Family Gator Hunt

We spent a Friday night out on on the lake hunting alligators! It was a beautiful night and we had a lot of fun. There weren't many gators out on the lake that were letting us get very close to them but Jackson managed to snag a decent sized gator... he did it all himself and did a great job! 

New House Progress...

The house is coming along!!  We saw some big changes in September. All the framing is happening in the house... walls are framed, upstairs framed, stairs are framed, roof trusses are set, roof is decked... it actually looks like a house!! Now we wait for all the things you can't see... plumbing, electrical and HVAC. 

 

Just a few more August Pictures...

Heather and Ryan were getting Jamison and Sarah all settled in their new place in New York (so FUN) and so we took the kids out to dinner with us one night while they were gone. We just pretended we were the ones with 6 kids for an evening. Ha!

She's the cutest 5th grader there ever was!

And this boy... school can really tucker a kid out!!

 

Adios Hermana Munns

Caroline was called to the Uruguay Montevideo Mission. We were lucky enough to keep her throughout the summer because she did the MTC online at home. They still aren't sending missionaries to Uruguay yet so she was reassigned to Temple Square in SLC. She left August 19th. This was a tough goodbye!! Caroline has such a special place in my heart... the girl is absolutely golden! She's the perfect missionary for temple square and she will be amazing in Uruguay when she gets there... see ya in 2023!!

Quarantine

School started on a Thursday. After the first 2 days of school the kids started their first full week of school. On Tuesday I got a call from the school that someone Benny sat next to on the bus tested positive for Covid so he needed to be quarantined. Oh geez.... here we go...

Luckily Benny and Ila were both quarantined at the same time!! So Shanda and I switched off days. He had some school work to do but it was mostly just an extra week of summer. 

So Benny was clear to go back to school the next Monday. That afternoon I received a call from the middle school that Jackson had come in direct contact with someone who tested positive for Covid and he needed to quarantine for the remainder of the week. Oh boy... 

Here was his school set up:

I had 1 full week of my kids being in school and then I got the fateful call that Ivy needed to be quarantined. My goodness!! It's crazy town over here!!

 

Are you ready for some football...?

We've been doing flag football for years now but it was finally time to make the switch to tackle. Jackson has been wanting to do it for awhile now and I figured if he wants to play in high school he needs a couple years of experience under his belt... so we started Pop Warner this fall! I was a little nervous for Jackson only because, even though I know he was ready for the "contact" of it all, I thought it might be a little shocking - the contact of it all. And, pop warner is a little intense.... we started off with 5 practices a week for 3 hours each day and running hasn't always been Jackson's favorite. But he surprised me by absolutely loving it. And excelling at it. It has been so fun to watch him practice and play!! He plays both offense and defense and he's great at it! Looking forward to the rest of the season. 

Love this kid...

Here is a video of my beast boy... and also his very first kick off! Plus he knocks the guy out of bounds. 

 

New House Progress in August

We have seen a lot of progress on the house! It's so fun watching it go from a 2-D floor plan to an actual house! Here we have the block walls finished and framing started. 

The view of the lake from our family room window! 

Love this aerial shot Daniel took when we were up in the cherry picker cleaning out trees again. 

Second story action! Can't wait for the trusses to go up... that will be in September...

The First Day of School 2021

The first day of school came really quickly!! Benny has Ms. Vaughn for 1st grade this year, Ivy has Ms. LaHayne and Ms. Lang and is in the 5th grade and Jackson is in 7th with 7 classes including high school algebra... we'll see how that goes this year... 

The Bova Save

Once we returned from the Keys we had 4 days of summer left. I promised the kids we'd go to the Bob Makinson Aquatic Center on one of the days (just a local pool with a slide, a splashpad and a diving board). Well, we were in our suits, all packed up and ready to head out when I got the fateful call from Shanda that they were closed. They had closed early for the season due to Covid. Wow, we were really disappointed about that! Since we were literally walking out the door, we just hopped in the car and went to IHOP for breakfast to give us a chance to reassess our day. After going through all of our options the kids decided that we should just go swim at the Bova's... however, how rude to invite ourselves over to someone else's house, right? I swallowed my pride and shot Kami a text (apologetically inviting ourselves over) and she happily opened her door and pool to us. One thing to understand about the Bova's pool and yard is that it's a wonderland. Really cool slide, jumping platform, diving board, a creek, zipline... I mean, it's such a fun place!! (plus she has the most darling girls that my kids play so well with and of course Jackson didn't mind that one bit either 😉)  She rolled out the red carpet for us. Made us an amazing lunch as well. I sat on the verge of tears most of the day full of gratitude for her kindness and for saving the day for us. The kids still talk about it. I didn't take any pictures, but I did snap this boomerang video so here you go!