Ash for Secretary

 Ashleigh is running for Student Council Secretary.  Her speech and the voting are tomorrow.  There are five other students running against her.  She has given it her best shot, so we will have our fingers crossed tonight.  She had students tell her that if she made them one of these shirts, they would wear it for her.  She said some of the students who told her this were kids she didn't know very well.  Let's hope this makes them want to vote for her.  Her speech is really sweet, so I hope it goes well for her.

 These were her campaign posters.  It only took us 3 hours and that was with a ton of help from my paper/vinyl cutter.  She's worth it though ;-)

Swim Lessons

 A brand new swimming school just opened last week, so we bought a Groupon to try it out.  It is amazing!  The pool is a mix of sea salt and chlorine which helps the kids float a little and is much better on their hair and skin.  The pool is very warm as well as the changing rooms.  Since the pool just opened they do not have a lot of customers yet, so we are getting private lessons at the group lesson rate!

 They have tailored the whole place to kids.  They have thought of everything to make learning to swim easier.  If only we could afford to go year round!

 This is Dallin swimming!!!!  Really swimming!!!  He does have a small float pack on his back, but he has his face in the water and is moving his legs and arms.  This was the first lesson!!  Not only do they have an instructor in the water teaching them, but they also have a teacher out of the water grading them.  They receive a progress report after every single class.  It is incredible.

 It's hard to tell, but this Owen in the "kid car wash".  They get sprayed on with warm water before and after they enter/exit the pool.  It was hard to get both of them out of it.

Owen is learning the correct form for the strokes he already knows and is picking up the back stroke. He has been unable to do a back float even after two summers of swim lessons, but after just one swim lesson here, he was floating!!  They have a special flotation device to help him learn and it's a miracle worker!  Stay tuned for their progress updates!

A few weeks into his lessons, Owen got to wear flippers during his lesson.  He loved this!

Cross Country Races

 Our school district offers a few cross country races for the elementary students each fall.  Ashleigh has participated in them in the past, and this year Owen was ready to give it a try.  They really have no experience running and neither one prepared for the races ahead of time.  Although if you ask Owen, he will tell you he trained - he ran around the 1/2 mile block one time before the last race and does a few push-ups now and then.  He was confident that he would win his age category.

 Ashleigh did a great job considering she didn't train for the race ahead of time and how cold it was.  She ran 1 1/2 miles in 13 minutes. She ran the whole time though, which was an improvement over last year.  It was was miserably cold and it was very early on a Saturday morning when they would both normally still be sleeping, so I was very proud of them for trying so hard.

 Owen was a trooper.  This course went through a very wooded area, so I could not see him for half the race.  As I started to see kids finally exiting the woods, I began looking for my kiddos.  Kid after kid passed by and still no Ashleigh or Owen.  Those were the super fast kids though because all of a sudden there was Ashleigh and only 10 seconds behind her was Owen!!  I could not believe it.  That kid was running his heart out.  I have never seen him try at anything so hard in my life.  I started screaming at him just as he slowed to walk.  He quickly picked his pace back up and ran again.  He had only 1/4 mile left at that point.  I cut across the field and kept cheering him on.  The poor kid was dying, but then he saw the finish line.  This is him above just about to cross the finish line.  He crossed just 25 seconds after Ashleigh!  Amazing!

Owen came in 5th for his age group, which meant he didn't get a medal, but he was okay with that. He rocks!

 This was the first race they ran together two weeks before the final race last weekend.  The first race was only 1 mile and they both ran it in 8 minutes.  Owen ran the whole time and kept right up with Ashleigh despite never running any distance before and being hot in his sweat pants.  They were both awesome!

They awarded medals at this race to the first 15 boys and the first 15 girls, regardless of age.  We thought we had a good shot at winning one since there were only about 80 kids running.  Ashleigh placed 5th, but Owen was 17th, so he just missed a medal.  He was definitely disappointed until we talked about who the first 16 finishers were.  They were all 5th and 6th graders.  He would have won first place if they had awarded by age group.  We will get it next time!

Trenton

We have driven near the town of Trenton, Ohio for the past three years on our way to our campsite, and this past weekend we finally drove through it due to a massive accident that left our interstate closed for 8 hours Friday night!!    It took us an extra hour to get to our campsite, but at least we finally drove through Trenton so we could get a picture!  Trenton wasn't thrilled about getting his picture taken as usual, but I think he will appreciate it one day :)

Glasses for Ash!

Ashleigh was tired of having to move up to the front of the room at school to read the board, so she got glasses just after school started.  She has had so many grown-up changes this school year - glasses, short bob hair cut, and earrings.  She is still our cute spunky, happy girl though!!

Preschool

 Dallin started preschool last week.  He is in the dino-fours class this year, so everything is dinosaur themed for the first few weeks.  He loves his new classroom and has made new friends already.  After the first day of school, he told Dad that there is someone named "No One" in his class.  He thought it was so funny.  I was confused at first and then realized he thought "Noah" was "No One."  I guess they do sound a little similar :)

 Lots of dinosaurs to play with!

 Random picture of his sunflowers that grew over the summer.  They are taller than Dallin!  He brought home the seeds from preschool last year and miraculously they grew over the summer with little water or attention.  All of our other flowers died, but the forgotten flowers grew.  Don't you love his cute Ohio State jersey?  It's our favorite shirt on him!

Dallin fell asleep in the car yesterday after preschool for the first time in at least a year.  He never falls asleep during the day unless he is sick.  School wore him out!

Back to School!

 We are ready to head back to school today.  Ashleigh and Owen had their school open house yesterday which gave them a chance to meet their teachers and drop off their school supplies.  They are going to have a great year!

 Owen is excited to be in the same school as Ashleigh this year.  I am glad too!  He has the perfect teacher for him, so he is going to have a great 2nd grade.

First day of high school and seminary.  5:00 a.m. wake up call because Dad is his substitute seminary teacher this week and they have to get there early!  We can do this!  Seminary is from 6-6:50 and then high school is from 7:15-2:25, except Trenton doesn't actually get out until 2:40 because he has a funky schedule.  Let's hope we can start getting to bed earlier or we are going to be cranky around here :)

 My sweet boy.  First day of 2nd grade in a new school.  He is going to do awesome!  He is loving the tall athletic socks :)

 Ashleigh's all ready for her first day of 6th grade.  Her last year in the elementary school.  She loves her new purple shoes - size 8 in women's, by the way!!  She completely surprised me this morning when she came downstairs.  This is not the outfit she had planned to wear the first day.  She must have decided it wasn't a good idea to dress up for the first day afterall.  I love that she doesn't worry about dressing up or what anyone thinks about her style.  She prefers to be comfortable and I love it!  Let's pray the girls around her don't change her.

These two are in the same school this year, which should be great.  Owen is fine with Ashleigh helping him around and he seemed to be less anxious knowing she would be with him this morning.

Ashleigh's Big Day

 Ashleigh decided to get her ears pierced before school started.  We told her when she turned 8 she could get them pierced, but she never wanted to.  She started talking about it six months ago, but I think she was afraid to go through with it.  Several of her friends have had infected ears and she was afraid to go through that.  I convinced her it would all be fine and she did it last week!!  This is her before picture waiting in the chair at Claire's.

 And after!  She picked out turquoise gem earrings and she loves them!

And two days later, she got her hair chopped!  It is so cute and so stylish!  She refuses to wear her hair up, so short hair is so much easier to manage!

Here it is from the side.  It is a long bob cut by one of my friends from church.  It looks so pretty!

Iowa/Nebraska Trip

 We got to spend a few days with our cousins in early August.  We had some fun together one evening at an indoor trampoline park.

 We went swimming together one day.   

Owen loved the waterslides at the pool.  He loves swimming and has become a great swimmer this summer.

 We met up with Dad a few days into our trip in Omaha, Nebraska.  We checked out the infamous zoo and found they had named the Gorilla House after Owen.

 Owen loved the baby peacocks.  He named every single one we saw, which was a lot!  Did you know that only the males are called peacocks?  The females are peahens and the babies are peachicks.  Makes sense, but Owen and I didn't know that!

 The butterfly house.  We visited the zoo on an incredibly busy day, so we didn't get a chance to see everything.  Maybe we will go back one day.

 This was the coolest store near downtown Omaha in the Old Market district.  It was called Hollywood Candy.  It had every candy ever made and was also a huge museum and antique store.  It was breathtaking and worth a trip to Omaha for!

This made Owen think of Ashleigh who wasn't with us for this part of our trip.

 Nathan reluctantly agreed that he is my "Big Hunk"

Also in Old Market is this famous ice cream store that makes the most unusual flavors of ice cream.  They are famous for their sweet corn ice cream (only in Nebraska!!).  There is corn everywhere in Nebraska.  I mean everywhere!  The ice cream recipe is published in a cookbook featuring ice cream recipes from all 50 states.  We stuck with vanilla and chocolate ice cream because we are not nearly adventurous enough when we're spending $5 on ice cream!

 The Omaha Nebraska temple is near the airport on the north side of the city.

Ashleigh's Birthday Party

 We celebrated Ashleigh's 11th birthday a week late since we were on vacation on her birthday.  She invited her closest friends for a trip to Orange Leaf for ice cream and the movie theater to see Rio 2.  It was really fun to be out in public with 7 silly girls.  They had so much fun and were a real treat to spend time with.  Have you ever been in a car with 7 girls singing every word to the songs on the radio?  I felt like I was at a concert and wanted to get it on video, but I was already stressed enough getting all these girls where we were going safely without trying to get my phone out.  Take my word for it, it was loud and intense.  I am positive our van was literally shaking as we sat at stoplights and they were all dancing.
 

 Ashleigh and her bestest friend

 At the movies

See what I mean about silly?  There were six of these little rides outside the movie theater and they all took turns squeezing into them.  Happy Birthday, Ashleigh!  She received a Nook tablet and a sewing machine for her birthday this year.