And Here's the Rest...

The rest of the kids' pictures came home last week.






Volleyball is all over now (Malia is SO sad... but they ended out the season undefeated.) Kayden had cross country districts last week in Blackfoot, and qualified to go to state (new personal record of 17:14). State is in Soda this year, so he's pretty excited! I'm hoping he finds a job after state gets done. He, on the other hand, is hoping to catch up on school work and sleep..... He's also hoping for piles and piles of snow, and the sooner the better. I might have to disown him.

I Love Looong Weekends!

There was no school last Thursday and Friday, so Friday morning we headed to Island Park, and we didn't come home until we absolutely had to (I wanted to leave earlier, but cross country and volleyball got in the way!) Friday afternoon after we unpacked at the cabin, we went to West Yellowstone, wandered through the souvenir shops, ate at one of the pizzerias, and then played cards and ate ice creams at the swirl ice cream shop. Then we headed back to the cabin and watched a DVD. Saturday morning we woke up when we were good and ready, and slowly made our way to Yellowstone. Once we finally made it into the park, we walked and walked and walked! It was a beautiful day, and after seeing some amazing sights (in the mostly empty park), we ended up at Inspiration Point, looking over the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone at sunset. Sunday morning we slept in, had a nice big breakfast, lazed around the cabin and just enjoyed the downtime. I think I can actually face the next month or so, just because the weekend was so restful and relaxing.

A Few School Pictures

Last Wednesday Kayden went to Twin Falls for another cross country meet. He topped his time again, and ran his race in 17:49. He's 4th on the team right now. The Twin Falls newspaper caught the Hillcrest boys shouting out a chant before the race. Kayden is on the left of the blond guy. After the meet, the team camps and comes home the next day. This is one of Kayden's favorite meets.

Kayden was asked to his first girl's choice dance Sunday night. A pumpkin was left on our doorstep, and Kayden excitedly took the whole pumpkin straight down to his room, because he was sure it was full of candy. Wrong! He came back upstairs a few minutes later, and told me that he had to dig through the pumpkin guts to find the one pumpkin seed that had a name written on it, so he would know who asked him! So cute!

Kayden and Malia brought home their school pictures last week:

It's About Time!

So I think you'd agree that it was time for new family pictures! This was the last time we had professional pictures taken:

And here are a few of my favorites that Leah took of our family right before school started:

I love them (the pictures and the family!)

Homecoming 2010

We have had such a nice weekend! The weather has been absolutely beautiful, and it was conference weekend!! It was also homecoming for the high school. A few weeks ago Kayden asked Sidney Acor to the dance using a pinata, and she answered back with a stuffed frog wearing a prince crown (can't quite remember the details of all that....) After some fine tuning, the boys worked out a plan for the date (it needed fine tuning because the group started out as 22 couples.... that may have been a tad too big!) After the morning session of general conference 9 of the couples went hiking at Cress Creek, then they came home and the boys went to the priesthood session of conference (looking especially sharp in their tuxedos.) Then they picked up their dates, had pictures, ate dinner, went to the dance, and came back to my house for games. Kayden arranged to pick his date up in a Hummer... he was THRILLED!


The morning of the dance, Kayden and his date Sidney were on the front page of the sports section of the newspaper together, because they both had great runs at their cross country meet. Kayden got 17:50.... a new personal record! It was nice of their coach to mention them.

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PS: I just thought I would mention that I made some more green plum jam, only this time I did 5 parts plums to 1 part raspberries, and it looks about a million times better... like edible and everything!