Happy Dance

After a long and wonderfully uneventful flight to Utah we met my mom curbside. As soon as he saw Grandma Candi Gray bolted, his "packpack" bobbing behind him. Gray skidded to a stop in front of Grandma and froze. He then twirled in around 3 times, dropped to the floor, did a windmill and jumped up to give Grandma a hug. Now that's what I call a happy dance.

Stripling Warriors

Me: Matts how was school?

Matts: GREAT! Me and my guys chased some girls around the playground!

Me (slightly concerned): What did you do when you caught them?

Matts: Oh, we played with them.

Me (still slightly concerned): Did the girls want to be chased?

Matts: Oh, yeah. It's a game.

First we circled them around the slide...(fill in five minutes of tactical playground strategy).

We're just like Helaman and the stripling warriors.

Me (slightly amused): Really

Matts: Yeah, I'm Helaman and my guys are the stripling warriors.

Me, more than slightly amused:)

The Olympic dream

There once was a girl who dreamed of the Olympics. This dream included triple loops, spirals, sequins and of course, a gold medal. Her Olympic dream was realized with ginormous pictures, purple spandex, "KISS" and pyrotechnics. No one's rear should be that big

Sharing a dressing room with KISS during the closing ceremonies

Today, her Olympic dream consists of trying to stay awake long enough to watch Phelps/gymnastics, creating festive desserts and planning her boys' Olympic dreams (I'm thinking badminton and rowing).

***The inspiration for this post began as I constructed the blue ring and my thoughts returned to the joy that was my previous life. While closing a show 4 of my friends and I prepared to personify the Olympic rings. As I stepped toward the ice intertwined with the other ring bearers I proudly held my blue hula hoop high in the air. The nanosecond before I stepped onto that slippery sheet I realized that I had forgotten to remove my gaurds (blade protectors). Frantically I whispered "wait, wait." Tragically, the march had already begun and my beautiful blue ring and I crashed to the ice taking everyone and everything with us.***

Good times, Good times

First day of school, first day of school, first day of school!

Just like Nemo, Matts was bursting with excitement to go to his first week of school. He even begged me to just drop him at the door (luckily, school policy is walk-in the first week). When I picked him up the first words out of his mouth were "That was GREAT! Can I stay longer?"

I always thought Marlin was a little neurotic, but as I watched him say "you don't have to start school this year, you can wait five, maybe six years..." I suddenly knew exactly where he was coming from.

Four going on sixteen

Ready to take on the world (or at least Mableton First Baptist)

God's Army (oops, I mean NAVY)

The bad news is Matts is still "incessed" with the Navy. The good news is that we've learned to channel this a little in the past weeks. For example; in church the missionaries are Heavenly Father's navy, at home going to the swimming pool is "training", at school his new teacher, Miss Sandra, is his commander, you get the idea. Thank heaven we have some wonderful Elders in our ward and one of them is a "Jedi Master". Let's just say that there are many ways to achieve exaltation including indulging a 4 year-old's fantasy. Who knew that having the missionaries to Sunday dinner ranks right up there with Disneyworld?

Mini-me(Gray) takes on Elder Sanderson

They were moving at speeds beyond normal camera capacity

Tennis Rules!

Tennis has become quite the popular sport in our house. Reed has been playing with a neighbor weekly and I just finished taking a class. Of course, whatever Reed does Mattson wants to do and whatever Mattson does Gray wants to do. So, our Saturday activity of choice is a quick round of tennis followed by a dip in the pool. (AKA "training")Given my complete lack of knowledge I signed Matts up for a tennis camp and it was a hit!

Look at that form! "Mom, I'm all flushed"
This is what Gray did during camp. He's recently developed and affinity for babies. He loves to touch his hair, then their hair etc. So, you can imagine how thrilled he was to hold sweet Mckenzi.

A little bit of this...

The last bit of summer has flown by. Matts starts school tomorrow and I'm tearing up just thinking about it.

To celebrate our last weekend of freedom we headed up to "Pigs and Peaches", Kennesaw's BBQ festival. Driving up I had visions of all the peach cobblers I would be consuming (with a little pulled pork on the side). Earlier that morning I had biked 9 miles and ran 4.5, so gosh darn it I had earned whatever I could get my hands on. Well, wouldn't you know it? Of the 50 some odd contestants only about 5 were selling to the public! At least the kids had a wonderfully, sweaty day filled with all the fresh-squeezed lemonade they could drink.

I'm just happy to be here!

Not so sure about this...

My worst nightmare (a stinky, smelly hockey player for a son)...
Nope, it could be worse
A little bit of country, a little bit of rock and roll
Surviving the shark's belly (Now if I can just survive all the sharks during my swim we'll all be fine)

*** I have yet to figure out how to get pics off my phone, so the most exciting part of our summer will remain "unblogged" for now. My family (Mom, Michael and Tommy boy) came out to visit for 10 days at the beginning of August. Let's just say there was WAY too much testosterone in my house and Matts and Gray LOVED it!***