Sophie...sitting?!?!

It's such a rare occurence that I actually had to take a picture. And then blog it. This NEVER happens.

Of course, the reason she was sitting is seen here. Oh well. When there are bathrooms to clean, carpets to vacuum, floors to mop, and in-laws tomorrow, I'll take it!

Of course I cried!

It's the first day of school. Of course there were tears involved this morning! Fortunately, none of them were from Hunter or Lily, they were ready and excited for school to start.

Of course, first day of school pictures are mandatory. I think I have one from every single school year growing up. (And let me tell you, there are some real doozies in there!) Anyway, the kids humored me even though I think Lil was still half asleep.

We set off for school right on time and arrived in the chaos! I forgot what a mess the first morning of school is. Parents EVERYWHERE!

Hunter assured me that he did NOT need me to walk him to his line. I know he didn't need me to, but I would've done it out of the kindness of my heart. Actually, I had a really hard time letting him just walk away. We waited in line with Lil, and at one point I sent Tyler to make sure Hunter had arrived safely at his destination. Tyler told Hunter that Sophie wanted to say goodbye again so that he wouldn't know it was really me checking up on him!

One of the great delights of the first day of kindergarten: finding familiar faces! Lily was thrilled to find a couple of friends in line this morning. She walked into the building with her head high and a smile on her face. I was proud of her!

It was all going pretty well and I was managing to keep the tears back, that is until the kindies started filing into the building and Sophie absolutely fell apart. Lily turned around to walk away and Sophie started screaming "I wanna go school! I wanna go school!" Tears were absolutely streaming down her little face. She was breaking my heart! She sobbed all the way to the car, and then just when I thought she was calming down, it started all over again. I buckled her into the car and she panicked. She started screaming for Hunter and Lily and was so worried about leaving them behind. Oh, my Little Sophie Sunshine.

Like the good mom that I am, I stopped to take pictures of Sophie in her misery and then tried to calm her down. Can't miss that kodak moment!

Changes

Those of you who know me know how much I love change. And by that I mean, I absolutely hate it! But at times in our lives, it becomes necessary to make a change. And as my dad always used to say to me, "If you live through it, you learn from it". Well, the last few weeks have brought a lot of living and learning to our house. Let me start at the beginning...



We got back from our reunion at Snow Mountain Ranch and had messages from a counselor in the stake presidency and from the stake executive secretary. In my opinion, that is never a good thing! When Tyler returned the calls, they asked if he could meet with them that night and bring me along. A call was extended, and that Sunday on July 27th Tyler was sustained as the second counselor in our ward's bishopric. The timing of the call was a great blessing, because Ty's parents were still here in town and his dad was able to ordain him to the office of High Priest before they left to go back to Illinois. I know that was no coincidence. I also know that Tyler will be great in this new calling, and I have all the confidence in the world in him, probably more than he has in himself!



Tyler's new calling, of course, meant that I had to be released from mine, a fact that I know to be true but that has nonetheless brought me much heartache over the last three weeks. I have been serving as the Young Women President for almost three years. I have seen the ward change, soemthing that I struggled through along with my girls. I have become very attached, for better or worse, and don't even think twice about referring to them as "my girls". I love each and every one of them! Many of us have had the blessing in our lives of having a calling where you pour in hours of work, as well as heart and soul. This has been one of those callings for me, and it makes saying good bye that much harder. However, after having our family do "double duty" for just three weeks, I know why it needs to be this way. The kids have been with Nana every mutual night, and got farmed out for Tyler and I to both go to ward council last week. They are ready for someone to stay home with them when the other has to go attend to church responsibilities. My sweet Lily bug has been especially tender lately when I leave on Tuesday nights, with many tears, and I know that she is ready for mom to come home.



So, today our lives will change again when I am released. I won't post this until tonight after this has taken place, but I had a minute this morning and was feeling introspective in anticipation of the changes to come. Now, if I could just fly under the radar for a while before a new calling is extended, I think I could handle that!

Quick Trip

We had to squeeze one more in before school starts, so we followed Tyler around to his appointments again for a couple of days. It was a pretty "chill" trip, good for mom!

Next to the river in Edwards, CO

(On a side note...Hunter has been reading the Jack Sparrow chapter books, and decided he needed to be Jack Sparrow by wearing the bandana. He would not take it off, despite my gentle prodding. One of those moments as a parent when you just let it go! Ten years ago I never would have envisioned a day when I would let my child go to Wal-Mart like that, let alone out of town for a whole weekend!)

We went to Bananas Fun Park in Grand Junction. The kids had a good time "mini bowling".

Of course Sophie had to do it "myself!" Her balls were rolling soooo slowly, notice she has gotten back into her crouch before her ball even got out of the frame. A couple times the ball didn't even get to the end of the tiny lane, but she didn't care as long as we didn't help her!

After the Reunion...

it was nice to have a few more days together that were a little less action packed and more relaxed. I absolutely adore watching all of the cousins together. My kids are used to having cousins around, but not these cousins, (except for Shane, Jace, and Brett) and they are so funny together! Unfortunately, just when they get used to each other and start having fun, it's time for everybody to go home.

Megan and Sophie Nana with Shane and Lil at the splash park

Lots of swimming in the hot weather!

You know it's time for school to start when...

your love of sleeping in a little, your love of a flexible schedule, and your love of being with your kids all day every day is overwhelmed by the craziness caused by said children because they have just had too much "quality time" together. Anyone else counting the days? Don't get me wrong, I love my kids. I am kinda sad to see my Lily Bug start kindergarten. But they need to go back to school before they kill each other!

Winter Park

Still catching up on July...good thing August has been pretty quiet so far! While we were at our family reunion, we took half a day to go and play at Winter Park. We had so much fun together! This would have made a really good day trip if we hadn't already been up there.

Hunter on the rock wall

Waiting to jump on the bungee trampolines

Lily doing a flip. The girl that was working there helped her once, and she totally got the hang of it and was doing it on her own. We were cheering her on, and she had quite an audience by the time she was done!

Lil and Aunt Tonya on the Zephyr

At the top after riding the Zephyr up. It was a little chilly!

We also had a ton of fun riding the alpine slide. I don't have pictures because we were all too busy riding! Even Sophie loved it, and had a great time riding the chairlift up and the slide down several times with Papa Monson.

Family Spectacle

At least that's what I call it. Family reunion time means coming up with a "family talent", easier said than done for our motley crew. We actually tried to squeak by without one this year, but Tyler's sister Tiff let us butt in on their talent and do it with them. Thanks Tiff! We were quite a sight, all of us singing "Bet On It" from High School Musical 2 and doing the moves. If you look closely, you can see Zac Effron singing along with us on the back wall. If you had been there, you'd know why I have come to refer to it not as the family talent, but as the "family spectacle". Oh well, at least we got a good laugh when everyone else had to make a spectacle of themselves too! ;)

Quality Time

We got a lot of it in July! The Healey reunion (Ty's mom's parents) was at Snow Mountain Ranch this year, near Winter Park. Yeah for us! That's a drive I can handle. Since the reunion was in Colorado this year, we just waited for everyone to come to us. We got to have Tyler's folks here for almost two weeks, along with lots of his siblings and cousins, nieces and nephews. I think I need to sleep through August just to catch up! One of the unwritten rules when Monsons get together is that you have to stay up very late every night playing board games and card games. I love it! We have so much fun together and laugh so much, it far outweighs a few nights of lost sleep.


We spent four days up at Snow Mountain Ranch in the beautiful seventy degree weather and surrounded by the few trees that the pine beatles haven't killed. We had SO MUCH FUN! One of the highlights for our kids was eating three meals a day in the cafeteria. Strange but true. We mini golfed, roller skated, played games, and generally enjoyed being together. We spent part of one day at Winter Park, (more on that later), and actually got all of us in a picture. This is all of the Harold Monson clan, minus Trent, a.k.a. Elder Monson, currently serving his mission in Puerto Rico.




A special thanks to Brian for the AWESOME pictures. We are glad to have some decent photos as a memory of our time together. (The good ones are his. The crappy ones are mine!)

Roller Skating...(or at least trying hard!)

Playing outside

Up close with nature. The kids were SO thrilled about seeing this fox, they talked about it all week.

Happiness is...

a brand new, hand made princess blanket. Our kids have each gotten a special quilt for their second birthdays from their Nana Monson, to put on their "big kid" beds. Sophie got hers when Nana and Papa Monson were here to visit last month. Sophie doesn't have the big bed yet, but she's shoving the twin sized quilt into her crib every night nonetheless. She couldn't be happier. Thanks Nana!

I survived!

Another of July's highlights was our ward's Girls Camp. As the YW president, it was my opportunity to go to camp with the girls. There's only one problem...that requires actual camping. You know, tent, outhouse, cold nights, bugs...the whole nine yards. Those who know me know that I am NOT a camper. I'd really rather be in a Holiday Inn somewhere. But the good part of camp is the girls, and we had a lot of fun. We camped at Pickle Gulch campground, just outside of Black Hawk. Unbelievably, it did not rain a drop the entire time we were there, a Girls Camp first for me. Another Girls Camp first was the bear that was very near our campground. We never saw him, but some our hikers heard him, and we saw his tracks. We're pretty sure he went right past one of our tents the second night we were there.

I also survived the hike, which I was very proud of. This picture was taken when we got to the top.

Don't we look cute in our matching hoodies? Another highlight of camp! Thanks to great camp leaders, we had a wonderful week. Now if I could just catch up on my sleep...

Here's to...

...good friends! OK, so this goes in the "better late than never" category, but apparently everything that happened in our family in July goes in that category. Where the heck did July go?!?! All of a sudden it's August and back to school is staring us in the face. How time flies...anyway, one of the highlights of our July was seeing our good friends the Lovejoys, and being able to participate in their son Braeden's baptism. Thanks for inviting us guys! We miss you! We attended the baptism followed by a BBQ at the park that was so fun, we were there forever. Of course it rained while we were there for the first time in like two weeks, but that didn't keep my kids away. Sophie had even more fun playing in the sand after everything got soaking wet. But we all just stayed and stayed anyway. It's been a rough few months for me since our ward boundaries changed, and this was another good reminder to me of how great it is to have good friends. Let's do it again sometime!