Brandon's 1st Day of School

So, as promised, here is Brandon's first day of school photo. He's really difficult to photograph. He will grudgingly agree to 'one' photo and that's pushing it. He also doesn't like to take pictures in the front yard. So, in trying to locate an ok place to take a photo inside the house, this is the best we get...



He had an ok first week. He wasn't too excited to have homework on the first day but hey, that's part of school, right?!! He's been spending a lot of time at SCC between classes and long practices getting ready for the big opening game on Saturday.

First Day of School

Here are a few pictures from the kids first day of school. Dean is starting 3rd grade, Heather and Kim are Freshman, Tiffany is a Sophomore, and Patrick is a Senior. Time flies...I can't believe my girls are high school age! Brandon has a couple more weeks before he starts at SCC so I'll have to torture him then but here are the other kids...

Summer...Come and Gone!!!

Wow, I can't believe summer break is over and I haven't updated the blog for 3 months! Sorry about that! The sad thing is, we really haven't been nearly as busy this summer as we normally are. I guess I've been spoiled and getting some much needed R&R. Well, we've recently been busy school shopping and getting ready for the new school year and getting everyone's schedules figured out. School starts on Monday, August 11th. Wooooooohoooooo! EVERYONE here is so excited about that. Well, what have we been up to all summer?

Dean went to summer school in June to get a little extra reading help. Since then he has been bored out of his mind and, like the other kids, becoming rather lazy. He is anxious to get back to school and also ready to start playing baseball. We will probably be signing him up to play on a fall baseball team soon.

Heather has been busy babysitting; playing softball (she was on the All-Star team and also played a few games with a traveling team); she got braces last month and is VERY excited about that, of course her first set of bands had to be 'blue and orange'! She has spent the past couple of weeks at volleyball camps at her Junior High and also the high school and is having lots of fun with that. She will have tryouts for the junior high team during the first week of school.

Tiffany has also been doing some babysitting along with some weight lifting and lots of cheering and dancing. She is really having fun with cheer. At cheer camp, she made All-Stars and is supposed to go to Houston to compete. She is anxiously awaiting the time (in the near future) when she gets to have her braces removed! Can you believe Tiffany is going to be in High School??? It's hard to believe; only 3 more years!

Kimberly has also been babysitting most of the summer. She and the other girls went to church camp in June and had a lot of fun. Kimberly was called to serve as the Mia Maids President for her age group in the Young Women's program at church.

Patrick has been practicing and gearing up for football all summer. He's also been pulling lots of weeds and being lazy around the house. He was suppose to have a job but hasn't had much luck with that.

Brandon has also been practicing and gearing up for football and is registered and ready for college! He will be attending Scottsdale Community College on football scholarship and learned recently that he will be starting so we are all excited about that. He is scheduled for 16 hours first semester so between that and football he will be keeping busy. He also got a job this summer; yes can you believe that, Brandon has a job!!! He's working with Dad at the auction yard. He calls himself the Assistant General Manager (Dad is the General Manager). He acts like one too, trying to hang out in the office all day sleeping with his feet up on the desk :)

Tyler is still working and playing...what Tyler does best. Chris has moved back down from Flagstaff and he and his girlfriend, Tiffany have moved in with Tyler and his girlfriend, Sharon. They both have new puppies...We call them the 'grandpuppies' and we are ok with that for now! It's nice to have them fairly close by and they do come visit quite often (only if we bribe them with dinner).

We are hoping to have some new family photos taken soon so we'll be posting some of those as soon as we can make that happen. Once school starts next week and all the sporting events gear back up our schedules will go back to crazy busy mode again. Assuming Heather makes the volleyball team we will have games 4 nights a week plus all the other stuff; Monday and Tuesday Tiffany will be dancing, Tuesday-Heather's volleyball games; Thursday-Tiffany cheers for JV football games; Friday-Patrick's Varsity football games; Saturday-Brandon's SCC games. I need to find some pictures to add but will have to update later. For now, I'm off to pick up Heather from volleyball camp and it is pouring outside right now with some good thunder and lightning!