Austin's Birthday

My baby brother, Austin, had his birthday and we celebrated it at our house.  We had him and his wife, Paige, and my other brother, John, and his family, come up for the occasion.  We ate fajitas and let the kids play.  Then Austin had a cake that was shaped like a shoe with ants crawling all over it.  That is because he does pest control for a living right now, so it was a fun idea for that.  We enjoy having family so close by after having lived many years of our marriage without them.  It sure makes for some fun get-togethers!

A New Addition to the Family

No, it's not what you're thinking.  We are not having another baby, but we are having a foreign exchange student come live with us.  Her name is Margrethe and she is from Norway.  She is seventeen years old.  We are very excited about this opportunity to share our lives with someone new and learn about her as well.  It will be challenging but I hope it will also be very rewarding.  We will be hosting her for the entire school year, starting at the end of August and going through June.  I'm excited about the opportunity it gives us to become a better family and also learn about someone else and their culture.  I hope this broadens our minds a little bit and helps us become less judgmental and more understanding.

Changes Around Here

A few days after we arrived home from our vacation, we discovered that our pan under our water heater had rusted out and overflowed and the flood waters went through the wall to our living room and damaged our carpet as well as a baseboard and some of the wall and a bookcase.  In the ensuing several weeks, we had plumbers and HVAC repairmen and disaster cleanup all coming out to the house as well as our insurance checking things out.  In the end, however, our insurance wouldn't pay for the damage and we were fortunate enough that our home warranty covered the problem.  The damage wasn't too bad and we were able to repaint and repair the baseboards ourselves.  The carpet was pretty bad and we had been hoping the insurance would cover new carpet in the downstairs.  But it didn't.

Since the carpet was ruined, and it's been looking really bad pretty much since we moved in, we decided to take the plunge and buy new carpet for the whole house.  We repainted as much of the house as we could first.  Our plan was to touch up the walls but it turned out that we couldn't get an exact match on the wall paint, so we got a very close color and repainted as much as we could stand to repaint.  We also added some new color to some areas.  Our house was pretty torn up for almost the whole month of July, which was also another reason our summer wasn't very organized.  It's hard for me to be organized when my house is in complete chaos!  But I am very pleased with how things turned out and am loving my house right now!

 Here is where most of the damage was, in the corner of the living room where a book case stood.  Below is a picture of that section redone, with the bookcase (after being dried and cleaned) back in its place.

 Living room accent wall redone after new carpet

 We added a blue accent wall to the guest room to make it a nice room for our exchange student.

This shows the difference between the old and new carpet (old on left, new on right).  We left the old carpet in our master bathroom because we will eventually tear it out and put in hard flooring.

A New School Year

Westley started fifth grade, Caleb went into third grade and Travis started first grade.  Eliza started kindergarten a week later.  We are very happy with the teachers they have and excited about starting a new year!  It's weird that it's still summer and they are in school, I feel like it should be fall.  I'm sure we will get used to it, though!

 This is the second day of school.  Westley wouldn't let me take his picture on the first day, and Travis didn't start until day two anyway (first grade starts on the second day in our school district).

Kindergarten starts a little more than a week later than the rest of the school, so this is Eliza's first day a week later.

As you can see, Jonah is raring to go as well, back pack and all!

The Rest of Summer Break

School got out on June 5th.  Our school transitioned from a traditional calendar to a year round calendar over the summer.  So school for the kids started at the end of July instead of the end of August.  We were put on A track, which is what I wanted.  We had one full week off of school before we took our trip to Arizona and California.  When we got home, we had exactly one month left of summer.

Normally I am all about doing summer learning.  This summer, I was just coping and surviving with a sixth child who was a new baby.  So we didn't do any summer learning and I barely managed to get them doing school work practice and reading.  We did try to go swimming every day and had purchased a pool pass.  We didn't really do anything else big besides our trip.  We just took it easy and relaxed.  Sad about a short summer break, but what can you do?

Anniversary--Twelve Years!

On June 21st was our twelfth anniversary.  We were in California staying with Corey's mom, so we left the kids with her and took off to a movie "Man of Steel" and dinner at Outback.  It was nice to have an evening out without the kids and to have an actual babysitter on hand!

A look at the last twelve years in a nutshell:

2013--Sixth child born in March
2012--Traveled to Northern California, Southern California, Arizona, and back to Utah.  Paid off the Ford Focus
2011--Fifth child born in March; Corey becomes a store manager; molar pregnancy in November
2010--Purchased our Utah home
2009--Corey becomes a second manager and graduates with bachelor's degree; moved to Utah
2008--Traveled to Texas; first child starts kindergarten
2007--Fourth child born in December; Corey goes back to school at ASU
2006--Third child born in September
2005--Corey becomes a third manager, purchased our Queen Creek home
2004--Corey becomes a fourth manager, moved to Arizona, second child born in October
2003--Moved to California, first child born in May, Jenna quits teaching, Corey returns to In-N-Out
2002--Moved to Idaho, Jenna teaches bilingual kindergarten, Corey quits In-N-Out
2001--Married!!

It's been a great ride and hope it continues to be great!

Family Trip 2013

This year's trip started with a drive to Arizona.  We visited with family there, including Grandpa and Grandma, Uncle Aaron and Aunt Kaori and their kids, Uncle Austin and Aunt Paige, and Andrea and the kids who were passing through on their way to Texas.  We also went over to visit Uncle Toby and Aunt Jenny and their kids.  We spent several days in Arizona, swimming and visiting friends and family.  Then Corey and Caleb flew to San Diego where they met Aunt Jamie and went to Sea World.  I drove out to California two days later and met up with them in Apple Valley at Nana's house.  Then we spent time with the King side, were able to visit with two of Corey's aunts, and also visited the ghost town of Calico.  We enjoyed our little trip.  I couldn't get the pictures to load in any particular order and don't want to spend the time ordering them, so I will just label them.

Hannah and Annmarie

The kids at Calico ghost town, in the jail

Maggie and Eliza

Westley, Toby, and Travis

Peter and Travis

A.J., one of the twins (not sure which), and Leah

Caitlin paints Eliza's nails 

Westley, A.J., a twin, Leah (Hannah in background carrying Annmarie)

Nana and Annmarie

Travis, Thomas, Savannah, Felicity

Travis and Savannah

Jonah and Sadie

The King cousins, minus Toby's family, in height order, not age order

Thomas and Caleb jumping on Uncle Zach and Aunt Leslie's trampoline

Eliza and Sadie

Calico

Sakura, Eliza and Annmarie