Back to School

The kids went back to school as soon as we got back from our trip to Florida.  School actually had started two days before but I wasn't about to miss my trip for the first two days where they don't do anything!  It was Annie's first day of Kindergarten, first grade for Russ, Fourth Grade for Jane, Seventh for Nellie and Eighth for Lizzy. 

Clara didn't want to miss out on pictures with the rest of the kids.

I rode bikes with the kids on the first day since they had extra bags to carry with school supplies.  When we got there the Kindergarten kids were already lining up inside the gate because they go earlier on Mondays. They also asked parents to not come inside the classroom after the first two days. I'm sure since it was Annie's first day that they would have let me come, but I asked Annie if she wanted me to and she said "no, I'm fine Mom." She took her stuff and ran around and lined up with her class and I saw her talking to her teacher and introducing herself.  I just love this girl!  She has so much courage and self confidence and she is fierce.

Russ was pretty nervous since he isnt quite as confident as Annie and so I had to go stand with him and find his teacher.  He did so great too though. I'm so proud of my kids and how they are happy and well adjusted, they really do so well in these types of situations. Jane also did great too of course. She was happy that her good friend Max was in her class again! They have been in the same class every year but one, and that is really crazy with all the classes there are.

Lizzy and Nellie started their last year of Middle School together.  I'm not sure they really enjoy being around each other at school, but Im hoping one day that will change. These pictures  were actually from the second day since it was tehir picture day.  They looked so beuatiful that day and it was so crazy to see how just how much they had grown up!

Lizzy's bangs were such an adjustment at first but seeing her here made her look so much older.  I love them!

Orlando

 Kevin had a big business trip to Orlando in August and with it being Florida and not having to pay that much for me, it is always a no-brainer for me to go too. We flew in on a Friday, it ended up being most of the day to get there.  We landed and decided that we wanted to have a beach day so we drove to Cocoa Beach and stayed the night.  We found a local burger place for dinner and I was seriously so starving by that point. Then we went and checked into our hotel and decided to walk down to the beach for the evening. We hung out there for a bit and then we saw a bunch of people gathering and then we saw paramedics come in.  From afar you could see them doing chest compressions for almost a half hour. It was pretty crazy.  We found out that the guy had been found out in the ocean and that he didn't make it.  It was really crazy.  

The next day we hung out and went to some different surf shops and souvenir shops trying to find something for the kids. We left the kids with Chanelle and Tom and my parents to take turns watching, but we had asked Lizzy to make sure she helped a lot so we wanted to find her a Cocoa Beach lifeguard sweatshirt that she really wanted and we couldn't find one at any of the stores. We went to the beach again and it was SO hot and humid!  We thought we would really enjoy the day at the beach but after about 30 minutes in the water we were both just done. We were feeling old because the beach just didn't hold the special place we thought it would and it was just yucky and hot and sandy. 

We drove back to Orlando that evening because we wanted to go to the temple that night. We try and go to the temple every trip that we take, its also fun to get to see all the different temples. On the way out of Cocoa Beach we stopped at the last souvenir store and lo and behold they had the sweatshirt!  I was so happy we tried one more place.  We went to dinner that night and went to the temple, but alas it was closed.  I was bummed because I had looked it up on the Internet and it didn't say anything about being closed! So we just walked around the grounds and took some pictures. 

 The next day we got up and headed to Epcot.  We knew we were going to do two days of parks so we really tried to figure out which ones  we would be happiest that we did.  We decided to do Epcot because it was really different than anything we had ever done and Magic Kingdom because well, its Magic Kingdom!  Epcot was fun and I'm glad we did it, but it is seriously so dang huge!  The walking was crazy.  We felt like we did everything by about 6 and we were just tired so we headed back tot he hotel. We were going to stay for the fireworks, but kind of ended up feeling like we could probably see them another night form our hotel and it just sounded too long to stay for another few hours when we were already tired.  We headed back and hadn't eaten yet because we decided to wait since its so much cheaper to not eat at the park.  We went back to our hotel that was out of the park and there was a BJ's right next to it so we got a salad to share and a pizookie since how can we not when we are at BJ's haha! The next day we were able to go stay at the Dolphin Hotel in Disney World.  It was a nice hotel and fun to stay at a place that we could never afford on our own. 

 We had a nice Mexican lunch at a restaurant in Epcot. It was fun to celebrate Kevin's birthday all week.  

 This is one of the few pictures I got of us at Magic Kingdom. It really was a blast to go with Kevin. It's of course great to go with the kids but just being together and not having to worry about tired, cranky kids that are hungry and need to go to the bathroom, is just a joy all on its own.  We had a great time and got to ride a lot of rides early in the morning.  It started to get crowded and so dang hot (part of the problem with going to Florida in August!) So we went back to our hotel for part of the afternoon and took a nice nap then headed back to the park for the late afternoon and evening.  It really was just such a great day together. He is my favorite and being with him at one of our favorite places just made it even better. 

With Kevin's conference, a free admission to one of the water parks was included. So after he got done with classes for the day we went and had a good time riding some slides.  We are getting kind of old though because we didn't last very long there.  After a couple hours of riding slides and a little time in the wave pool we were both ready to go.  It was such a fun trip. One thing about Florida though was I felt like I looked horrible the entire time I was there!  I would do my hair in the morning and walk outside and I felt like I looked like I just rolled out of bed without ding my hair. It was also really nice to get to spend a longer time together than just a few days.  We got a whole week and it was so awesome!  We love to be together and always have the best time no matter what we do!!!

The Emerald Pools

While the Prices were here visiting, we wanted to take them somewhere fun, that wasn't something we could do just anywhere.  I had seen some people post on instagram about this place called the Emerald Pools.  It's on the south yuba river and it was only about an hour from our house and it looked so cool, so we thought "hey why not?"

We packed a lunch and headed up I-80, we turned off and I tried to find it, but it was a little bit difficult to find. We asked someone and they said we were headed in the right direction.  We turned this corner and saw a parking lot with quite a few cars and though it must be it, and then I realized there was a naked lady just standing in the parking lot by a trailer. I told all the kids to close their eyes and we drove past and parked.  We ate our lunch in the car and then hoped that the naked lady had left. We walked down to the lot and luckily she wasn't around.  We walked about a quarter of a mile down a little path to the pools and it was so cool.  The water was crystal clear and so green and pretty. There were giant rocks all over and the big kids quickly started off to see if they could jump off them. The water was really cold so the little kids just hung around with us and waded around. 

After being there only a few minutes we see this couple with two kids and a grandma come walking in.  The little toddlers are naked, but at least the adults are all clothed. Haha, not for long!  They come set up their stuff and off come the clothes! The old lady lays down on the ground and puts her leg up.  The man strips down and goes over and stands on one of the giant rocks forever. I guess wanting everyone to look at him.  It was seriously so crazy!  I don't know what would possess people to expose themselves to everyone and to all the bugs and critters that were there.  I was just really hoping the older kids would stay far away so they wouldn't have to see it, and they did.  They saw and really tried to keep their distance.   Other than the crazy naked family, it ended up being such a fun day.  The older kids had such a blast cliff diving.  Jane got bored and cold pretty quick and came back and hung out with the little kids. We ended up staying for a while and just having such a good time together. Next time we have to take Kevin with us!