Do You Believe in Magic?

I sure do! Especially after T&M's Dance Performance at school this morning! Every year, the entire school puts on a "recital" with each grade performing a dance from a different era. This year, the 5th graders (Tim) performed moves from the 70's. The music consisted of "Stayin' Alive, Dancing Queen, Kung Fu Fighting, and YMCA!" Check out the outfit!
Tim worked it, especially the "Kung Fu Fighting" part of the dance!
The 3rd graders (Mak) performed a dance from the 50's. They did the "Hand Jive." They were so cute in their poodle skirts, white shirts and rolled up jeans. Mak was super cute in her poodle skirt! I made it from a dress that I bought at DI:)She also got into her dance! I loved it! After all the grades performed, the entire school danced to "Party in the USA." Mak really liked that dance. She has been practicing at home for the past couple of weeks now! This performance means that there is only a couple days of school left! HOORAY!!

Missionary!

Last night, I said good-bye to my oldest nephew, Drew, for 2 years:( Wednesday, he will enter the MTC to serve a mission in central Mexico! I am so excited for him and his family. He is oldest of 4 boys, so he is setting an example. It will be fun for our family to write to him and hopefully hear from him now and then. I am hoping that Drew will be an example for Tim to serve a mission in 8 years. Wow:) Best of luck, Drew. We know that you are needed in Mexico and that the Lord will keep you and your family save during the next two years! We love you!! Drew, me, Katie

Boating!

This past Saturday, we "officially" took the boat out as a family! We went to Utah Lake, just a short 1/2 hour from the house. The day was cooler than previous, and windy. At the marina, we had to wait for about 20 minutes to even get in the gates. Then we had to wait another 10 to launch. Finally, we were out on the water, with our kids and 4 extras! We set out to inflate the tubes, while the kids jumped off the back of the boat. Surprise, the water was cold! So, they got out and wanted to sit everywhere in the boat. No good trying to blow up 3 tubes, so Cory and I made them stay in the water. Child abuse:) Soon, we were towing kids behind the boat. A little frustrating when they would tell us to slow down as we were trying to get them going just a little. UG:( Towards the end of the day, the three boys we had were having a great time in the tubes, and we were able to go a little bit faster! Cory and I got in the water once, and that was enough! All in all, it was an okay day for boating. Too much complaining and whining though. At least the weather is such that we can go boating now! And of course, I left the camera in the truck, so you get to look at the boat sitting in the driveway:) Enjoy!!

High Uintas

Wow! I am finally caught up with posts!
This past weekend, we went camping in the High Uintas. Go figure, I have lived in Utah for 20 plus years now, and this is the first time I have been on the Mirror Lake Highway and spent any time in that part of the Uintas. (I know the Uintas around Vernal well.) Wow, this area is beautiful. Friday night, it was just our family. We found a camp site near the Duchesne River Tunnel for the night. We had a rough go, putting a dent in our truck with the trailer as we were trying to turn around. Ug:( After setting up camp and exploring the area, we had a great night roasting hot dogs and making smores. Mak ate four smores. She was quite proud of herself!
Saturday, the six of us went on a ride while waiting for our friends, the Douglas', to arrive. The area is so rocky and wet. The kids were troopers though and we survived all the rocks. Our friends showed up, and we picked up camp and moved further into the mountains. The second camp site us much higher in elevation, but closer to more trails. The kids had so much fun riding around, catching bubbles from an awesome bubble machine, playing in the sand, and exploring the area. The night we had a huge fire and stayed up way too late, again!
Sunday, after forcing ourselves to wake up, get dressed and put some food in us, we explored the area some more. We went down a another rocky trail to some waterfalls. For late June, there is a lot of water in Utah. Amazing! After that little ride, we packed up a lunch and drove our vehicles to some more waterfalls. I love Mirror Lake Highway! There is so much to see and do up there. I felt like I was in another world! Back at camp, we slowly packed up. But not before we made a tree swing and let all the kids go for a couple of rides. They LOVED it!
Then it was home where we had pizza for Father's Day! But, Cory was in is glory all weekend riding and hanging out with the family and friends! Enjoy the pictures!

McConkie Family Reunion

The weekend of June 3-6, we attended the McConkie Family Reunion. The reunion was held at Warm Springs Resort just north of Tabiona, UT, at the base of the Uintah Mountains. It was a beautiful place! The Duchesne River runs through it. The resort has some cabins, RV pads and a grass area for tents. Plus there are restrooms with flushing toilets and showeres. A little somethig for everyone:) We spent most of our time down at the pond watching the kids get around in paddle boats or kayaks. Eventually, they all ended up in the water! The food was great, as was the time spent catching up and "remembering when!" Here are a few pictures from the weekend. We will be back in two years as my Mom is hosting, which means Cory and I will be very busy helping out! Can't wait:)

Kindergarten Graduation

K&K are officially 1st graders, well, sort of! Wednesday was their last day of school, with their end of the year program and graduation being held last Friday. This is the girls before going the program. They love it when I put their hair in hot rollers. So, I did! Aren't they just the cutest?Their end of the year program included songs from Broadway. Not only did they sing, but they also danced, acted out some plays and signed the "Pledge of Allegiance" and some of the songs. This is the girls singing the song "New York, New York." They were so cute leaning on the canes and trying to bob up and down with the beat:)
The kids signed a lot of songs. This one they sang a song about the colors in a rainbow and also signed the entire song! I was quite impressed:) Having the kids wear colored shirts was a great idea! K&K are sitting next to each other. Katie is in yellow, Kelli is in green.
And finally, they graduated! Not only did they get a diploma and scrapbook, they also received a "special" award. Kelli received the award for being the "Best Helper." I'm sure she was. She probably drove the teacher nuts with all her questions and "demanding" to help:) Katie received the award for "Future Student Body President." I guess all the kids liked her and waned to be her friend. Who knew shy, quiet Katie could be so out-going! K&K are the fourth and fifth from the left!
And finally, one last picture with their teacher, Miss Launa:) Kelli and Katie had a fantastic year with her. They learned so much and had a great, fun year! I feel very confident that they will do well in public school, even though they will be very young 1st graders. Now, we need to survive the summer!

Bird Watching!

A few weeks ago, we noticed a couple of birds hanging out around the house, a lot. Then we noticed twigs and trash all over the front yard. One day, while I was out doing some yard work, I walked under our arch, and a little finch flew out of it in a mad rage. After screaming, I looked closer in the arch, and found a little nest. The mother was protecting her property! A couple of days later, I was mowing the grass, and a robin flew out of a tree.Again, after being startled, I took a look in the tree. Another nest! Since then, we have been watching and listening for babies. Just the other day, I was mowing the front yard. I was around the tree, when I looked down, and saw a baby robin on the ground. Cory and I put it back in the nest, and the kids have been on watch ever since. Yesterday, we had a nasty wind storm come in. A baby robin kept falling out of the nest. The kids did a great job checking on it and putting the baby back in. But, this morning, I found a dead baby at the base of the tree. Kelli is pretty upset about it. She has it on a paper towel in the house and keeps looking at it and touching it. The other 2 or 3 babies are doing well. This morning, I took a peek in the nest while the Mom was out. One of the birds put it's head up and opened it's mouth really big for me. It was so cute! Mommy bird was upset when she saw me though. Tim took some pictures of the birds in the nest in the arch. We think they are Finch babies. None of them have fallen out. Thank goodness because under the arch is cement. Tim says there are four birds. Can you see them?

We will continue to watch the nests and make sure no more birds die. It is quite exciting to see nature at work all around us. The kids have really enjoyed the birds. In fact, Tim was up early this morning before school to check on all the birds!

More posts to come on K&K's last days of kindergarten and the McConkie Family Reunion we recently attended!

Metal Mouth Club

Well, Mak is officially part of the "metal mouth" club! Her spacer was put in this afternoon. This is just step one of what will be a long process to straighten out her teeth. After this top spacer, she will need to get a bottom spacer, and then most likely braces. Oh boy!Mak at the orthodontist! She is quite grown up. I love watching her and spending some one-on-one time with her:)
Check out the hardware! Everyday I have to make an adjustment to the spacer. In 28 days, she should have a gap between her two front teeth!

Toby

Toby is almost 8 months old. He is a fun dog! He has learned to sit and then go down on his belly for a treat. He is almost house broken. There are still a few accidents now and then though. And just the other day, I taught him to say "please" when he gets a treat. I tell him to sit, go down, and then to say please. Toby will do a little bark! It is the cutest thing:) Now I am trying to teach him to roll over! So far, he just goes crazy on me:) He has quite the attitude too. Whenever I am gone for "too long," Toby will let me know about it. When I get home, he begs to be held, then he will proceed to howl and cry as I give him loves. Whatever!
This is Toby this past weekend while we were camping. He did okay, except that he tried to get too friendly our friend's female dog and we had to put him on a leash so he wouldn't take off and find a snake to play with!
Toby got a summer hair cut the other day. He looks like a completely different dog. Don't worry, the weirdness will go away, soon hopefully!

Memorial Day!

What would Memorial Day Weekend be without the Wrights going camping and having some sort of an adventure? Pretty boring if you ask me. We didn't go camping the entire weekend-we had some things to get done, like my awesome bathroom and cleaning out the boat. So, we left Sunday after church for Five Mile. We were across the road from last year's camp site. We had to set up in an easier place due to the bigger trailer we have this year:)
We went camping with our friends, the Douglas family. What a great night we had Sunday. Tim and his friend Luc raced each other around a little motorcycle course. Now that they have basically the same bike, the competition is on to see who can ride better and faster. They go at it all the time. Mak and Haylee also rode around on the track or checked out the fort they built last year. Amazing that it's still there and that they could find it when all the trees look the same! K&K and the two little Douglas girls played in the back of the trucks and in the sand with sand toys. After stuffing themselves with smores and marshmellows, all the kids watched a movie in the trailer. The parents stayed outside for some "grown-up" conversation around the camp fire. This is Mike Douglas attempting to chop some wood with is very girly hat on!Monday morning came way too early, especially when Luc started chopping wood at 7am! All 12 of us finally went for ride around 10:30! First stop, the hill climb! Both Cory and Mike were a little hesitant to do much, but when a pack of youngins showed up, the guys rised to the challenge and sort of showed the babies what to do. Of course the youngins had to answer the call and pretty much showed Cory and Mike what old age does to you. The testerone levels were very high! This is Cory going up the easy part of the hill climb.

Here we have all the girls watching their Daddys climb the hill and praying that they make it up without injury! In the back is Haylee, Kelli and Mak. In the front is Katie, Whitnee and Sydnee.

After the hill climb, we headed up a narly pass that required the Dads to ride the girls bikes up to the top. I hauled a lot of little ones up to the top! We ended up at Sunshine Mine! The kids were so excited to be there and walk on top of the shafts. Thank goodness for the rebar! This is Tim and Luc checking out the old jeep at the bottom of the shaft. It was just the coolest:)

Here's all the kids at the mine!

The ride lasted for 3 hours! When we got back to camp, we had some lunch, then chilled for awhile. The kids rode around some more before we packed up and headed home. We had fun, even without eating snake or rushing a friend to the hospital like we did last year! Sunday night, we did see a snake when just the six of us went on a ride. It was just a little deseret snake that Cory accidently ran over:)

New Master Bath!

It is finally finished! My new master bathroom is complete and I love it! Cory and I had a discussion about 2 months ago about the bathroom. Somehow, I convinced Cory to let me "redo" the bathroom and we came up with a budget for the 5'4" X 4'7" area! This is what the bathroom looked like before!Yep, you saw right, a pedestal sink in a master bath! Whoever heard of such a thing? And a tiny mirror and very little light! Talk about no storage or counter space. You can't see it, but behind the door, we had a storage thing that we bought at Target for all our bathroom needs. It worked, okay, but we still had to put stuff in the girls' bathroom.
Another look at the sink. I guess we did have some kind of "counter space." The lovely glass shelf! It would work for one person, but not for two:) Now onto the "redo!"Wow! I actually started by recaulking and resealing our shower, which you cannot see. That was a chore because the first caulk job only lasted through maybe 4 showers:( I also took the shower door and turned it around to open to where the towel rack hangs. Then came the sink. Cory tore out the pedestal sink. My Dad and brother moved the water and drain pipes for me so they would fit under the new vanity. The new vanity is actually a buffet that I painted white. The day after I ordered a vanity top from Home Depot, a neighbor found me this granite top for free. She saved me the price of the ordered top and then some. It was an amazing find. The size was perfect, and the piece was polished and rounded off already.
Cory cut holes in the granite and vanity for the new vessel sink and faucet. The vessel was an amazing find. I had my eye on it the minute I walked into the plumbing store. But I figured it was way too much. Then the lady told me it was on sale for $150 from $700. I was sold! I LOVE it!! The faucet was actually the most expensive piece in the bathroom. But it was worth it! And guess what? Water comes out of the faucet and the vessel drains the water with no leaks. Way to go Cory!! With some help from my Mom, we hung the new, bigger mirror and light fixture! Here's another look at the bathroom from inside the shower. (If you look close enough, you can see the toilet in the picture. It is in a little nook behind the bathroom door.) Like I said before, I LOVE the results. I can't get over how much bigger the bathroom looks and feels now. I have lots of light, storage space, counter space and mirror. It's also nice that both Cory and I can be in the bathroom at the same time and not fight for the mirror and little glass shelf space we used to have! And best of all, I was only $250 over budget!