David's Birthday

Five days after Alison's birthday is David's Birthday.  Let's be honest - parent birthdays aren't quite as exciting as kid ones. But we did the best we could.

I'm sure I don't even have to say how much I love this man!  I think my friends and ward members are getting sick of me telling them how crazy I am about him.  But it's the truth.  He is my rock.  He gets me, and he gets the gospel, and he gets physics, and he gets poetry, and jokes, and chicken coop building, and Spanish, and Isaiah, and medical stuff, and on and on and on. But most impressively, he gets me. He has done more than his fair share of carrying me this past year as I've struggled with health issues.  What a man!  No wonder I feel sorry for everyone else who didn't marry him!

The birthday boy!  I LOVE his beard.  He shaved it off already and I miss it.

Somehow, I forgot to take pictures of him opening his presents in the morning, but you've seen a million just like it so I'm sure you'll live.  I'm afraid the day was pretty much a normal one.   He just went to work.  He didn't even tell a single one of his patients that it was his birthday!  Can you imagine?!?!  I tell everyone!  He came home from work just long enough to hurriedly eat his birthday dinner (lasagna and bread sticks), then he took Joshua to his soccer practice.  I stayed home and did the dishes for him.  

Of course, he had an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen.  See what I did with the candles there?  4 for 40 and 7 singles...

This boys sure love their dad!  

Our First Teen

On Saturday, September 24, Alison turned 13 years old, forever changing our family. We now officially have a teenager in the house.  It feels like we've had a few teens running around here for years, but now it's official.

Words can NOT express how much I love this girl!  She is spunky and strong and kind and dependable and intelligent and deeply thoughtful and spiritual.  She is also occasionally a big pain, but so am I, so it all works out.

She was super excited about me taking her picture. The afternoon before her birthday, she had a few friends over to hang out and celebrate. I got her a cake and some treats and they watched old barbie movies from their childhood.  But I forgot to take a single picture.  

The younger siblings got more excited by presents than the actual birthday kid. That is, until they saw that it was basically books and make up.    

One of the books she got was the latest Harry Potter installment.  Shortly after breakfast, she disappeared.  I found her hiding out in Quinton's room - half way through the book.  

Like all Saturdays, we were busy running around to various soccer games in the morning, but she was perfectly fine staying home and reading. The rest of the day was pretty normal. For lunch, she chose chicken pot pie and artisan bread dipped in balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  We had to celebrate with the family early because we had other plans for the night.  Here, she is showing off the coveted birthday plate. 

The birthday cake of choice was "Pretty Darned Good Cake (aka "Better Than A Lot Of Things Cake") except with a white cake instead of chocolate.  It was very, very sweet, but we managed.

She got that Harry Potter T-shirt for her birthday.  

That evening was the semi annual General Women's Conference for our church.  Since it was Ali's birthday, we decided to make a fun girls' night out of it.  We went over to Grandma Smith's house and ate a FEAST while watching the conference.  Katie and Megan were there too.  What a great night! 

After the conference ended, we stayed and chatted for a while.  Then, we headed home and watched Captain America: Civil War with David.  We were up WAY past my bedtime.  But I think it was a fun, super-packed birthday for our first teen.

Some September Fun

So this is the first year that we didn't get to celebrate Cookie's Birthday on September 1st.  Her picture was still up on our family calendar, reminding us of what we were missing.  It was kind of sad.  But we did have a little fun in September:
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We went on our annual autumn leaf drive, but ended up being too early.  The leaves were still green, but it was still lovely.  We could have gone again a few weeks later, but, since Josh threw up from motion sickness on the first drive, it didn't seem like the best idea to go again.

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The boys' school hosted their annual fun run in September.  I guess it's a tradition.  Here, my neighbor Melanie and I are trying to ignore our sons, Walker and Josh, in a full fledged pirate battle as we wait for the race to start.  These two boys are very best friends.  They are the same age, but because of Josh's late birthday, Walker is in 3rd grade and Josh is in 2nd.

All the pictures I took of David and Josh running together were blurry (That's how fast they were!)  This is Josh at the finish line, signing a poster for all the finishers.  

Alison was Bronson's running partner.  

How cute are they?!?!?  

I could have taken a million pics of them.  It was so cute.  Nicole stayed behind to help me chase the baby around.  

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This is the only picture I got of the Greek Food Festival this year!  Silly me - I ate all the food before I got any pictures.  But it is such a fun day!   Joshua was my partner in crime this year.  I dropped the little boys off at my sister Kristin's house.  Then Josh came with me to brave the huge lines and carry boxes of food.  We brought it all over to Kris's house and ate together there.  It was delightful!

It was cold and rainy.  Luckily, the line was under a canopy so it wasn't too bad.  Plus, everyone is in such a festive mood that the line goes quickly.  

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Here are a few pics from another visit to Dinosaur park:

We have a ton of pictures of our kids in this cage.  This time, it was our turn. 

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The girls and I went to hear Kirby Heybourn speak.  He is an LDS actor (Single's Ward, etc.) who has become quite successful in the audio book narrating field.  It was a fascinating talk!  And Kirby did some fun examples of all the voices he uses when he narrates.  I wish I could read books out loud for a living!  My mother informed me later that Kirby and I are distantly related.  Maybe I'll ask my cuz to hook me up with a narrating job!

August Happenings

Here are a few of the things we did in August:

For one thing, Josh decided to find out if dogs know something we don't about the joys of sticking your head out of a car window.  He said it's not all it's cracked up to be.

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Grandpa Smith got us tickets to the Davis County rodeo!  Grandpa only stayed for about 15.2 seconds because that's all his allergies can stand.  But the rest of us watched the whole thing!  Our girls even rode on the back of a pick-up and waved at the stands with Grandpa before the pledge of allegiance.

 Josh went out with a bunch of other kids for a race.  That blur with a dark blue shirt in the middle of the picture is Josh. Trust me.  It is.

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My dad took me to a Collin Ray concert.  It was a blast!  He is such a fun entertainer and his voice is really beautiful!  I knew many of his songs and liked many of the ones I didn't previously know.  Except the one about the civil war that made me ugly cry!

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Some neighbor friends of ours invited us to the DaVinci museum in Salt Lake City. One of our neighbors is the curator there and she wanted the place to be buzzing on a certain day because a potential donor was going to be paying a visit.  If you're looking for kids that get excited at museums, mine can put on quite a show!

I wish these pictures weren't so blurry!  The museum is so fun!  It's all hands on learning!  You could spend hours in one area alone.  I wish we could spend more time there - or ideally live close enough that you could go often and spend time in one spot per day.

They have a fully functional cockpit.  A day or two after we were there, President Uchtdorf filmed a spot about his days as a pilot right where Josh is sitting! 

Enough Legos to satisfy my boys!  

Nicole is controlling those dots on a screen with her hand.

Ali helped Quin build a marble roller coaster.

These headphones make your voice echo.  Quinton is so cute in this picture, but he was actually yelling his head off at anyone who got near him!  He didn't want to share.

Such a blurry picture, but this infinity mirror room was awesome!

There were so many cool things that I didn't get pictures of: a demonstration on the science behind Diet Coke and Mento geysers, art projects, rooms filled with building blocks in every variety, crazy mirrors and other mind-blowing art, a virtual barber shop, and so much  more!  GO THERE!!!!

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 David and I go on dates once a month.  In August, I took him to the World's Best Corn Dog food truck.  It was his first time there.  I have to say, I don't like corn dogs, but I LOVE these ones!  They really are the World's Best.  However, I was sick for a whole day after I ate it.  TOO BIG!!!

School Starts - Part Two

The girls' school started one week after the boys'.  I really enjoyed having that week with my girls.  Plus, it spread out the chaos a bit - made it more manageable.  One side affect of having kids in two different school systems is that their breaks won't always fall on the same days.  I mean, Christmas will be fine, but fall and spring breaks, etc. will be different.  And the boys will be out for the summer a week before the girls.  We'll see how it goes.  I'm inclined to think I'll like it.  We don't go on major vacations anyway, and this way I'll be able to focus on the kids who are home a little more.

So, I was hoping to keep this post short and sweet, but I've got another story to tell. Nicole's school waited until the Friday before summer break ended to post class assignments.  Nicole and her friends had been worrying about it for a while.  They all wanted so-n-so and didn't want so-n-so... they wanted to be in the same class, etc.  On the day that the assignments were posted, they stared at the clock all morning, then begged me to drive them over to the school as soon as they thought they'd be up.  Sadly, all they found was a cranky secretary who said they wouldn't post anything until 4:00 pm. So promptly at 4:00, Nicole asked me to drive her back to see who her teacher would be.  By this time, her friends were all off with their families, so it was just Nicki.  Can you guess what we found? Nicki's two best friends in school both had different teachers, but really good ones.  Nicole was placed in a class with her former-and-still-kind-of-current Vice Principal teaching for the first time. Did that even make sense to you? What I'm saying is, the school needed another 6th grade teacher, so they hired the Vice Principal.  I guess he's still the VP, too.  He teaches part of the day and his class is split up and divided between the other three six grade classes for part of the day.

I was furious.  Let me explain why.  In fourth grade, Nicole was assigned to a new-to-this-school teacher.  They put her class outside in a portable and hoped for the best.  It wasn't the best... It was the biggest nightmare of a year I have ever witnessed.  Nicole learned VERY little in fourth grade.  The teacher didn't know what was going on in that school, and being in a portable, she didn't have any help (or supervision) from the other teachers.  She talked on a phone a lot while her kids played around.  She didn't follow the curriculum.  It was crazy! Luckily, the fourth grade split up into different classes based on test scores from Math, so she at least had a good math teacher. But otherwise, fourth grade was a bust!  Several parents complained and that teacher wasn't around the following year (I wonder if some other unsuspecting school hired her...makes me sad...)

In fifth grade, I sent a special request to the principal asking that Nicole get the best possible teacher so that she could catch up from her fourth grade sabbatical.  Instead of honoring that request, she was again assigned to a new teacher.  I wrote the Principal an unhappy note.  He replied, "Cool your jets, crazy lady.  I promise this teacher is good." (maybe not in those exact words, but that was the gist of it).   Luckily, she was a good teacher.  But good teacher or not, Nicki was stuck with a teacher who had a lot on her plate, learning a new school and creating new lesson plans, etc.for the second year in a row.

So when Nicki was assigned to a new teacher for the third year in a row, I decided I'd had enough.  I wrote a pointed, direct, but very respectful letter to the principal stating my concerns and expressing my confidence that he would immediately move Nicole onto a veteran 6th grade teacher's class.  This was on Friday afternoon.  I didn't hear anything back from him for days.  Of course, it was the weekend, so I tried to remain calm.  Monday came and went without a word.  Tuesday morning,  - the DAY before school started - I went to the school to speak with him face-to-face.  His (horrifically rude - did I say that???) secretary said he was in a staff meeting and couldn't be disturbed.  When I tried to make an appointment, she brushed me off with, "I don't know his schedule," and didn't offer to take a message.  She just told me to come back in an hour and try again. By this time, I was in full mama-bear mode.  Mixed with a little indignant "you-are-not-going-to-ignore-me" pride, I'm afraid.  I went home and let my fingers fly on a more pointed, more direct, and a little bit threatening , but still professional if not as respectful, letter.  Still - nothing!!! No response!

In the afternoon, I called the school.  The secretary actually sighed into the phone before transferring me to the principal.  Of course, I got his voicemail.  URGH!  I left a message to the tune of, "I sure hope you haven't gotten the emails I've been sending you, because then you at least have an excuse for making me so freaking angry!!! I expect a call back.  SOON!" But nicer than that.  Then, I had to go.  Bronson had a doctor'a appointment.

While I was at the doc with Bron, the principal called.  Luckily, David had just returned home from work, so he was able to talk to him.  Indeed, the emails I had been writing had been sent directly to a junk mail file.  The principal never even knew there was a problem until after he heard my voicemail and went looking for my emails.  His secretary never mentioned anything to him. He had no idea.  He told David that he appreciated all my concerns and agreed with my well-worded and logical concerns.  He spoke with the teachers involved and moved Nicki into the premier 6th grade teacher's classroom.  He was nothing but gracious, self-depreciating, and complimentary.  I was truly impressed with the way he handled it because I'm sure the natural response to my emails was to be a bit defensive.  I wrote him a thank-you-bordering-on-love-note.  He responded in kind and everything worked out for the best.  I'm not sure if I burned any bridges there or not, but it's our last year at this school anyway so I guess I don't really care.  I am thrilled that Nicki is in a good classroom and would fight that fight again any day of the week if it meant getting her in a good place.

So here are the pictures of my two old ladies!  Nicole is starting 6th grade and Alison is starting 8th.

School Starts - Part One

This is going to be a long story, but I HAVE to preserve it for our family history!

As you know, Joshua was enrolled in a Spanish Immersion program last year, in first grade. It was such a great experience!  He learned so much and we were very proud of him!  We decided to enroll Bronson in the program as well.  Our next door neighbors also have kids enrolled there - a son who is in Josh's church class but one year older in school and a daughter who will be starting kindergarten with Bronson.  We carpool.

Although the program has been amazing, there were a couple of little things that weren't ideal.  One was the location of the school.  It is located clear on the other side of town.  It is on Hill Field Road, one of the busiest streets in Layton (it takes two crossing guards to get the kids across the busy four lane road).  The other concern I had was that it was a title one school (meaning that an overwhelming number of its students fall below a certain income level and require financial assistance).  This was fine - in fact, we got some benefits from it like free school supplies and free haircuts. But I was just aware of the fact that some of his friends and classmates lived a very different lifestyle than we do.  It was a kind of rough school and I knew that the older Josh got, the more that could be a problem.  We had one or two incidents in first grade where he may or may not have been bullied.  I asked him once how he felt at school and he answered, "About 20% safe, about 10% bullied, and the rest trying to protect other people from bullies."

Last spring, I was talking to a woman in our Stake Young Women's presidency.  She told me about the charter school she had moved her daughter to years before.  She said it was the best decision she'd ever made.  She went on and on about how great it was and encouraged me to look into it.  I know four families in our neighborhood who also send their kids to this school and they love it as well.  It's called North Davis Preparatory Academy (or NDPA).  I've heard nothing but good about it.  It's been around for several years and won awards as one of the best schools, etc.  I know Debbie Gomberg, the previous principal who recently retired, very well.  She was my principal in middle school.  She was AMAZING!  They are a Spanish immersion school.  They are kind of famous for taking their 9th grade students on a trip to Spain every year.  So of course, I was interested.  The problem is, it's not easy to get into NDPA.  Admission is granted in a lottery system.

I spoke to my neighbor about my interest in NDPA.  I didn't want to leave her alone at Lincoln.  She said that she was very interested in NDPA.  In fact, she had tried to get her son enrolled there for kindergarten, but he didn't win the lottery so she just enrolled him at Lincoln.  She didn't sound too optimistic about our chances of getting in, but we decided to at least try.  We were supposed to put our kids into the lottery and just see what happened.  Of course, I totally forgot to do it.

Last Monday, I was pulling in our driveway after school clothes shopping with Nicole when my neighbor came running out to the van yelling, "Did you get in?!?!?  My kids are in!!!"  Oh crap!  I highly doubted my kids got in since I'd forgotten to enroll them in the lottery.  What an embarrassing and frustrating conversation that was with my neighbor!  I decided that all I could do was enroll them in the lottery now, then call the office and see what my chances were of getting my kids in later in the year.  The lady at the school was very kind to me, but she made it clear that our chances weren't great.  There was a chance that some kids moved over the summer, etc - there is a lot of flux in the first few days of school.  But more likely, an opening might occur in the middle of the year or not until  next year. That was fine - in fact that's all I could expect with my own stupidity.

On Tuesday morning, my mom needed me to take her to Sam's Club (I'm the only one in the family with a Sam's Club membership).  NDPA is not far from there, so we decided to drive over and take a look.  We said hi to the secretary at the front desk.  We told her I was the crazy mom who forgot to enroll her kids in the lottery - she knew exactly who I was.  We just looked around for a minute.  Then,we went outside to the parking lot.  One of my neighbors was out there showing her kindergartner around, so we chatted for a second.  Then we got in the car and started to pull away.  Suddenly, the secretary came running out and flagged us down.  "You won't believe this!" she said.  "Your second grader's name just got pulled!"  WHAT!?!?  It was nothing short of miraculous!  I'd entered his name the night before! I happened to be at the school at the time!  It was just amazing!  The secretaries were amazed and happy for us.

NDPA started school the very next day!  One week earlier than Davis School district!  PLUS, we needed to get uniforms and school supplies.  It was crazy!  We were told that Bronson's name would now be moved to the siblings list - meaning hat he jumped to the front of the line.  However, kindergarten is a lot harder to get into than the other grades.  I wasn't going to take Bron to Lincoln Elementary all by himself, but I was fine with enrolling him on our neighborhood elementary school with Nicole for one year.

The secretary took us back in the school and showed us a few things to help us get prepared for the next day.  There, we ran into Josh's new teacher - Jill Gibson.  Amazingly, Jill (used to be Hislop) grew up in my ward/stake when I was a kid. We know her VERY well!  She's amazing!  I was thrilled to learn that she would be his teacher!  Oh, and the new principal who took over after Debbie Gomberg retired, Ryan Robinson, is also good friend from my old ward/stake growing up.  I know and love both him and his wife!   I was pretty stoked by the time we left the school.

The rest of the day was crazy insane! My mom came with Josh and I to go uniform shopping.  When we got home, there was a message on the answering machine saying that Bronson was in as well! Woo hoo! So I turned around and went shopping with him too.  I called the pediatrician and convinced them to let us slip in and get Bron's shots a week before his actual appointment.  Then, I spent some time hunting down birth certificates, immunization records, etc. and filling out paperwork.  What a day!

My handsome second grader - who by the way, wears a size 7 MENS shoe!!!!

First day of kindergarten!! My heart might melt!

I said, "Put your arms around each other."  I meant around each others shoulders like pals,but they did this.  I like it even better!

With our neighbor friends.

The next morning, we got our boys dressed in their new uniforms, and took them to school.  They were both excited and nervous.  So was I.  But we had nothing to be nervous about.  Everything went super smoothly.  Especially considering the fact that when we woke up the morning before, we had no idea that school would be starting that day!

There have been a few times in my life - meeting David Gee, moving to Idaho, moving back to Utah, and now this - when I have felt like I was being moved in a direction with almost no effort on my part.  It feels like we are being led to (no, not "led to" - picked up and placed on) the path God wants us on at this time.  We have no idea what the future holds, but we feel very good about the move.