Our 4 year-old

Smartie Pants!

 

London received her star yesterday at preschool. She is the very first one in her class to know all of the letters and their sounds! Miss Angie, her teacher, said that she will start teaching her how to blend her letters to sound out words. Go London! Miss Angie says she will be reading my the end of the school year. I love my little smartie pants. 

 

Pepper and I took our very first girl's trip! I can't even begin to explain how much fun and very needed this was! We talked the whole way down and didn't even realize until on our way home that we didn't turn on the radio once. Funny huh? Who needs music when you have good conversation? We got pedicures, did tons of shopping, ate out at delicious restaurants, went to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, sat in a hot tub, watched chick flicks, told juicy secrets, went to Women's Conference, and stayed up way too late. I am so grateful to have such an amazing friend as Pep. And I'm grateful to have a wonderful hubby that let me get away to have this bonding time with her.

 

I also have terrible news. My dear Uncle passed away yesterday. I am just heartbroken for my Aunt and two cousins. I wish I could have seen him at least one more time. It has been years since my last time seeing him, and I feel awful that I will not see him again in this life. 

Starting Autumn

I got a new job! Yay!!! Oh and by the way, it is exactly the kind of job I want. It is at Country Life Care Center which is a long term care facility for those who need critical care. So I will get awesome experience and have the chance to get to know the patients and their families. Other big pluses: it is 10 minutes from home, they take patients from the ages of newborn to elder, and they want prn for now and will work me up to part-time. Perfect! I can't wait to get started.

Sweet London has started preschool at Miss Angie's. She loves it, of course. She is such a social butterfly and loves to learn, so I couldn't not put her in preschool this year. She is such a silly girl. I couldn't get her to pose with just a normal smile =)

 A couple days ago we made our year's worth of freezer corn. It is something we thoroughly enjoy all year. We made 9 dozen plus the Debenham's 3 dozen. So 144 cobs all together. It took 3 hours with 3 of us going at it. Completely worth the time! I am so grateful the Schmidt's got us onto doing this.

I have to add this cute picture of Matt and Carli. We got together with the Harper side on Labor day up at Papa's. Good times!

Florida

Matt had to work in Florida these last two weeks and I had the opportunity to join him over the weekend. This was our first trip without Londie Girl. It was a lot of fun! We went to Disney World (Animal Kingdom) one day and Universal Studios the other. Our favorite part was Harry Potter Land. Oh my gosh, they have the most scrumptious treat there... Butter Beer. Get it frozen with cream on top, and you'll be in Heaven. We were soaked with rain the first day and with that humidity, you can't dry out. So we were soggy people when we finally went back to the hotel at the end of the day.

Amazing, right?

Minions

Matt is hot

Even though it was a blast, it was wonderful to get back to London. She enjoyed sleeping over at Abby's and Grandma's. She is such an amazing girl. She loved her presents: "Pangled" doll and a minion shirt. I am so blessed to be her mom and get to spend every day with her. 

Yellowstone 2013

We love Yellowstone! We love our tent trailer! Which, by the way, made Yellowstone even more loveable. We were there for 7 days and could have stayed longer. Jared and his family were the only other Harpers that made it this year. Sadly, they were on the completely opposite side of the campground. However, I felt we still bonded and grew closer together as family. Alan and Jamie's clan came up with some friends, the Luke's. I love being surrounded by awesome people! We didn't see much wildlife, just some elk and a tiny amount of bison. This will probably be the year marked in history that there weren't any bison in Hayden Valley! Like zero!

On our last day. Up at Cannon.

London and Old Faithful



London begged Matt to buy her this hat. Just a few minutes later a woman from Asia asked if she could have her picture taken with London. There were other times that we caught people just taking pictures of her. I think that they were just tickled pink with a little girl with red hair =) Well, come on, who isn't?!

London's first time snorkeling!

Happy Birthday Family!

Matt and I copied an idea from someone in our ward. Instead of having an anniversary, we have a family birthday. It is the day our entire family was sealed to each other... was it not? So it only makes since to celebrate it all together and have a big day all about our family. This year we went to Bear Lake to celebrate. We saw a rodeo, went to a fair, swam at the pool, and of course... had raspberry shakes!

 

London didn't want to chase the chicken at the rodeo with all of the other kids, but she wanted to do the mutton race where the kids hold onto the sheep for dear life as their running like crazy. She can be so quirky sometimes....

Happy Birthday family! 7 awesome years!