CALIFORNIA OR BUST!!

We had the amazing experience on taking a quick trip with our friends, the Fogle's, to California!  Our kids had never seen a California beach so President Fogle took it upon himself to introduce them to a place that he loved.  We left Thursday at 6 p.m. and traveled all through the night and made it to Huntington Beach at 9 a.m.  

Oh and it was amazing!!

LOVED the:

boogie boards

seashells

starfish

sand

sun

waves

salt water

smiles and laughter!

I never thought it was possible to have so much sand in your shorts!

I even attempted to boogie board, I was never good at it

BUT  I did attempt it!!

We went to Huntington Beach one day,

Seal Beach & Knotts Berry Farm the next!!!

Sunday we traveled to Oceanside 1st ward and attended our meetings.

Traveled on down to San Diego and the Mormon Battallion.

Made it to Las Vegas that night and headed home the next morning!

Couldn't have been any better!

Thanks Fogle's

SOCCER

I LOVE SOCCER!!!

We are full swing in the season and having a blast.

Ashlyn is in it for the social and fun & most of the time she has a smile on her face!!

She is an amazing wing and can cross that ball like no other!!

Ashlyn also has a really strong leg,

so when she makes a shot she has a lot of power behind it! 

The girls love her on the team because she is reliable and consistent.

She lots of the girls with their scoring. 

In this game she had an amazing shot that fell right behind the

keepers head and landed perfectly in the goal!

LOVE watching her!!!

This is Tanner's senior year and that is all that I can say about that

without tearing up!!!

This game he got a hat trick (3 goals)!

He is the center midfielder and the play maker.

I love to watch him because of his footwork and he is so SMOOOOTH!

He also has a powerful shot and could make it from the

midfield line if he wanted to.  

I LOVE this game!!

We have great expectations for the end of the season!!

PHOTO SHOOT

Had a photo shoot on Sunday with the fam.

We needed to take some Senior pics of Tanner

& then all the other kids jumped on the wagon and wanted

theirs taken also.

Casey wasn't afraid to take up a pose also.

Such a fun night!

We met up with our friends the Shirley's and had 

a great time with them!  

Love my family!

first day of school 2014-2015

So grateful, everyone was way excited!

No tears, just big smiles!

Ellie- 4th grade & Mrs. Singleton

Sam- 7th grade Junior High King

Tanner- Senior Student Body President

Ashlyn- Sophmore Eternal Spirit Leader

Now-- what shall I do with myself?

Answer--- whatever I WANT!!!

This will be an amazing year and I can't wait to see what all my amazing kiddos will accomplish!

Zeus

We have a new pet in our house. Ashlyn bought him on craigslist in February and loves him! He is a  colorful, happy, sun conure. He makes us all laugh by what  he does. He only likes four people in our family, Ashlyn, Ellie, Sam, Casey, and me. The thing is he likes me but I don't like so much back.  He screams whenever someone comes in the door, he screams for Ashlyn when he is in this cage, he screams for no reason at all! He is a wierd, crazy, silly parrot.

girl vacation

A couple times during the summer Tanner and Ashlyn had soccer tournaments on the same weekend so Casey and I would divide and conquer.  I would take the girls to Utah and Casey with the boys to Boise!

It was so much fun to be with the girls.  They are always adorable and make me happy to be their momma!

At this particular tournament, I didn't have a lot of faith in Ashlyn's team and so I thought they would be out of the tourney the first day and I even teased Ashlyn for it.  We only packed for one day and I had made plans to be home over the weekend.  But, their team went all the way to the championship game and placed 2nd, which meant that we stayed an extra 3 days and 2 nights.  Ashlyn sure let me have it on how little faith I had in her team.  I was so glad to be wrong and to have had those extra days with just the girls!

Homecoming 2012

Two weeks ago I got a phone call early in the week from an old friend telling me that Tanner had been nominated as Sophmore Attendent for the Homecoming Royalty.  I giggled a little bit and then was sworn to secrecy to not tell anyone but Casey.  So the night before the assembly Tanner was laying on my bed chatting with me and I thought I would quiz him a little bit on any upcoming events.  He went through a list and didn't say anything about Royalty so I asked, "Isn't there some king and queen thing that they also do?"  He quickly said, " Oh mom, I would never want to have to do that.  It would be so embarassing!  It would be awful!".  I thought to myself, "This boy is in for a big surprise!"

Most people don't know how shy Tanner is.  He doesn't like the spotlight or to be in front of big crowds and have attention drawn to himself.  It takes a lot of courage for him to perform his music in front of people, but he is getting better!  Anyway, I was excited and nervous for him.

On Friday they were to have an assembly and parade.  So I was to take his nice clothes to the school and they would pull him out before the assembly and get him ready.  Around 8:30 a.m.  I get a text from Tanner that said

"flip. . . ."

At that point I knew he had been told and was in for a roller coaster ride.  

I made it to the assembly and saw him sitting with the group of royalty, gave him a thumbs up and went to sit down.  The freshman were the first to be presented and when I saw the young man present the young woman with a tiara and then give her a kiss on the cheek I really started to giggle.  Poor Tanner is definitely being put out of his comfort zone and now he gets to kiss a girl he doesn't know on the cheek in front of the whole school!  After the assembly he came to me and said how grateful

he was that I made him kiss my cheek before he left for school every morning, it helped him with the logistics of it all!

Tanner did an awesome job!   He made it through and I was so proud of him.  The parade was fun.  Half-time at the football game was great.  The hour that he spent at the dance was awesome.  All-in-all it was an amazing experience.