Summer Vacation = Road Trip!

First stop, Hiddenite Gems in North Carolina.

We had a great time sluicing!  They fill the buckets with "ore" taken from the Emerald Hollow Mine.  Treasures are really fun to find, and the kids took it quite seriously!  :)  Kavan liked finding the "big" rocks.  Karlee liked finding the "crystals."  And Kyler and Kenzie caught on that "smaller, but weighty rocks" were, most often, quite precious.

Headed down to the creek!

Sluicing in the creek!

Layne and the kids could spend hours sluicing!  (And I could spend hours in their, tiny but fun, gem and jewelry store.)  Such a fun day, topped off with showers that ran orange because of all the dust and dirt we had accumulated at the mine!  Oh, and to really top off the day we were in walking distance of this new Italian restaurant - delicious - brick oven pizza, yummy lasagna, mmmmm! ...And Dairy Queen just happened to be a hop, skip and jump away!  :) 

Where did summer go?

So, swim team is done, boy scout camp and youth conference are done, vacation is done, and band camp is over.

These are the only pictures I got this year from swimming!  Most of our meets were quite rainy!

The Team - Fins 2012

Karlee ready to start.

Lost her goggles, poor thing!
But kept going! :)

Kyler ready to start!

Going strong!

Scout camp was held at Woodruff.  Kyler's favorite thing about camp this year was climbing and repelling!  So much fun!

Youth Conference was held on the USS Yorktown in Charleston, SC.  An amazing experience for Kenzie!  Her favorite part was seeing Jericho Road - and actually getting to stay on an aircraft carrier.

We had a great vacation this summer.  Layne loves planning a road trip!  We packed our van full and set off for two weeks traveling through about 20 states - Rhode Island being the quickest to go through!   Our vacation deserved so many pictures that it will have to be in a post all on its own!  :)

Band Camp started a busy band season!  They are doing a show called Warriors (school name) vs. Aliens!  Collin is a Freshman this year so it's fun for Kenzie and Collin to be in band together!

A little rainy.

Oh, I even had a birthday...It was so fun!  I love my family! :)

Now, school has started and seminary is in session (New Testament this year - 23 kids) and "tired mode" has begun - got to get over that!  :)

First day of school...

8th grade

10th grade

5th grade

3rd grade

When they got home from school, they were all really excited about their teachers - which is kind of unusual for the older two.  So, I counted that as a really great, positive start to this year!  That night we got a call from Karlee's teacher - "Really?!?" - was our first thought.  But Ms. Duncan was calling to tell us that her day had been great, and Karlee had done well, and she was really looking forward to this school year with her class!  How many teachers take the time to do that?!  What a nice lady!  :)