Holly's Visit and Zion Park

Last weekend my dear friend from Wellesley, Holly Hamilton Bleakley, was here with her husband and 5 kids. They live in England (Tim's in the Royal Air Force - he's British - and Holly's still doing some research at Cambridge University where she did her PhD) so I haven't seen them since right after their 3rd child was born and Jared and I were in England for a visit. So we had a lot to catch up on! We spent a fun day in Zion enjoying the scenery and spashing around in the river and then had a nice evening down at the pool. I loved talking with Holly and remembering all the great times we've had together over the years. I wish we'd had even more time - her perspective on things is always so interesting to me and I never tire of talking with her. The kids all really enjoyed each other. It's so fun to get to know good friends' children and such a nice bonus when they get along well with our children. It's so interesting to see a friend's different traits reflected in their children - in how they look, how they act. Holly and Tim have some great kids and my kids were SO sad that they couldn't stay longer. Our kids can now speak with British accents quite authentically when they feel like it (which was quite a bit this last week). I have to say, there's nothing as cute as a child talking with a British accent.
The second week of school went well for the most part - only one call from Ashton's teacher and one from Isaac's! What's up with the boys this year and their behavior!? Isaac apparently thought the bell rang at the end of this assembly they were having and decided to grab his backpack and go out to wait for the carpool - meanwhile his teacher was paging him and totally worried about him. They finally found him out front - he didn't seem to notice that no one else was out there so school quite obviously hadn't let out yet! Odd - but hopefully not something that would ever happen again! Then Ashton's teacher called to say that after being Mr. Smart Awesome Kid the first week, he had a really bad day and wouldn't do the writing assigment he was supposed to do and was complaining that he couldn't hear anything she was telling him to do. He doesn't love writing - but he's never openly defied a teacher or come up with an odd excuse like not being able to hear. His teacher called because she naturally wanted to know if he did indeed have hearing problems. Luckily that excuse was promptly blown out of the water by the fact that there happened to be hearing tests the next day at school and Ashton's ears are functioning just great. So I had some serious talks with the boys and the last few days of the week went great. Random stuff - but all's well that ends well.

Eliza LOVES school and is full of information about what she did after school each day. I volunteered in her class on Thursday and she was so cute and eager and it was fun to see her making new friends and happily doing all her assignments. The twins LOVE preschool and are so excited to present me with a little green strip of paper when I pick them up each time - the green paper means they had no behavior problems that day.

We've got parent teacher conferences this week so it will be good to get to know all the kids' teachers a bit better and learn more about the curriculum for the year. I got Isaac some new reading workbooks and that seems to be helping a lot plus he's reading a fun mystery book at his level called "Nate the Great" and for the first time in his life, he's pretty excited about reading something so he can see what happens next.

We started Joy School last week with the twins and I think we've got a great group - great moms, very cute kids, 3 boys and 2 girls. We're just doing it on Wednesdays so it's nice and easy. So the twins have something to look forward to three mornings a week which is great. I'm trying to get a pool day/park day set up as well for all the nursery kids in the ward and their moms as well - we all do better around here when we get out and about most every day.