Back to School

Monday, August 24th was back to school day. Noah was so excited to start another year. He really seems to like school and gets so excited to go. Although I think its more for the social aspect than the learning part. He started fourth grade this year. He is growing up so fast. His teacher is Ms. Procter this year. He says she is really nice and he has liked her so far. I hope he has another great year.

Summer Fun

Summer came and went so fast this year. I don't feel like we got to do very many things. I think since it rained so much in June, it just didn't feel like summer really got started until July and then school started last week. Some of the things we were able to do that I haven't blogged about were bowling, swimming and going to Boondocks. At the beginning of the summer, Noah took swimming lessons at the rec center. He loves the water and loves to take lessons.


Don't you just love the goggles? Noah insisted that he needed goggles to "see and breathe" underwater.

Noah and his friend Braden, at the outdoor Centennial pool.



Fun at Boondocks.

Last Sunday, we went on a hike up to Silver Lake. Silver Lake is up Big Cottonwood Canyon next to Brighton Ski Resort. It's more of a walk than a hike. It is paved all the wave around the lake and is a flat trail. It's very pretty up there. We ended up running in to my brother, Kenny and his family. It was fun to walk around the lake with them. I only ended up getting a couple of pictures because the batteries in my camera died. It's a nice place to go and very "kid friendly".


We also made it bowling a couple of times. Fat Cats had a deal all summer where kids can bowl 2 free games each day during the summer, Monday through Friday. I love to go bowling, even though I'm not very good. It's a fun activity Noah and I can do together.

Football

Here are some of the photos I have gotten at football. Most of them are from his scrimmages and some from practice. They haven't had a real game yet, so no game pictures. They have been practicing every day so far but next week they will only practice 3 days a week. Once school starts, they are only allowed to practice 3 days. I'm so glad because 5 days a week is tough, especially since school has started.
Noah is #49

High School Reunion

August 1st, dare I say it.....I had my 20, yes 20 year high school reunion. I still can't believe it's been 20 years since I left good old Granger High. I have some of the greatest memories of high school. I had a lot of great friends and fun times. I didn't make it to my 5 or 10 year reunion but decided this year I would take the brave step and go. I'm so glad I did. I had so much fun. It was so fun seeing so many old friends and seeing how people had changed. None of the people that I was really close to in high school were able to go so I wasn't sure if I wanted to go but I finally decided to. It was held at the Grand America hotel downtown. It's a really nice place. They had a nice buffet dinner, slide show and the Madrigals sang. They sang the song "Remember", which was the song they would always sing our senior year. Some people had changed a lot while others seemed the same, just older. I didn't take as many pictures as I would've liked. I kinda felt dumb just to walk around and take photos of people I hadn't seen in 20 years. I was so nervous driving there and so worried about what to wear but once I got there, I started feeling more comfortable and ended up having a great time. I think that being on Facebook and reconnecting with so many people from high school really helped me make my decision to go.

Me and Janeane Brighton. I've known her since elementary school.


I'm not sure why these photos turned out so small. I copied them off Facebook so that might be why. This is the madrigals singing.


The bald guy in this photo is Jason Johnson. I had the biggest crush on him in junior high and high school. I was in the play "Fiddler on the Roof" with him at West Lake and he played the main character, Tevye.

This is me and Adella Hardy, another friend that I've known since elementary school.

Oquirrah Moutain Temple

We were able to go to the Oquirrah Mountain Temple open house. It was so beautiful. We are definitely so blessed to have so many temples close by. I love to take Noah and try and explain to him the importance of the temple and how you have to live in order to go inside. He was asking me a lot of questions about the baptisms for the dead. Some of the questions I didn't even know the answers to but I did the best I could at explaining things to him. I told him that when he is 12 he can go and do baptisms for the dead. He seemed pretty excited about that.

Las Vegas and My New Nephew Luke

My sister, Tara had her baby on June 11th. He is such a cutie and looks just like his big brother, Drew. They named him Luke Michael. I love that name. Anyway, all of our family in Utah were anxious to meet this new little guy so we kept trying to figure out how to get Tara to Utah. We knew it would be too difficult for her to fly or drive by herself with 2 tiny guys. Raleigh had to stay behind to study for the Utah bar and work. So after lots of planning and rearranging, we ended up driving to Vegas to pick her up. It was my weekend to have Noah and so he came with us and my mom came also. We left on Pioneer Day (July 24th) and came back the 26th. It was a quick little trip and on the way home, we were stuffed into my car like sardines but we made it. On Saturday, we all went out to lunch and drove by the Las Vegas temple. It was too hot to get out and look around so we just admired it from the car. Then Tara wanted to get back home to put the boys down for naps so I decided to take Noah down to the strip. I know, its not the most "kid friendly" place on the planet but I wanted to show him a few things. We walked around and saw the pirate ships at Treasure Island, saw the lions at MGM, went to the M & M Factory and Coke Factory, and the Statue of Liberty at New York, New York. One of the more interesting things we saw was a Michael Jackson look a like. This guy was standing in front of one of the souvenir shops. From a distance, he looked just like Michael Jackson but not as much close up. I told Noah to go stand by him so I could get a picture. Then Noah wanted to take a picture of me by him so I did. It was funny because when I was standing by him, I noticed he had on a CTR ring so I asked him if he was LDS and he said yes. He says he goes around doing Michael Jackson impersonation concerts. We finally headed back to Tara's house and we were so tired from all of the walking.Not the best picture of the temple but I just took it from the car window.

Do you think he looks like the real Michael Jackson?




They had every kind of M & M you could imagine. Of course we had to get some and we got the peanut butter ones, my favorite.




This is Drew. He is so adorable too. He was talking up a storm and is so smart. He can say the alpahbet and sounds that animals make.

Noah was so good with Luke. When none of us seemed to be able to calm him down, Noah was standing with him and bouncing him and got him to go to sleep. He was so good with him and kept asking if he could hold him. He loves his little neices and nephews.

Football Again Already?

It seems like Noah just got done playing football and its already time for another season. He was a little hesitant to play again this year. He is still afraid of hitting. At the last minute, he decided he wanted to give it another go. Neither me or his dad talked him into it. It was completely his own decision. I'm glad he decided to do it again. I think it was such a great experience for him last year that I wanted him to have that again this year. He was disappointed to learn that the coaches he had last year would not be coaching the Gremlins this year. They moved up to the Pee Wee level with their sons. They were so good with the kids. I just can't say enough about them. He has a whole new coaching crew this year and a couple of kids on his team from last year. So far, he has done really well and has even been a little more aggressive and not so afraid. I just hope he has another great experience. It's too soon to judge how the coaches are but they seem to be good so far. I need to start taking pictures. I will post again later with pictures.