Top Golf

    Benson has discovered something recently that he quite enjoys, Top Golf. So he wanted to take us and share with us this new found fun! 

It reminds me of bowling, only with a golf club, golf ball and a driving range type setup. Oh, and to make it even more fun, there's a menu to order food off of. 

Ashlynn took to it quite quickly and won the first game. With me in dead last.

 

Here's competitive Ash, checking the board to make sure that she is still in the lead!

 With great coaching, I'm sure, Talie's swing and game improved.

A guy next to us gave Dallin some tips, and told him that he had a nice swing. (Apparently this guy was coached by the same guy that coached Tiger Woods), and said that we need to get Dallin into some golf lessons. Dallin Woods perhaps?  (Although he did hit one ball into the ceiling, which came flying back to where we were sitting! When Benson asked the waitress if we could have helmets, she was utterly confused. Apparently, she hasn't seen that trick performed before).

There's Benson, checking the scores, hmm, I wonder where Ash gets her competitive nature from...?

And on the second game, I totally kicked butt!! That's right, I lead with 75 points! (I won't mention that it just happened to be because of a lucky bullseye shot worth 20 points...)

Well, I think this photo says it all, it was a fun morning outing with the big kids!

Then we came home to do yard work, which Peyton quite enjoys!

Tuesday, everyone was in school or work except for Tanner and I. Since we had one full day before he starts kindergarten, what better thing is there to do than climb Castle Rock!?! So we drop Kennedi and Peyton off at school and off we go!

I love the flag and the star on top of the rock, that are reminders of the free, promised land that we live in and that Christ is the reason for our celebration of Christmas. And I LOVE that Castle Rock continues to stand for these truths!

Had to match Tanner's selfie!

Tanner is always cracking me up! As we were hiking the rock, here are a few thoughts he shared with me: 

We hear a siren, "Phew, they're not after me, I sat in my carseat the whole way here!"

and

Tanner is a typical 5 year old little boy, and every potty word just cracks him up, so recently, to try to get him to stop saying them, Ashlynn told him that potty words are bad words and we can't say them in heaven. Apparently, that's been on his mind, because on Tuesday, he says, 

"Mom, will we have a house in heaven?"
"Yes, Tanner, in the scriptures Jesus tells us that he will build us mansions for us to live in heaven with him."

"How long will we live there?"

"Forever!"

"Sigh, I don't think I can keep my bad words in for that long!"

 Then we met Dallin at the Ortho's for a long appointment and a chance to talk to the ortho. to see how his progress is going. I go back there, and there is Dallin with his braces OFF! But it didn't last long, they threw them back on and told him to continue to faithfully wear his rubber bands! I'm sure he was SO disappointed!

Before

After!

A much needed Kindergarten haircut! Tanner probably lost 5 lbs.! He is cute; he just jibber jabbers the entire time he gets his hair cut. I'm sure he's telling the lady all of our family secrets!

And then, that night Ashlynn makes a buddy as he is crawling out of her bathtub drain! I don't even want to know what he climbed through to get out of her drain! She brought him upstairs and he hops off of the pink container, right onto Tanner's head!

1st Day of School 2016/2017!!

I can't believe that summer is already over and another year is ready to begin!! I must be having too much fun, because time is flying by!!

This week was full of first days for everyone, accept Talie. 

Ashlynn started first, getting to the bus stop at 6:55 on Monday morning. (Talie did Ash's hair and makeup - and she's lookin good!) Ash is going into 8th grade at Mesa Middle School. She is in the Panda pod, and has every class, except one, again with her friend, Cambria. It's going to be a great year!

Peyton was next, getting driven to Castle Rock Elementary School, where he starts the 4th grade!! with Ms. Bryant, who is very nice and does lots of science projects!! By the 2nd day of pickup, he was already responding that his day was good! Another good year ahead!

Kennedi went with Peyton. She is in Ms. Zelem's class, who is already her favorite teacher (no surprise for Kennedi)! She was nervous at first because all of her close friends that she talked to before school started are in a different class. But, of course, she walks in and finds a class full of her other closest friends and is ready to tackle the 3rd grade!! 

Tanner, my baby, is in Kindergarten! The school went to full day, everyday kindergarten, but did give a half day pick up option, which we are currently doing. Monday was just his meet the teacher day, with a few other kids. His teacher is Ms. O, who he continues to call, Sister O, and she is from the South. When I picked him up from meeting the teacher, he said, "Mom, I want to go to FULL day kindergarten, because I like how my teacher talks!"

Dallin is a BIG junior this year! I can't believe he'll be ready to leave us in two years! His first day was Tuesday & it seemed to go smoothly, besides most people surprised that he was back this year - they all thought that he was moving to St. George. He's driving, playing tennis and getting his braces soon! I'm excited to see what other fun things will fill this year!!

My FAVORITE picture!!

And, Wednesday was Tanner's first day of Kindergarten! He's so lucky that he's surrounded by a big brother & sister at CRE! He told me that they walk him into class in the mornings, give him a hug, a kiss and tell him that they love him before they head off to start their own day!! What a great way to start a day! That makes a Mama cry;).

Denver Soup Kitchen

Today the kiddos didn't have school, so Tanner went to play with McKenna Blatter and Dallin, Ashlynn,  Peyton, Kennedi & I drove up to down town Denver and helped with the Soup Kitchen. We got there about 10:30, threw aprons on and went around the front room of the church, where there were a ton of homeless people sitting on chairs around long tables. The kids were given a bunch of candy to hand out to the people. They loved that! They all wanted chocolate. We also handed out frozen chicken and frozen cherries. Then we laid out a bunch of clothes on tables so that people could come in and "shop" for what they need. We were able to go down to the basement to find coats and backpacks for people that were in great need.

During the lunch hour, Dallin went around and helped people with their trays, and then scraped food off of dirty plates.

Peyton and Kennedi stacked up dirty cups and mugs to get ready to be washed. I pulled out the clean cups and mugs from the dishwasher, stacked them and ran them outside.

 I think Ashlynn had the hardest job! She had to wear a rubber apron and gloves to keep her dry as she sprayed all of the food off of the trays. We finally left around 2:40, against Ashlynn's wishes. I was so proud of her, she worked hard and kept saying, "I don't want to go home yet." - I think she would have stayed all night!

And Kennedi kept saying, "This is fun!" I think the kids definitely saw a different way of life, and some hard things. Apparently there are about 800 homeless people in Denver. There is a lot of good to be done!

Talie is Leaving Us!

    So, at the beginning of Talie's first semester of her senior year, the school messed up her math class and couldn't seem to fix it for two weeks! Finally Benson went into the counseling office, with Talie, and after asking some questions, they actually came out with - not the correct math class, but the realization that Talie could graduate one semester early! But, she had to decide and let them know by the next morning!! Benson and I went to the temple to ponder it more deeply, and Talie had the entire day to think about it. When we met together, Talie decided that yes! She was gonna do it! Then we discovered that the application deadline for the BYUs was still open for two more weeks, so Suddenly our barely 17 year old that we only had one year left with was leaving in 4 very short months!!
And now it is here, for real=(.

So we have been busy going through T's room and deciding what she should take and leave behind.

We've been doing lots of snuggle and together time!

Talie and I had a day all to ourselves, to shop for snow boots, of course (and glasses? why not=), lunch at Panda Express, cheesecake at Cheesecake factory,  makeovers at Sephora, and the movie Point Break, complete with a big bag of greasy, buttery popcorn, to end it all off with! It was so nice to not have to worry about being home at a certain time! It truly felt like a vacation! And we had so much fun! I'm gonna miss my friend!!

            

It's such a small world! As we were walking into the movies, Benson and the kiddos were coming out from watching Star Wars! And, they had to try on the new glasses of course!