2011 spelling bee

Garrett was able to participate in the school's spelling bee this year. He had to be the top in his class, then the top in his grade in order to be in the school bee. The school bee included kids from 2nd grade through 6th grade. I am so proud of him, he made it to the 6th round and took 6th place. 

Round 1-church


Round 2-basket

Round 3-gossip


Round 4-thermos


Round 5-lightning


Round 6-waiver

The bell means that he spelled it wrong. I think he knew as soon as he missed the "i" that he had spelled the wrong word. Great job Garrett!!!

artwork sept 2011

Garrett entered this drawing into the school's Constitution Week contest. He was one of only a few students who entered and he was proud of his drawing. I am glad that he was confident enough to enter even though none of his friends did.

Grace's class just finished a whole unit on apples. They even got to make applesauce in class and eat it. This is her final drawing for the apple unit. I love her apple trees and I love her sweet handwriting. She is getting so good at writing and making up stories.

And of course another great piece of art by Jack. You can see that it is a leaf-eating dinosaur standing next to an erupting volcano. His handwriting has improved so much as well.

jack

I feel so bad for Jack. He is the last child and I keep forgetting to take pictures of his lost teeth. With the other kids I took pictures and posted them immediately. Poor Jack lost his teeth about 3 weeks ago. I finally took pictures last week and it has taken until today to finally post them. I really need to be better about staying on top of things with all the kids.

Also, Jack's artistic abilities have really taken off. Literally 1 week before school started he was scribbling all over the page when he colored. Last week he brought home this picture and I just thought it was great! Just in case you can't see it, the python is eating a mouse! And from the looks of it the python already has one in his tummy! I love it!!!

more violin concert

Garrett has had a fun time learning to play the violin. This was their first concert and it was only after 6 classes. His teacher wanted to give them an opportunity to play in front of their family. At Christmas they will have their big concert for the whole school. You can see in the videos that he is only plucking the strings, they start using the bows next week. That should be interesting to listen to :)

It was funny to watch all the kids, they had such serious looks of concentration on their faces the whole time.

lake powell '11

We just got back from our annual trip to Lake Powell with Grandma Barb and Grandpa Mike. This year their group bought a new boat and it was wonderful. It was so much fun to spend time on the lake.

Rebecca, Jason and their brood of kids came also. It was so fun to see the girls and Kingston again. Jason's oldest daughter Navy and her friend Brady were there as well. The kids had so much fun playing together.

They spent time burying themselves in the sand, complete with anatomically correct features :)

Catching and releasing creatures including a lizard, frogs (or toads, I can't tell the difference), and tons of guppy fish.

They played cards and watched movies when it was too hot to be outside.

And of course there was lots and lots of swimming and sliding of the on boat slide.

These are the only pictures I took, Mom and Rebecca had their nice cameras out and I usually didn't bother with mine. I can't wait to see all the pictures that I missed. We had a great dance party on the beach on our last night there that was so much fun! Thanks Grandma Barb and Grandpa Mike for hosting our big summer vacation in style!

june pack meeting

June's pack meeting was after scout camp, so the boys got all their patches from camp. Garrett was the only Webelo there, so he got to explain all the science experiments that they had worked on for the last month. They also built and launched rockets. He has really had a great time in scouts.

camping at knoll lake

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to get away from the heat and headed for the mountains. We went camping at Knoll lake. It was wonderful! The temps were in the 70's and the lake was great. The water was a little cold for me, but of course the kids had a great time swimming in it.

The campground we stayed at was really nice. All the camp sites had a graded spot for tents with little pathways that connected the parking space, picnic area and camping area. Unfortunately, we are in the middle of a dry summer, so we were not allowed to have a fire even in the fire pit.

Garrett and Richard tried a little fishing, but neither of them got a bite :( I am sure it had nothing to do with the kids splashing around in the water!

After they were done swimming, Grace and Jack bundled up and curled up on the hot rocks to warm up.

utah trip - swimming

Most of the trip was rainy and cold. But, finally on our last day there the sun came out just enough to be able to go swimming at the Scera pool. It was that last week of school in Orem and there were about 50 teenagers there and 3 small families. Once the high schoolers left we had the whole pool practically to ourselves. It was a great way to end our visit to Utah.