Field trip with Miles

Miles and I had a fun day yesterday at Camp Carter, day one of a two-day field trip with the fourth graders at his school. We hiked around, painted horses, explored the forest and enjoyed time with friends! He got to go back today; hopefully it was just as fun without me! :)

Miles was chosen to be "it" in a camouflage hide-n-seek game.

Painting a horse with Native American symbols.

Learning to groom a horse.

Miles with his buddy, Riccardo, checking out the view!

Dissecting owl pellets.

With Landon and Carson.

His class and teacher, Mrs. Fritzenmeier.

With one of his best buddies, Benjamin.

With my friend, Caroline. We were two of only five parents allowed to chaperone! So lucky.

Community Service Day

We had fun participating in a community service day in our town over the weekend. We got to wear our Mormon Helping Hands shirts and got to work! When we arrived, we realized we were helping one of Parker's friends, Jayden, with his Eagle project. We mulched and put together obstacles and other parts of our town's new dog park. Super fun!

Parker and Alex.

Little Things Lately

The kids have been busy lately, and so have we! Lots of baseball games, art classes, parties and fun!

Audrey working on her oil painting for the Fort Worth Stock Show Art Contest. She has a few more hours to spend on it and then we'll submit it!

My Yukon has battery problems. I was doing some deep cleaning in the car the other day and the battery died. Blah! Audrey happened to be home because she had started having a migraine at school.  She came in handy because we tried using Rusty to jump start it, but no luck. At least it was a good learning experience!

Miles got to have some fun with his friend, Matthew, at Matthew's school carnival. He said he was trying to give a thumbs-up here. Haha.

At our school carnival, Audrey was a face-painting volunteer.

Audrey went as an autumnal fairy/princess/person to a Stake Halloween Dance. Here she is with Julia, Madie and Maddie! Such great girls; they had so much fun and Audrey won a costume contest!

We love taking evening walks, especially now that the weather is so nice! Hooray!

Audrey got her drivers' permit the other day! Hooray! We haven't had any behind-the-wheel training yet, but we will!

Miles and Student Council

Miles was elected Treasurer of his school's Student Council at the end of last year. He and the others were "installed" as officers. They had to take an oath and act all official, just for a minute. :)

A couple of weeks later, he was one of the fourth graders who got to do the morning announcements. Fun times being the big kids on campus!

Here he is at Flag Day, with his buddies.

Scout Stuff

Thanks to our friend, Rick, who is the cousin of the Mullen family we grew up with in California, Parker and some of our ward's Scouts were invited to participate as the color guard during a special flag ceremony at Bell's celebration of the Navy's 241st birthday! Afterward, we were treated to a tour of one of Bell's amazing manufacturing facilities. It was pretty cool, and a fun reason to check out of school early.

Rehearsing before the ceremony.

Someone else snapped this photo of Parker getting some merit badges on night at a Court of Honor. Thanks, someone else! Neal is the Scoutmaster in our ward.

Miles and some of the Cub Scouts from our ward at the local firehouse. I'm Miles' Webelos leader. (This is our last year of cubs!)

One of each

One random photo of each kid!

Miles dressed as an 80s person for the Keller Homecoming Parade. He looked seriously cute.

Parker's teacher texted me this photo from school. Haha.

Audrey went to the Fall Ball with a few of her Mia Maid friends. They were asked to dress semi-formal; they looked so pretty! Ainsley--Maddie--Madie--Audrey

Weatherford for General Conference

We always hope that a weekend in Weatherford will work for General Conference! Usually, it does! This time, we met up with Daddy Jeff and Gail at the pizza place we usually go to in town, then spent the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday with them, listening to the sessions. It was lovely, as usual! It's so relaxing to get away, even just for a night!

Oklahoma City

Audrey and I were able to go to Oklahoma City overnight to go to a Lumineers concert. We had so much fun! We ended up having second row tickets; it was so awesome!

 Our hotel, the Ambassador, was so nice. I love to find nice places to stay wherever we go! This place was an awesome find!

This double decker coffee shop/food truck was the cutest thing ever.

We spent some time in the morning visiting the Oklahoma City Memorial. What a peaceful place. We are only a couple of hours from OKC, but have really only ever driven through. I'm looking forward to going back sometime!