Ben is in First Grade!

Ben is in first grade!!!  It's amazing how time flies.  I thought sending him to preschool and kindergarten was heart wrenching, but first grade is a whole other story.  He is now gone from me for most of his day, and then he comes home and does homework and we eat dinner and then it's basically off to bed.  I feel like I have no time with my favorite buddy.  Things like the fact that he eats lunch at school are so hard for me to accept.  But, he absolutely loves school, which I'm so grateful for! 

Back in the Spring we applied for the Chinese Immersion program at Eastlake Elementary by our house.  We got a letter saying he didn't get in and he was #42 on their waiting list, meaning he was never going to get in.  The letter also said we could check with the other 2 schools that did Chinese in the area and see if he could get in.  We got the letter over the weekend and I was so stressed out.  It's hard to describe, but I felt like I had to do something to get him into the program to learn Chinese.  I had always felt like this was the right path for him so I couldn't believe it when he didn't get in.  I prayed to know if I should just accept that he wasn't supposed to get in and I just kept feeling this intense desire to do everything I could to get him in.  The first chance I had on Monday I called the first school and they laughed at me telling me they had a long waiting list and he could never get in because we were out of the boundaries.  Then I called Southland and the receptionist said I could try bringing in an application but didn't know if we would have any chance.  I printed out the form and took it right then.  After that I felt this calm reassurance that I did all I could do.  Amazingly a few weeks later I got a call saying he was in Southland's Chinese Immersion class.  I was so excited, and so was Ben.  We talked a lot about how he would have to leave his friends for a year or longer until a spot opened up at Eastlake, but he was willing to do that to learn Chinese!

A few weeks before school started he had a week "boot camp" for Chinese Immersion.  Ben picked up so much Chinese in just that one week, it was amazing.  He also met Hunter, and they became instant friends.  Ben and Hunter are playing on the playground before he goes in for his first day of 1st grade.  It was so hard for me to leave my handsome little man, and around 1pm I felt like he'd been gone for long enough.  But, he had a wonderful first day and loves school so much!

Soccer and Boating

Just a normal fun crazy summer Saturday.  Mike volunteered to be Ben's soccer coach this year, because Ben's coach last year was not involved at all.  Mike is a great coach!  He is super positive and makes practices fun for the kids while teaching them.  Isabelle is on Ben's team again and they have a lot of fun together (although their flirtations tend to be a bit distracting during the games.)  After a morning soccer game we headed out on Utah Lake with Mike's parents.  Eliza was tired and not a fan of her life jacket at all!  She was not the happiest boater, but she did okay.  I was sad that I missed Hailey's first knee boarding at Lake Powell, so they took us out so I could see her skills.  I am amazed at how good both Ben and Hailey are on the knee board.  It is so fun seeing these tiny people out behind the boat.  They both did great and had a fun time, it was a great day out on the lake!

Herriman Beach Fun

This was our first trip to the Blackridge reservoir in Herriman.  It was an overcast day and not too warm, but the kids had a blast.  They loved playing in the water and the sand and enjoying a summer day.  Some big storm clouds came rolling in so we decided to leave.  That was a good choice because it started raining with lightning.  It was a great time, and made me long for the ocean and beach! 

We were looking through Disneyland pictures later that day.  Ben was talking about how fun it was to go on Pirates of the Caribeaners (he'll be a great rock climber one day).  Eliza is talking more and more every day.  Eliza says fish, stuck, baby, dada, mam, cheese, Hailey, Ben, shoes, sit, mormor, byebye, laly, duck, monkey sounds.  Eliza loves watching curious George!  She went to the couch and got the remote and pointed to the TV and said 'oo ahah'.  We watched George after that, she's just too cute to say no to.

Isabelle joins our family and Birthday Fun

Yeah, Isabelle is here!  I took just Hailey on a special mommy-daughter date to go see her newest cousin Izzy.  What a sweetheart, and so adorable!  We went with my parents to see the newest Marsh at the hospital.  Nicole looked amazing, and Isabelle is such a cutie.  Hailey was really excited to come and be able to hold her.  Just a few days later we celebrated my Dad's birthday and Isabelle's arrival at their house with a fun BBQ.  Hailey was so happy to get some money from my Grandpa Marsh!

Picnic at Other Mormor's

This was a really fun day spent at my Mormor's.  My kids like to call her 'other Mormor'.  Me and my mom picked up Nathan and Maelie to give a very pregnant Nicole a break.  We had a great picnic with Kentucky Fried chicken, one of mormor's favorite foods.  It was such a nice day, and the kids had a great time eating and having "tea time" with other mormor.  I'm so glad that my kids are having some of the same memories that I had growing up with my Mormor. 

A week before this Mike and I were able to enjoy a great  10th Anniversary weekend!  We didn't bring our camera but we had such a great time!  My mom was nice to watch all the kiddos, and we headed up to Midway and stayed at the Zermott.  Mike surprised me with a gorgeous right hand diamond ring, and I gave him sheets (I know nothing compared to a diamond ring, but they were Egyptian cotton).  We filled up our 2 days with lots of fun stuff!  We had delicious pastries to start off our first day then headed to a great hike in the beautiful mountains.  While we were hiking, we experienced a little rain and Mike had a run-in with a pesky mesquito, but neither ruined our fun.  Then we went back to Midway for some Mexican food.  After lunch we headed into Park City for some shopping and fun.  We found Ben a coat and Hailey a cute jacket, and we got a bunch of winter stuff for the kids.  We went and saw the last Harry Potter which was great and then headed to get dinner.  We walked into this restaurant that had a bunch of signs outside for family deals for $20.  It seemed like a really nice Italian restaurant.  We were seated right away and were one of two tables that had people at them.  They gave us the menus and we found out why, the cheapest we could get out of there, was $60 a person.  I had no idea if the food was even any good, so we decided to leave.  It was a bit embarrassing, but we just cruised out of there before they took our order or anything.  We walked across the street and ate at Red Rock which was crazy busy, but great food!  The next day was our actual anniversary so we headed down the to Salt Lake temple (after our morning pastries of course).  We did sealings, and it was great being there exactly 10 years later.  It brought back all the wonderful feelings and memories from our wonderful sealing.  All the workers were amazed at how young we were and couldn't believe we had been married for 10 years.  After the temple we headed to Seven Peaks for some sliding fun without the kiddos.  It was great! I'm pretty sure we were the oldest people there without any kids.  The cute little workers kept saying "okay mam or okay sir, you can go down the slide now!"  We were laughing so hard, we went from being the youngans at the temple to the old people at the water park in just a matter of hours. 

After we got home our cute Eliza started her own game of duck-duck-goose.  She ran around in a circle with a goofy look on her face, saying duck-duck-goose in her cute little voice.

We also took Eliza in for her 18 month checkup; head 80%, weight 70%, height 65%.

August Family Portraits

Our traditional August family portraits!  I love that we get together every August to take family pictures with my side of the family.  We started this tradition when the Oquirrh Mountain Temple was dedicated and have done it ever since.  This time we took the pictures from the West side of the temple.  We are so lucky to have such a beautiful temple right in our neighborhood.  I have to say that I have the most adorable kids!  Unfortunately, my dad was working an missed these pictures, but we'll get him in next year.  My mom and Aly swung all of the kids, but the picture of them swinging Ben is the greatest.  He weighs around 50 pounds so he is a lot to swing!  The girls loved walking around in Aly's shoes!