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Digi scrapping

I am learning to digital scrapbook.  I'm following some tutorials that are online and this is my 1st 'quickpage' that is unguided.  I basically did exactly what I did in the earlier tutorials, so I'm not a genius or anything... :)

But I'm a work in progress!

So far, so good.

First Day of School

Doesn't seem like school should be starting yet!!  It's still beautiful weather, and I want to hit Sand Harbor and sit on the beach and even play in the water... finally!  Cause the water is sort of warm.  :)  But instead we are getting up at 5:30 for seminary and doing homework and making school lunches!

OK.  If we must.  School is going well.  We are liking all our teachers and attended Back to School night last week for the elementary.  

 MJ is in 5th grade.  Don't you love her shoes?

 Ren (my baby!) is a 1st grader!  I miss him so much while he is at school!

 Ellie is in 8th grade.  One more year of uniforms!

 Porter is a Senior!  (I'm sort of freaking out that he is so old!)  Check out his 'fox' pants!!

Chloe is a Sophomore!  On the countdown to 16...

I love these kiddos so much!  I wouldn't mind if time would slow down a bit...  Hmm.  

Tahoe is beautiful

 LOVE this pic!  We 'borrowed' some canoe's for this pose.  Aren't they fun?!  

We are lucky to get to hang with Rebecca & Greg at their Glenbrook place nearly every summer!  We are spoiled on this private beach and with Greg's cooking too!!

Jesse & Ren do some canoeing around.  Porter and MJ take a turn on the paddle board.  I tried it too, and found it very difficult!  How does one balance while paddling?!  

 Greg, Jesse & Blake

Rachelle and her kids came to Tahoe with us for a day.  She also visited us at home for several days.  It's always fun with Rachelle around!

2 Field Trips

Ren's Kinder class took a field trip across town to meet their pen pals.  Ren's pen pal's name is Abril.  Yes, like April, but Abril.  :)  Very cute little girl.  They have been writing letters throughout the school year to one another.  They each brought a little sharing bag to show their pen pal and tell a little more about themselves.  I got to go with him and his class.  It was a lot of fun, actually.  The kids played a few games, ran around on the field, ate a pizza lunch together and generally enjoyed a day with new friends.

Ren sits next to his teacher, Mrs. Bentel.  She is british and has a fantastic accent!  She says "Bawnawnaw" instead of our western banana.  I enjoy hearing her speak.  She has been a great teacher.  I feel like she really loves these kids and gets a kick out of the funny things they say and do!

As we were leaving, one dramatic, little girl cried out to her pen pal, "This is the best day of my life!  I will never forget you!"  Too funny!

On the bus, Mrs. Bentel told the kids that the first ones to go to sleep would get 5 good time tickets!  Those are like money that they can earn to get treasures from the box on fridays.  All the kids were faking sleep immediately!  Including these two sillies, Carter and Ren!

NEXT field trip!  I got to go to Virginia City with MJ and her class.  We enjoyed a tram tour of the city.  It was very informational.  It was a gold town back in the day.  We toured a mine.  I'd never want to be a miner!!  But apparently it was big money back then, like $4 a day!  OK, that doesn't sound worth it. :)  We got to walk around main street.  But I was in charge of 3 little girls, and they just wanted to go to the candy and rock stores.  I would have enjoyed going in to the antique shops, but maybe I'll do that another time! ;)  MJ found this barrel full of MaryJane candies.  She also bought a few marbles from the rock stores.  

This pic was taken in the mine.  Lucky we have electricity now, right?  Used to be that the miners would get one candle a day to work their 12 hour shift.  So, they worked quite a bit in the dark to be sure they had light when they really needed it.

The rock store called "Stone Age"

All the sidewalks were unevenly made from this boards.  It was very authentic. :)

Babydoll Brooklyn

Chloe and her babydoll, Brooklyn

Child development class is harder than it sounds.  ;) Bringing home a babydoll for the weekend was a lot harder than it sounds!  This doll cried a couple of hours.  Chloe had to 'chime in' the bracelet she wore to care for the baby.  She had 3 minutes to figure out what the baby needed and then do it, or her grade would go down.  She had to take the doll with her everywhere she went.  She took it to a fireside, and to church and to the mall.  She took it out with friends.  In fact, she skipped her sister's piano recital.  It was too risky.  It might cry and disrupt the performers!

On Sunday morning, after she had been up nearly every 2 hours all night long, I jokingly told her, "Only one more night."  She replied in a whining, desperate voice, "I don't think I can do it!"

She got an 83% for her grade on this project.  And I thought she did very well.  Although, she did try to pay us all to take the baby!  But, she was wearing the bracelet, and she would have to cheat and jimmy it off if to have someone else wear it.  So, she was mommy for the weekend!

It reminded me, that even I don't want another baby!  ;)