More recent things

 

Blake sitting in his desk on the first day of 1st grade, August 13th. He is doing so well and still impressing us with his intelligence.

 

After the first week of school, we headed back to Santa Ana to visit Briana who was in town at Nana's house. How did we not get pictures with you, Briana? It was VERY hot so the kids enjoyed a slip n slide, thanks to Grandma Shaw and Grandpa Tony. And did you know slip n slides come with little blow up rafts to slide on? I didn't have those!

 

Blake on the first day of school.

 

Julianna on the first day. This school year has already been an adventure. I have an IEP coming up on Oct. 3rd, so I will be sure to post all that we have been through after the IEP. But for right now, things are good, thanks to her amazing teacher. Much more to tell, but another story for another day.

 

On August 22nd, our city had a very special dinner to honor all the scoutmasters in the valley. Our family was invited, along with many distinguished people from the city, to the Minor's house (a family in our stake with a HUGE property) where we listened to a Hollywood writer speak about boy scouts, and others give their praises to scoutmasters, and enjoyed a VERY fancy dinner and dessert. It was quite an experience!

 

The kids just had to see the giant baseball by the field (on the property--yes, it's huge), which happens to be a little snack bar, maybe?

 

At the end of the evening, many important people from the city and county came up to present awards for each of the scoutmasters. Let me tell you...Joel went home with a huge pile of awards and plaques, all for doing his calling in the church! It has been almost 2 years, and being a scoutmaster is NOT easy, but this event really made everything seem worth it. The boy scouts even helped serve food to everyone! We are glad we got to be there, and that the kids survived 3 hours and ate some of the fancy food.

 

This is a new activity that they came up with..."living on the trampoline." They bring stuff from the house on the trampoline and say they are "moving outside" and play together. It's really cute! On the net you can see their address posted up for their "house."

And last but not least, Jack our cat is back! I've been posting on facebook about it, but I'll put it here, too. He went missing the last day we were in Utah and was gone for 6 weeks, until a week ago today, when he randomly showed up at our backyard door. I could NOT believe my eyes! He had a red tattered collar on and seemed very happy to be back. So that day, we got him a new collar and nametag, and only let him outside for a few minutes, and he disappeared, again. Then this past Tuesday afternoon, when one of Julianna's therapists was about to leave, Julianna said, can you help us find our cat? And he said, well, you can put up the sign I made. Then he opens the door, and he says, isn't that Jack? And Jack comes walking in again! We don't know where he's been going, but when he came back this time, he was missing his nametag, so we think someone else believes they own Jack, too. So he will be staying inside and sleeping in the garage for now until we can trust he'll stick around. So far he seems happy inside. That's the story of Jack!

I am in my 3rd trimester now and getting excited for the baby to come. We will be naming her Molly Jean. It's getting closer now!  Other than that, Joel is busy with work and studying for the GRE so he can apply to some PhD in English/creative writing programs in a few months. This is going to be a crazy time for our family but we will survive!