Three Weeks, In a Nutshell

The last few weeks have been crammed full, trying to fit everything in before the start of school. On Aug 4th we got to attend a 1st-3rd grade party for our new school and meet the kid's teachers. Then we left the next morning to go see my mom dance at the Lincoln County Fair. She's been dancing with this group for several years, but I've never seen her perform so we made it a priority this year to go watch her. Julie and her kids were also there visiting, so the girls had fun with the cousins. While there we received word that Shane was on his way out of Afghanistan and would be flying in to Jackson the next week. Brayden and Nicki both have August birthdays, so my mom threw a big party for them on Saturday. Even though they live in California their mom and dad have friends in SV that came to celebrate with them. I had to leave Sunday morning (the 9th). Chloe accepted an invitation from Grandma to stay for a few extra days, but Sophie wanted to come home with me. It took a couple days to adjust to just having one (very talkative) child, but we had a good time. My dad brought Chloe home the following Thursday on his way to drop my grandma off at the airport.

So after several days, we finally got the family all back together again. Only the girls had been invited to a sleepover at their friends house that very night. Nine nights they didn't sleep in their own beds! Chloe got a little wishy-washy about the sleepover. At one point she decided she didn't want to go (she needed some alone time of her own), but then when we dropped Sophie off she decided she would go. She had an activity day that night for moms & daughters, but I had my book club (and I REALLY hate to miss my amazing group) so Brandon stepped in and took my place. After the activity he took her over to the sleepover.

The next two nights (or night and day) were spent at the Davis County Fair here. We were going to go with our neighborhood friends, but that fell through and the weather turned kind of bad, but by that evening it was great so we all went out and did a couple things. We watched a fun game show (it would have been more fun if we had been chosen to participate), and then we stuck around for the comedy show. Apparently the girls aren't old enough to enjoy comedy. I think they were rather bored. The next day we did all their stuff -- the watermelon eating contest, pony rides, balloon animals, and we got to see the alligator show. We showed up about 10 minutes before the 4:00 show, but the seats were all full and you couldn't see from the back of the bleachers, so we opted to wait for the 6:00 show. We showed up 30 minutes early for that one, and the seats were STILL full. Somebody suggested the kids go sit down on the narrow strip of grass on the front row, so they did. After a while they wanted me to join them so I did. It worked out great -- other than when the guy got a little crazy in the water and completely splashed us.

Monday Chloe had to go get a cavity filled. She did really great. That night we went to our back-to-school night. It was pretty crazy with 700 students, plus all their parents, in this brand new school so nobody had a clue where they were going. We found their classrooms, got our carpool number (so I can pick them up and drop them off at school), tasted some lunch samples (even though I'll be packing lunches), and signed up for different volunteer opportunities.

Yesterday we had another family get-together. Jessica got to fly out from Indiana for her brother's wedding, and brought Makiah with her. Shane is now back on US soil, and has never met Makiah so they all came down (with the parents) and met at our place. We went out to lunch and then hung out at home for a while.