On the Countdown to School!

I now wake up at 5am every. single. day. Kill me. But, really, ugh! It's pretty much the worst. Honestly, I love it though. Only for the fact that I don't get to waste the day away and I get to see part of the sunrise, and that's just beautiful.

Aurora is (mostly) all smiles in the morning and Dan and I have gotten into a good routine of helping each other get out the door on time.

Right now we only have one car, so this has pretty much been our schedule:

Drive 20 miles to drop Dan off at work by 6:30am.

Kill some time driving super slow and creepy-like on the streets of Parker so I don't take Aurora to the babysitter too early.

Drive back 10 miles to drop off Aurora at the babysitter (whom she is absolutely loving--basically, Esther is the best... and Desiree, who fills in when Esther can't) by 7:00am.

Then drive back 10 miles into town to do meetings at the high school for new teacher orientation by 7:30am.

THEN Dan and I are off at different times, so I leave the car with him in town, and I catch a ride with my cool new co-worker, Katie (who reminds me of my most wonderful cousin, Melissa--yeah, Melissa, I know you're probably reading this so I'll tell you all about why later!), for the 20 mile drive back out to my school for meetings there.

Later, Dan picks up Aurora on the way back home, and then we ALL work on getting my classroom ready until late and we go home for a late dinner and an early bedtime, so we can do it all again the next day!

Phew! Just typing that made me tired... Oh, wait, maybe I'm tired because I'm up past my new bedtime of 10:00pm... Yeeeaaaahhhh...

Anyway, that's been our crazy schedule for the last week and next week, we bump it up to needing to LEAVE the house by, at the latest, 5:30am, so Dan can be to work by 6:00am to drive the school bus.

Speaking of Dan, I'm going to brag on him for a minute. He hates it when I do, but I don't care! The man deserves some recognition, because he's just freaking awesome!

Dan took his final driving test to get his CDL (commercial driver's license), and he crushed it! For real! He got 100% and he's the only one the instructor has seen! So, pretty much, if you want safe kids, have them ride Dan's bus! I'm super proud of him!

He got his bus route and he'll be driving one of the three routes for my school, so that's exciting! He'll get to know my "kiddos!"

haha so I had to say "kiddos", because I've recently observed that that is the word here. I don't know if that is an Arizona thing, or a Parker thing, or I've just never noticed many people referring to our students as "kiddos", but they ALL do it here! haha So if I start calling my students, my "kiddos"... yeah, you all know where that came from...

Anyway, back to Dan... the other day, I finished with meetings at my school and I text Dan on the way back to my classroom asking if he'd be able to bring Aurora and come to the school to help me with my room. When I reached my classroom, he was already in there, and he had managed to get ALL my student desks cleaned (they had permanent marker on them)! 

Today, he helped me put up a "Blast Off To Reading!" bulletin board design in my room and it looks fantastic! I'll have to post a picture later of that so you all can see his great work! AND he wrote down the title and the author for every. single. chapter book I have in my classroom library, and that's a lot of books! (THANK YOU AGAIN FOR THE BOOKS, MOM!)

Aurora has been SO patient and flexible with my crazy, new teacher schedule!

AHHH! Her and Dan win the prize for Best Family! I mean it! You have no idea how much I love them!

You guys, school starts here on M-O-N-D-A-Y. MONDAY! That is in 4 days!! Oh. My. Heck! 

I'm so excited and nervous and overwhelmed and enthused and just a whole bunch of emotion right now! 

Seriously though, this is what I am supposed to be doing. This school year is going to be crazy and busy and a learning experience, but I think it will go so well! I already love teaching!

New Adventures

Two months. TOO long!

In that time... 

♥ Dan got offered a new job as the general manager of The Port of Subs in St. George and he accepted! 

♥ He started training for the job in St. George in the middle of July and over the few weeks that followed, he did more training in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada, as well. 

♥ By August 11th, Dan was done training and we had officially moved our little family to a new apartment in St. George, Utah! 

Since then, we have been loving life as St. Georgians... and for a girl who has never lived anywhere but Cedar City, that is a BIG deal! 

In other news, Dan and I bought life insurance AND Dan started selling life insurance for Primerica on the side of being the GM at the Port of Subs. We loved that the company was all about helping families get where they wanted to be financially. It's helped us, so far, and we've been able to meet lots of other couples through that.

Also, I'm working now, too... two days a week at Port of Subs! haha It's been fun and I get to work with my cute hubby... as my boss! I was nervous about starting work because of finding a sitter for Aurora in a new town, but we have had such luck with finding AWESOME friends here. 

Our great friends, Shaun and Kara Cox live in St. George, and they recently gained a cute little six year old foster daughter. Kara works two days a week also, so we worked out a babysitting swap thing for the days either of us work. That has been a life saver! 

Our other friends, Mike and Bobbi Nessen (who we met through Shaun and Kara) have been life savers on the babysitting front, as well as in many other instances... always willing to help us out when we need it; no matter what it is! We are blessed to have met them. 

And my friends from Cedar, Aimee Sanders and Marissa Wade live in St. George, also, and have been willing to take Aurora if needed. 

Plus, Dan's Grandma and Grandpa Rigby live practically down the street from us and are always so good to us in any way we may need them.

We have truly been blessed and felt the love of friends who have become like family and grandparents who we have grown closer to as we have lived here. 

Also, our ward is basically awesome! We have loved going to church and felt extremely welcomed! 

(Sorry, I think I have rambled a bit... haha)

BUT the last bit of news is BY FAR the most exciting!

WE NOW HAVE A CRAWLING BABY ON OUR HANDS WHO WILL PULL HERSELF UP ONTO ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING!! 

Look out, world! We love it! ♥♥♥

Sweet Potatoes

I'm glad it's been such nice weather around here as of late! It's been wonderful to be able to go outside with our little family and have some fun.

This morning was the road bike race in Cedar and Dan volunteered/got volunteered to help Jeremy run the booth for Tropical Smoothie Cafe at the park for the event. So when all the kids got up, Kaela and I loaded them up in the strollers to walk to the Main Street Park to meet up with the boys.

We got there around 11am and ate lunch on the lawn as we listened to the announcer shout out the names of the cyclists coming in from their 100K bike rides! I was amazed that they could go that far so fast... AND riding basically all uphill through the canyon. It was great to witness. The top people were coming in at close to 3 hours time!

After a while, we were all getting kind of hot and decided to see if the splash pad at Festival Hall was on. It wasn't. So we walked toward home, after deciding we'd get the kiddie pool out when we got there.

When we arrived home, Dan left for work at Ernie's and Kaela found out the kiddie pool had a hole in it. BUT Aurora and Jack were already in their swimsuits sooooooo....

We went swimming in my bathtub instead!! haha

Aurora has learned to splash as of today so that was cute and fun and Jack entertained the two of us, ladies, with his made up song "I'm swimming! I'm swimming! Swimming swimming swimming! ..." and a great rendition of  the primary song, "Book of Mormon Stories". I had to set a timer for that boy to get out or else I think he'd still be in there! haha

Me: "Ok, Jack. I'm going to set the timer for 10 minutes and then when it goes off, you have to get out and go home."
Jack: "No, not 10 minutes!"
Me: "Ok, I'll set it for 15 minutes but that's it."
Jack: "NOOOOO!! Set it for 11 minutes!"
Haha well, alright. I set it for 11. That kid.

When Jack went home, Aurora took a short nap and then we went to visit Dan at work. Aurora loves seeing daddy at work! It's so cute.

The rest of the night, involved:
~ watching Harry Potter 1 & 2... again. Yup... those are my go-to films. Therefore, I can quote almost every line and I'm not even ashamed.
~ reorganizing all my kitchen cupboards and drawers. I'm sick of not being able to find anything.
~ and playing with Aurora on the floor/couch. She loves it when I dance bobbing my head side to side with my tongue out and sing made up random songs haha Who knew I was so entertaining and hilarious??
~ also, we tried some sweet potatoes tonight! She liked it pretty alright but she mostly just liked playing with the spoon!

Patriotic

One word that sums up our Independence Day festivities?

FUN.

And I must agree with everyone when I say that holidays are DEFINITELY more fun with kids!
I'm sure it'll only get more fun with each year.
There's just something about watching them experience everything for the first time that's so... magical.
I love it!

Plus, we got to dress her in TWO adorable outfits that just screamed "patriotism and extreme cuteness".

So, of course, I took the opportunity to photograph her for her sixth month pictures.
Which, I will not post today... BUT don't be sad! I'll post them in just five short days!
I can't believe our baby will be six months in five days! Gahh!
Seriously, she gets cuter every day.

Every. Single. Day.

I mean, hello.
She sits up on her own now and grins about every time anyone looks at her.
How cute is that??

Anyway...

Today Dan worked from 6am-2pm so Aurora and I walked over to the parade with Kaela + kids, her mom, her grandpa, and Cody.
Jeremy was in the parade for Quizno's passing out fliers and Collette, Erin, and Steph were all riding on the firetrucks with Collette's bf, Kurtis's family. It was fun to watch them!
AND Jack was adorable at the parade! That kid loved every minute of it!

This was Aurora's first parade so I took her out of her stroller and held her up where she could see everything.
At first, she was so enthralled with watching and listening to everything that was going on on the street, but halfway through, she was out like a light.
She snoozed right up until part way through the firetrucks and then woke up just in time to see her aunties wave at her from the truck!

Then she and I went down to the park to meet up with everyone and I ate a hamburger while she played on her blanket in our spot in the shade under the flagpole.
She was so fun! She played with toys and grinned up a storm in her cute little hat as we listened to the patriotic tunes and broadway music being sung on the stage.

My sisters met up with us after they grabbed some lunch and we wandered the park before saying hi to Dan's brothers and sisters again and heading home.

At 2pm Dan got home from work and we all took a very long MUCH needed nap before going over to Dan's mom and dad's house for a small barbeque.
Dan played with the goats and they climbed all over him. It was hilarious.

Then we ended the night, watching the city firework show out on 2300 West.

It has been a fantastic day!

Happy Fourth, everyone!!

2048

So... we've become soccer people.
Jeremy and Kaela got us into watching the world cup and following USA's games.

Then they had to go and get themselves out of the runnings by losing to Belgium! Curses!

BUT the game was a good one. AND we watched it with this little cutie!

Also, tonight, we went over to my parents' house to have tacos (for Taco Tuesday, of course!) and play games.
We introduced them to Sequence and Boxers or Briefs.
Check those games out if you haven't played them!
They're fun and Boxers or Briefs is lots of laughs.

And then Aurora tried watermelon.
Well, mostly the rind and a bit that was left on it... but she loved it!
In fact, she cried everytime I tried to take it away! haha

P.S. Don't judge the fact that she's wearing a giant t-shirt... How am I suppose to know she's going to choose the ONE time I don't bring her an outfit change to explode out her diaper?!?

Oh! Oh! Oh!
I finally beat 2048!
That's right!
And I guess I'll give that credit to Dan and his brothers for their time spent coaching me on Monday night while we ate dessert at Dan's mom's house.
Thanks, guys!
I feel such a sense of accomplishment haha but seriously.

Lucky 7

Summertime usually means vacation time, and vacation time usually means family reunion time.
And that was indeed what happened this weekend when Dan, Aurora, and I took some time vacationing for the Leany Family Reunion.
We had an absolute blast!

The Leany family is Dan's Grandma Rigby's family and the reunion took place at The Lucky 7 Ranch (Walter Ranch) in Hatch, Utah.

Friday morning Dan's family and Grandma Rigby all met over at our house and around 2pm we were all caravaning over the mountain to meet up with everyone else.

From the moment we arrived at the ranch, it was a weekend of non-stop fun, activities, chatting, and food with all the wonderful Leany's. It really seemed like there was never a dull moment and we loved it!

Some activities included:
♥ Fish pond for the kids (where almost everyone caught a bug catcher... including Aurora so we used hers to catch an incredibly oversized stink bug with cute cousin, Brooklyn)
♥ Horseback riding and looking at the huge cows (Aurora's first time seeing cows!)
♥ Swinging
♥ Games
♥ Playing pool
♥ Playing with the cousins (Aurora loved all the attention she was getting from all the little ones that were just a bit older than her and they all loved the "baby")
♥ Chili cook-off
♥ Coloring with chalk
♥ Train rides for the kids
♥ Learning about the Milky Way and seeing some really cool time-lapse videos of the night sky at the Astronomy Festival at Bryce Canyon
♥ A fun scavenger hunt put on by Aunt Sandra where we got to learn some cool facts about Grandma and Grandpa Leany (this was lots of walking... but thanks to Jack, I got to hop on the fourwheeler with cousin, Michelle and the kids on the way back haha)
♥ Rope swings, zip lines, and swimming at the family pond up Proctor Canyon + a bit of watermelon eating and a very packed car ride back to the ranch
♥ Giant slip and slide at the ranch after swimming
♥ Watching the hot air balloons at the Balloon Festival in Panguitch (where Dan and his dad realized that not only were they wearing the same family reunion shirt, but they were wearing the same shorts, too! haha AND we got to meet up with one of my best friends, Natalie, and her boyfriend, Nicholas, since they were there for his 15 year HS reunion for Panguitch High School. Aurora loved having her dad hold her up to watch the balloons be fired up!)
♥ Going to sacrament meeting at the Hatch Ward on Sunday before heading home

Can we go back??