School Firsts

School started.  All 3 girls left at home went back to in-person school.

The lighting in the house is dreadful!  Or maybe Delaney is just too radiant.

Callie is ready and excited for the day!

Rylee gets to walk a mile to school every day.... and walk home.

Callie also had her first Cross Country meet.  She ran great, but it was tough for her.

 

I did a thing

Since Callie got the okay to have bunnies, Rylee was lobbying fo rats. She'd been thinking about it for a while and talking about it for a while, and Dan and I finally agreed that if they stayed in her room, she could get rats.  She bought a cage with her own money and was all ready to get some pets.  

This popped up on Facebook, on our local Buy Nothing page, while Rylee was away at Girls Camp.  I thought, oooh, if we get older rats, then they won't live as long and we have a chance to see how it goes. So I commented that I was interested, but I didn't think we would get them because two other people had dibs ahead of me.  I was shocked when the lady messaged me and said we could have them.

I got the cage all set up super quick and went out to pick them up.  Rylee got home 24 hours later to a big surprise!

Rylee, meeting her rats for the first time.  She's a bit mortified about this fresh-from-camp picture, but she's so cute!

 

Girls Camp

The girls only had a few days home before they headed off to Girls Camp.  I took them to the church to meet up for departure.  Dan actually got to go this year, so I was all alone for a few days.

As we were waiting for the vehicles to get loaded with gear, the girls reminded me that we needed our traditional goodbye selfies.  So we had to do selfies.

Me and my three darlings.

Callie is a YCL this year.

Delaney was unenthusiastic about going, but he did hsva fun.

And it was Rylee's first year going to Camp!

I got just a few photos of the girls during their time away.  They camped 2 hours north at Lake Elsinore and seemed to have had a great experience.

 

San Diego Temple

We have a small group of youth, but they are awesome!  As are their parents. One of the moms jumps on it as soon as the temple releases slots for the youth to do baptisms, and she has tried to make sure the kids can go at least once a month.  We missed out, being gone all summer, so the girls were delighted to have the chance to go once we were back. And it was Rylee's first time, so that was cool. 

Here are my lovelies, at th San Diego Temple.

 

Callie's Project

I have not mentioned that Callie had a long-term project.  She planned and researched and convinced us to let her get some pedigreed Holland Lops.  She got the two girls back at Andy and Kera's house, and yes, we hauled them across country and they stayed in the yard at the rental house during the wedding festivities.  And no, I did not take a single photo of them once we got them.  On the drive home from Salt Lake City, we stopped in Cedar City for the night.  We picked up the cute little boy bunny there. 

This is the adorable boy bunny!

Oh yes, the girls were absolutely smitten.

He was exactly 8 weeks old.

And those ears are to die for!

His name is Merlin.

 

Katie's Reception

I'm just going to say that the reception was amazing.  And you will have to take my word for it because I did not take pictures.  I was sadly negligent!  But it was beautiful.  Kera did a fabulous job with the decor and it was all so lovely and the food was delicious and plentiful.  

I took this picture because Liza was so stinking cute, but it is too dark to fully appreciate it. 

And this..... I have no words to describe the serenade and "flower girls" who made a delightful appearance.

I mean, how does one fully express the amazingness that was this?

Oh yes, it was pretty great!

But alas, that's all I got to document the event!

 

Katie's Wedding

The reason we all went to Utah was to see Katie get married. And on August 6, she was!  For some reason, despite having so much family around, I did not take very many photos of anything else, just the wedding.  Well, not even the wedding, because that was inside the Jordan River Temple.  I did take a lot of great pictures after, while we waited for them to appear, and while they getting their pictures taken by the professional photographer..  

Aaron was lucky enough that his mission president let him come over for the wedding!

We were delighted to see him.  Hugs from cousins are okay, right?!!

Callie is so cute.

And Liza was so stinking adorable!!

A rare sighting and picture of Jonathan and Kristy.  It was so great that they were able to come!

This is to show that Katie is wearing Nana's Veil.

Rylee was looking good.

Katie with her new hubby and parents.

Me!  I was there too!

My adorable dad.

The happy couple.  

Selfie with Rylee.

I thought it was so cute to see the photographer taking their picture.

I love this kid!  Delaney was out there rocking it.

Cousins are the best.  Denali loved hanging out with Delaney and Rylee.

 

Rylee did a thing

You may have noticed that Rylee has a lot of hair.  A lot of heavy, textured, unruly hair.  She was struggling with it and we finally decided it was worth the investment to take her to a Curly Girl Hair Studio.  It was significantly cheaper to do that in Utah than in San Diego, so I booked an appointment for her in Salt Lake City while we were there.

This awesome gal is Taislee. She was Auh-Mazing! She trimmed Rylee's hair.  She told her what to do to tame her hair.

She explained what products she would want to use and walked her through every step and made sure Rylee knew what to do and how to do it.

We had a one hour appointment booked, but this sweet girl spent two hours with us (she said we were her last appointment of the day) and she was just so fantastic!

And LOOK!!!!  Just LOOK at this!

This is what good product and know-how can do.  Go back and look at Rylee's pictures from the last year and then comeback and look at this.  Such a phenomenal difference!!

Granted, it does currently take her an hour in the shower to properly wash, moisturize, product and plop her hair, but it is totally worth it. And somehow with this process, she can now get away with only washing it every 3-4 days (which I never would have believed possible!). Was it expensive?  Oooooh yes! Was it worth it?!  Another resounding YES!

 

Some other stuff that happened

 

I forgot to mention that this kid had her learners permit for 30 days and was able to pass her drivers test!  She is a licensed driver!

And yes, some of her practice was on this!

Anyway, while in UT, we did stop by our favorite place as much as possible.  

Half the extended family was staying this vacation rental home and it was fun.  Alex discovered a snack and had to show us.  It was pretty cool!  

I went on a little hike.  My awesome friend who was my BYU roommate picked me up so we could go hike.  IT was NOT a little hike!  She that waterfall behind me?  Yeah, that's what we hiked up.

Here is the instigator herself!  We hiked a ways up before a rockfall made it impassable and then we turned around and climbed down and went somewhere a little easier.