Where do I send my letter?

I would like to officially declare that horse jumping should NOT be an Olympic event. I mean who is the athlete here, the horse or the rider??? Who gets to keep the medal??? Who does all the hard work??? And I bet the horses didn't even get invited to march in the opening ceremonies. Sooooo unfair! That is all! (alright I feel better now, what are the chances that a member of the International Olympic Committee will read my blog?)

Back to school

Yesterday was our first day back to school, I can't believe I have a 9th, 7th and 5th grader. They are all at different schools this year, so that will be challenging getting to every one's school events. The first day went great, nobody got lost (which is always a big fear at a new school) and sounds like everyone likes their teachers so far. Alissa was a little surprised to find there are more juniors and seniors in her math class than there are freshmen (only 4 freshmen), so that will take some time to get used to having much older kids in her classes. I just love having a routine back, normal bedtimes and normal school days, ahhh I love it!

Soccer also started this week, Colby is coaching with another Dad from our team from last year and I get to be team mom instead of head coach. Hurray! I have never been team mom before and I am looking forward to cheering on our team and getting to know the other moms on our team. The last several years when I was coach I hardly had a chance to talk to any parents and I couldn't match up kids to their parents, so I am looking forward to getting to know everyone on the parents side of the field this season.

Racheal and Sarah's team uniforms (we heard through the grape vine) are peach tops and purple shorts. Blahhhhh! But anyway...they were trying to think of team names and the team really wants "The sour pits" LOL, Colby asked them to keep thinking and they will re-vote next practice...I guess he doesn't want to coach a team full of sour pits. LOL We will see what else they can come up with.

Girls Camp Again

I forgot to update the blog that the stake young womens president asked me to be the stake camp director again next year. So yes, if you are counting, this will make it 5 years in a row as stake camp director. And then the year after that Sarah will be 12 so I might as well do it one more year...LOL...so I can go to camp with all 3 of my girls. I guess the only way to get out of this calling is to move, but we don't have any plans to move so I will keep serving where our Heavenly Father wants me.

Science Center

We also visited the Science Center, not a lot had changed since we were there 7 years ago. Sarah really enjoyed everything and jumped right in on all the hands on exhibits.
Here is Sarah playing with the star fish and sea anemones

The three girls in the dinosaur exhibit.

Entering the bug exhibit



















Racheal inside the butterfly house posing with a butterfly.















Racheal, Alissa and Sarah tired of me taking pictures, but smiling anyway in the butterfly house














Sarah trying out the rock wall



















The three girls just wanting icecream, but smiling anyway. And yes, we had icecream too.

Seattle Trip

When we were in Washington visiting Grandma and the family we were able to go to Seattle and play for a day. We saw the Space Needle.


















We rode on the rides at the base of the Space Needle, they only had about half as many as they did when I was younger, but enough that it kept us busy and having fun. Here is Colby and Alissa watching the Merry-Go-Round.


















Sarah and Racheal are in the 2nd row and Lacy is in the 3rd row riding the roller coaster. We could not get Colby and Alissa to ride it, so they got to take pictures of us on it.














Racheal, Sarah and Alissa in front of the Pirate Ship ride, that is their favorite ride, they went on it several times.














Sarah, Racheal and Colby on the river ride.

braces update: part 2

So we met with another specialist today and he had a totally different plan for the kids, he doesn't want to do anything for Sarah right now, he likes how her teeth are coming in and doesn't think it will be a big deal to fix in a few years when all her permanent teeth come in. Sarah's teeth are not as bad as Alissa's are. And we got a much different plan for Alissa than the first Dr. This new Dr. wants to start with braces on just her top teeth for about 6 months and see what that changes, then put braces on the bottom as well. He doesn't like the jaw surgery that is out there now and does not recommend it to any of his patients, he likes to pull permanent teeth instead, he said it is a lot cheaper and gives the same effects. So after the first 6 months of braces he will see if he will need to pull 2 permanent teeth and then adjust her braces for that. Needless to say Alissa liked that idea a lot better. I don't know how many of you remember that I had that same thing done when I was in 8th grade, and it worked fine for me with no problems so far, so we decided that we will go this route with Alissa. Yes, she can thank her mom for her wonderfully crowded teeth.

One more thing I purposely left out of the last post, the other Dr. said Alissa would need to wear head gear for 14 hours a day for 2 years, but this second orthodontist said she wouldn't have to since we may be pulling the teeth instead. So thank goodness for that, Alissa is thrilled with not having to wear head gear, and we are thrilled with not having surgery and not having 2 kids in braces at once. Yeah!!!

An update on the braces

Alissa and Sarah had a consultation with an orthodontist specialist and he wants to put braces on Sarah now for a year and then again when she has all her permanent teeth, they call it a 2 phase treatment plan. We have 2 options for Alissa...the first is put braces on her right away and hopefully still be able to move her upper jaw forward now, with hopes that she is not done growing and there is still enough 'give ' in her bones to move. She would have braces on for about 2 years with several heavy elastics on both sides of her mouth, if the braces didn't work then she will need the surgery to break her jaw and reposition it when she is 16 or 17 years old. The other option is to wait until she is 16 and put braces on her for a few months then do the surgery and continue to straighten her teeth with braces for about a year. So right now we are leaning towards putting braces on them both right now and getting it over with, with high hopes that the braces do the trick for Alissa and we can avoid surgery down the road and by the time she is 16 she will be done with braces and not just starting with them.

We also have another appointment with a different orthodontist on Monday to get a second opinion, so we will see what he thinks.