On Monday August 24th the kids all started school!
Lizzie- preschool, Ms. Lisa
Isaac 2nd grade, Ms. Jennings
Emily 4th grade, Ms. Ostrom
Taylor - Jr. High at Clayton with 7 different classes.
It was an exciting day filled with tears & cheers! 

The kids were happy with their teachers /schedules etc... They were nervous and happy at the same time. We walked the younger kids to school, but Taylor went on his own with all his friends from Jr. High. 

It's a tradition to take pictures under the Browning Sign at the bottom of our street.
I feel so grateful and blessed that my kids have so many wonderful friends around. These are great kids who are terrific examples to my kids. I love our neighborhood and especially our street! 

These are my favorite kids in the whole world! I love them so much!
Lizzie was really into the pose! 

It was a long, hot week of school and getting back into the routine. So when the weekend came we were ready to play.
I took the kids to a fun park, slash pad to cool off.
Lizzie insists on her stuffed fox "Foxy" wears a seatbelt in the car too.
Lizzie has spent a lot of time this summer doing sidewalk chalk. She draws pictures and writes letters etc.. but mostly she makes lots and lots of "pixie dust". She grinds up the chalk and then puts it into a bowl. She is obsessed with this task and all her friend and cousins love it too. It's cute to watch her work so hard at something. She comes inside covered with chalk every time.
Here's a picture of taylor's schedule at school.
He has been scared and a little nervous, his classes, meeting new friends, and opening a locker have been stressful for him. But he's doing great and will have an awesome year!

Here's some art work from Lizzie , she loves to draw and color.
One day while everyone was at school we went to he zoo!
It was a lot of fun and not too crowded. Lizzie loves to see the snow leopards. 

Cute Isaac and his friends at a baptism for his buddy Ollie. These are a wild group of boys! 

One last swimming day with cousins!  We all LOVE to spend the afternoon at the pool.
Yay for days that are warm enough to swim- I wish these would last until November! 

We have had a busy, fun, wonderful last few weeks of summer!
Our days have been relaxed and low stress. We sleep in the morning, get up and get going - make a plan for the day which involves going to the pool a few times a week. It's been so great!
These pics are from a park day we had with cousins this week. Megan and Jack were in town, so it was fun to see them. It's always a party with the cousins. 

Here are a few pool pics. Lizzie and Isaac have improved their swimming and diving skills, so much this summer! They have spent countless hours at this pool and we have all loved every minute of it. I love taking my kids swimming because we are all happy and entertained, the kids get worn out and come home really tired, and ready to eat a good dinner, plus it's just really, really fun! A few of our friends had passes to the same pool so it was rare if we didn't see friend or neighbors at the pool. It was a perfect way to spend these hot summer days.

Here are a few random pics
Lizzie sleeping with no covers at night
Danny & Lizzie doing some music, they both love this
Isaac had a nerf gun war with his friends
Dad sleeping at sunday dinner
we had Henry over one night, he's so cute! I am his favorite aunt right now!
Taylor still is working hard at the guitar.
He is taking lessons and teaching ukulele to a few students.
Taylor and Sophie helping me shop at Costco.
And a work BBQ for Danny's Real Estate Program at the park this su mmer. 

A few more pool pics.
Also our neighbor just came home from a mission in Tahiti. He had some friends over and they needed some instruments and asked Taylor to come and play songs with them. It as a fun concert and he had a lot of fun playing island songs with them . 

More fun pictures of fun days. I am really going to miss this days during the cold, long, snowy winter! 

Lizzie did the high dive this week. She just decided she wanted to try it, and she did awesome!!! I was really proud of her and also thought she was a little crazy too. She went off a couple of times and then decided she needed a break. She LOVES to swim.

We got to babysit Jack one morning this week while Megan & Colton went to a wedding. Jack is such a cute, snuggly little guy. We all love him so much and we couldn't stop kissing his chubby little cheeks. 

Taylor had his first day of Jr High on Friday. It was just a half day, orientation. They found their classes etc... He was nervous, scared and excited all at the same time! We can not believe he is in Jr high! I think he'll have a great year- he's doing the accelerated program called MELP. I know he'll make new friend and have a good year in 7th grade. 

While he was at school, we started our annual street party/all day extravaganza/ BBQ for dinner etc...
We had a massive bouncy slide that came at 9AM and the kids were lined up jumping and playing on the slide until 9PM. They had a blast!!! We all were outside the whole day, we had snacks, drinks, popsicles, pizza for lunch, ice cream sandwiches and had a wonderful days with friends and neighbors. The kids were in heaven this is one of  their favorite things about the summer.  

We rotate the kids, so they're not all on the slide at one time.
Big Kids
Medium Kids and Little kids. While the kids waited to get on the slide they say in our neighbors hot tub, ate food, got a drink of played games. This worked well, so no little kids were hurt by the bigger kids.
Here is Taylor doing a crazy flip, the big boys are nuts. They made me really nervous with how high they go and how crazy they can be. Luckily no one was seriously hurt.

Lizzie really liked wearing her goggles on the slide, She wasn't scared of the slide. She just wanted to see all the way down, instead of having water in her face. I thought it was cute and funny. 

We are all in complete denial about school starting on Monday! Why does summer go so fast?
This was a fantastic summer, full of wonderful memories and tons of fun!

We just returned from 5 days in McCall ID. It is one of our favorite place to visit. It's beautiful, quiet, calm, fun, exciting, and perfect. We get to spent lots of time with family, spend all day outside and see wildlife too. It's pretty perfect! 

The kids loved out time in McCall.

Tom & Wendy's cabin is a luxury home, that is comfortable, big and super nice. It's way nicer then our house and it so wonderful staying there. We all sleep in past 9am every morning because the rooms are dark and quiet and cool. It's wonderful! 

The kids made a big Sand castle with Danny one day. It took lots of sand toys and an hour or so to complete the task, they all had fun doing it! 

One day we rented a boat and spent a few hours on the lake; waterskiing, tubing, surfing, knee boarding, wake boarding etc... It was such  nice boat and the perfect day to be on the water. The Payette Lake is beautiful , surrounded by trees and the water is really clear too. 

We spent time at the cabin, playing and hanging out. The kids swam in the pool and hot tubs, learned to dive and had fun in the water.  One night there was a Toby Keith Concert right next to their cabin. We could hear the music really well so we walked over and saw the performance for awhile. It was cool to see, and we had fun. 

Spending time at the Shore Lodge is one of our favorite things to do. We like to swim, paddle board, swim out to the inflatable trampoline, play in the sand, watch the boats , and then run over to the pool and hot tub to get all the sand off our feet. It is a perfect place for kids! 

More boating picures. We went on a day one night while Grandma & Grandpa Deppe took the kids out for pizza. We had a calm, nice dinner at the Shore Lodge right next to the water. It was awesome!

Another day we rented a couple of Kayaks and went up the North Fork of the Payette River. We paddle boarded, fished, and rode in kayaks. We packed a picnic lunch and spent the whole day on the river. The scenery is incredible and the water was calm and clear, the kids loved it! Even Lizzie did great at paddling the kayak and having a fun day. 

Goodbye beautiful McCall- we can't wait for next year!  

We had a musical couple of days. Last Tuesday night we went to the "Imagine Dragons" concert at the Energy Solutions Arena. It was SO much fun and such a fabulous concert. The energy while they were performing was awesome!! Tay and Emily came with us and they loved it, they had a blast!

Taylor knows lots of Imagine Dragons songs on the ukulele, guitar and piano. So it was really fun to see them perform live.
It was super loud and it pounded in your heart, it was really a great night! 

Monday and Tuesday of last week Tayor had a Ukulele Summer Camp. He had 10 students come to our house for an hour and a half while he taught them all about the ukulele. They learned chords, songs, how to hold it, tune it etc... They paid $50 and this included a brand new ukulele. 

Emily and her friends learned the song "Lava" from the movie Inside Out, that was a really popular song to learn the camp. 

We were proud of Taylor for getting students, teaching  and organizing this camp. He had a lot of fun and learned a lot too! 

Emily did some sewing at Monica's house. They made these adorable tooth pillows! Thanks Mono!

Here are some more pics from Imagine Dragons. 

We got home at midnight after the concert, and then left Wednesday for McCall. Summer is tons of fun, but exhausting too!