Forever Young: The last of Summer

Well, we finished up the last of Summer as of this week. We've had a great month since my last update. The Summer flew but it was still wonderful.

A few Sundays ago we attended our friends, Sean and Courtney's, baby's blessing in Salt Lake City. There was a luncheon afterwards where we were able to catch up and visit.

The kids have had fun in the backyard this summer.

We had a great Family Home Evening lesson on the Armor of God and taught the kids about prayer as well.

We attended the Spanish Fork Fiesta Days Monster Truck Rally at the Utah County Fair. It was so awesome and so loud!

Afterwards the kids rode on a few kiddie rides. It was perfect, because it was after 9pm so there weren't very many people there and it wasn't blazing hot like at the monster truck rally earlier.

My dad came into town and we all got together for dinner at Chris and Kareena's. We also did a family tradition "Watkins Family Theater" with movie tickets and everything. We watched "The Gruffalo" in Chris's man cave.

A family friend of ours was also there, Christopher Gomm. He recently returned home from his mission.

So the other day, Sam was downstairs and I heard a loud crashing sound. I ran downstairs and found this. I couldn't help but laugh my head off and told him to stay there while I took this picture. It was hilarious!!

Noel and Sam have been working on their preschool and kindergarten books that they got from Grandma and Grandpa Young. Noel is such a good big sister and loves to help Sam.

Noel started writing recently. She was writing down things she likes to do. After she wrote everything down, I taught her how to write it the real way, but I was so pleased with her trying and doing so well! I'm so proud of her.

We've had quite a few play dates the past few weeks. My old roomie Melese came over with her little girl Lily who is really good friends with Noel, and her adorable little boy Wesley. My friend Missy came over with her two kids, Kaitlin and William who are both the same ages as Noel and Sam. I also watched a couple boys for someone who is moving out of our ward. And then this last Saturday I watched Asher and Emily for a friend from my ward who recently had surgery. I don't have any pictures from any of the play dates except for the one with Asher and Emily. Noel had fun playing dress up with Emily.

Sam had some fun playing trains with Asher.

A few days ago we went to Seven Peaks Water Park in Provo. Our mortgage company was having a Client Appreciation Night there and we got free tickets to go. The kids had some fun. Sam doesn't have much fear when it comes to big slides. He was willing to go down them with Morgan. In the picture below, they are the lane that my camera is lined up with, behind the huge splash.

Sam had some fun on that one.

As we were leaving the water park I got a text notifying me of a power outage back in Spanish Fork in our area due to a transformer fire. It was literally down the street from us! Someone from the area took a video and posted it on facebook and wow, there were explosions and it was a huge threat to the homes that shared the property, as well as the entire area. Luckily it only burnt down a bunch of trees lining 1 or 2 homes and the entire telephone pole. It was crazy!

Today was Noel's first day of Kindergarten. As Sam would say it, "Noel is going to Olivegarten and I am going to Preschool!" That kid cracks me up. He starts preschool next week:) Noel and I shared some sweet moments last night. Morgan gave Noel a Father's blessing to start the school year and afterwards I gave her the biggest hug and just cried. She began to cry too. We were both just sobbing and I was trying to keep it positive and telling her that I'm only crying because I'm so excited for her and that I love her and I'm proud of her and that she is just growing up too fast. She said to me as she is sobbing, "I know but I'm sad because I'm going to miss you." That was one of the big reasons why I was crying as well, but I didn't want to say it to trigger tears, which came anyways. It was sweet and precious. She is my little buddy and last night and today were very difficult and emotional but Sam and I met up with Kareena, Ty and Libby at a park in Springville which helped a lot. Thanks Kareena for the visit. I miss those:)

Best buds:)

Our pretty lil' girl.

Here's Noel gathered in her classroom with her classmates. She has a couple friends from church in her class and she has a wonderful teacher.

The rules for Noel and her classmates are to give her teacher a fist bump before they leave so she is aware they are leaving and with whom they are leaving with. I love this picture. Noel fist bumped her teacher and walked over to me like, "Oh yah, I got this. First day of kindergarten...done." She had a blast!