SCHOOL!!!! Is back!! For real!!!

And just like that, we were back.  Wearing masks, worried about the psychological effects of masks, unsure if we would get shut back down at any minute, but we were back!! The kids were STOKED to be going back to school, masks and all.  Katelyn learned how to open her very own locker, yay! and Whitney had a great time with Maddie decorating their locker.

Katelyn was inducted into the Thespian Troupe with all her 9th grade theater pals.

And the first day was here!  Emma had to say goodbye to her kids for the first time in 5 months....it was painful!

This year we have a 9th grader, 7th grader, 

3rd grader, and 1st grader!

Aren't they cute??

Cute even with their masks on. Katelyn wore a face shield the first couple of weeks until they said that wasn't allowed.

Crazy poses!

So silly.  And notice Kate carrying her scriptures- she got to start seminary!!

And they are ready to go!

Maris' first time being dropped off in the morning with the big kids!  She asked me to stay with her until her teacher came.  So I did....for 3 months.  Now I only walk in with her every other day- Owen takes her to her class the other days. We are working on it haha.

Luckily she loves her teacher and has made some cute friends.  The first few weeks she carried a picture of me and Eric in her pocket every day, but she's not feeling too homesick anymore. Me and Emma still miss her though! 

Little Emma Gemma got to start preschool!  With her friend, our neighbor Haylee.  They are adorable.  Haylee's mom calls them the giggle twins!

She LOVES it and so do I.  Haylee's mom Shellee found a great curriculum for us, called Playing Preschool. It's cute and creative and the activities are easy to prepare. I'm loving teaching preschool for my last child. 

Even after school started, it was still summer!  So we lived it up as long as we could.  Here's Owen and Eric playing golf with Grandpa and Kurtis.

Fall season of soccer started, it was HOT!  And we had to travel up to Davis County 3 times, it's crazy being in Division 2 instead of South Division! Here's the whole team together.

And here's some of the girls after a game in Park City.

The rest of this post features pictures of Emma and I all fall.  We got to do a lot of fun things together!  But we were sure happy that the kids have a shorter school day this year (1 hour less so the teachers have time to contact their online students...getting out at 2:35 is amazing and I hope they keep it!) and only have a 4-day school week.  Me and Emma can keep ourselves entertained for 4, 6-hour days.

One time we hiked to the grotto:

We went to splash pads before they closed: (and Emma fell asleep at the Payson pool earlier this summer)

Emma took gymnastics class and had a great time!  Every week she would ask when she could go to "gymnastick".

We got to go plant flowers at the temple, it was so fun!!  Emma did great, and I was just thrilled to be on the temple grounds for the first time since March.

I went for a long run in Provo Canyon and we stopped to hang out at Bridal Veil Falls, and we went to the pond.

We also went to Thanksgiving Point before our passes expired.

And lastly, we went to many stores wearing masks, and Emma loved dance class- the same one Maris did a couple of years ago.

School starting again was a very good thing!!