Danelle Starts (half day) School!

Danelle has been ready for kindergarten for quite some time now.  Since she is on the older side for her grade level she has done 2 years of preschool and I think that helped prepare her for going to "real" school.  A big help was also getting to visit her Aunt Megan a few times in the Kindergarten class she teachers.  Danelle was able to check it out and that took some of the unknown fear out.

 Dad rode his bike all the way home from work on his lunch break just to see her off to school...(hence the sweating, not because he was nervous or anything ;)

I love that she enjoys posing for my pictures.  I know this won't last forever!  When I picked her up from school that day she said. "That was awesome.  It was so cool!"

 This was Danelle meeting her teacher and checking out the classroom the day before.  Her and Gunnar didn't want to leave they thought it was so fun!

Hogle Zoo/Downtown SLC

Uncle Nathan rode the train up to Salt Lake to go to the zoo with us on the 24th of July. The kids had a blast!

We finished up with a trax/train ride around downtown, a visit to Temple Square then cooled off in the fountains at City Creek mall.

We love summertime!

(I think I may have worn them out by the end of the day)  :)

Days of '47/Pioneer day

While Lane is up working in Boise this summer we're trying to make the most of our last few weeks here in Utah.  For our state holiday, Pioneer Day I decided to take the kids to do some fun activities.  We went up to This Is The Place heritage park to do some fun learning about the Pioneers.

Gunnar's favorite part was riding the horses.

Danelle loved milking the cow and looking for gold.

He is just like his Dad.

Afterwards we stopped by the South Town Expo Center to see the parade floats that would be in the Days of '47 parade the next morning.  The kids loved getting to see the floats up close!

Face painting, rides and balloon animals were all free (as well as admission).  Can't beat that in a nice cool building in the summertime!

We followed up the evening with some music and fireworks at the West Jordan park!

Happy Pioneer Day Utah!

Our beautiful Utah home

I have really loved our house here in Perry, Utah!  We bought it 3 years ago as a short sale and to be honest we hadn't even had a chance to come look at it before putting an offer in.  We really lucked out because the area has been amazing and we have loved living here.  We did a lot of work- landscaping, finishing the basement etc. so that made it even harder to leave.

3 Years ago

And to remember that 1 week that our ENTIRE house was clean and stayed clean, I would like to have proof.  Plus Lane did a pretty dang good job building our basement:  see for yourself :)

Lane did some nice tile work down in the guest bathroom.

I loved how Lane put windows into the kids play area under the stairs!

One of the best parts of Lane working at home was he had a nice quiet spot to do all his work!

Kids play place under the stairs

This will most likely be the only time I have my very own "craft room".  My favorite place to hang out on a Sunday afternoon!

We loved having BBQ parties out here on the deck.  These mountain views can't be beat!

(ok maybe an ocean view could beat it...)

Hello gorgeous mountains right in our backyard!!!

So much storage for our shoes, bags and backpacks!

Gunnar's room

Danelle's room

 *yep that's an 120 inch screen, projector and 7.1 surround sound theater room.  

lane is going to have a hard time leaving all this behind...

This has been our view of Brigham City and we have loved getting to see the new Temple from right out our front door!

So if you've wondered why they haven't been many blog updates lately, the basement is proof of where all of our time has been put into!  :)