First day of school

Haylie is in Mrs. Ellis' 4th grade class this year and Zander is in Mr. Lasslo's 2nd grade.  They are growing up so fast!

Haylie's New Room

We moved Haylie to one of the rooms in the basement over the summer.  It is bigger that the room upstairs, and stays cooler in the summer.  The upstairs room has a big window in it that tends to make the room hot in the summer.  We had to make it a little more enticing to have a basement bedroom so what better than some pink and gray stripes!  Haylie was a great helper and it turned out so cute!

Boise Visit

One of the things I miss most about living in Boise is being close to my sister, Alyson, and her family.  They recently moved to a house in Nampa so we were excited to find the time to get up to visit them and see their new place.  We went the first weekend in August to spend some time with them and to visit some friends from our days there.  The Harwoods have a huge backyard with a playhouse in it.  It was the perfect place for one of Haylie and Rylan's traditional larger than life ideas.  They decided to turn it in to a snack shack.  They hauled all kinds of food out to it and then set up a serving area and an eating area.  It was great fun and even Alyson, baby Adalynn, and I made the trek to eat at the snack shack.  Haylie and Zander LOVE playing with their cousins.  Every time they see them they both comment on how they wished we lived close to them.

Swim Team

When Haylie was little she was probably a swim teacher's worst nightmare.  She would wrap her arms and legs around them in a death grip instead of laying out on the water for them to help her float.  One summer I got her a pair of goggles.  They were like Dumbo's magic feather.  She started swimming like a fish.  In fact, she likes it so much, over the summer in 2015 she joined a swim team. She has learned a lot since being on the team and I have no doubt she is a stronger swimmer than I ever have a hope of being.  Here are some shots of her getting ready for her first meet.  She ended up placing in each event she entered!  Way to go Haylie!  I am glad she has found an activity that she loves to do.

Gearing up to go!

In Lane 2

Going for 1st place

Pioneer Day with Grandma and Grandpa Holzer

Dave's parents, Art and Patti, came to visit us over the 24th of July.  We were able to visit, go to a Pioneer Day parade in Wellington and also a fireworks show in Cleveland.  We have kind of grown to enjoy these small town celebrations and it was fun to take Grandma and Grandpa along too.  I don't know how I didn't get any pictures of us doing any of these fun activities but we did get a couple of shots with Dave and the dogs!  Grandma and Grandpa usually bring their dogs Buddy and Maggie along and the kids love it!  Charlotte loves it too but these dogs aren't all that excited about Charlotte's energy.  They would rather nap and she would rather play. We are always happy to see this part of the family that we don't get to see very often.10+ hours through several mountain passes unfortunately limits our visits with each other.

Summer fun

I absolutely love summer!  Since I am behind on my blogging, I am writing about this right after Christmas and I am so ready for more warm summer days!  This post includes lots of everyday summer fun that we had.  I will explain in the captions!.

This is what happens when cousins get together at Grandma's house...a potato bug maze!

This is what happens when you find that the cement pad your air conditioner is on has sunk about 8 inches!  This caused some contention because two of my garden boxes had to be removed in order it get the equipment in to raise the A/C unit. My plants were never the same.

Haylie was given a cabbage plant at school to grow over the summer.  Here she is next to it before we harvested it.

Haylie hosted a reading party and invited some of the neighborhood kids.  She had a reading hut set up  plus blankets and pillows and snacks to read with.  It was surprisingly quiet as everyone read.

The Little Mermaid

For Christmas 2014, my mom and dad got us tickets to see The Little Mermaid at the Hale Theatre over the summer. It is in the Salt Lake area so we made a fun trip of it.  We went out to dinner and then to the play.  The stage is in the center of the theater with seating all around it.  It can rotate, or be raised or lowered.  It is amazing to watch a play there.  The kids loved it and so did Dave and I.  Another tradition to keep up!