First Day of Kindergarten

Sorry that it has taken me a whole week to upload these pictures! The basement is now complete and our computer seems to be having a good night...

We survived the first day of Kindergarten with only a few tears. Kylee was in bed Monday night by 8:00 but joined us in our bed at midnight because she was so excited and nervous that she couldn't sleep! The "first day outfit" was all ready and I have to say I think she looked pretty dang cute. Grandma Jo came out and took these cute pictures and even joined us as the school to say farewell! (Thanks grandma!) We arrived only a few minutes early and Kylee joined the other kids on the playground. At 9:15 they called the kids to line up in front of their classroom doors (they have entrances to Kindergarten rooms from the playground) and Kylee was first in line. She waved and said her goodbye's, no tears, no "I'm scared", just plain old goodbye. The doors opened and off she went - that is when my tears started to flow....just for a minute! As the last kid entered the classroom the clouds broke and it started to rain HARD!!!!! So much for my good hair day! The parents and siblings all took off running for cover which meant no more tears. We joined the other parents in the gym for donuts and juice, where they handed out the following poem - and I cried once again!

The First Day

I gave you a little wink and smile

as you entered my room today.

For I know how hard it is to leave

and know your child must stay.

You've been with him for five years now

and have been a loving guide,

but now, alas, the time has come

to leave him at my side.

Just know that as you drive away

and tears down your cheeks may flow

I'll love him as I would my own

and help him learn and grow.

So please put your mind at ease

and cry those tears no more

for I will love him and take him in

when you leave him at my door.

So far Kylee has loved Kindergarten. It has been a fun week for her! Nick is anxious to start Pre-school next week. He really looks up to Kylee and has watched her be involved in Pre-school for the last two years and has been jealous! I am thrilled that he will now have his turn!

The outfits for the next week are already picked out - I am grateful that my next two are boys so I don't have to deal with the clothing fight! I have many cute pictures of Kylee on the first day...keep checking back and I will post them soon.

Happy Birthday Tyler!!!

Happy Birthday Tyler! I am a day late in posting, but yesterday Tyler turned 32! He was up at the crack of dawn to hike the backside of Timpanogos with one of his YM to fulfill his Duty to God award. He is a dedicated YM President, one of the many reasons that I love him! From the 8 hour 15 mile hike he was home, straight to the shower, and off to a 2 hour Priesthood Leadership Meeting. From there he was home long enough to shove a taco in his mouth before returning to the Stake Center with me for the adult session of Stake Conference. Most people would say that it wasn't a very exciting birthday but Tyler was thrilled. His reward...18 holes of golf at Thanksgiving Point next week. He is really excited about that since we live across the freeway from the course and he has been dying to play there this year! We love our husband and daddy and are grateful for his dedication and love for our family! Hope you have another great year!

Laila Ruth Hill

Geoff & Aleena's New Baby

Congrats to my cute brother and his beautiful wife on the birth of their new baby girl. Her name is yet to be announced but she arrived yesterday, August 20th, just after 7:00 p.m. weighing in at 7 lbs. 4 oz. Her amazing mother delivered naturally for the second time (wow!) and did great! Her proud older sister, Aria, is adjusting and is excited about her new baby sister! I will post the name when we know it!

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL PARTY UPDATE!!!

Date: Friday, August 17th
Time: 5:30 p.m. show starts at 6:00
Place: The Hill's House
Bring: Salad or dessert to share - pizza will be provided!
RSVP: Abbey (427-0142) Renee (380-7091) Sarah (623-0133)

We're all in this together..... again! Come join in the fun as we sing and dance the night away at East High, aka Hill basement. Wear your red and white, bring your food, rsvp, and come ready for a good time!

Happy Birthday Kylee Jo

Time sure does fly! It was five years ago today, just about this time, that Tyler and I were in bed watching "Leave it to Beaver" when my water broke. I put on my trusty overalls and we called my mom just before leaving to the hospital. Tyler was a wreck, nervous as a first time father should be, and axious to get me there in once piece. After a long labor and an emergency cesarian section, our little Kylee Jo entered the world. The doctor pulled her out by her feet and held her upside down. I'll never forget when he said "we will have to call this baby chubalumps". Yes, all 8 lbs. 10 oz of her survived a wicked labor and delivery. I remember kissing her little face and looking at her for a short minute before Tyler followed the nurse out the door to show her to our families and head to the nursery. I stared at the lights as a patienty waited to be sewn up, anxious to see our precious daughter again. I remember crying and thanking Heavenly Father for our little girl. There was no dispute to the name once she arrived. I had been fighting for the name Kylee Jo for quite some time and when I asked him what her name was he stated simply: "she's our Kylee Jo". It is five years later and we are still grateful for our Kylee. She has so much life and personality to her, we laugh at things she says because she acts so old. She loves her brothers, especially Nick, and is truly his best friend. She loves her aunts, cousins, and friends and especially enjoys being with her family. She is our little clock that reminds us that we need to "stick together". Our little girl will now start Kindergarten, time sure does fly! We truly feel blessed to have been sent a wonderful daughter. She makes us smile every day. HAPPY BIRTHDAY KYLEE JO!

OUCH!

OUCH! So you would think that after crawling under the chair and getting stuck over, and over, and over again Austin would learn that it hurts! For some reason he is drawn to hiding under the table and chairs! I have to admit I missed having a child at this stage - not any more! He is all over the place...I can't believe he is almost 9 months old. Time really does fly.

Saturday's Events

View from Saddleback

Moraine Lake

So today was another very busy day! We woke up anticipating that we might take a nice, relaxing drive and ended up on the top of another mountain. We didn't anticipate we would hike so far, but because of our fear of bears we buddied up with an oriental couple from Calgary. They pushed us to our limit and without their encouragement I think we would have quit long before reaching our destination, Saddleback Point. They were very nice people who hike in the area every weekend and were armed with bear spray - apparently that is a common thing for hikers to carry in this area. We were kind of hoping to see a bear at least from a distance but had not luck! The hike was long but was beautiful at the top - or what I considered was the top for us! After sharing their oranges and offering us homemade rice cakes we said goodbye to our friends and headed back down as they continued up the mountain! We were worn out! After a little rest and a sandwich, we headed to Moraine Lake and it was well worth the trip. It was within walking distance of our car but provided a spectacular view of the mountains and another very blue lake. We enjoyed it! We made it back to our hotel for a nice little nap and dinner. We have had a wonderful time but are looking forward to returning to our kids tomorrow night!

Eclipse

So this has been my trip reading. I have not found time to read much, but am over 100 pages into it and am anxious for the plane ride home for some more uninterrupted reading! If you haven't read the first two books of this series - you need to. I love it! I even went so far as to attend the release party with some girlfriends last week. I have not felt old at any time in my adult life until we walked in the door and were surrounded by teenage girls in prom dresses. (If you have read the books you will understand why they were in prom dresses) The girls did a fashion show (was I that immature) and were walking around the store giggling as they waited for the countdown. You would have thought we were in NYC as they counted down at midnight! It was crazy! We did have a good time - I went for the social outing with the girls, not the book. (Yeah, right) Read these books if you haven't already and if you have read this one, don't tell me a thing until I am done!

Hike Pictures

WOW! Isn't this pretty?!?!

As you can see we hiked a long way!

In the distance you can see our hotel. Wow!

This place is beautiful!

Hotel Pictures

They are renovating parts of the hotel

so things are a little torn up in spots but it

doesn't make it any less amazing!

This is the hotel that we are staying in. They have these wonderful hanging baskets all around the exterior of the hotel! The flowers are beautiful!

The entrance to the hotel...we are amazed at how nice everyone is! I guess that is appropriate for an upscale resort - I feel like royalty in my jeans! :)

Friday's Adventures...

I promised pictures and here they are. We had a great day! We just returned from a hole in the wall cafe that was a part of the local hostile. It was recommended by one of the hotel employees as the place that "all the locals eat". No complaining about the price of this meal - and I even had a homeade brownie and ice cream!

Beautiful Lake Louise

We survived the short plane ride to Canada yesterday - only 2 hours which is much shorter than I expected. We waited forever in line for our rental car (don't use Hertz) and ended up with a red Ford Mustang. You would think that we would be excited about that, but Tyler hated driving it and I felt trapped. With Tyler's golf clubs in the trunk our luggage ended up on the back seat which meant that my seat couldn't lean back to a "comfortable" position. But, we made the best of our little two door car, joked about how we miss the mini-van, and got on the road to Lake Louise. It took us a few hours to get here but the drive was worth it! Beautiful!

Our hotel looks just as it does in the pictures. The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise is known all over Canada as being the place to stay. We feel quite lucky to be here - congrats to Tyler for getting us here! He has worked really hard! Anyway, I can't get the pictures to download on his computer so you will have to google it or wait for us to return to see what I am talking about.

We hiked to "The Plain of Six Glaciers" today - it was wonderful! It was a bit uphill, but we saw too many older people passing us to justify turning back. It was fun and worth the hike. The glaciers are neat and we enjoyed the 4 hour 7 mile hike. At least we can say that we did it. There are a lot of Canadians, English, and Orientals here - I am very attracted to the accent of the Canadians and told Tyler he should work on his accent because it is sexy. He attempted and I told him never to try again!

Well, we are off to lunch at a small cafe a few miles from here! We have heard that it is much more affordable then our $58 steak we had here last night! We are saving our $$$ for dinner tonight! Yummy! Tomorrow we are heading towards Jasper which I hear is a beautiful drive. Hope I didn't bore you too much!

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL PARTY!

More information to come - keep watching to find out all the party details...that is when my very organized sister plans the party and Kylee and I just show up! :)

Crazy days!!!

Okay, so the last few days have been crazy! We returned from our little vacation to Bear Lake which every mom knows means LAUNDRY. I am trying to get the house in order for Grandma Marilynn to come and stay. Tyler and I leave Thursday for our little trip to Lake Louise, Canada. We are really excited and are grateful for our parents chipping in to help with the kids! THANK YOU! It will be a short four day trip, but we are looking forward to what we hear is "one of he prettiest places on earth". We will be sure to take pictures and post them for all to see!

The basement is coming along and should be completed in the next couple of weeks. Paint has been the hardest part...how bold do we really want to go? I stayed pretty neutral - primer is up and the rest will follow next week when we return. Carpet will follow shortly after and we will have a nice, big, EMPTY basement. I am excited to start filling in the gaps with furniture though we still have blank spaces upstairs - I am sure it will take some time!

Today we went and visted with my Grandma Evy. It was a fun hour. Nick slept and Austin was into everything but I think we entertained her for a minute! In the car on the way to Grandma's house Kylee was asking all sorts of questions - she wanted to see pictures. So, when we got to Grandma's she asked her to show her pictures of Grandpa. It was a really sweet moment. She is continually asking about Grandma, maybe she senses the lonliness. I need to a better job of helping her understand and know a little bit about her Great Grandpas that have passed away! Anyway, it was fun to see them interact. The kids are growing up too fast!

CHEESE!

Our trip to Bear Lake

We had a great week in Bear Lake! Tyler's parent own a cabin not too far from the beach and boy did we have fun! We hiked Tony's Grove in the rain and saw a moose! The kids enjoyed the little stroll around the lake and had fun eating lunch in the wilderness - something we don't do too often! They were able to ride horses and Kylee was a bit nervous as you can imagine. Everything with her is DRAMA but boy is she sweet! We spent a day on the beach swimming and boating. The kids loved riding on the tube and Tyler became a bit daring with his driving as he took us on some pretty nice waves! All in all, it was a great time! We are looking forward to sledding at the cabin this winter...and hopefully seeing more wildlife.

I did it!

So, I finally did it! I have been keeping tabs on all of you through your cute blogs and decided that I would join in the fun. Abbey and Kelsey came to visit tonight and helped get me started. Our page is certainly a work in progress, but I hope that you enjoy it! Here it goes...