Start of School

And just like that the summer is over and school is starting.

Since Jaxon is in 7th grade this year and new to the Jr. High, he had to start school a day sooner than everyone else.

 Off he goes to the bus!

The first official day of school.  Some of them (McKay) were not as excited as the others.  This year McKay is in 9th grade, Jaxon in 7th, Josh in 4th and Kayden is in 1st grade.

Oh the joy of new shoes!  They wanted to make sure their shoes made it into a first day of school picture.  These two ride their bikes to school together every day.  They take good care of each other.

Here is hoping for a great year!

Derby Fun

Attending the Utah County demolition derby is becoming a family tradition.  It is something that we look forward to each year.  This year we had a good time even though there weren't as many roll overs as we may have liked.

McKay, Jaxon, Bennett (Jaxon's buddy) and Josh checking out all the action.

A car crashed up and over the cement barrier.  That is the kind of action we like!

Kayden getting ready to watch another round of action.

This year we were able to sit by our good neighborhood friends at the derby.  It was nice that they got to play around in between rounds.  These three turkeys had a good time together.

Already looking forward to more derby action next year!

Happy 15th Birthday McKay!

One year. I repeat: One year. That is all we have left until this dude is driving a car and is date eligible.  Good thing we have a whole year to worry about it!  In the mean time McKay is celebrating being 1--including studying for the drivers test so he can receive his learner's permit.

We celebrated McKay birthday and Grandma and Grandpa's house first.  Nothing says "Happy birthday!" more that a double photo bomb.  Jaxon photo bombed McKay and Grandpa Haacke photo bombed Jaxon.

We traveled up to Idaho Falls the weekend of McKay's birthday (which landed on a Sunday this year) for his cousins' farewell.  Samantha is serving a mission in Taiwan and Bryan is serving in the Philippines.  Their farewell was the same day as McKay's birthday.  We still were able to celebrate by singing to him and having birthday cupcakes from a local bakery.

Back at home later that night McKay was all set for presents.

The traditional bonking on the head from his brother Kayden.....

....and his brother Josh.

15 Things We Love About McKay

1. He loves his brothers.  Even though he is a big tease and drives them crazy at times.  When it comes right down to it he loves them and watches out for them.
2. His desire to do his best.  He has set some lofty goals for school and in other areas in his life.  
3. He does what is asked of him.  Now, he is not the perfect teenager.  But most of the time he willing does what he is asked to do.
4. He loves to participate in athletics.  It is currently football season.  He is very dedicated to his team.  He is looking forward to basketball season.
5. His love for reading.  I love to discuss books with him.  He is the one kid I don't mind buying books for because I know he will read them.
6. He is proud of of his whiskers.  He makes me laugh with the talk of his facial hair.
7. He is 6'2" and super proud of it.  I wonder how much more he will grow.  It is starting to become difficult finding him pants that are long enough!
8. He lets me know that he like my cooking.  
9. I love that he is taking a variety of classes at school.  He enjoys his cooking class, tech class and especially his Spanish class.  He isn't loving his AP Geography class though.
10. McKay loves Studio C.  He really likes watching it together as a family.  I love listening to McKay laugh (and the rest of the family) laugh through the sketches.
11. Parker is his best friend.  They are only a couple of weeks apart in age and have way too much in common.  I am thankful McKay has good friends.
12. McKay loves to bake.  Well, he loves to make cookie dough and eat it.  He will then bake what is left--which sometimes isn't much.
13. He received his Eagle Scout award this year!  Man he worked hard to receive that and I couldn't be prouder that he is an Eagle Scout.
14. He wants to do what is right and follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost.
15. He attended EFY this year and learned a lot!  He even learned that it is ok to interact with girls.  As we left the parking lot down at BYU, I heard words that I thought I would never hear: "Hey!  I danced with that girl over there!"

Happy birthday McKay!  I am so proud to be your mom.  Thank you for being my boy and for being a great example to your brothers.  Love you lots!

Cozumel 2014

Jeremy and I love Cozumel.  We had been there a couple of times and thought how great it would be to take the kids there one day.  Well, when my parents decided we should all go on a big family vacation to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, we threw Cozumel into the mix.  It was decided that it was the place to go!  We even stayed in our favorite hotel while we were there--The Occidental Grand.  We had a wonderful time being at our favorite place and being with some of our favorite people: FAMILY!  Here are a few highlights of the 100s of pictures and video that was take:

 

Top left:  Love these two.  They made this whole vacation possible.  They paid for most of the vacation and we loved that they included the WHOLE family in celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.  We spent the first couple of days of our vacation hanging out at the pool and the beach.  Kayden (top right) found that not only did he love to do belly flops, he loved doing back flops as well.  He would perform one when ever asked.  The cousins loved playing games in the pool (middle).  They played volleyball and water polo almost every time we went down to the pool.  McKay and Marissa enjoyed hanging out being teens (bottom).

McKay found a love of the open bar--non alcoholic drinks of course.  During the course of the week he drank 55 Pina Coladas.  He counted and loved each one.  Kayden loved swimming in both the ocean and the pool.  He loved snorkeling in both!

McKay and Lachlan enjoyed a little ping pong (top left).  I loved hanging out in the pool with my family (middle).  Josh and Lachlan (top right) decided they could probably share a swim shirt if need be!  Jaxon (bottom) photo bombed a picture of all the girl cousins.  It turned out to be a pretty great picture!

Iguanas were found all around the grounds of our hotel.  We all thought they were pretty cool.  The bottom picture shows the cousins playing a mean game of water polo.

Josh (top left) enjoyed the open bar as well.  He found that he loved banana mamas, Shirley Temples, and pina coladas.  He was so nice in asking everyone if they wanted a drink each time he went to order one at the bar.  Uncle Scott and Kayden (top right) became drinking buddies.  One day at the pool the hotel staff let anyone who wanted to try scuba diving.  Each of the boys had a turn and found that scuba is pretty fun!  Josh (bottom) is having his turn exploring the bottom of the pool.  Hopefully someday we will go on a scuba trip all together!

 

We took some family pictures on the beach of our hotel.  The setting was picturesque!  It was great to have such a memorable vacation documented.  You can especially see how much all the cousins love each other!

I was lucky to celebrate my birthday in Cozumel.  The resort staff brought me a fancy dessert at breakfast.

After a few days of relaxing and playing at the pool and beach, we took the ferry and went to the mainland.  While we were there we visited Chichen Itza, a beautiful Cenote and Ek Balam.  We had an LDS tour guide that was fantastic!  He gave us some great insights to the Book of Mormon and the Bible.  He knew his history and his knowledge of the ruins was amazing! 

After getting off the fairy, we took a shuttle to our first stop at Chichen Itza.  The temple ruins were amazing and the knowledge of the people that lived there was incredible.

After a tour of the ruins, we were hot and sweaty.  We got back onto the shuttle and after a quick lunch we swam in a beautiful Cenote.  The water was cool and refreshing.  The kids had a great time jumping off the cliff and into the water:

Jeremy gave me a GoPro Camera for my birthday.  We all enjoyed using it throughout our vacation.  in this video Jeremy and Josh jumped off the cliff into the Cenote at the same time.

After a nice refreshing swim, we went to Ek Balam.  The ruins there were my favorite.  Kayden (top left) thought the ball court was pretty neat.  He climbed up to the top of the court so we could take his picture.  The whole family (right) at the entrance to the ruins.  Lachlan, Alexa, Meaghan, Camron, Josh and Kayden (bottom left) are standing in what was once a baptismal font.

 

I enjoyed climbing the stairs of the temple (left) and seeing the ruins that were preserved so well (bottom middle).  The views were amazing (top right) once we reached the top of the temple.  The stairs were very steep and we had to be very careful when climbing back down (bottom right).

After a trip to the mainland, we decided to see what Cozumel Island had to offer.  We went to a beautiful park on the island called Chankanaab.

While at Chankanaab, we did some zip-lining.  We all loved it and had a great time.  We broke into groups to go on the zip-line.  We got all equipped with all our gear (bottom) and then we were off!  After watching the park employees doing tricks on the zip-line, I decided that I could to it too (top middle).  I felt like Spiderman!  But the best part was that my kids were quite impressed with my moves!!  After showing off my moves, Josh (right) decided that if mom could do it, he could do it too! After the zip-line was finished, they had a huge inflated ball that you could climb in and then run down a ramp (top left).  It kind of looked like a giant hamster ball.  Jaxon (top left) loved it and thought it was the best part of the whole zip-line.

McKay (top left) taking his first run on the zip-line.  Jeremy (top middle) and the beautiful views we were able to see.  Kayden (right) showing how easy zip-lining is--no hands!  Jaxon (bottom) got quite adventurous while zipping along.

After the zip-line, the kids wanted to go swim with the dolphins.  It was an awesome experience and a definite highlight of the whole trip.

Jaxon, Josh, Alexa, kayden, Meaghan, Samantha, and Lachlan walking along the boardwalk getting ready to swim the the dolphins (left).  We all had a good chuckle when we saw McKay (right) in his life jacket!

Josh (left) giving giving the dolphin a kiss.  The dolphins even did tricks while during the kids' experience (right).

 The kids each had a turn doing things with the dolphins.  McKay (left) is having the dolphin swim up and touch his hand and then McKay received his first ever kiss (top right).

We were sure what the kids were going to be able to do.  We were amazed when Jaxon was lifted by the dolphins and pushed forward.  We were able to get video of everyone else doing the same trick.  I love this picture.  The look on Kayden's face is priceless.  Even he was amazed!

Josh looked like he was strutting his stuff as the dolphins lifted him up and out of the water.

Kayden kept his nose plugged the whole time!

It took McKay a couple of tries before he realized that he had to keep his legs straight for the dolphins to be able to push him up and along.

On the way back from swimming with the dolphins, Lachlan (top) was surprised by this territorial pelican.  The look on Lachlan's face was priceless!!  The boys (bottom) all had a great time!

Another activity we did while on the island was that we hired a guide to take the whole family snorkeling.  We saw a lot of sea life--including sea turtles and lobsters!

We took a boat (bottom) out to some shallow reefs where we jumped into the water.  Jeremy swam underneath everyone and snapped a picture (top left) with the GoPro.  Jaxon (right) got pretty good at diving down and taking a closer look at everything.  I had a good time floating on the top (middle left).

 Josh learned how to dive down to get a closer look at the reef.

Kayden getting ready to take a big leap into the ocean to do some snorkeling.

We were able to do a couple of days of diving.  My brother Paul and his wife Debra, my brother-in-law Craig, McKay and Jeremy and I are all dive certified so we went diving together.  The first dive that we went on was the day after we had arrived on the island and I had some ear trouble.  After being under the water for about 15 minutes, I started feeling sick.  I told our dive guide that I had to surface.  As soon as I surfaced, I threw-up about three times.  It was nasty, but the fish enjoyed it. Everyone else enjoyed the dive and did a second dive while I went back to the hotel to sleep off the nausea.  A few days later we went diving again and we all had a great time.

McKay and I diving on our second day of diving.  McKay got dive certified just for our trip.  It was a Christmas gift.

A small glimpse of some of the amazing things we saw while diving.

After our vacation, Jeremy made a movie with highlights from our whole vacation.  We love watching it.  It is a little long--but fun to watch!

If you ask my kids what their favorite thing on vacation was, they would tell you that it was being with their cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents.  Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for taking us on such a wonderful vacation where we made so many wonderful memories!

Update:  When school started, Kayden brought home the following:

It reads: "We went to Meixico. and flew in a plain.  we swam with Dolifin and went to a pool.  I love the plce because I went with my family with 4 borthes and my mom and dad.

I couldn't have said it better myself!