Good Bye Summer

It may be 1o4 outside, but today was the first day back to school. Farewell summer -- it was fun. Vacation, play dates, swimming, movies, playing with neighbors. . . Nate still has a month before he starts preschool, so I guess summer is only over for one member of our household.

Ellie finally started getting excited for school to start at about 4 pm last night.We were working on a school project and I think she suddenly remembered how much fun school was. Next thing I know she's bouncing off the walls. This morning she was little more subdued and wouldn't even eat the ice cream we got her for breakfast. I know -- ice cream is not the breakfast of champions, but I can never get her to eat when she's nervous and ice cream is full of fat, so I figured if I could get her to eat a few bites she'd be nice and full until lunch. I did pack her a HUGE lunch, so let's hope that works out.

There was no crying this year. Just excitement to see friends and meet her new class mates.

I thought it was funny that she and Lindsay picked the same outfit without even checking with each other.

And now we're off to swim lessons. Happy 1st day of school Chandler moms!

Best Hungarian Name Day. EVER!

That's a slight exaggeration since my own husband didn't even celebrate the day, but since I only heard about it a week ago, there's nothing to compare it to. Luckily for me -- Karen and Kathleen remembered.

See my AWESOME collage that my sister made for me? See even loved me enough to do a semi-ode. Kathleen *is* truly awesome. Not just because she wrote that about herself when she updated my blog list for me -- so yeah, you can blame her if you don't like being a "ward wacko" or a "nerdy neighbor."

Then to top the day off, I got to see Mamma Mia! AHHHHHH! That is me shrieking because I loved it so much.Also, I wish it was me jumping on the bed. I want to be in that movie!

My mom is a HUGE ABBA fan, so I know all the songs. In fact, I even left an ABBA quote to my sister in her Senior Year Book. Yeah, my family is *that* cool. See how Mamma Mia made my collage even before I had seen it?

Anyway, I laughed, I cried, I thought "GEEZ this is CHEESEY." But then, I love a good cheese fest. At one point both Karen and I turned to each other and decided that we needed a "reuniting cheer." Anyone else love the movie? I guess the better question would be, who hated this movie and would they dare admit it? Everyone I know has loved it.

Really BIG News

OK. . .breaking news!!!! I'm pregnant!!

Hopefully you all read everything I write, because I'm actually not pregnant. Just kidding. Did anyone actually fall for that anyway?

So here's some big news in the Rogers' household. AKA Sunday night photos -- so you won't be terribly impressed by any photo skills.

1. We got a new car -- in case you missed mention of it earlier. YIPPEE! It only took a year to convince my husband I needed a new one, but I love it. Leather seats, built in DVD player, rear assist parking, room for the all the kids in my sweet carpools. . . but the best part has to be the remote start. Holy cow! How did I ever make it through the summer without remote start before? I love getting into a nice cool car!
Like I said -- it's Sunday night, so you get the "run into the garage and take one picture" shot. I did spend a few hours in the 1oo+ degree weather cleaning out my garage so it was nice and clean for my new car.

2. Sadie is now sleeping in a CRIB! A real crib in a real room. WOO HOO! The first night back from vacation, we stuck her in there and she did great. It's been a week and she's doing awesome. Of course we had to move all of the toys into the guest room, though. That took up my entire Saturday -- but it's DONE.


3. NURSERY! Oh yeah, we're legal now.
For all you non-LDS -- it means she gets to start going to the children's class for hours of church. Dustin is thrilled since he usually has her for those 2 hours while I do Primary. He might be able to listen now!

4. I finished all of Ellie's school shopping. We're all ready -- shoes, back pack, lunch bags, school supplies, uniforms. . . even a winter coat. I've been picking stuff up on sale for almost an entire year, and it's finally all ready to go. Ellie even picked out her outfit for the first day of school. One more week! I want it to be known that I only paid full price for 2 articles of clothing.

5. Nate has finally started dressing himself. He was having trouble getting his shirts on, but he's finally got it. Oh, and today I told him he had to take a nap after lunch. Right after lunch I ask Dustin where Nate is -- sure enough, he put himself down for a nap. The "jammies" he picked out for himself tonight. Picture taken in the already messy playroom.

6. HOLY COW! I almost forgot one more piece of big news. My Hungarian name day is coming up. I came across this random piece of information reading a friend of my sister's blog. Turns out that Name days are a big deal in Hungary. Even bigger than your birthday. People give you presents and flowers. . . So I just thought I'd better warn you all because my name day, according to this chart, is July 22nd! You only have a day to prepare!

And so there you have it! Big news on a quiet Sunday night. And all of you who I talked to on the phone tonight know that it wasn't all that quiet here, but I'd like to pretend it was.

Random trip moments

OK, so this will be the last you hear about my awesome vacation. And yes, you are all adopted. We are firm believers in the-more-the-merrier approach to life. Since I pretty much grew up without cousins, I'll do anything I have to to secure more cousins for my children.

I was reading my sister's blog, and her much funnier recap, when I was reminded of a few choice moments from our trip.

The first had to be as we were driving toward Flagstaff. Nate was looking out the window when suddenly he gasps. "WHAT KIND OF TREES ARE THOOOOOOSE?" So I look out the window expecting to see Willy Wonka trees or maybe even Money trees and what did I see? Popcorn trees! Just kidding. PINE TREES! Yes, my son had no idea what a pine tree was.

Then Ellie pipes up, "Are we in the forest?" Yeah sure honey, 1o pine trees on the side of the interstate constitute a forest. Then she starts crying because she's scared bears are going to come eat us. Can you tell we're not big camping people?

Nate has no butt. It's a Rogers trait. 5 boys and not one butt to be found. So while Nate has no butt, his pants are always falling down and he has major plumber's crack. While we were at the beach the kid got a sunburn -- on his butt crack. While applying sunscreen, I forgot about the small sliver of back that appears when the shorts start falling.

One day, Dustin decided to rent the movie "How to Eat Fried Worms." We thought it would be fun to watch together. WRONG! Nate hated it. And forever after he has been convinced that we are trying to sneak worms into his food. Any time we make pasta he spends at least 5 minutes screaming that he is not going to eat worms. He also hates anything that is hotter than room temperature and cheese. One day he asked me to make him a quesadilla for lunch and as he took his first bite, he screams, "CHEEEEESE," in utter disgust and throws down his piece. Oh no, I convince him, that's not cheese, it's mozzarella. And so he ate his quesadilla. Since then, we have learned that he likes mozzarella, cheddar, colby jack. . . just not cheese. In true Joachim family style -- yes that is really my maiden name, you have to guess how to pronounce it -- we think teasing is an art form, and so my sister painted this rock for him.

And Here We Have Idaho

That's the Idaho state song in case you don't know!

My mom was born and raised in a little town outside of Blackfoot, Idaho. When she was a little girl, my grandparents built their own home and as a child I spent every summer there. Usually for months at a time. It would be an understatement to say that I love that place. There are just so many wonderful memories there. Both grandparents have passed away, but my Aunt and Uncle live there now and they do such an amazing job carrying on our summer traditions. It makes me miss them a little less when I get to go there and still feel my grandparents. In the freezer is my Grandma's freezer jam with her handwriting on the top -- we even got to bring some home-- the yard is just as beautiful as my Grandpa kept it and Ellie even got to wear one of my Grandma's old sweaters when she was cold.

This summer my parents, my sister, my sister-in-law and her three kids all met up with us in Groveland, Idaho. My Aunt and Uncle probably spent months making sure everything was perfect for us -- and it was! I don't even think I have pictures of all the fun things we did, but I think we managed to fit an entire summer into one week.

this is my only sister -- I had to add that for Miss Chelsea Pace ;p

Hannah -- who is actually my cousin, and Ellie riding in my parents new convertible

Nate and Ellie learned to drive the Quads

Fishing -- lots and lots of fishing. We even ate our fish for dinner!

Before you go fishing, this is what you eat for breakfast at 6:3o am

While you're fishing, if you're hungry

Boating

Playing at the lakeSwimsuit picture is for Nicole -- I'm telling myself that the camera adds ten pounds, plus the ten pounds I gained eating so much food!

Going to the playground. My mom and my Aunt actually played on this when they were in school and my Grandpa went to Elementary school there too!

Slumber parties -- at my mom and dad's house across the street, luckily. Yes, they own a house across the street. It was my Great Grandma's for a time. My Great Grandma's house before that shared the back pasture with my Grandparent's house and My Aunt Kristine and Uncle Dave lived there before they moved in my Grandparent's house. We used to joke that if you lined everyone up right, you could shoot us all with the same bullet. That's kind of morbid, isn't it?

Matching Hannah Montana t-shirts. We had to go to Wal-mart to find clothes we could destroy while we were "mudding" and these were the cheapest. What is Mudding? Here's a preview of what you look like AFTER mudding.

Swimming -- my Uncle insisted my Aunt order this totally cool kiddie swimming pool. He's always finding cool things for us to play with.

Rock painting -- something we always did with my Grandma.

Train spotting. These pictures made us laugh because my sister's angle makes it look like we were dangerously close to the train. Don't worry, we were appropriately far away!

Hanging out with Uncle Dave. Sadie loooooved my Uncle Dave. She would just sit and sing with him or dance while he singed to her. It was so cute. Dave was also our chef the whole vacation. We're talking BBQ ribs, burger, Cornish game hen etc for dinner and full blown eggs, bacon, sausage, french toast etc. for breakfast every morning. We were totally spoiled -- just like when my Grandma and Grandpa were there. I didn't even have to do most of my laundry. My mom and Kristine would have it switched over or folded before I even remembered it.

Ice cream and fireworks every night

And of course Mudding!
Mudding is our new extreme sport where we tied up a sled to the back of a quad and drove around in the flooded pasture. We started off pretty tame since we had the kids and all. . .

But once we got rid of the little ones, it was all out war. The point of mudding is to try and flip the rider off the sled and into the mud.


OK, phew! That's only half of what we did -- tennis at the Matsuura's, Do You Love Your Neighbor, Saboteur, movies, shopping . . . I've got another zillion pictures and so many fun memories, but I'll leave you with one that cracks me up the most.
Thanks for all the fun and making our Idaho trip so magical! It was just as wonderful as when Grandma and Grandpa spent all year preparing for us to come. I love you guys so much and I love all the memories my kids have. They are STILL crying that they wish they were still in Idaho!

Home Sweet Home

In case you thought I caught a life threatening disease, you can rest assured that we were just on vacation. The world's BEST vacation in fact. We spent the last week and half in Utah and Idaho visiting with friends and family. There's nothing like a 15 hour road trip to break in the new car. I do have to say that my kids were great little troopers for all 3o hours there and back. We only had to stop and pee on the side of the road once and the biggest melt down lasted about 2 minutes when Nate woke up in the middle of his nap and his neck hurt.

So as not to over whelm you with all the pictures I took -- and yes, you will have to scroll through all of them, no photo montage skills here -- I'll divide our trip into two parts. And also because I am so tired I don't think I can get them all up tonight. So without further ado -- Our trip to Utah.

We spent two days in Provo where we attempted to brain wash the kids, and hang out with Casey -- Dustin's younger brother -- and his wife, Sarah. We hung out downtown for Freedom Days, went swimming, Sadie chased around poor Nevilleplayed games, took the kids up to BYU and tried to convince them that this is where they should go to college. Who can name the sculpture we're standing in front of?
And of course we went to Stadium of Fire where we saw Glenn Back, Blue Man Group and Mylie Cyrus.

We had so much fun in Provo and as soon as we started pulling away, the kids started crying because they didn't want to leave Casey, Sarah and Neville. We were then on our way to far away Pleasant Grove -- in case you don't know UT geography they're 2 freeway exits apart, to see our college friends the Casabars.Me and my BFF, Holly ;D

We became really good friends when we all lived in Union Square after we got married and lucky for us, she was happy to have us all come crash with them for a few days despite being pregnant -- cutest pregnant person ever! They even threw a BBQ for everyone in town from our Union Square days. It was so fun to see everyone 6 years later. We moved to AZ right after Ellie was born and a few people had one baby but look at what happened in 6 years. If you can believe it, there are actually a few kids missing.

It was so fun to see everyone and tell stories. It was amazing how many stories I had forgotten. My cute neighbor Katie had to remind me of the time I slowly took things out of her apartment waiting to see how long it would take her to notice because we were always laughing about how unobservant she was. She never did and I had to bring her over to show her the stash of things I had taken. And Holly reminded me of the time she and Damon flooded our apartment -- while they were in the shower.Carrie, Lara, Pauline, Megan, Me, Holly, Joni and Katie

The boys.

The rest of the days at the Casabars were spent making smores, watching movies, trying to get the kids to fall asleep, playing farklein case you don't know how to play farkle, this roll is worth 3ooo points

breaking into houses, going to church, staying up late and just hanging out having a good time. The kids loved each other -- especially the girls. It made me laugh that they wanted the same hair style every day.
Also, please note how gorgeous her little boys smile and what a stinker mine is!

And now, if you can stand a few more pictures, I'll finish up our Utah half of the vacation. We finally had to pack our car and say good bye. Once again the kids cried and cried and cried until we made it to Tasha's house. She fed us some lunch on our way up to Idaho. Tasha ditched us a few months ago to move back to Utah and it hasn't been the same without her. Especially this summer! My kids miss hers so much and the 1st day of School won't be the same without the two of us driving the girls up together. How often do you luck out and have a friend with kids the exact same age and gender as yours?Macey and Sadie are 2 months apart. Sadie's older if you can believe it.Tanner and Nate are 6 months apartand Ashley and Ellie are a little over a month apart.

Exhausted yet? Sick of pictures? Too bad because there's more! But just a huge thanks to everyone in Utah who made our trip there so much fun. It was so much fun. I love and miss you all! It almost makes me want to move there just to hang out with you guys all the time. Note that I said almost.