August

 The rest of August was filled with back to school preparations (for mom) and last minute cramming sessions of laziness, sleeping in, and electronics time (for the kids).  Matt was able to do a few good hikes.
Tyler went to scout camp-sadly I have no pictures of that yet-but I have heard stories of getting pushed upstream while river rafting in a painful hail storm.  Fun right?  Nathan got to spend a weekend at "cousin camp" up at Mike and Jen's house.  The older cousins planned a few days full of crafts and activities for all the younger ones--complete with a sleepover.

And then it was time for the dreaded school to start again.  It was actually kind of a weird start of the school year for us. Everyone had different first days of school. The first one back to school on August 19th was Tyler.

10th grade Jordan High School

You can tell Tyler was hyped up to start high school if he can make faces like this at 6am.  Tyler was really excited to get to Jordan High.  He wasn't going to be the smallest fish in the school because Canyons district moved 9th grade up to the high schools this year (and 6th grade up to junior high). He has a few of the same teachers that Jacob and Miranda had--the ones that liked them.  Thanks to his amazing school counselor (Annmarie Proctor-ya what kid wouldn't be happy to have his second mom be his school counselor?) he got out of having the one teacher that hated both Miranda and Jacob--no sense going there again.

 I actually went back to work full time the day Tyler started. Back to days of meetings and finishing getting my classroom ready for the new year.  Unfortunately this left Nathan with no one to stay home with (Miranda was busy with last minute getting ready for college stuff). Anyhow, the Horsleys came to our rescue and had Nathan take a mini trip up to Pocatello for a few days.  So lucky Nathan got to end his summer with a bang and hang out with his second cousins Dave and Nate.

Two peas in a pod-Their dads were best friends as kids too:)

So, the day after he got back from Pocatello, on August 22nd, Nathan started the 5th grade

5th grade Summit Academy Mrs. Seidel

 Then comes the saddest back to school story--well at least for me.  On August 25th we moved Miranda down to BYU--see happy day for her.

giving the "peace out" to Sandy

and all we were left with was this empty room......

With all her roommates 

Miranda lucked out and got to live in the new Herritage dorm buildings.  Each apartment has three bedrooms (6 girls), a kitchen, and a living room.  Her dorm is right next to the creamery:)  Miranda's room roommate is a girl named Jenny (the one with the flowered skirt).  Miranda and Jenny met last year at the BYU summer scholars program.  The other roommates she didn't know, but loves them already.  She lucked out again and got some pretty great roommates.  I'm sure she will have a great year!

So, that's August. Now we are back to early mornings and homework and mom working full time.  I have a great group of second graders this year.  It will be fun getting to know them.  I am looking forward to my second year of teaching---a year of tweaking instead of inventing:)