AUGUST

August brought the return of routine.  Here is our August in reverse.  One routine we had this summer was weekly pizza nights with our Ooni Pizza oven.  We bought this beauty on a Memorial Day sale.  Each week we have had a pizza night and over the weeks of summer we have perfected our technique.  It has been so fun to have family and friends over to share pizza with.

One Saturday afternoon while I was getting my hair done, Seth took the kids down to BrickSlopes a Lego convention.  The kids (and Seth) had the best time seeing the Lego creations on display and playing in the big pit of bricks.

 

 

I now have 3 kids in full-day school.  They all have a boundary variance to come to the school that I work at.  It is really a little surreal to finally get to this point.  I started working at this school when Phin was just about 10 weeks old...an now he is 10.

Silas was the last to get back to a routine.  They didn't have school the first 4 days of school so they could do the Kindergarten Entry testing with all the Kindergarten students.  Silas was spoiled with a few days alone at Nona and Papa's.  He loved eating cereal and corn dogs and watching Paw Patrol.  He also was able to sweet talk Nona into sewing him a special bag for his toys.  So far he is loving Kindergarten.

 

Lou has also loved being back in the classroom.   I think her favorite thing is craft time.

 

 

Seth and I got a new bed...we decided to go for an adjustable base and it is a favorite with our kids.  This is now our spot for reading. 

 

Seth was gifted some Cowabunga Bay tickets so were were able to go again with cousins.

 

 

 I ran the Salt Lake City Rock n' Roll Half Marathon this month.  I had signed up for the race over a year ago when they announced the race series was coming to Utah.  The Rock n' Roll series is so fun, because they have live bands every few miles.  People travel from all over the country to run.  I ran this race series in Phoenix with Jeff about 4 years in a row.  I also ran at the Inaugural race in Savannah, Georgia while we were living in South Carolina. 

 

I signed up for the race before they released the race course...and  had I seen the course, I probably would not have signed up.  We ran from near the City and County Building downtown straight up State Street to the Capitol.   It was so STEEP.  I actually did fairly well the first 5K but then after we ran around City Creek, I struggled to get my heart-rate down from the 180s.  It was very nostalgic to run around City Creek canyon, across 11th Ave and through Federal Heights to the University of Utah.  By the time I reached it to the University I was seriously tanked.  The "feed" stations helped to up my energy.  Then we ran down 9th South and through some of the Harvard/Yale neighborhood to Liberty Park before returning to the Main Library downtown.  Ironically I was assigned the number 2020 as my race number.  A spectator even commented...that is not a good number.  The race actually had a lot of parallels to 2020...it was a course that I had not signed up for, I felt seriously unprepared and I wasn't sure that I would make it to the finish line.  Good news is...I made it to the finish line.  It was my slowest half marathon ever...but I finished.

 

The night before my race I had the kids run the Kids Rock race...this was Phin just as he crossed.  He said it was HARD.

 

Phin ran one mile and was an absolute trooper...here he is giving the thumbs up at the finish line.

Millie and Silas each ran 1/2 a mile.  Millie came in 3rd.

 

I ran with Silas and was so proud of him for pushing through even when he wanted to quit.

 

I hope to run many races in the future with these cute kiddos.

 

Here they are warming up at the start line.

 

We had fun picking up our gear at the Running expo.

 

There was a DNA hair-tools booth that offered to curl Millie's hair.  She loved being pampered.

Phin's first day of 5th grade.

 

Millie's first day of 2nd Grade.

 

Lou's first day of Childcare.

 

The day before school started we spent a few hours out at Lagoon-A-Beach.

 

Back to School Night.

My love of sourdough continues.  I am consistently getting a good "ear" and score...and it always tastes delicious.

 

I even made Challah bread this month.

 

We had some of our favorite neighbors over for dinner.  Derk is such a good sport and had a balloon sword fight with our kids.

 

We went to Lagoon with friends and Millie was so brave this trip.  She rode The Bat for the first time.

 

Phin rode The Spider for the first time.  Millie rode Colosses for the first time.  She and Phin also rode Wicked for the first time.  

 

Also...Lou is big enough to not have me stand by her when she goes on the Merry-go-Round. 

We spent a few hours at the Splash Pad one afternoon.  I treated the kids to a Fiiz and Silas got very creative with a plastic baggie.

 

We spent a day with Spencer and Aaron.  The kids had so much fun having a Popsicle party with their cousins.

 

We also stopped at Costco for a pizza lunch.  An older gentleman started to count all the kids that were with me...I let him know that no they were not all mine.

We took Aaron and Spencer to Tracy Aviary.  The bird show as a huge hit with the kids.

 

The flamingos were my favorite..Can you see the little flamingo tucked under his Mom's wing in the nest...so sweet.

 

The kids loved playing The Lawn is Lava in our favorite spot.

 

Our favorite babysitter brought over a bubble gun.

 

Sisters playing Dance Dance.

Nona made Lou the most beautiful dress...and this girl knew the dress was for her.

 

We took a very quick trip to Indiana to attend GenCon.  We left on a Thursday night on a red-eye and got back on Saturday night.  We took Phin and Millie with us on the trip.  It was really a treat to have some special time with just our two oldest kiddos.  We didn't have quite as much time in Indy as we had planned...as we were pulling away from our gate in Salt Lake during departure a passenger had a medical emergency.  The delayed flight caused us to miss our connection at LAX.  So after a few short hours in a hotel we caught a flight to Indy via a short layover in Minneapolis.  We ended up having about 9 hours less in Indy then we had planned.  In total we took 5 airplane rides.  Phin finally fell asleep on the plane on our very last leg of the trip. 

 

Photos in Indy as we flew back.  The kids actually loved the airplane rides...they watched movies to their hearts content and loved having snacks delivered to their seats.

 

GenCon was HUGE!  It was a little overwhelming and we realized that we love SaltCon...our local board game convention.  We visited the Catan booth.

 

The focus of this convention was mainly on the convention hall.  It was packed and we had to hold the kids hands so they wouldn't get lost.  We were able to demo a few games.  This was a dexterity dodge ball themed game...I think it was called Jungle Ball.

 

There were lots of spots for Photo Ops.

 

We found someone to teach us a couple of Grandpa Beck's games...I won Cover your Cookies.

 

Millie won Gnoming Around.

 

The HABA booth had a huge version of Rhino Hero.

 

The kids favorite area was probably the Kids Zone.  We had purchased a craft token for each of them and they were also able to do some free crafts.  They each painted a figurine.  Phin also made a little Lego box and Millie made a fairy crown.

 

The Convention even went down onto the field were the Colts play football.

 

When we first arrived at the convention we played a couple of games at the Bezier Games booth.  Scram is a kid version of our favorite game Silver.

 

The Kids Zone also had just tones of empty boxes that the kids could build with.

 

This was Millie's first time on a plane...she was so nervous as we talked about the trip but handled it all like a champ.

 

One afternoon Millie remembered she had a keychain making kit and spent hours crafting away.

 

Lou discovered she likes blackberries...look how big our blackberries were this year.

 

Phin and Millie took a cooking class and had the best time enjoying their yummy food.

 

Silas was so excited to see Halloween decorations out at a store.

 

The kids also had their last swim lesson of the summer.