2014-15 School Pictures

Fall Ball Fun!

We have had a busy and fun November (who am I kidding, every month is busy!).  Rory and I got to go to a 60's themed costume party for his Sergeants 50th birthday.  I've never been to a costume party before that wasn't for Halloween, and it did not disappoint.  We danced, laughed and visited with friends for hours. 

A few days later I had a visit from one of my oldest and bestest friends Heather.  We met at the wave pool and were able to visit and catch up while the kids swam.  Sometimes all you need is a visit or talk with an old friend to make everything in life balanced again. 

Connor's traveling baseball team, the Sliderz had a baseball tournament in St. George, so we headed down for some warmer weather and baseball.  It was so beautiful down there and the weather was perfect.  While down there we celebrated Matthew's 3rd birthday.  Although we spent most of his birthday at the ball field he didn't mind, he played on the playground, in the drinking fountain and under the bleachers.  After baseball we went to dinner and had Coldstone cupcakes then went swimming back at the hotel.  Connor's team won 3 out of the 4 games and only allowed 13 runs the whole tournament (the lowest number of runs allowed out of every team), but they didn't make it to the championship.  Sunday we came home to the cold weather (boo!) and got ready to back to school and work. 

Little Mr. Matthew not only turned 3, but he also is fully potty trained.  Yay to no more diapers, EVER!  He's been in Early Intervention for his speech so the school district had a speech pathologist test him to see if he qualified for additional speech help.  He qualified so we wrote an IEP and Tuesday he began preschool at Wellington Elementary.  He was so excited to start school and use the Batman backpack Landon gave him.  I went to pick him up from school his first day and he was so disappointed he didn't get to ride the bus, it was so cute.   

Kinlee enjoying ice cream on our date

Matthew on his first day of school

 

11/18/14

Election Results

The election is over and we couldn't be more excited about the results!  Jeff Wood won Sheriff and we are so excited for the changes that will take place once he takes office January 1st.  Jeff and Emily are some of our dearest friends and we are so excited to begin this journey with them, and Kadee is excited because we won't have to move and dad will soon be off graveyards. 

Red Ribbon Week and Halloween!

We had a great time last week.  We got the walls up at the house and celebrated Red Ribbon Week and Halloween.  For Red Ribbon week the kids participated in Hat Day, Crazy Hair Day, and wear your costume to school day, which also happened to be Halloween.  They had a fun Halloween parade at school where they were able to parade through each classroom and show off their costumes.  They also went to a magic show drug free assembly that Connor really enjoyed.  On Halloween we went to trunk or treat and then went trick or treating all over town.  Kinlee loved trick or treating on "snob hill" and kept asking the next day if we could go back.  We bought Matthew a Buzz Lightyear costume that he wore to a Halloween party on Thursday, but refused to wear on Halloween, so he ended up being Captain America.  After trick or treating we went back to our house where the kids and their friends ate candy and watched Hocus Pocus.  It was such a fun week and the weather was beautiful. 

House update

We have a garage floor and basement floor and walls, yipee!  We also had our annual pumpkin carving at Derk and Deb's.  Connor was the only one to actually carve a pumpkin and I didn't even get a picture, but I got one of his awesome science project he did!  Kadee, Kinlee, and Matthew took the easy route and used stickers for their pumpkins, but they still turned out super cute!

Witchapalooza!

Our land before we started digging

Our big hole in the ground

We have had such a fun couple of weeks that I haven't taken the time to blog.  We started working on our house.  We have the walls of the basement and garage poured, window wells in, and will have basement/garage floors on Saturday.  It's been a fun, but already exhausting and expensive.

We took a break from house work and attended the Children's Justice Center Harvest Ball.  As you can see, Rory and I went as a cowboy/cowgirl.  It was a great night, we had dinner, visited with friends, and danced until our feet hurt.  All proceeds raised went to help fund the CJC, a group that helps care for kids in need.

Lastly,  Saturday we had a fun girls day to Gardner Village to Witchapalooza.  They have the most amazing shops there and there was so much I wanted to buy, but only ended up getting a pair of earrings and some hair bows for the girls.  We window shopped and checked out all the decorations and witches, then went to a lunch show called the lyin', the witch, and the warlock.  It was so cute and such a fun show!  Kadee loved it and loved having some mom time all to herself.  I sure do love spending time with that sweet girl and I love celebrating Halloween in all these fun ways.  While Kadee, Debbie, and I were at Gardner Village, Connor was camping/hunting with grandpa Derk and the boy cousins.  He hiked his little heart out.  He had such a wonderful time and was only a little disappointed that he had to come home a day earlier then the rest because I wouldn't let him miss school.  He can't wait until he's old enough to go hunting himself.

Flash floods and rainbows

So much has happened this past week it's hard to know where to begin.  My grandparents came to stay with us and the kids enjoy their company so much.  Kinlee just adores grandma Bet and insisted on sleeping by her the first night they got there.  Rory was gone hunting so we were on our own.  We went to my mom's house Friday night for dinner and got home late.  I ran over to Debbie's for something (I don't even remember what now) and was visiting with her when Kadee came in holding her chest and crying.  She said she went to plug the TV in her bedroom in and was shocked by the outlet.  Her chest was really red and blistered so I decided to take her to the ER to have her checked.  They got her right back and did an EKG to make sure the shock hadn't affected her heart in any way.  Everything looked good so they monitored her for a few hours and then sent us home.

 

Saturday evening the floods came.  It was about 11:00 pm when Debbie called me to tell me our old house (the house we sold just a month ago) and all the houses down there were flooded out.  They had to back a truck up to grandma Rhea's porch just to get her out of her house.  I couldn't sleep so I actually went to Wal Mart at 3:00 am to buy muck boots because I knew we would need to spend the next day cleaning up mud and water.  When I got down there Sunday morning I wasn't prepared for what I saw.  My former neighbors had ponds in their yards and driveways that went up to my thighs, all of their basements had at least 5 ft of water in them and the damage done by the floods was unreal. I was so discouraged on Sunday and broke down in tears, there were tons of volunteers and we had been there for hours, but I didn't know how the neighborhood would ever recover.  I decided then and there I would do whatever I could to help them get back on their feet.  I'm not trying to brag, just trying to document everything.  We cleaned for days, so many people helped, we washed pictures and were able to save 100's of photos, we washed clothes, tons of people donated food, babysitting services, blankets, towels, whatever they could.  We were able to set up an account to donate to the flood victims and all worked together to get the neighborhood cleaned up.  We were even able to get a fundraiser going at the elementary school to help the flood victims.  The kids paid a dollar a day to wear a hat to school and donated canned goods.  By Friday we had made a world of difference, I'm so grateful to live in an amazing community.  Everyone came together and supported each other and I was so impressed by the love and kindness.  There is still so much work to do, but our spirits were lifted and we could see the progress made.  Governor Herbert came to tour the damage and give the flood victims a little pep talk.  He was a very nice man and it was a pleasure to meet him.       

A few pictures of clean up.  I bought Uncle Roger Depends Underwear because he jokingly told me that was the most important thing he lost in the flood. 

Branch Family helping clean up

Sunday morning as clean up began

Gov. Herbert, me and Kadee.