Family

This picture makes me so happy, I can barely stand it. We have almost no pictures of all four of us together. Happy, happy faces. All of us. Together. :-)

First Day

Wow. My girls are now in fourth and second grade! How did they get so old?! There was no dawdling today: the girls got right up, dressed, did their hair, ate, and brushed their teeth with plenty of time to spare--for pictures!

Grace was very excited this morning. She said she felt nervous as we walked down the hill, and even held my hand the whole way, but walked into her classroom on her own after turning around for an extra hug (I did not cry...). She has really gotten so brave and independent over the past two years. She really seems like a big second grader:

Anna was pretty nervous this morning. She proclaimed that if she was feeling that nervous, she couldn't imagine how nervous Emma was feeling (her friend who is coming to Polk from a montessori school). I even got to hold Anna's hand walking down the hill today!

Even though the girls had plenty of squabbles this summer, they will miss having so much time to play together now that school's in. Anna is very, very excited for Grace to have her favorite teacher yet, Mrs. Blair, this year. This will be the first time Grace will have a teacher Anna's had.

Grace's best neighbor friend, Sam:

The walking group (I think Sam is wishing he had walked ahead with his big brother and friend, who are too cool to walk with the rest of us. We liked having Sam walk with us today, though):

Can't wait to hear how today goes!

The End of a Great Summer

Wow. I cannot believe this summer is already over. Tonight, my feelings are bittersweet, because I'm excited for this school year, but I love having us all home together; we quite enjoy one another really. Even though Adam has been back at work for a month now, it has still felt like summer around here. We've had a wonderful summer. Our summer began with a visit from Soley, her boys, and Mikaron; we had a great time drinking wine in the backyard and chatting as the kids played castle, webkinz wars, and Wii. We were then joined by Adam and Rich for a weekend with our home stuffed past capacity. I always love my time with Soley and Mik, and it seems to just get better as our children become close friends, too. After Soley's family left, Mikaron stayed for a few more days. As always, the visit felt too short; my time with my best girlfriends always fills me up, gives me perspective, and makes me wish we all lived closer to one another

Shortly after they all left, we left for our big summer vacation: we drove across Nevada, visited with my Uncle Mark and family outside of Sacramento, and drove to the Redwood Forest from there, where we camped for three beautiful, fun nights. The Redwood Forest was super fun: huge trees, beaches, AND banana slugs! Then we took two days to drive up the coast, getting us to Gramma and Poppy's home. We had a great time there, slip-and-sliding, eating delicious meals, going to a butterfly sanctuary and a world festival in Salem, and enjoying a huge family reunion. My mom, Oma, joined us there and took the girls down to Eugene, where they went to a children's choir performance, a wave pool, saw "Up," and fed some cute goats. While the girls frolicked with Oma, Adam and I got to spend two glorious days in Portland. I don't know who had more fun. It was really, really great. Then, Adam and I joined the troop in Eugene to play at parks, scooter along the river, play mini-golf, visit alpacas and goats, and dye yarn. After all that fun, Adam did the impossible and packed all our stuff back in the car and we headed back home.

Once home, we got to celebrate lots: July was filled with the 4th, Grace's birthday (7!!!), and Pioneer Day (Utah's holiday which is seriously bigger than the 4th around here). Grace's birthday was definitely the most fun. On the big day, we swam at our favorite outdoor pool, went out to her favorite sushi restaurant (is she cool or what?!), and had cake and ice cream back at home with Jenn, Matt, and the boys. A few days later, we had her hiking birthday party, which was really, really fun. A few kids couldn't come because of vacations, but she had a nice group of some of her best friends, the weather was surprisingly cool, and we didn't lose anyone. :-) We hiked home to have a water balloon fight and ice cream sundaes.

After all that was done, we settled into a really relaxing summer of mostly swimming, playing with each other and playing with friends, playing in the back yard, and going to the library. We didn't do a whole bunch of "stuff," but we had a really great time. Grace learned to ride a bike and swim this summer, Anna read countless books, I started running and my eye is doing better all the time, and Adam went on a short backpacking trip with one of his best friends and began his new position in July as the Director of Teaching and Learning at Weber State.

Now, Adam starts teaching this week, Anna starts 4th grade and Grace starts 2nd grade tomorrow, and I begin my training to be an Interventionist (tutor) at the girls' school this week. It will be 17.5 hours/week, which I hope will be just about perfect. We'll see how photography goes this fall; I had a couple of photoshoots in July, which went well, but I'm still taking it slowly as I still get headaches when I take a lot of pictures. So, I'm hoping to be busy, but not too busy... That's always the goal, isn't it?

Even though we didn't take pictures of a lot of what we did this summer, I put together a slideshow of the pictures we did take:

If you want to see these photos bigger, and much better quality, or if you want to order anything, go here.

I'll be sure to post Back to School pictures tomorrow! (sniff)

Dance Recital

Yes, Anna's dance recital was in May... But, that was also when baby Sam was born. And anyone who knows anything about me knows that a baby's arrival means me taking hundreds of pictures. So, I took pictures of Anna's recital, then took hundreds of pictures of the most adorable baby ever, and didn't even remember having taken any pictures of said recital. Until a few days ago. So, I've finally posted them onto Smugmug ( http://kjohnstonphoto.smugmug.com/ if you want to see more).

(If you look on that site, you will get to see "Big Grace," the daughter of a good friend of mine, and my girls' idol. My girls absolutely love to carpool with Big Grace every week: she is silly, open, and kind. Honestly, if my daughters are as great as her when they're 15, I will be blessed indeed. Both girls wish Adam and I went on more dates, so Big Grace could babysit more. I think we should definitely listen to them... I took lots of pictures of her, because the batteries on all three cameras her family brought died right when the recital started.>

I was super proud of Anna, and it was fun to relive that night working on these pictures. Most of you know Anna loves dance--and her commitment to dance ramped up quite a bit when she started taking Contemporary in addition to Ballet and then started with the dance troupe her teacher started up in the Spring. Anna was dancing three days a week for a few months--and her dedication really showed in the recital. Best of all, she really looked like she was having fun. She shone. I teared up (both at rehearsal and at the recital). There is something so beautiful about seeing your child do something so completely and so happily.


This is Anna with Emma, one of Anna's best friends since they were four.