Halloween

We had a great Halloween this year. I have always talked about going to Thriller but never quite got around to getting tickets. Well this year we finally did! It was different then I thought it was going to be but very entertaining! Paige was scared of the Zombies at first but was fine by the end of the night. I think we will make it a tradition!

Taylor was inspired by the Zombies so she put together a Zombie outfit. Paige wore Taylor's Raglan cheer uniform and I was Cinderella again.

This year Paige said she wanted to go Trick-or-Treating with her friends only, not with me! What?? I know she is growing up, but I have to admit I was pretty sad to hear those words! Well it turned out that after I dropped off Paige, Taylor's plans fell through and I got the pleasure of Trick-or-Treating around our neighborhood with Taylor and her friend Mina. I was so excited to be with her and not by myself! She totally made my entire Halloween the best ever! She even posed for pictures for me! I will post them later! And to top off a great day, Desert Hills won their football game against Bear River in double overtime. It was such an exciting game!!

Stuck in the Middle

That's where we are all at right now. . . stuck in the middle. We have moved into our house and are in the middle of trying to get everything put away. We are in the middle of getting mail, internet, and bills transferred over to our new place. We are in the middle of two houses being built on either side of us, which puts us in the middle of a lot of construction workers and trucks, lots of dust and pounding, and loud Latino tunes!

Jake is in the middle of the football season which is a hard place to be. The boys and coaches are starting to get a little tired of it so it has been hard for Jake to motivate everyone to move on with a positive attitude. They have only lost 2 games so their record is good, it's just that stuck in the middle thing again!

Taylor is in the middle of learning her cheer competition routine. She always complains every year at this time how hard, fast and crazy it is and they will never get it down right! But they always do and she wonders why she ever thought it was so fast! It's just hard to be stuck in the middle of it!

Paige is in the middle of her soccer season and struggling to keep the motivation to play another game and try her hardest! She always starts out so enthusiastic, but towards the middle, she putters out a bit!

As for me, I am stuck in the middle of this family trying to get them out of the middle rut they are stuck in! I was in the middle of the garage the other day, in the middle of a bunch of boxes when I started to freak out about me being the only one unpacking and trying to get out of this mess! Luckily everyone started to pitch in and we did get a lot accomplished over the weekend.

It is just hard being stuck in the middle. . .

My Year

I am teaching 2nd grade again this year. I have 23 rambunctious 7 and 8 year olds. We have a new reading program this year which has been a ton of work learning and teaching. I have also been relearning algebra this year in attempts to help Taylor with her homework! UgH! Algebra, shmalgebra!!

I am most excited about moving into our new house this weekend! I can hardly believe it is already finished but so excited to get moved in and settled!

DHHS Football

Football season has began! Jake has had a great season so far until last Friday night they got a serious butt kicking from Pine View 30 - 7. Ouch! Until then, they were 3-0 and looking mighty fine! I like to think the Pine View game was just a little glitch in their record and they will be back on track next Friday against Dixie. This is the first time Jake has played against Dixie, at Dixie, since he was the coach there. It will be interesting! Most of the boys are gone that he coached so that is a good thing!

Jake has had the best attitude this season! He has been so relaxed on and off the field. He wakes up so early each morning to start his day, but is usually joking around and laughing, which is a huge change from the past! We are all not sure what to think of this new Jake, but are loving every minute of him!

I have been taking advantage of the zoom on my camera so you can see Jake in action! He gets a little stressed sometimes during games so he has taken up smoking! Just kidding, the picture you will see below looks like he is smoking, but it's just a sucker! Not that Jake has ever eaten a sucker on the sidelines before, but remember he is new and improved!! Strange but true!

Paige

Paige started 4th grade this year in Mrs. Gubler's class. Taylor had her in 5th grade so we were excited to have her again. She has been fantastic for Paige! Her favorite part of school so far is the planners they have to use in class. She keeps track of everything in that planner! Paige loves to be organized, so this has been perfect for her! She is playing soccer again this year on the Extreme team. They changed their colors to green and have added some new girls. They won their game on Saturday but lost the two before. The girls just need to get used to playing together. Since they were winning 6-0 on Saturday, Paige was taken out quite a bit to give the other girls a chance to play more. She was NOT happy about that, but it was a good lesson for her to learn! Paige loves her soccer coach Clint. He works so well with the girls! We really appreciate how much time and effort he puts into the team!

A New School Year

Taylor started 8th grade and attending Desert Hills Middle School. It has been an exciting and scary change for her! She now knows how it feels to be the new girl in school. She got her first locker, but won't use it because apparently it's not cool! She is finding it not so fun carrying around 3 binders plus text books. Her locker is looking cooler and cooler! Taylor also went to her first school dance! It was after school from 3:00 to 4:15 and they were suppose to wear all white. She said it was ok and she danced one slow dance! Her favorite part about school so far is the fact that everyone is a Desert Hills fan. In PE they cannot wear any other school clothing except DHHS attire. She says, "Finally!"

The day before school started Taylor got her top braces off and will be getting the bottoms off this Wednesday. She was very excited about that! We have been going to the orthodontist since she was in 2nd grade!

Taylor was also named Cheer Captain of her cheerleading team! We are so proud of her and the wonderful girl she is turning into! She is such a dedicated and hardworking gal!

Bahamas

Jake and I took a trip to the Bahamas for our 15 year anniversary. We went with Brian and Kym Greene and another friend from college named Rachel. We stayed at an all inclusive resort called The RIU(Reeyou). It was a beautiful and very relaxing vacation! My favorite picture is the first one with Jake's "I love Beer" shirt on, my shirt half tucked in with my cowboy hat! Straight up white trash right off the plane! Thinking about making that our Christmas card! When we landed on the island, Nassau, it was pouring rain so we were a little nervous, but soon found out it rained really hard for just a few minutes or during the night each day! Here are a few other highlights:
- We pretty much layed at the beach during the day, then dressed up at night to go to dinner. A few nights we went next door to the famous Atlantis hotel to the dance club. You will see Jake and Brian breakin' it down in one of the pictures!
- The beach was so beautiful with crystal clear water and soft white sand. Everyone asks if we went snorkeling and the answer is no! We never had that opportunity presented to us, but we did go jet skiing a few times and para sailed. I didn't want to bring my nice camera to the beach so I have no pics of that!
- We went shopping at a place downtown called "The Straw Market". I have never seen so many knock-off designer purses in my life! We had to come back a few days later because I could not decide on the purse I wanted. We also bought some Juicy jewelry for the kids and some DVDs. Weird how they already had copies of movies that were still in the theaters in the US such as, Toy Story 3, Grownups, ect. Wonder how they did that???
- The first night we got to our hotel, Jake surprised me with an anniversary ring! I was so shocked, surprised and of course delighted! It was so nice to spend time together without any distractions! I am so lucky to have such a great husband who cares about me and loves me so much! We have come so far in our relationship since 1995. I already told him how much I love him and thanked him a million times, because I'm pretty sure he will never read this!!
- On Thursday Kym, Rachel and me went swimming with the dolphins! I can't even describe what an awesome experience this was! It is something my girls will definitely do some day! We got to touch, kiss, dance, feed, and hug them. At the end of our experience we each had a chance to have a dolphin push. We had to lay face down in the water with our legs out straight, then two dolphins would come up and push our feet which would lift us up a little out of the water then push us a little ways. It was amazing!

I'm so grateful Jake and I were able to take this trip. It is a moment in our life I will treasure because I doubt it will happen again anytime soon! Maybe for our 25th anniversary!

So now we are back to school, soccer, cheer, and football! Ugh, I miss the Bahamas already! I could use a little Bahamian bringing me some refreshing fruity drinks all during school!! I will post some back to school photos soon!

Summer

So here's a little glimpse of our summer. Hard to believe school starts a week from tomorrow! I am much better at talking about blogging and scrap booking then actually doing it, so here I am, my last week of summer, trying to blog and scrapbook my head off! Oh well, here are a few pictures of our trip to WY. We stayed a weekend in GR with the Cuthbertson's. They are doing great! Then we were off to Cody. We went to the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum then spent the rest of the time holding our new neice, Emery, and in the backyard swimming and relaxing. The kids love to jump from the tramp to the pool! Hours of fun!

Camping

We were able to squeeze in a camping trip to Panguitch Lake last week. It will probably be our one and only trip this year, which is ok with us! We just need a trailer! Tent camping gets old when the wind is blowing and our mattresses won't stay inflated! But the area we went to this time had some great 4 wheeling trails which were great for entertaining the girls! At least we all got to enjoy some down time: Jake caught up on some much needed sleep, I got into my new book The Lost Symbol and the girls got some sun tanning rays in! We went fishing the first day along the top of this dam which was great until Kallie decided to run across it then fall in! I had to pull her out because she just froze and looked to be in shock! Camping isn't really her thing, little too dirty and the bugs were driving her nuts! We did make some delicious food and overall had a good trip!