all my girls!! I love my calling as the Young Women's President. I love these girls. I think of them as my own and worry about them and pray for them daily. One of the "perks" of this calling is going to girls camp. It was SO much work getting ready but it was well worth it! This year we had 19 girls and 7 leaders. WOW what a group!

We had awesome leaders. Brittany, Jaimie, Heather, Brianne, Amy, Maryann, and myself. I think that we had as much fun as the girls did. We are not all avid campers so we enlisted Josh and James (Jaimie's husband) to come up and help us set up camp!:O)

Here are our two boys helping us outwith firewood after they helped set up tents, cut down TONS of stinging nettle, and backing in the trailer:) Thanks boys!

These are "my girls"! Bri and I get to work mostly with the girls that are 16-18. We have the best girls. I cant even express how much I love each of them. They are truly amazing and I cant imagine life without them.

MOMENTS TO REMEMBER:

Diving into the back of the truck to hide from the stk camp director

(i forget that i am not 20 anymore)

getting stuck in the leader tent when the zipper broke

facials and painting toenails

watching James come all dressed up to get Jamie for a surprise anniversary dinner (so sweet)

hoofing it around the camp at 1 am with Brittany looking for the priesthood to give a blessing

yummy food

singing around the campfire with the guitar (thanks Bri)

pow wow with my girls in their tent

laughing until we cried

being in awe of just how strong and amazing these girls are!

Josh took 5 days off work and school so that I could go. I have never been away from my kids that long so it was nice to know that I was leaving them with the person who loves them as much as I do! THANKS BABE!!
When I go home we lit the BBQ and made smores
Even though it was a little getto they thought it was great!
GOOD TIMES!

*** UNDER CONSTRUCTION***

hopefully this wont take long!!! stay tuned:)

15 years...

Dear Josh (aka JB, Rhonda, Babe)

On our 15th year wedding anniversary I can help but think WOW were old! HAHAHA! What I meant to say was WOW your old!! Just kiddin babe! You know that I love you more today than I did on our wedding day if you can believe it!

I cant help but think back to all the fun times. Our first apartment with our BFF's that use to drink 40's outside our door, running together, our first house, the pudding fight:), our little trailer, the trips to the BX, making friends and memories that would last a lifetime!

I feel so blessed that you call me yours. I love that you ALWAYS tell me how beautiful you think I am. That the first thing you do when you come home is give me a kiss. That you will sit on our 70's couch and watch sappy movies with me and not even complain:)

I love that we can talk for hours. That we can laugh at ourselves and our special issues. I love that we have been able to have a family together. I love to listen to you sing to our kids when you put them to bed. I love to watch you hold them when they are sad and laugh with them when they are happy. I love that I can ALWAYS say what I am thinking and you listen. and that when I am sad you let me cry on your shoulder.

I LOVE that where ever we go you still want to hold my hand. I know where ever I go you will be right there with me. Being with you inspires me to be a better person and for that I am eternally grateful. I feel so blessed that you picked me and that you love me enough to want to spend FOREVER together!
I LOVE YOU BABE!!!
Happy Anniversary!

Thursdays thoughts @11:31 wed. night

1. After the month of July I am TOTALLY and COMPLETELY exhausted! I will post all the adventures in a later post!
2. Mckena and her friends did their hair today while playing dress ups. Mckena ended up with Vaseline in her bangs. YES you read that right VASELINE. What the heck?? How am I going to get that out? I think I might try Dawn tomorrow! UGH...
3. Preston has been out playing night games everyday for the past week or so. I wish I could go play. Brings back so many good memories:O)
4. I have been thinking a lot lately about people being offended. My personal opinion is how about we worry about more important things and try not to be so sensitive? I think it would help us all if we were a little more attentive and a little less cranky with each other.
5. Went to do a little school shopping. Walked in, found 10 items, checked out, saw stars at the $175.00 bill, and thought crap I have to do this again? Poke my eyes out!
6. Have A new found appreciation for the pioneer women. WOW those were some tough Chickie's!!!
7. Pretty much despise the new converter box. The kids lost the remote a few days ago and cant watch TV. I was all OK with this until I wanted to watch the news. Cant change the channel with out the remote!
8. Do you remember the movie Princess Bride? Well I watched this movie when I was probably 14 years old with this boy that I liked. Half way through the movie he leaned in to kiss me. Well this being my first kiss I didn't really know what I was doing and apparently he knew even less. It was a slobbery nightmare!!! NASTY! I kept thinking is this ever going to end??? Totally ruined the movie for me. So when Josh brought it home from the library a few days ago I thought fat chance buddy. I did however watch part of it and actually laughed. It was much better with out the slobbery boy all over my face:O)

what we were up to in june

Some awesome rain storms

perfect for getting a little trampoline time in:O)

Spent LOTS of time at grandmas house

working on this, FINALLY finished sorry need to take a picture of how it turned out

We had lots of fun during Lehi Round-up week. Picnic in the park, then met up with the neighborhood kids for the stock parade.

Even though it was raining a little the kids LOVED all the horses.

Then off to the RODEO!!! We love the rodeo. Wish I had taken a few more pictures but we were having so much fun we forgot:O)

Abbie and her BFF Sarah. Thanks Kristy for getting all the tickets we had a great time!!
Mckena also played on the neighborhood baseball team. Here is their team picture!

Mckena up at bat!

Playing 1st base

Mckena LOVED playing she had a great time. On the last game they had cupcakes decorated like baseballs super cute but the tread was done in red food coloring so Mckena wouldn't eat it! Go figure:O) Miss Ella was happy to help her out: