Back to School

After months of decline, Covid cases in Utah started rising again over the summer and we went back to mask-wearing at the beginning of August.  It was a disappointing step back but we're glad we have an easy method of improving our chances of staying healthy, and helping others to stay healthy.  This meant wearing masks to school, which the kids don't like, but they didn't fight it too much.  It's nice that there are a few other students and teachers at their schools who are wearing masks too, so they're not alone.  

Eliza and Luke met their teachers at back-to-school night the week before school started.

They're both excited about their teachers!

Eliza's best friend is in her class, and took the liberty of
setting up Eliza's things in her desk cluster.

At back-to-school night, Luke was given a get-to-know-you poster to fill out.  We thought they were due on the first day of school, so he had a few assistants helping him finish so that we could have some movie time the day before school started.  It turned out that the poster won't be used until Luke's birthday in the Spring, but oh well.

First Day of School!

11th, 8th, 6th, and 3rd Grades

It was a big day for me too!

I completed a challenging hike I'd been thinking about ever since my surgery.

Then Ben and I went to Salt Lake to replace my wedding ring and have a yummy lunch.

I caught Cat doing homework in the backyard that night.

In addition to the poster, Luke's teacher also gave him a page to fill out, except that with all of the papers I got at back-to-school night, I thought it was for Eliza's class (one of these days teachers will learn to label the papers they give parents at these things with the teacher's name).  Eliza filled it out, brought it to school, then brought it back and said it was for Luke.  So we used white-out and made a copy for Luke to fill out.  He was still finishing the coloring on the way to school on Day 2.  Off to a great start!

The trend continued with these two... on the third day of school, Luke left his

backpack at home (and it contained a homework assignment he didn't tell me about)

and Eliza left her lunch at home on the fourth day.

But all in all, it was a good and smooth week.  I appreciated that we eased into homework (except for Cat) and extracurricular activities (again, except for Cat).  Jack started playing with the middle school baseball team at the end of the first week, and Eliza's new activity, Aerial Silks, began the second week of school.

I couldn't believe what they were doing on the very first day!

And just for fun, these are two of the first assignments Luke brought home:

Notice the mess in the middle of the floor - at least he's accurate.

For the ease of reading:
This was one of my favorite summers in my entire life!
I went to Hawaii.  There we went to Turtle Bay Hotel.
There was lots of food and pools.  At our pool there were two slides!

Summer Wrap-Up

We met Ben and Suz's new Sheepadoodle puppy, Teddy.  He's the cutest!

Dustin was kind enough to bring over his cousin's real light saber for

Jack to hold and play with a little bit.  Very cool!

LEGO time

Painting on a Sunday afternoon.

Dustin was kind to put up with these guys at the Lindon pool.

Luke earned all of the requisite stickers from completing
exercises in a reasonable amount of time in order to get -

his first Build-a-Bear!  Unfortunately, he wasn't able to actually
build the bear since the store was out of the skins for the bear
he wanted, but he chose the assembled bear and we found a few
Ravenclaw accessories for him.  His name is Fudge.

We spent several hours at Splash Summit (refurbished Seven Peaks)
and had so much fun!  It was really crowded the Wednesday before school
started so next year we'll have to go a little earlier in the season.

One of the things on Luke's summer bucket list was to eat a "Sponge Bobsicle."
That last week of summer I stopped at a gas station near us that has a spot for them
in their cooler but they were always out of stock.  After Splash Summit Luke and I went
together and he crossed everything he could, hoping an employee would find one
in the back, but no luck.  We'll have to keep trying...

I took the kids to Donut Falls, one of the most well-known hikes in our area.  It was up in Big Cottonwood Canyon and we were surprised by how chilly it was up there in the morning.  But we grabbed a few blankets and set out.  The hike was very easy until the last tenth of a mile, when you have to go down a small cliff to the stream, then up a bunch of rocks to see the waterfall.  This was the week I was having random arm pain, and of course I'm still recovering from knee surgery so it was a bit precarious, but the kids helped me and in the end all of us made it up to the waterfall that went through a hole in the rock like a donut.  It really was cool to see!

Cat's soccer season started the week before school started.
And this year, she's a captain!

Scera Pool with Savannah

Savannah spent the night with us the weekend of the volleyball clinic
and the girls were nice enough to let Luke hang out with them.

We had a packed house for our recital at the Wellington!
Cat was sick that day so at the last minute I filled the extra time by singing a few songs.

We had some time to visit with Oma before and after the recital.
She was so happy that we came and performed for her and her friends!

Matt invited us to his house for swimming and a cookout -
Eliza is so sweet with younger kids and William only wanted to be in the pool with her.

Jack made two new friends at Matt's house. The first was a man
who was willing to listen to Jack telling him all about the
upcoming Star Wars starcruiser experience at Disney World.

The second friend was a Rhodesian Ridgeback named... Jack.

Just hanging out together on a Sunday afternoon.

Summer Camps

With our summer being so frontloaded with friends and family, the kids were finally able to do a few camps toward the end of the summer.  I didn't even start researching camps until June so of course our options were limited by then.  I presented each of the younger kids with several options and literally the only one that interested Jack was at our local pool.  It was basically games and free swim time.  It turned out to be full of younger kids so Jack didn't enjoy it as much as he thought he would, but it was nice for him to get out and have his own thing for a few days.

Luke was interested in a few things but the camp he was most adamant about attending was Wizard Boot Camp.  He had a blast!  There were games; special treats (they made their own version of Butterbeer); a close encounter experience with snakes, cockroaches, and tarantulas ("care of magical creatures"); and of course many cool magic tricks.  It was so fun to watch him perform the tricks he was learning every day!  At the end of the week each of the kids were invited to choose one trick and perform it at a final show.  Ben and Jack attended and Luke did a great job!  One of these days I'd like to make a video and have Luke perform all of his tricks but I haven't done that yet.

It was funny how the camp was heavily based on Harry Potter without actually entering
copyright territory.  For example, the kids at the camp were divided into these groups:
Twizzlerin, Huffle Cheesepuff, Griffin S'more, and Raisinclaw.
Luke was a Huffle Cheesepuff, but would have preferred Raisinclaw.

Luke had also expressed interested in starting taekwondo so I found a dirt-cheap camp at the Orem rec center so that he could try taekwondo and he loved it!

Meanwhile, Eliza had a hard time narrowing down what she wanted to do.  She chose one main camp and two shorter and much less expensive camps.  The main one was a week of rock climbing (really, bouldering) at a gym in Lehi.  She LOVED it and took to it quickly and easily.  It was fun to hear how pumped she was after each day, using new terms to tell me how she "flashed" (successfully cimbed the first time) this or that route, how she tried a "V4" climb (the V-Scale rates difficulty), and more.  When I told her on the last day that I wanted to take a few pictures and make a video, she had lots of things she wanted to show me.  A few friends from camp had hung out afterward too and I loved that they were cheering for her and helping her along.  It was also cool that Nathaniel Coleman of Murray won a silver medal for combined sport climbing in the Tokyo Olympics that week, at the sport's Olympic debut, so we could talk about that as she was learning and going to camp each day.

Eliza's second camp was a tennis camp through the Provo rec center.  She had a blast with this too and felt like she was learning quickly.

Here's Eliza on her last day ... the day she forgot to bring her racket.

The third camp was more of a volleyball workshop at UVU (Friday afternoon, then Saturday morning).  She attended with her cousin and they had fun there together.