Mormon Con

This last weekend, President and Sister Nelson as well as President Eyring came to Safeco Field in Seattle to give a devotional to LDS members in the Seattle area.  I don't know how many people Safeco seats, but there ended up being 49,000+ in attendance.  So, nobody asked me, but I have dubbed the event Mormon Con.  It was a little strange seeing so many people wearing their Sunday best all headed in one direction.  With all the suits and long skirts, it was clearly not a typical event at Safeco.  

Getting to the parking garage was...fun.  Standing in line to get into Safeco was...fun.  Trying to find six seats together was...fun.  But, we made it!  And as a minor miracle, Isaac did great.  He was a little resistant to having his hand held in the huge, but rather orderly, crowd, but he was a trooper.

Since the event started at 6pm and the travel + parking + finding seating took time, we brought our dinner with us.  Hence the sausage and roll in this picture that Ben is about to devour.

Another minor miracle - it started ON TIME.  Mormon Standard Time is real thing and considering how long the lines were when we got there, I didn't think they could do it, but they did!

President Eyring

Sister Nelson

President Nelson

Clocking in at 1 hour 15 minutes after a very long day and the boys did really well.  There was minimal whining and Isaac took copious "notes".

It was a great experience and I hope the boys remember at least some of it.

First Day, part deux

I was pretty excited for Isaac to start preschool today and apparently he was too.

First Game

First Day

 Here they are, in the order they left (or rather tried to leave) this morning.

Our very first high school student! He no longer smiles.  I think puberty may have actually killed the muscles in his face that pull the ends of his mouth up.  Ok, I kid.  He does still smile...just never knowingly in front of a camera.  The bus was great for him - mostly because he said everyone on the bus was too tired to make a ruckus.  I think his classes went well.  His rather diminutive science teacher made an excellent impression when she showed the students how she would protect them from an intruder by grabbing a fire extinguisher and wielding a large dissection tool. 

Ben left, or rather, tried to leave next.  He was very anxious about missing the bus on his first day of school.  So, of course, the transportation department had changed the bus stop without telling us.  We gave the bus the benefit of the doubt and didn't call until it was 10 minutes late and 3 buses had passed us by.  The best option at that point was to wait until I got Michael on his bus and then drive Ben to school.  He ended up being 30 minutes late to school on his first day, which I believe may have been his worst case scenario.  He pulled through to have a good first day and the afternoon bus was only 10 minutes late dropping him off.

Michael was the very last out the door.  And the very last to get home.  He reported that his day was very boring, but when we asked about specific questions he was excited to tell us that his science classroom resembles a small zoo with rabbits, frogs, and hissing cockroaches ::shudder::.  We do have a little bit of tweaking we need to do to his schedule, but I think if he gives it some time he'll enjoy it.  He did admit that he was surprised that none of his classes had any kids who were constantly disrupting the teacher.  I'll take what we can get.  And his bus was only 20 minutes late getting home.  (For. The. Love.)

And where was Isaac you ask?  Was he mourning the (temporary) loss of his brothers?  Well, if he was, it was hard to tell as he chowed down on his Costco pizza.

Labor Day

What's in a hike?  Would a hike by any other name be as fun?

Well, it turns out, it doesn't matter what you call it.  Four boys in nature and it's guaranteed that one of them will lose their mind.

Oh, wait, nope, just Isaac.

Anyway, we tried out a new hike today that had a beach.  It was our first time and there were a lot of forks on the trail. We didn't necessarily always pick the right one, but we found some interesting spots on these offshoots.  One was a rope swing.

And a tree house?

And maybe a house? Or is this technically a lean-to?

Eventually, I cheated and pulled out the GPS on my phone so we could follow the right path to the water.

With some food, water, and sand, Isaac finally calmed down.

Another pretty view along the sound.

And, in my never-ending quest to get a good picture, I tortured Jason and the boys with the camera and a photogenic background.  

I can't get this kid to smile in pictures anymore, but point a camera at him and a dead jellyfish on the beach and he is all over it.

Harbor Days