Brandon Starts School

Today was the big day! Brandon has been getting so excited about being able to go to school. We went to meet with his teacher last week for his "assessment" where she tested him to see where he's starting the school year at. He did well and got to know where things were in the classroom. We got him a new backpack with basketballs on it and got him all ready to go.

Here's my big boy ready for his first day in kindergarten!


I cried just a little bit when we dropped him off. I'm going to miss him! It's hard to let him go, but I think he's ready.


He came home very excited about his class and the things they did today. I'm so glad that he had a good first day. I can't believe he is old enough for school!

Our Camping Trip

We decided that we'd better go on a camping trip before school starts. We do own a 6-man tent and we've had it for 4 years, but it is a lot of work to go camping, especially with little kids. So when Marianne and Rob said that they'd like to go camping too, it felt less daunting. Extra hands to help with little ones is always a good thing! We invited Erin and Cindy to come too, so it was very fun to have all of the sisters together again!

Shortly after we arrived Lindsey fell and scraped her elbow.


But it wasn't anything that a band-aid, some yummy chili, corn bread and Uncle Rob couldn't fix!


Katelyn's favorite thing was the watermelon. She was definitely in need of a bath after dinner. Good thing we brought lots of extra clothes for her!

We had a fun time making smores and singing camp songs from the old days after dinner. Then after the kids went to sleep we told stories around the campfire.

The next morning we ate yummy breakfast burritos and got warm by the fire.

I love these gals!


The kids were good helpers at finding sticks to burn.

They're also very silly.

Katelyn loved playing on the air mattresses.


We went on a walk down the road along the creek before we packed up to leave. It was beautiful!


We all had a good time. Thanks for coming guys. We never would have done it without the help! Or should I say I never would have done it! :)

Happy 7th Justin!

This last Sunday was our 7th anniversary! The time has really gone by quickly in some ways, and in other ways it seems like we've been married much longer than that. With the craziness of life lately we didn't think we'd be able to go out to celebrate, but Marianne and Rob came over to play with the kids so we could go on a date Saturday night. (Thanks guys!) It was very fun to catch a movie and have a bite to eat with just the two of us. We did a lot of talking about our past and also about the future. Our life together has been so wonderful!

Happy anniversary Justin...I love you!

Getting Settled

It has been good to be back in Utah. Our time here has been filled with lots of unpacking, organizing, getting things back to normal, visiting with family and friends and just trying to enjoy our time with Justin before he gets super busy with school.

We enjoyed some time in South Jordan with my family with a wedding and family picnic.


Our trip was cut short with a bout of food poisoning though. My family all got sick and we somehow didn't. They are still trying to recover from it, and it happened last Saturday.

Since getting back the kids have been very excited about their bike and tricycle (among other things; it's been better than Christmas around here). Brandon has finally learned how to ride his bike without training wheels. We had tried a little before we left for Seattle, but he was definitely ready when we got back. Lindsey has really caught on to riding the trike too. I think she's going to outgrow it soon.




An empty church parking lot is a great place to practice riding a bike!



I love that he's wearing his rubber boots (another thing that the kids have missed this summer) and his knee pads. We also had some races with the bikes versus the stroller. I came close to winning a time or two running with the stroller.

Katelyn has fallen in love with our keyboard since coming back. She wants to sit up there and either play on it or we'll turn on the demo music and she'll dance to it multiple times a day.


We went into Provo Canyon for a picnic dinner the other night. It was just beautiful!

So even though we miss our waterfront view in Seattle, it's good to be at home with our stuff again. This next year is going to fly, so we're just trying to enjoy this stage in our lives as much as we can. (By the way, when we were driving back to Utah and got some gas in Idaho, we felt the hottest temperatures we'd felt all summer. Seattle summers are mostly in the 70's!)

Our Last Days in Seattle

Here is a synopsis of our last adventures in Seattle before the move.

The Thursday before we left the Amazon BYU recruiters had a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant for all of the BYU interns (mostly undergrad) and families. It went fairly well, besides the fact that the kids weren't too jazzed about the interesting appetizers and the dinner lasted for over two hours. We ended up leaving before the dessert was served because the kids (mostly Katelyn) had just about had it. But it was a very nice dinner!

On Friday, Justin's last day of work, we attended a farewell lunch for Justin with his team and then went up to the 73rd floor of the Columbia Center Tower to watch the Blue Angels do their practice show. It was very fun to see it from eye level! Michael is one of the other BYU MBA interns at Amazon this summer and he joined us. We've had a good time getting to know him and Ryan (the other BYU MBA intern) this summer, and the kids have loved playing with both of them!

This is the look of relief that he's finished....


Friday night Justin and I got to go on a "sunset cruise." Now that was fun!

We got to see Bill Gates' house and everything. Lots of wood....

And we enjoyed spending some time chatting with Matt and Megan, our intern friends from Michigan.

Thanks Amazon. We're glad that we could do something fun on Justin's last day!


On Saturday, we went up to Pike's Place one last time for breakfast. They have some amazing doughnuts there! We were glad we could meet up with another BYU MBA family at Microsoft.

Then there's the monkey fish that we just had to take a picture of. The kids were really scared of it and didn't like Justin standing so close.


There's the famous pig!

After more packing we headed over to the Blue Angels air show. It was neat to watch in person!

Sunday night we had a fireside for the interns at our Bishop's house. We've been very impressed by this ward! We have felt so welcome here and we really enjoyed being able to serve in our calling.

Monday morning we got off a little later than planned because it took us over an hour to load our stuff in the van. Why did it take so long? Because we had to go up and down the elevators. They were very busy because it was the time of morning when lots of people were heading out to work. Each time we got onto an elevator with a new group of people Brandon announced that we were moving to Utah. Some of them were probably glad that we were moving away!

As we drove away from Seattle the scenery quickly turned from green to yellow and brown and we realized how accustomed to the green we have become over the summer. We made it to Boise where we spent the night in a nice hotel, thanks to Amazon. Those Residence Inns are nice, with two separate rooms, a full kitchen, dining room and living room. It was so nice to not have to put the kids to bed all in the same room. As coincidence would have it, we went swimming that night and shortly after we arrived two other families with 4 kids showed up to swim. They ended up both being LDS, and had both been visiting family in Utah and were heading back to Washington. What a small world!

Monday night Katelyn got sick, so we had a very rough time. Tuesday we were able to stop at the Twin Falls Idaho temple open house before it's dedicated. It was so gorgeous! I'm very glad that we got to stop. Katelyn was still feeling under the weather, so we tried to hurry home as quickly as we could. It felt pretty strange to come home to Provo. I had even forgotten where a few things were in the kitchen. I had to look in all the cupboards to remember where I'd put the ziplock bags and tupperware!

We're glad to be back and to start the final year of MBA school. We know that it will be very busy and pretty crazy, but it's been such a fun ride! Our hard-drive just crashed last night, so if we ever get the stuff off of it then I'll post a few more pics!