An Apple for the Teacher

I had seen some cute apple cookie lollipops circulating the internet and decided I wanted to make some. My first idea was to do it for the kid's teachers for the first day of school. I didn't purchase the supplies until the middle of the school week, so they became a "Thanks for a good first week of school and looking forward to a great year" gift.

You can't tell here, but the lollipop part wasn't working. The stick was too big for the cookies to stay together. They kept falling apart as I was trying to dip them. I gave up on the lollipop idea and resorted to just dipping them as a cookie.

I think they turned out cute.

This is the kind of "apple" I'd want to receive as a teacher. :)

First Day

It felt like school couldn't come soon enough. Our supplies had been purchased and put in backpacks weeks in advance. Each child had new school clothes. Summer activities had come to an end.... and we were all starting to get a little crabby with one another.

This year, Rylee is in 9th grade.... HIGHSCHOOL!

She said the highlight of her first day was, seeing all her friends and going to seminary.

She's lucky to have "release time", but I'm bummed she doesn't have it every day because of the alternate scheduling (A & B Days).

Taylee is in 7th grade this year.

The highlight of her day was Drama class. She likes the teacher and looks forward to what she'll learn.

She also talks about how weird her math teachr is, Mr. Brasier. He says and does quirky things. On Friday, he got up in front of the class and proclaimed it, "Zumba Friday", then he made all the students dance with him. Taylee says she doesn't believe he really knows Zumba, but they get up and follow his moves anyway.

Treyson is in 5th grade... the top of the school.

His highlight was finding out that his teacher is actually NICE. He told me that his teacher gives out candy each time she teases a student. He would like to be teased each day... if it means CANDY.
Abree is in 1st grade this year.
The highlights of her day were, seeing her old teacher Mrs. Matthews (in the hallway), seeing old friends from last year and eating lunch at school. She also impressed with how many recesses she gets.

All of our kids are in school ALL day, this year.

Treyson asked me, "Mom, what are you going to do all day?.... I bet you'll at least take a nap."

To which I replied, "I just might. Thank-you."



Jason came home early from work that day. We went to lunch and ran errands together.... kid-free.

I could get used to this. I have plans of exercising early, organizing and crafting. So far I have mostly just cleaned and kept up on laundry, but a clean house and laundry are good thing.

Almost

It was ALMOST time... time for the kids to go back to school.

Can I get a "hallelujah!" ?

The day before school started, the elementary had a "Meet and Greet".
We packed up their backpacks and headed to school to see who they got. Abree found out that she has Ms. Beal.
She is in a 1st/2nd Grade combo class this year. I guess they had too many 1st graders, but not enough to make a whole class, so they combined with some 2nd Graders. I'm curious to see how this all plays out.... some parents were UP-SET with the combo class and were expressing their concerns loud enough for me to overhear.
We're going to make the best of the situation and have a great year...atleast that's the plan. :)

Treyson has Ms. Smith.
He was initially upset. He had heard she was "mean". He started fussing and worrying and was expressing his concerns vocally... to loud for my comfort. I assured him, if he made the best of the situation, he would have a fine year. I also asked him to think about how she would feel if she walked by and heard what he was saying. I think he took it to heart.

After meeting both teachers and checking out their new classrooms, both Abree and Treyson were excited and pronounced each of their teachers as "nice".

Next, we went to the middle school.

Taylee had been wanting to get her locker set up since registration. We found her locker. She remembered her combo! She set up her shelf and vital accessories and then she felt ready. She expressed her gratitude about not being a 6th grader (bottom of the pack) and was looking forward to her 7th grade year.

Black Canyon Boating

The highly anticipated YW/YM activity of the summer... boating!

This year, we had approximately 50 kids come to the boating activity. We felt blessed that we had 6 boats (and willing drivers)to accommodate them all. In years past they have only had 2-3 boats, so kids had to hang out on the shore and wait. This year almost everyone got on a boat right away and started wake boarding, tubing, etc.

It was a successful activity.... only loosing 3 tankini bottoms and 1 swim trunk to the wake... temporarily. Oops!

Now there's a good argument for wearing a one-piece bathing suit. :)

A Redneckin' Good Time

I don't remember how the subject came up, but sometime during our "Ison Chick" weekend, I found out that Jana had a desire to go to the Meridian Speedway. I mentioned that Jason gets FREE tickets sometimes. I told her I would let her know next time that happened. It happened that very next week.

I got in contact with Jana/Kevin and told them to invite the whole family..or whom ever would like to come. I was hoping that Morgan (grandson) would be able to come. Morgan loves cars.. probably has Disney's CARS movie memorized. :)

After their family dinner, the Nelsons joined us for a red neckin' good time... at the speedway.

I liked to ask Morgan which car he wanted to win the race. He would tell me a color or number of a car and then we would watch. I don't really think he cared which car won. He would cheer for any/all of them. He stayed content and happy the whole time.

"Go green!"

The speedway isn't really conducive to talking, so we hung out next to one another with earplugs in, occasionally yelling a few words at each other.

Good times!

Thanks for coming with us Nelsons.

Shop 'Til You Drop

With summer drawing to an end, school shopping was on the brain.

As my good friend Keri and I were talking one day, she mentioned that her daughter Emma admired Rylee's style (Oh boy, that was a nice boost to Rylee's self-confidence). I explained that Rylee and I buy a lot of our clothing second-hand (or major clearance). Keri said Emma knew that and would like to go second-hand shopping with us sometime. I thought that sounded like a blast, so we planned a day to... shop 'til we dropped.

When we picked up Keri and Emma, I explained to them a philosophy I learned from my mom... "Second hand shopping is like kissing frogs. You may have to kiss a lot of frogs, before you find your prince."

I wanted to prepare Emma for a lot of looking and maybe not so much finding or buying. :)

"Hey Emma, look what I found for you.. a Jonas Brothers school bag! Just kidding." :)
GOODWILL was our first stop. Rylee and Emma found several pieces of clothing to try on and even looked at some jewelry, but didn't end up buying anything.

On our way to the next store, we realized we were hungry, so we stopped at ZIPS for lunch.

ZIP fries..... yum!

Next up was the IDAHO YOUTH RANCH, then SAVERS and finally the D.I. Again a lot of trying on, but not a lot of buying.

The last stop of the day was TARGET. Rylee had some things she needed to return and the girls still hadn't had their fill of shopping yet. Keri and I were tired (truthfully I don't know if Keri was tired, but I was), so we sat in some chairs by the dressing rooms and chatted, while the girls went off on their own and continued shopping.

Overall, we DID kiss a lot of frogs that day... without finding many princes, but we had sooo much FUN doing it. Can't wait to do it again.

PS- Emma told Rylee that she thought SAVERS had the most "princes" of the day.

PPS- Later Keri told me after second-hand shopping all day, once Emma saw the retail prices at TARGET she said, "Now why would I pay THAT much for a little shirt, when I can find it so much cheaper second-hand???"

I do believe this shopping trip was a success. :)