New toy!

Justin has wanted a good foosball table since I met him.  He finally picked one out and they delivered it today.  Everyone is happy!

Miamaids Tie Dye

One of my Miamaids (Isabella) wanted to teach our Wednesday activity and have the girls tie dye shirts.  She did a great job.

Izzy, Hannah, Autumn and Norielle

 No one wanted to wear gloves so everyone had pretty colorful hands and even feet when we were done.  The shirts turned out really cute!

First Cross Country Meet, Pickens Preview

Isaac had his first cross country meet.  I am so proud of him for getting out there and doing the meet. I made him take cross country.  He needs to exercise.  He does much better in school and home when he is.  His body just needs it I guess.  He did summer cross country with Wilson but there were no meets.  He says I tricked him into having to do the meets.  Maybe a little.  He gets very anxious with a lot of people and has always loved sports but never wanted to participate in any games.  He was all for practice but did not want to do games so we just haven't put him in anything.  He was always afraid of falling or messing up in front of all the parents.  Running is different.  So many kids are out there at the same time.  It has to be one of the most positive school sporting events I have ever been to.  ALL the parents are cheering for every kid that runs by.  There is no yelling at coaches or kids thinking they should be playing ahead of someone, they just get out there and run.  Those who are faster get spots earning points for the team.  Isaac did learn he is going to have to use a little strategy to have a better run next time though.  He was so nervous and there were so many kids.  Boys ran first.  There were 18 schools/running teams participating in the meet.  He started way in the back.  No way to get around kids and find a good pace.  The race is only 2 miles and over before he could catch up.  I was a little worried he would finish very grumpy but he was all smiles.  Yay!

 They start on an open field and then funnel down to a trail about 2 feet wide.

 So happy Isaac has such a good friend.  Wilson is just the nicest boy.

Isaac did not want me to take a picture of him before the race so I got his back.  He is so cute in his uniform.  He is so skinny.  He was mortified at the short shorts so I had to buy him some compression shorts for under.

It was such a beautiful morning.  The race started at 7:45 and we had to be there by 6:45.  It was about 30 minutes from our house at Roper Park.  I miss seeing the sunrise since our trees are so big you can't see the sun before it is up in the sky.  I loved watching the sun rise here.  Wish I had taken a picture.  Looking forward to next week.

Youth Conference

This weekend was Youth Conference for kids 14 and up in our stake.  I got to go as a leader.  It started off Friday night with a fireside followed by dinner and a dance.  Brother and Sister Hatch flew in from Snowfield, Arizona to speak at the fireside.  They are a husband and wife who three years ago were in a private airplane flown by Brother Hatch's father.  His mother was also on the plane.  It crashed killing both his parents.  They survived miraculously but had months in the hospital and it changed their lives forever.  The message they left the kids is that Heavenly knows them.  They know what they need and when they need it.  This was very evidenced by how their rescue took place.  The first responders also shared their experience with the crash via a video.  If every single prompting and thing had not taken place, they would not be here.  It was a very incredible story and the Spirit was very strong.  For dinner, they had all the 14-15 year old kids split in boys and girls and pick a number.  Whoever picked the same number, sat by each other for dinner.  The 16 and 17 year olds did the same.  There was a little grumbling at first and I am sure some kids switched numbers or igored it but overall, I was so impressed.  The kids seemed to just jump right in and have a good time getting to know kids from the stake that may not be in their ward.  I left and went to dinner with Marriane Potter and then came back and watched the door to make sure kids weren't leaving and sat in the dance a little.  Fun to catch some peeks at my kids dancing.  This is them with some of the kids from our ward.  It was Hannah and Izzy's first dance.  They both had a lot of fun.

Daniel Watson, Hannah, Autumn Dustin, Josh Potter, Ammon Vickery, Izzy Hurdle, Daniel Tye and in front, Chandler Hatch.

The next day we met at the church at 7:30 to drive to Ellijay which is about 45 minutes from the church.  We went to Build an Ark Animal Rescue.

It is run by this sweet lady, Susan.  She has a couple horses, donkeys, goats, kittens, baby deer, pigs etc.  They were all friendly and the kids could go in and out of pens and pet and hold anything.  

 This is were we set up for the day.  Our theme this year is D&C 4:2 which reads, "Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.  We definitely embarked in service.  There were several projects going on. We had 24 youth with us.  Everyone was split up a little.  There was a group that repaired and then stained picnic tables, one that was putting in fense posts for a future fense, one weed eated and picked up the area around an ampitheter where the picnic tables were, another group with some men and machines pulled up about a quarter of a mile of fense that needed redone and put up a new one.  That was very labor intensive!  The group I was with was in charge of clearning the outdoor bathrooms and then painting Restrooms, Cowboys, Cowgirls and stars on the outsides and then some pictures/murals on the inside and painting some fense.  Oh boy were those bathrooms gross!  I don't think they had been deep cleaned in years.  I wish so badly I had taken a before and after picture.  The ceilings were covered in cob webs and hanging spiders.  Even the toilets had spiders hanging off of them.  Thankfully, a couple of the young men were not afraid and picked up the spiders and threw them outside.  We swept the ceilings and wiped all walls, cupboards and toilets.  The toilets must have been fairly new because they cleaned up looking brand new.  We had very limited art supplies for murals so a couple of us took a quick trip to Walmart for some supplies and a couple girls painted some sunflowers, vines, trees and one gal did a beautiful horse in both bathrooms.  She was very talented.  They looked so good after.  For lunch they brought in some BBQ pork sandwiches.  I think there were about 160 kids total plus leaders.  Starting at 2 pm, we started shifts of kids floating the Coosawattee River.  Our kids went at 3:00.  It was about 2 1/3 hours. It was a lot of fun but this time of year, the water is a little low and slower moving so we got stuck on some rocks a few times.  The water felt really nice.  When we got back, we got everyone changed and since all the work was done at that time, just hung out until the last group got back from tubing and had pizza for dinner.  It was a wonderful conference.  So glad I get to be a leader and join my kids on things like this.  We made a quick stop at QT for some snacks and got home around 10 pm.

Red Top Mountain State Park scout campout

Isaac had a scout campout with the 11-year-old scouts and Deacons this last weekend.  He came home kind of grumpy and VERY tired.  I later found out it was because he and his tentmates had decided to stay awake all night!  He said they had the best camp spot and it looks like it.  Glad he has good leaders and fun friends to have these adventures with.  The best thing.....No rain!

Left to right:  Jordan, Wilson, Thomas, Ira, Asa, Isaac and Hayden.  Brenner in the back not seen.  Isaac, Thomas, Asa and Ira are the Deacons.

Leaves are starting to fall

I have never lived anywhere with big trees before.  It is only August 10th and I swept up a bag completely full from our front steps.  We are going to be in trouble this Fall!  It will be beautiful but hard to keep up with.

New furniture

Unfortunately, the furniture we bought only around four years ago started peeling off like crazy.  We learned our lesson on fake leather.  Our real leather couches have been with us for over 14 years and look great.  Shredding would get all over the ground and then started sticking to whoever was sitting on the couch.  It was pretty funny but definitely not good for having company!  We spent last weekend shopping and then it was delivered today.  They are a little big for the room but we have plenty of place for the whole family to sit.

First day of school

Nathan and Hannah started the day off extra early with seminary.  We leave the house at 6:20 am. Nathan is a Sophmore and Hannah a Freshman at Creekview High School.  They will be in the same seminary class.  Since the order of classes in Arizona were switched around a little compared to here and since moving here mid year, Nathan could not take Spanish as a Freshman and also needs to take Biology.  So, they both have Spanish 1 and Biology but did get different classes.  They do have the same teacher for Spanish. I kind of hoped they would end up in one class together.  Nathan is in two Senior classes for Precalculus and Statistics and the two Freshman classes.  I am hoping he actually gets to meet some kids in his grade.  Hannah took most honors classes so she will have to work hard this year!  I think they were both nervous but excited.  Unfortunately, Hannah did not get a single class or lunch with Izzy but she did have a couple friends in lunch and a couple in her classes. Nathan doesn't go into detail a lot about friends in classes but he did have a kid from church in his Spanish class and one in lunch.

Isaac was not excited at all.  I had to take several pictures before getting one that almost looks like a smile!  He is in 7th grade.  He is going to take cross country.  He is not looking forward to any classes.  He gets to sleep in until 7 and we leave for school at 8.

They all had a pretty good first day.  Isaac's positive for the day cracked me up.  He said, "The placement of his classrooms were better than last year."  At family prayer he prayed that school would go by really fast so he could have a nice day.  I really hope he will find something to like about school eventually.  Here's to a great year!

Justin worked from home.  I cleaned house and exercised while he worked for the morning and then he took a couple hours off.  We bought some furniture on Saturday and had to go finish the purchase and then went out to lunch at On the Border.  So nice to spend some time with him.  It was a good first day of school for us!