Weekending

Our last van was always on the fritz or needed fixing.
It was certainly in the "lemon" category.
Since we just bought a new one, we decided that its maiden voyage should be a day trip to the Grand Teton National Park.
It is only 1 hour 40 minutes from us, and quite hilly and mountainous so it was a good test run.
So, Saturday the 25th, we went.

 We went right into the visitor center. It was quite extensive.

 The kids joined the Jr.Ranger Program. They LOVED it!

 They earned a mini telescope.

Then we went on a hike.

 Stopped for lunch.

We were greeted by many other hikers. 

We received a lot of compliments on our little crew. 

Then, we went to Jackson Hole, WY.

There are these antler arches on each corner of the main block in town.

 We had a great time.

Lucas took this picture. We need to work on aim. LOL.

We made it back just in time for dinner. The kids were tuckered out, and slept in on Sunday.
I really love where we are in Idaho. Sort of in the middle of everything, yet, right in the country.

feeling blessed.

Friends!!!

The day after we moved here our good friends, the Mills Family came to have dinner with us!

The kids played, the adults chatted, it was so fun and relaxing!

Daxton and Juliet, are betrothed.

Mason just likes being with them all of the time.

We just did nachos and sopapilla cheesecake.

**************

Then, the next week the Stark's had us over to their house for dinner.

The Stark's are the nicest people you will ever meet.

We sort of met them at Jared's wedding, 2 years ago. Then we kept talking and they have made this move SO much easier. Jessica looked at a ton of houses for us, and Sean has already saved our hide by fixing the carpets after a 3 year old spilled pink paint on the carpet. ((((eyeroll)))

They beat us to the punch by asking us over for dinner.

We had burgers and dogs. The kids play so well together.

The kids were enamored with the fire pit.

 and the s'mores

It was so fun and the company was great.

We will be hanging out with them a lot since they only live 20 minutes away.

All of this fun makes me not miss Colorado. LOL.

Week Day Happenings

This is to catch everyone up with what the day to day has been around here.

 (It has only been a week plus a few days)

First up,  while we were looking at places to live (our first day here) we stopped and looked around the "city." Tuesday the 14th we checked out the temple!

The main reason we went was because this was our view from hotel #3

First thing in the morning, we headed out to see the temple up close!

Of course it was beautifully landscaped.

We went to the visitor center and they handed out scavenger hunts.

It is so pretty in Idaho Falls!

My kids asked if we could stay here forever, and the answer (for now) is YES!!!

It was getting boring in the hotel room, so we had Mills Dinner one night and the kids LOVED it!

Thursday we moved into the house so, of course we needed to buy some new house hold items.

These were found at bed bath and beyond.

Thursday was pack meeting!!!

This one was pretty great!

This below is JUST the wolves.

Lucas can't stop talking about how much he loves his new pack.

The boy on the left of him is his "mathlete" buddy Colton. He lives down the street from us.

 (we also went to the scout shop!!!)

Oh, we also bought a new mini van and some matresses.

That sort of sums it up our week. Minus tomorrows post!

New School Fall Frolic

The kids had their first official day of school on Friday the 17th. We got there just in the nick of time because the school's halloween event was on the following Monday.

We knew we weren't going to have enough time to do an all out theme for Halloween, so we decided to let the boys have their wish and do cops and robbers. The girls will get to pick next year.

This school is very proud of the fact that they are the 3rd in the entire state for best elementary school. They deserve it. Lucas is in an accelerated Math class that is separate from his actual 3rd grade class and since he is reading at a 975+ lexile they have put him in an advanced reading group as well. His group is reading the Hobbit and he was only 3 chapters behind. (which he has already caught up) They want the kids to read and understand what they are reading. Just because he can read something more mature doesn't mean he will fully understand it. They want the content and the themes to be talked about and understood while they are reading them. It is very interesting how they do it here. They also do not do Standards Based Grading which is awesome.

Bridget is not the same as Lucas. She absolutely loves to write and has so much to say. They put her in a creative writing group where they give her a prompt and let her go to town. She goes to that group for 25 minutes a day and has brought home some incredible stories. She surprised us in Colorado with how well she is at Math. I imagine some of it has to do with her testing skills. She is very good at test taking. Her teacher doesn't want to burn her out with the accelerated math, so she is giving her more complex work on her own.

Scarlett is a whole other animal. She was about to go to 1st grade for reading at the old school because she was well above her classmates in reading. At this school, they tested them the same day they got there, and Scarlett scored higher than she did just 2 weeks ago. I guess all of that reading in the hotel rooms helped. LOL.  Her teacher is trying to figure out where to put her because 1/2 day isn't cutting it. She is getting a bunch of homework and she absolutely loves it. We have a meeting with the kindergarten teachers next Wednesday to see what they plan for my little smarty.

This school is really awesome. They don't have the incredible specials teachers like our last school had, and we ALL are going to have to get over that. Sniff sniff. 

They have a lot of other cool things that the last school didn't have, our kids are really enjoying the bus, and the fact that 80% of our neighbor hood/ward goes to school here.

Did I mention that my entire subdivision is my ward? That's it! So cool! 

No excuses to NOT go HT or VT! Hahaha.

Anyway, the Frolic:

You pay for a punch pass.

 Every.Single.Classroom. has a game. You punch, go in, go to the next one.

They also had dinner and then baskets to raffle off and prizes. It was a 3 hour event. It was so much fun, and a lot of people in our new ward were introducing themselves to us. It was so neat! 

Lucas saw his teacher there, who is also in our ward. 

We are really loving Idaho, and it has only been 1 week!

Feels like we have been here forever.