We had the greatest, busiest, craziest, most wonderful week it is hard to put into words. Marci got MARRIED Friday! We left Wednesday at midnight and arrived about 11:00 that day!  We spent all day Thursday decorating the church gym for her reception. Her colors were yellow, green and orange. It was a fantastic combination. Everything she pictured came together perfectly.

We had lots of fun decorating too!

My brother Jordan and his girlfriend Michelle made Marci’s cake. We were all a little worried, but they came through! The cake was BEAUTIFUL! They did an amazing job, don’t ya think?!

SO Friday was the wedding. My kids were ready! They were all set to go to the temple! The Newport Beach Temple is gorgeous!. And so was Marci! Kenny looked good too! Everything about the ceremony was wonderful! Just a special, special day!

The reception was that night. Good food, good friends and lots of fun! We took off right afterwords and came home. Just in time for the BYU game. GOOOOOO COUGARS!!! It was a fun game!

Zoe had her annual fashion show to show off her new uniform outfits. When we were shopping she asked if we were going to have the fashion show. I told her we would wait for Grandma and Grandpa to get here. Sunday night we set up a cat walk for her, got the cameras out, had everyone seated and cheering and Zoe got cold feet. She saw all the faces and decided she didn’t want to do it. But with a little persuading and encouragement from Marci she did it and had a BLAST.

Nikolas didn’t want to attend the "boring" event and Ammon was sleeping so we were minus our entertainment, but the girls had some fun walks or crawls down the cat walk!

Happy Day! Happy Day! The kids are back in school! Zoe and Nikolas started at Reagan Academy today. Nikolas started 5th grade. (Am I that old??!!) He gets to take band this year and will start by playing the clarinet. He has a great teacher, Mrs. Twitchell. She is way into army stuff, which is perfect for Nik. He can earn camo cash for being on task, being good and such things. Then he gets to buy stuff with the cash from the class store. AND they have a couple days throughout the year where he can take things to school and sell them! He actually came home excited for the school year! Thank you Mrs. Twitchell!!

Zoe started 2nd grade (WOW!) got a sweet and loving teacher named Miss Oberhansley! She will be great for Zoe because she has a huge smile and likes to give hugs. Zoe is so excited to be back in school. She taught herself cursive this summer and is happy to write all her journals in it (starting today. Miss Oberhansley was very impressed!) She is happy to be back with all her friends, though her "best" friend isn’t in her class and that was hard on her.

Ammon will start Kindergarten next Tuesday. The teachers spend this week assessing all the kindergartners. He went today and is so excited to start for reals. He is mad he has to wait until Tuesday! Yesterday was orientation at his school. The teacher was explaining things and said, "Now we will talk about homework." Ammon turned to me and exclaimed "YES! We get homework!" Hopefully that enthusiasm will continue until college!

Oh, how thankful I am so GREAT teachers!!

It was another great day. Marci received her endowments Saturday morning in the Provo temple. It was wonderful. Being in the temple any time is uplifting, but to be there with my sister for her first time was amazing. A temple worker congratulated my Mom on the accomplishment of helping her daughter get to the temple. She told Marci there was no greater feeling than to see a daughter or son receive their endowments. I choked up, what a special day it will be when I can stand in the temple with my sons and daughters.  I can’t wait. It is now my goal. The thought on my mind every time I yell at someone. "This is NOT helping my son/daughter make it to the temple. What would be a better approach?"  I will have to read this blog often to remember. I love my kids too much!

Thanks Marie, Sujin, and Joey for watching all the kids!! You guys are the best!!

Marci graduated from BYU yesterday! Hooray Marci! It was so great to see her walk. Yes, we cheered. They told us not to, but is was so exciting! I mean come on, how many times do you graduate form college?! Mom was mad, she gave us dirty looks, but it was worth it. Marci I love you and I am so proud of you! GOOD JOB! It was her birthday too. What a great day!!!

Happy Happy Birthday to You! Hope your day was wonderful. We can’t wait to see you tomorrow!!!

We finally got our pond cleaned out and filled up with clean water. So the next step was to get some fish. Our neighbor across the street said he had some in a bucket for us so we said GREAT!! Now let me tell you about our neighbor. He is great!! He is the neighbor everyone wants. He knows how to fix everything and is always willing to help. He knows all about Spanish Fork so he gives us all the inside information. AND he works for Gary Coleman. Yes the Gary Coleman! So where did the fish come from?! Gary Coleman! I am thrilled to be the new owner of Gary Coleman’s fish!

This is one of the fish. Adam calls this one Bo Bo and the other one LeeLee. WHY? The white one is Bo Bo after Britain and the other one is darker like Kalixta so LeeLee (his nickname for Kalixta). Nikolas thinks they should be name d Godzilla and King Kong. Zoe wants some girly names that she hasn’t thought of yet. So we will see, they may just have lots of names!

Anyways, yesterday we went to a local nursery and bought some water plants to help our fish to be more at home.

Nikolas is home again after being gone for five long weeks to CA. He had a great time and is a little sad to be home. He had a great time with his Dad and had NO responsibility. But I sure missed him and I’m glad he is home. All the kids are pretty excited too. I read my blog from last August when he got home and all my reactions are the same. He has grown tons. He now wears size 7 shoes! They are too big for me, so that means soon he will be taller than me too. I knew that day would come, but I didn’t think it would be when he was 10 or 11. 

I took this picture last year right after he got home. It makes me laugh and cry too.  We were driving and he didn’t like my music so he had to listen to his own. I felt like I didn’t know this boy any more, my boy. Now I have the same feelings. He is so much the same and so different too. He is trying to grow up and I just want to keep him as my baby. A struggle I will be having for many years to come I’m sure.

Welcome home Bud I miss you!

…the girls had a pedicure party!  Tonight I painted all the girlie’s toes, even Ariana’s. She got bored about half way through,so Kalixta and Britain started blowing on her toes and that occupied her enough to let me finish. Her tiny toes are painted and look super cute!

Poor Ammon, what’s a boy to do with soo many sisters?

Hurry home Daddy! We miss you!

This is our garden! We tried Square Foot Gardening the year and it is working great. Adam made the boxes and we all help plant them. Nikolas hauled most of the special dirt combination. We have carrots, lettuce, zucchini, onions, yellow, red and green peppers, pumpkins, watermelon, cantaloupe, tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers and beets.

This is the first garden I have planted all by myself with my family and we have had so much fun watching it grow. Ammon is the green thumb in our family. He loves to water with me and begs to go out and look for new veggies that have grown. Last week we picked our first zucchini. I told Ammon we could pick it for dinner. He bugged me every ten minutes asking if we could pick it yet. Well we picked it and he is SO proud.

Unfortunately he didn’t get to try it (that honor went all to Adam!) but he also picked our beets and some lettuce. I let the lettuce grow a bit to long so it was a little bitter, but I still enjoyed my salad. Much to my surprise EVERYONE liked the beets!  Now I wish I would have planted more. Oh well, there is always next year! Tonight we will try the beet greens. I hope that goes just as well.