Jaxon's first day of school

Doesn't he look all grown up? He'll definetly have the girls chasing him.


Yesterday Jaxon started 3rd grade. He was excited when I dropped him off in the morning. By the time he got home, he wasn't excited anymore. He would not tell us anything when he got home. His Maaka called him and he wouldn't even talked to her. Which is not like him. If he doesn't talk to us, usually, he will talk to his Maaka. We think his new teacher is not what he expected. A lot of rules and too much information for Jaxon on the first day of school. He just got stressed out. We told him it's only the 3rd grade. Breathe, relax and have fun. His new teacher is Mr. C. I actually went to school with him. He is Jaxon's first male teacher. We will see how the second day of school went for him.

The Sinking Duo

The Sinking Duo. You can tell Pheb's sure loves her Jaxy.
Future Olympic swimmer? Maybe, maybe not.
Phebe concentrating on arms and kicking. I love her tongue sticking out.


This past week has been a busy one for us. I should be getting use to it. They tell me it's only going to get worse as the kids get older. Good thing there's only two of them. On to the Sinking Duo. The kids had their first swimming lessons this past week. On the first day, the Vocana kids tried drowning and scaring their teacher. Jaxon was the first one up to the challenge. He tried swimming up and down the pool. On the way back to the swallow end, he got tired and started going down. He was then put close to the edge in case he got tired again. Next was Phebe's turn in her class. The kids were learning how to jump into the water. They were doing one at a time. Phebe was waiting for her turn sitting on the steps into the pool. She slipped of the step and started sinking. Only my children. After the first day and we had no more problems. The kids became swimming fools. Jaxon learn how to dive and is loving that. Phebe has figured out that the noodle is cool to swim with and to practice kicking and using her arms. Next year, we will be definitely doing swimming lessons earlier in the summer. On a side note, the rest of our week was filled with unpacking our camping gear from our camping trip with my family last weekend, finishing up school shopping, missing Brian (he was in Portland all week for a Nursery Expo- getting us some cool free stuff), our stray dog getting hit by an orchard truck (only scrapping his mouth), and finding a dead muskrat in our basement that came in from the dryer vent.

Pics from our trip

These are some of the highlights of our trip. Hope you enjoyed them. We sure enjoyed taking them.

Mama Mia

Today I saw Mama Mia with my Mom and Grandma. To contrary belief, I didn't corrupt my elders with sexual innuendos. It had as much talk about it as a Rock Hudson and Doris Day movie. Those movies probably had more in them. We all liked it. My Mom kept smiling at me because I was singing to the music. She said it was because I was raised on ABBA music when we lived in Germany when I was little. We walked out of the movie uncringed. I'm going to go get the soundtrack. There's a few songs on it that we don't have. Especially the one about daughters. That's for Phebe.

There's no Place like Home!!!

After driving 2987 miles and seeing 39 license plates, WE ARE HOME!!!! The kids and I had a great vacation. We sure did miss having Daddy around. Hopefully, next year he can come with us. Jaxon has decided that we should make it a summer tradition. We will have to see about that. We went to all kinds of places. Jaxon's top favorite 5 things were the Copper Mine, the Zip Line and Alpine slide at Snowbird, Jump on It in Pleasant Grove, Going to the Twin Falls Temple Open House, and staying in hotels with swimming pools. Phebe's top things were Jump on it, the hotels, playing with Maya, Sophie, Hannah, Katie, and Abby, and the Twin Falls Temple. My top things were seeing Julie and Todd, visiting with family, the Zip line, the Material Girls quilt shop (a lot), seeing Ricks College (aka BYU-Idaho), seeing Karlee and Spencer (almost makes me want to have one), and taking my kids to the Twin Falls Temple. I could keep going. It was great to spend time with Kyle, Robby and the girls. It was good to get some cousin time in since we don't get to see them very often. Karlee's blessing was awesome. She is a cutie pie. We survived the Vegas heat. We even took the kids to the playground in 110 degree weather. Being with Julie and Todd was what I needed, (mostly, Julie). Wish we lived closer to them like we did in Oregon. I loved the girl talk in the car. As you can tell we all loved the Twin Falls temple. It was a very spiritual experience. We all felt the spirit especially in the celestial room. Jaxon liked the sealing room with the mirrors that go til eternity. Phebe was excited about everything. I am glad we saved it for last. On the way home, we went through a thunderstorm that felt like we were in a tornado. Very cool and scary at the same time. Pics will come later. We have too many to choose from. I have to say one more thing. My kids are the greatest. I did not have one problem traveling with them. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. We are very lucky parents to have them in our lives.