Traveling 2024 Year

 Our year in travel:

1. Boating on Candlewood Lake and Cape Cod with Grandma B and Bart. 2. DisneyWorld 3. South Carolina for Charley and Bergen and Seattle for Mom. 4. Las Vegas for Mom and Dad and Alaska Cruise with Bradshaw Family. 5. Caribbean Island Cruise with Ellingson Family. 6. Girl Dad Camp in Utah and Upstate New York. 7. Skiing in Vermont and visiting Joseph Smith's birthplace 8. BYU Game in Provo for Dad and Bergen and Boston Marathon for Mom! 9. Fun in NYC and camping at Little Pond Campground int he Catskills. 

Family Photos!

 I loved our Family Photos this year. Our sweet photographer has been capturing our family for 4 years now and they just keep getting better! We do 20 minute sessions which is perfect for our family. Short and sweet :) We always get our annual number picture as well which has become a fun tradition! I love this sweet family of mine. 

Beginning of school and a new BUNNY

We started school end of August so I took each of the girls school shopping to get some new fall clothes. It is always fun to take them and do it together. They each have such unique styles and I love seeing what they find and want to buy! It's pretty easy when they are younger but as they get older and more of an opinion it gets tricky. Add that and the styles to be modest and sometimes its super hard. This year Charley struggled to find items she liked and that fit good and that were modest. The style right now it crop top and everything show your stomach so it's hard! We had some god conversations and talks about modesty but it's really hard to teach that concept when they are young but I'm hoping it will pay off as they get older. Gosh, the older they get and the deeper conversations come it gets hard to teach testimony mixed with reason mixed with faith and being able to tell them what is really important and what matters. 

Anyway, start of school fashion show was a success and then a few days before school started Bergen got a bunny! She saved up her money and really wanted a bunny so we found a lady that was looking to re-home her bunny. She was the sweetest lady and gave us everything he needed for free. His name is Snoops and Bergen loves him. She takes really good care of him and it's been good for her to have that responsibility. The girls' teachers this year are Bergen- Mr. Herold (4th), Lenny- Mrs. Hollander (1st), Jonny at St. Marks has Mrs. Wilderman and Mrs. Strasky and Charley in 6th grade is on the purple team and she really likes all her teachers a lot! She has a really good group of teachers and a few friends on her team so she is happy. Middle School seems to fit her well and she likes it and comes home happy which I am grateful for. 

 

Cape COD!!!

We took our annual Cape Cod trip and this year invited my parents to join! They came in a little early on my birthday and we were able to take them out on our boat! It was a fun day on the lake and afterward we got BBQ and ice cream. Then the next day we left for the Cape! It was a really fun week! We got lots of lobster rolls, caught crabs for a seafood dinner, took the ferry to Martha's Vineyard, met up with the Swift family and harvested mussels and took them to their house and walked around the cranberry bogs. It was so fun to have my parents and they are very easy going and fun to have! We biked around Martha's Vineyard which my mom loved! It was fun and we stopped at a farmers market and the girls jumped off Jaws Bridge! We had some fun beach days and also took the jeep to an off-roading beach where you can drive along the sand. We drove for a while and then stopped and everyone got out and we collected seashells and seaglass. It was peaceful and fun to just walk along the sand for a bit.