Family Journaling

For the sake of the FamilyJournal aspect of this blog,

there are some things I need to post. 

I am feeling behind! 

We've been busy. 

As usual.  

 We took a last minute fling to Disneyland.  The kids had finished their Disneyland goals (things like, have a bread-baking lesson with Aunt Bonnie, learn to vacuum the car, memorize your address.  Stuff like that.) and Lexi didn't want to miss school to go, so we squeezed it in during the last weekend of Summer Vacation.  Grandma and Grandpa Leavitt went with us, and Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Tim, and their four cuties. 

I got the camera out for this picture because we were so bedragled.  We were in California Adventure and had done the river ride multiple times, so we'd been soaked and air dried repeatedly.  Chad and I are both carrying sleeping children, and we all have sweat dripping down our backs.  It just so says "Disneyland":  happy and having fun, but worn out!

Breakfast in the hotel before day 2.  Yellow day.  

A moment that made us laugh: 

A woman with an elegant British accent walked past us next to the teacups and said to Grandpa Gary, in his almost-yellow-but-mostly-tan shirt and said, "Oh, you'd look lovely in banana!  That's the worst cop-out I've ever seen!"  Now everytime he wears that shirt, we remind him it's his cop-out shirt.

 Another sticky, sweaty, happy moment.



 And then we had to get down to business.  School!

Lily joined Lex at the middle school this year. 

 Here are my three elementary schoolers. 

 And then the adults went back to school too! 

Jared and Marie came out and went with Chad and I and Chad's dad, to Front Sight.  We took a four-day defensive hand gun training class.  Hm.  I never saw that one coming.  I'd never even heard of Front Sight until a few months before, when the opportunity came up to go.  Until the course, I'd shot maybe 50 bullets in my entire life.  Before we went I jokingly told friends we were going to "handgun daycamp".  It ended up being more like a 4-day college degree, complete with lectures, internship, and final exam.  We learned so much, and had such a good time doing it.

 On the last day we got to compete against each other.  Marie challenged me.  I took her on and beat her.  Not because I'm better or faster than her.  I'm not.  But because I can take down my targets and eject brass down the front of her shirt at the same time.  In this picture, I am reholstering, and she has handed her gun to the instructer next to her, and is fishing a hot shell out of her clothing.  She did continue to take down her last target while her skin was blistering, (Go Marie!) but it gave me just enough of an edge that I did finish first. 

One last adventure before we settle down into volleyball games and soccer schedules...  Chad and I spent this last weekend in Utah.  We went for the BYU/Utah game(we won't talk about that), and some face-time with our friends up there.  Five days before our trip, Annette, (the blond to my left) asked me if I wanted to run the Dirty Dash with her.  It's a 10k through mud pits, mud tunnels, mud walls, and the marshy part of the Deer Creek Reservoir.  We certainly didn't run the whole way, partly because in certain places, if we ran, we'd end up rolling, partly because in certain places we needed to swim, climb, or crawl, and partly because in certain places, we were just laughing too hard.  It was so much fun.