Allie's Baptism

 

Summer has been magical. We've loved having adventures together as a family. Even with that, we can all feel a change in the air the second week of August as school approaches. We tried to take advantage of every day. We love hiking the Blacksmith Fork trail with Grandma Rigby. 

My favorite people. 

It was so fun to watch the summer Olympics! They were in Paris this year and the kids loved seeing the amazing work ethic and athleticism that is the Olympics. Some of our favorite events were speed climbing, track, gymnastics and artistic swimming. We decided to have our own Olympics and even handed out medals. 

Kristen was kind enough to take Allie's baptism photos. They turned out so cute! She looks all grown up.

I wanted to take the kids to Tony's Grove before summer ended so my mom and I made it happen. It was absolutely gorgeous with all the wild flowers out. Lydia was in flower heaven.

Love this one. 

Jace's face cracks me up.

We had a wonderful time and hope to go back to see the fall leaves. 

Jace's favorite show lately is Cars. He loves holding Lightening McQueen, Chick Hicks and Mater while he watches. 

I'm not sure how, but Allie's baptism day finally came. She wanted a picture of her hair to remember. 

She was so excited and happy! We drove to our Stake Center at 1:30 pm on August 10th, 2024. She was blessed to have many family and friends there to support her in this step. Here's Julia and Cameron Gleed, her primary teachers. They're the best!

Ethan Gleed came too. He's quite a fan of my girl and gives her necklaces and notes quite often. It's pretty funny and Julia, his mom, said we need to save this photo for the wedding video. I guess we'll see. 

Grandma and Grandpa Peck

Grandma Swan

Grandpa and Grandma Rigby

Me and my girl.

Mary made the beautiful programs, they're a keepsake. I'm so grateful for her!

Think we have enough stuffies? Allie thinks not. 

For my birthday my parents gave Loren and I a one night stay in Park City. We were so excited! We drove up and got there Friday afternoon. The weather and scenery was so beautiful. We rented a couple e-bikes from a local shop and they gave us directions for a bike loop that went all around the city. Trouble was that the directions were really hard to figure out and it turned out that we went 14 miles in the wrong direction before we figured it out. We rode all the way back to fix something on my bike then started out again trying to stay on the right trail. We got lost a couple more times but thankfully figured it out before our phones died. We ended up biking 40 miles and our rear end's were SO sore and we were exhausted. But I was glad we tried the e-bikes, they were really fun and amazing to go uphill with. It was defiantly an adventure!

After that we checked in to our hotel, which was really nice. We had a deck attached to our room and went out to look at it. Loren shut the door behind us before I yelled at him to stop. Too late. We were locked out on the deck without our phones or room key. We can laugh about it now but at the time we were pretty stressed out. We were on the second floor and Loren thought he'd have to jump down. Luckily, the deck faced the pool and there were a couple people swimming. Without any other option, I yelled at a couple laying out some chairs. It was pretty embarrassing as I tried to explain what happened and if they could please tell the front desk to come unlock our door. Thankfully, he was a nice guy and sent someone up to save us. Another exciting, yet rather embarrassing adventure. 

The next morning we drove to the Park City Mountain bright and early. We rode the Mountain Coaster which was a total blast and then had tickets for a couple of scenic chair lift rides. We hopped on the first one and enjoyed watching all the bikers ride down the mountain as we went up. We explored a bit at the top and enjoyed the amazing view!  It made us want to start mountain biking again.

After we made it down the mountain, we got in line for the next lift. As we were about to get on, one of the workers told us there was a storm coming in and if they saw lightening the lift would close down. We couldn't see anything but clear skies so we thought we'd be fine especially since it was just a one hour trip. I guess what we didn't realize is that the weather turns really quick in mountains and by the time we got to the mid section, the temperature had dropped a few degrees and we could see some dark clouds in the distance. As we rode by the workers at the midsection I could vaguely hear them say something like, "We're closing down because of weather, better get off now. Oh well, too late." Wait, what?? Were we supposed to get off? They didn't seem at all bothered that we were still on the chairlift going up after they knew they'd be shutting down. So Loren and I were preparing ourselves to have to walk back down the mountain, possibly in a storm. When we finally reached the top, it started raining and the wind was picking up. As we hopped off the chair, one of the mountain patrol workers told us a severe storm was upon us and that they were sending up suburbans to drive people down. At that moment, a huge lightening bolt struck right above us followed by a BOOM. It was pretty intense as we quickly got into the vehicles and they started driving down the mountain in pouring rain. We made it safely back down and ran quick to our car. Another crazy adventure! We made some great memories and it was so nice to be able to reconnect and discover how we are changing and evolving in our relationship. We're so grateful to my parents for sacrificing their time for us. The kids had a total blast. 

Here we go again! Another school year is upon us. Allie is in 2nd grade with a new teacher, Mrs. Rubow. She was pretty nervous the night before but ended up having a great first day. 

Lydia is looking like a fifth grader. She has Mrs. Houser and is excited to see her friends again. 

My sweet Hudson started all day Kindergarten! I was really nervous for him but he walked into his classroom and didn't even look back. He was so excited and happy to be going to school. He has Mrs. Murray who is wonderful. All in all, I think it's going to be a great year for all the kids. There's so much anticipation, excitement and nerves leading up to the first day. I'm glad it's over with and we can level out a bit. 

I thought I'd be getting a lot more done during the day but this squish keeps me going. We're going to have a lot of good time together. 

I walked with the kids to school on their first day and had to take a picture of them with the cute balloon arch. Lydia groaned and mumbled, "Mom, how embarrassing." Yep, definitely a fifth grader.

We're excited for new beginnings!