Millie and Silas finally got their first day at Preschool in September. They were so excited to see their teachers and friends since being out since mid-March.
This year Millie and Silas' weekly hours at Preschool increased by 2 hours...which means that on Thursdays, I have a couple of hours to myself to go grocery shopping, have a lunch date with Seth, etc. I pick Millie and Silas up about an hour before Phin gets out of school on Thursdays and we have decided to have a park date every week.
Silas' teachers are so good about sending picture updates. Here he is with his classmates playing with play dough.
After our hike we stopped at Waffle Love for a sweet treat.
We also stopped at Handel's ice cream to pick up a little birthday treat for Kim.
We walked over to one of our favorite parks one day. The kids were quite excited to spin Seth around.
Phin always loves the zip-line.
Who knew we had a four person pool.
I made A Bountiful Kitchen's s'more cookies Labor Day weekend...they were so good.
Seth met up at a local park with his parents and siblings to celebrate Jill's birthday.
We had a huge windstorm come through Bountiful in September. We lost a few branches from our big tree but never lost power. School ended up being cancelled for two days.
It was really touching to walk around our neighborhood and see neighbors helping neighbors clear debris.
Silas is becoming quite the climber when we visit playgrounds.
I love this photo of Millie with our next door neighbor Betty. If you look closely they are a matching set...Millie's shirt and Betty's pants match perfectly.
We love warm September afternoons in the hammock.
Our next hike was to Donut Falls.
The wind storm had knocked quite a few trees down and we had to climb over some that had fallen on the trail.
After our hike we stopped at Banbury Cross for a doughnut.
Silas is my olive lover. I try to remember to buy him olives when I go to the grocery store.
We also hiked The Living Room with Kim, Carver and Conrad one weekend. Scott and Kristi's family joined us for the first park of the hike.
The colors were just starting to change and it was so gorgeous.
It was a much harder hike than I imagined but the kids were troopers.
We arrived at the Living Room just as the sun was starting to set...it was beautiful.
On the hike down we spotted a couple of tarantulas.
This is what my life looks like a few days a week. I wear a face shield and sit behind a plexiglass shield during speech therapy. My students also wear face shields...they said they feel a little astronauts. One thing that I don't like about the face shields is that your voice bounces back to you...it is very distracting. I ended up ordering a higher end face shield for myself that had a better sound quality. For most of September my district was on a hybrid schedule which meant that kids with last names A-L attended school on Mondays and Wednesdays and students with last names M-Z attended on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I liked the schedule because it allowed me to give parents the option for the students to receive services remotely via Video-Conferencing. I honestly can't wait for the day when speech therapy looks a little more like it used to.
I was able to volunteer when Phin's class ran in the Laps for Lions fundraiser. This little guy is pretty competitive and ran hard.
This little park is very close to the school and one of Millie and Silas' favorites.
I got pretty sick with shortness of breath, body chills and aches in September and went for a Covid test. I ended up with the spit test...it seemed to take forever to get enough spit for the sample. Luckily the test came back negative.
Millie's birthday finally came. She was SO excited. Sadly I think Covid put a little damper on her grand plans.
I did take her to Baskin Robbins to pick out a cake. we even found a little Olaf figure to go on top.
Kim, Carver and Conrad gave Millie a balloon...which flew away when the kids were playing. Millie's birthday wish was for her balloon to come back.
Part of my Halloween costume arrived in September. I sent this picture to Seth and he replied "Jinkies."
Millie's other birthday request was to have special time with Mom and get ice cream you can drink. A Chick-Fil-A strawberry shake seemed to fit the bill.
One day when Phin was at school I hiked Ensign Peak with Millie, Silas and my friend Rachel and her two youngest kids.
It happened to be the anniversary of the death of the person that wrote "High on a Mountain Top." Some of his descendants were there and gave the kids flags to wave and we sang the song together.
We also took another trip to the store for more mask fabric. Silas was quite thrilled with the Spiderman fabric that we found.
September was exhausting...but we made it. It felt good to be back to our routines.
