Claire Loves Dad

Awhile ago Ben was reading to Claire and he looked over and she had fallen asleep on his shoulder. This is one of his favorite pictures:

First Grade!

 Does this girl look ready or not?

All summer Audra has been worried about being at school all day long. She kept coming up to me, giving me a hug, and saying "I am going to miss you so much!"

I have tried to talk up First Grade as much as I can- especially about how she gets to eat lunch at school and be with her friends and such.

Yesterday we went and met her teacher. Some of you know that I have had some SERIOUS reservations about her teacher this year. He is a new teacher at the school and has been at a lot of different schools. He is in his 60's, and I didn't know if it was a career change or a teacher who just loved teaching and wasn't ready to retire. Lots and lots of rumors have abounded, and I knew I needed to decipher fact from fiction as quickly as possible.

Thankfully, when I met him, many of my concerns were put to rest. Not all of them. I still have some pretty serious reservations. But, he does have a strong background in literacy and has tons of experience teaching young children. So it is now a wait and see game.

Audra was nervous to meet her teacher yesterday, but overall she seemed happy. I asked her if she was OK with having a boy teacher and she said she was excited about it. I think in the end it will be fine.

She came into my room bright and early this morning. She was SOOOOOO excited!

We walked to school- something I absolutely love to do. And this morning it was extra fun as we saw so many neighborhood kids walking to school with their parents. It really was pretty cool- it made my day.

Devil's Head Hike

 The other day we went with a group of friends to Devil's Head Hike. I wasn't going to bring my camera, but it's a good thing I did because we are never going back! Not because the hike is too difficult, but because the road to get there and back is so treacherous! Ben drove and I almost had about 30 heart attacks because the roads were so scary! Despite how beautiful it was, we are not going back!

 There was a fun cave the girls could climb it- definitely a huge hit with all the kids!

A Short Trip

 Last week we loaded up the van and headed to Utah!

Ben has some family there and we arranged to go to Bear Lake with them for a few days. Ben's aunt, uncle, cousin and his cousin's family came with us.

Beforehand we stopped in Sandy, which also gave us the opportunity to go to Provo and visit a friend who had just moved there. Anyway, it was A LOT of driving.

Thankfully, Claire was prepared:

 The girls really did incredibly well on the drive. Ben's parents came with us, and that definitely helped to keep them entertained. The DVD player didn't hurt, either.

Finally, we got to the beach.

 I know this is a horrible picture of Camille, but I really wanted to show how filthy Camille got at the beach. That girl LOVES sand! She kept putting handful after handful into her mouth and it got everywhere. It was pretty disgusting, but she had such a blast- so what do you do?

 I had never been to Bear Lake, and I really fell in love with it. The water stays shallow until about forever which is unbelievable. The water is crystal blue and really warm (well, except for day 2 of our trip when it was freezing cold, overcast, and rainy).

Ben desperately wanted to rent a paddle boat. I really wanted a jet ski. In the end he won (I can't believe I let him win). Because of the rain and the cold, though, I ended up being glad we didn't get the jet ski. I hate it when I let Ben win AND he ends up being right.

 Bear Lake is famous for its' raspberry shakes, but I was the only one who ordered one. Oh, well.

 The girls were incredibly proud of the sand castle they made (with quite a bit of help from Mom).

 Here's Claire with her cousin (at least that is what we are calling her!) Izzy. I really am astonished at how well the girls all played together. One would think after 4 days they would have started bickering, but they never did. Claire didn't have a single tantrum (or if she did I have blocked it out) and it was as if they were all best friends. Really, it was unbelievable.

 I was looking out the window of our cabin and I saw this moose- oh, how the girls were excited to see that! And, the adults were too.

 This was the view from our cabin- absolutely gorgeous!

 And here is the best picture of the whole trip:

We really did have the best time! I am so glad we went! We are so grateful to have such a wonderful family and to have had such an amazing time! It really was just the best!!!

North Pole

On Friday we took the kids to the North Pole. We have made this an annual tradition, and we always look forward to it. The girls remembered all about it and had a list of what rides they wanted to go on first. We invited Ben's parents to come with us, and that was really nice as well.

The best thing about the park is that it is never crowded. I don't think the girls waited in a single line the entire time- they just went back and forth to whatever ride they wanted. If you have little kids and live in Colorado, this is definitely worth the trip!

 Camille mostly stayed in her stroller- she was quite content to watch the kiddos on the rides. But, we did take her on the candy cane slide, and even though she doesn't look like it, she LOVED it. We would get off the slide and she would immediately run to the stairs to climb up and go down again.

She's A Climber!

While is Seattle Camille perfected the art of going up and down stairs.

As soon as we got home, she figured out how to climb onto our chaise. Now, it's really cute because she climbs up on the chaise and "relaxes" while she reads a book or just looks cute.