Haley's Wedding

My sister got married in October in Oklahoma.  We had a fun (and by fun, I mean extremely fast) road trip out to participate in the festivities!  Here are some pictures I snapped during the weekend.  I wanted to enjoy being there, so I wasn't too concerned about taking million of pictures.

 

 

The Boat

Bryan and I really really like our boat.  Unfortunately, cosmetically, the boat has seen some better days.  After it got hit with a hailstorm at the end of last summer, the upholstery was in a bad place.  Especially when you wear a swimsuit. (which in a boat happens more often than not!)  Bryan decided was could re-upholster it ourselves.  He took all the seats out in the bow before I got a chance to take a 'before' picture.  But I did take these beauties after he took them all out...  It was cracked and well, take a look, you'll see what I'm talking about...

First step:  Take off all the old rotting vinyl.  It was seriously rotted on.  The staples were disintegrating when I tried to remove them.  Lucky for me my mother-in-law and father-in-law were in town this weekend.  We had quite the project on our hands.  I was SO happy to have help.  My MIL has some serious talent with a sewing machine, I couldn't have done it with out her.  The four of us worked really hard all weekend. (it probably took the 4 of us 12 hours to finish this)

I couldn't be happier with the finished product!

Here it is in boat!  All done!

(Now on to the Captain's chairs...just you wait! These are gonna be SWEET when they are done!)

 

My dad made me blog. Part 2

Geez.  I really am behind.! Here is a gazillion more pictures:  Peter on the first day of 1st grade! He wasn't really 'into' me taking pictures.  Can you tell?  He just wanted to go to school.  And he is doing great and loving it.  We have about 20-30 minutes of homework every night.  He is learning upper-case cursive letters now, along with how to read a map, cardinal directions, counting money and has a test next week on world geography- the 7 continents and all the oceans.  He is starting fractions in math, and POWER reading, where I get to time him and see how many words per minute he can read.  He is up to 125wpm now.  Impressive!  Way to go Peter.  I hope he keeps this enthusiasm for learning.  It is so great to see him learn and succeed!  P.S.  I love his school.  I don't know if I can ever go back to public school. 

 Mr. Heath, looking spiffy before church last week.  I can't get enough of this little guy.  His smile just melts my heart!

 

 This is now how Brooke poses for any pictures if you don't give her other guidelines: ha ha!
Miss Maggie moved last week and we sure have been missing her!

 And of course, what would summer be without HAIL?! 
Brooke thought it would be fun to put her suit on and play in it.  Crazy chick.  It was FREEZING out!

 Devin and Nicole came up for the weekend, which was so fun!  We did some biking, some hiking, and some boating.  Here are Heath and Teddy being buddies

 We went to the hot air balloon festival, which was kind of a bust because it was too windy to light them up. (It was a night thing where they put lanterns in the balloons.  They only got 2 a fourth of the way up and took them down)

 But they did light the fire torches.  Check out the look on his face!

 And finally, Brooke had her first day of preschool today.  She is SO ready and more than a little excited.

 Brooke is learning how to write her letters and starting to sound out the sounds they make.  I am hoping to get her reading by the end of this school year.  She asks me constantly to 'do worksheets' and practice handwriting and reading.  I do love this girl!

 Heath kind of wanted to go too...(so sad!)

 But he cheered right up when I told him he could play with my Ipod for a minute when we got home!

My dad made me blog.

I got a nutty email from him...(you think I'm kidding, but I'm not).  And I guess it HAS been over a month since I last posted.
We have been crazy busy.  A random trip to Arizona, a couple lake trips, awesome visitors, biking, training for a race, back-to-school adventures, and other random crap that seems to take up all my free time!

I don't even know where to start!!!
Hmmm.  I guess the lake.  Because I love the lake.  You know you live in Colorado when you are wearing sweatshirts in August.  Here is Peter at Blue Mesa Reservior.  (You would never know that this picture is taken about 5 feet from the campsite's bathrooms....)

back track a little more...Peter lost his first tooth in June, which was followed a week later with his second!

He was thrilled!

Brooke thinks she is really good at posing for pictures...I'll let you decide.

 We visited two of my favorite people on the planet!  My Nannie and Grandpy!

 I got to attend a session at the Gilbert Temple with Jessica.

 When I got home, I hiked Pike's peak with friends.  It was awesome.  We made it to the top in a little over 6 hours.  We of course started with the Manitou Springs Incline (which is my FAVORITE tool of torture!)
It was sweltering at the bottom...and really windy and quite cool at the top.  I just love mountains.  I have this strange desire to climb a mountain, every time I see one. 

 I love this picture of Bryan and the kids!

More to come soon...