Charity's in KINDERGARTEN!!!!

Charity started school!!! Tuesday, August 28th she had her first day of Kindergarten! We had to take lots of pictures before we left :) She looked so cute in her new red jacket :)


Kelly's big sis is going off to Kindergarten! Kelly's ready to step up to the plate and be the big "fihter" and she's done really well so far :)


Charity was pretty nervous the morning of- the first thing she said when she woke up was that she was scared. We made it to school though, and she was surprisingly anxious to go it. She had to wait in line for quite a while. She would jump out of line every couple of minutes to give me a hug, but she was overall really excited. I think she was just so curious how it was going to be that she didn't think about it too much.


Here she is running back in line after a hug to go inside. That is her teacher Mrs. Nyholm standing there with the orange vest. Charity really likes her teacher and she doesn't know what she would do if she had to have a different teacher (those are her words).

And there she is- one last look back :( before she's a big girl!! You can see on her face she started to get a little nervous- but I was really impressed with how well she did. I usually have to peel her off of me to get her to go to Primary even, so this was a big step for her. But she has really enjoyed the first two days. She enjoys funny things that most kids don't. She loves the chocolate milk at lunch (I've convinced her that it's cool to have school lunch not bringing yucky lunch from home in a dumb little lunch box!). She liked her health class yesterday but couldn't remember what she talked about :) She didn't like Music time on the first day because it was "boring". So who knows what this girl will like :) She thought recess was too short the first day, and yesterday she seemed a little happier with it, so that was a relief :) She hasn't been talking to anyone very well about her first day- she says she can't remember, so maybe she's just blocked it out :) I think she's had fun though and hopefully she will like school for a while! SHE'S GROWING UP!!!

Grandma and Grandpa had to go home :(

We had a really great time with Nate's Parents these last couple of weeks. It was so nice to have family around again, and really felt like the good ol' days. I love that the kids were able to be reaquainted with Grandma and Grandpa. That's one of the things I miss most about Utah. We did TONS of stuff while they were here- and saw LOTS of things that we hadn't before. It was fun to show them around and let them see what we have been doing up here. It's always fun to have company too- we felt like WE were on vacation! Thanks again Mom and Dad for EVERYTHING!! Thanks so much for coming and helping us make more memories to cherish. We hope you had a good time- and we are excited to be able to see you again in just a few short months! We love you so much and already miss you!!

So I finally updated my blog!! YAY! There are about a million pictures on here now from our vacationings with Grandma and Grandpa. It was all fun and games with them here, so hope you all can enjoy it a little :) Sorry the pictures are all in crazy order- it would have taken me forever to try to get it all in order I think- so for the sake of my family- I decided to not bother trying :) Love you all!!

I like the pictures of the kids fishing with their daddy :)


sorry if you've already seen enough of them :)


oh, and this one's PRICELESS! Father, son and grandson!


Lukey was entertaining himself in the funniest ways :) He's hilarious


Ya gotta love this :)

Charity sat and held this little guy for a long time- it was really cute!


We took Grandma and Grandpa down to the temple- it's so fun to have a picture of them with us there. What a neat experience it was to have them here with us.


Then we went to Mirror Lake for a little picnic. And some fishing. This is a beautiful spot!


Getting all the fun we can out of grandpa before he has to go :)


I just love this picture!! Thanks for taking it mom!

Charity and Bradley used their tickets to go on the merry-go-round


cute little bradley actually chose to ride in this little seat thing over the horses :) He's really his own little person- does what he wants! He was so happy with it too :) how cute


Lukey had a blast in the petting zoo :) He would scream with excitement when he was done petting one :) so funny.


kelly was a cutie in the petting zoo too- I couldn't get one with her still :)


Bradley was a little nervous at first, but he got into it.

We took Grandma and Grandpa to the Alaska State Fair this is the Lumberjack show.


I thought it was cool




Kelly used her tickets to get her face painted :) I'm not sure why the kids find getting their faces painted so fascinating, but she was pretty proud of her unicorn and all the sparkles on it :) What a cute little Kelly :)

We went to the Anchorage Botanical Gardens (another first for us), and it was beautiful! This one's for Annie especially, but I think charity's cute in it :)


Bradley has been obsessing over mushrooms for like the last month (finding them in the front yard and such), so he was in heaven with all the colorful mushrooms in the gardens- There really were TONS of them :) And don't they make you think of the smurfs?


Luke was into smelling the flowers- he would usually just kinda lean in a little with his nose, but this one he went all out.


my cute boys :)


and my cute girls

K, now this is REALLY hard to see, but it's really just the fact that we saw them that I want to get across :) As we were driving back from our cruise in Seward (which by the way we saw a bear on the way there, a sea otter, dolphins- I didn't get a picture of them, bu tthey were really cool, orcas, harbor seals, and puffins in the WILD!!!) so we're driving home from this incredible experience, and we look over into the ocean only to see BELUGA WHALES!!!!!! IN THE WILD!!! So this is all you can see in the picture- they're white- you can see it if you zoom in, but it's that white little dot in the middle of the water :) SO STINKIN' COOL!!! I NEVER thought we would be able to catch the belugas- but how INCREDIBLE!!!


this one's a little better, but not much :) Enjoy :)


and how cute is this!!! LOVE IT!


We went back to Wildberry Priducts so taht we could see the reindeer- the kids got to feed them leaves :) It's pretty fun for them :)

cute cute


K- this was THE COOLEST thing EVER!!! We got to see some ORCAS in the wild!!! Zoom in if you want- cuz this was AWESOME!!


Here's one a little closer up- but it was really hard to get pictures of these guys- ya never knew when or where they would pop up- I missed the one tail slap we saw! But I did SEE it!! This was just a really cool experience :)


Here's the Harbor Seals on the little island- they really do look like slugs just laying there :)


And this was kinda cool- there are a few puffins and common birds, I think seagulls too- but they were just swarming around this rock!

That's our ship- the second one back- the "Greatland" Pretty cool!


And this is the first sea life we saw out in the wild (none of my pictures do any of this experience any justice, but just use your imagination- it was REALLY neat!) This is a sea otter- it's totally laying on it's back out in the middle of the ocean :)


awww- me and lukey on the cruise ship :)


I just love this picture of Brad and his grandpa skipping rocks :)


What a fun experience for all of us!! (luke's even smiling :) )

Lukey finally broke free from the stroller and is checking out the seals at the sea life center


This is a picture of the sea life center in Seward, and I only took it because I liked how the clouds looked on the trees on the mountains- very cool :)


This is a picture from our ship looking at the boat dock in Seward- kinda cool looking


This was cool to see- just a cruise ship that was sitting there. Our's wasn't quite this big :) But this was the closest I've ever been to a ship this big :) kinda fun.

This is at the lodge on Fox Island- I lvoe having family pictures again! Thanks Mom!




This spot was really cool (on Fox Island, just before we got back on the ship to go back to Seward) the whole "beach" was completely COVERED in "skipping rocks" All different sizes of flat, smooth rocks! We had a blast skipping them :) nate's still the best :)


This is back at the Sea Life Center (all of these pictures are totally out of order, sorry) This is the puffin cage. These birds are really cool close up. And when you look through the glass where they are swimming- it totally looks like they are flying under water. I thought it was cool :)


This is Kelly and Charity feeling the sea stars and anemones at the Sea Life Center- they were so fascinated by the fact that they COULD touch anything that they actually touched EVERYTHING in the tank :) The water was SOOOO cold!!