back to school...and other fun stuff! GO UTES!!

We woke up to a very stormy Labor Day morning last Monday. We drove to Morgan for the annual Labor Day Mortenson reunion, but on our way we stopped at Brenda's for haircuts. When we pulled up in front of their house, we saw hail gathered in the corners of the roof! Is that considered the first snow of the season?! It was a chilly day, but we have since pulled out of it. Thanks for the cute haircuts Brenda! The boys will take any excuse to play with cousins, even if it is haircuts...

...and then it was on to Morgan to play with more cousins. We forgot our yellow dump trucks, but Brandon and Lori remembered theirs, so at least there were a few to go around. That's kind of a big deal to forget to bring the dump trucks to a family gathering!! Daren and his brothers played football for a while, with an interruption by Will showing off his fishing stick/whip (not sure which one it was this day). After all the playing and eating was an aution to end the reunion. They do this each year to raise money for the next reunion. Some years we have gotten some real good stuff, and other years are kind of a dud (like this one).

Cousins in camouflage with their trucks--Aydan and Jake

BACK TO SCHOOL!

And just like that summer was over and it was back to school!! Alicia took this picture of Jake, Ben, Diesel (his first year of preschool), and River looking out the back of the bus--they have claimed this part of the bus as "theirs."

This year we had to separate Will and Jake, and I have to say that Will is taking it much better than I thought he would. He loved riding the bus last year, but he loves that his new school is the "apple school." I guess it's pretty common with twins to find one more dominating than the other, and that was Jake in the classroom last year. Will really didn't learn a whole lot because Jake would answer most of the questions for him, thus Will has a little catching up to do. Newcastle seems like a good school for Will, and he really likes going there (today was his first day). It's nice to have a little bit of free time for myself, but along with going back to school is back to homework. Trying to get Ben to do his homework has always been a major battle, but he is showing signs of getting better at doing it. The one thing he loves is reading. No wonder he has such an active imagination!!

So Ben is in 2nd grade and Jake is in Nursery 4's (M, W, F, 8-11). Ben was so excited to go back to school! Ben loves his new teacher, Mrs. Duke, and his new class. For some reason he loves her hall passes, and since we couldn't find any more at Target (where she told him she got them), he decided to make up his own. On Saturday he and a bunch of the neighborhood gang played school all day, complete with a principal, teacher, and students (and hall passes!). They really got into it and had a great time.

In Young Women's at church I am an advisor with the laurels, the 16 and 17-year-old girls, and I love it! They are so much fun to be around. For our activity this week on Wednesday, we went rock climbing in Big Cottonwood Canyon. We got Tiffany's dad, Dennis, who is an avid rock climber, to take us up there. He was so good and very patient with all of us. We not only did rock climbing going up...

but also a little repelling off the top going down. It was a little scary looking down from the top!

I even learned how to belay someone! I have been wanting to learn this for a long time, but dang--it is hard work!! My arm was so sore after just a couple of people.

Nan and I went repelling down the mountain at the same time. It's hard to tell in the second picture what the mountain was really like, but we are standing straight out and there are other girl's at the bottom. It was so much fun!!

At the end of the evening Dennis gathered all his stuff from up top, and then came down the mountain facing down, as you can see in the picture. It was like he was spiderman or something!
And last, but definitely not least, our beloved Utah Utes had their first home football game of the season on Saturday night. They beat Michigan at Michigan last week, which was a sweet way to start the season. We have been season ticket holders for a few years now, and the games are so fun to go to--plus I have learned a lot about football from the guy who can't stop talking behind us! The Utes had another impressive win, this one over UNLV, 42-21 and are ranked #22 in the polls. Ahh, it's nice to have a good team again, but we stuck with them even when they weren't so good. GO UTES!!