fall soccer

Sam and Luke both played soccer this fall.  Sam's team went undefeated ... Ben claims it was because of excellent coaching.  He was the coach.  :)
 

Luke's team had a great season, too.  Won a few, lost a few, but had fun playing since lots of his friends were on the team.

lake powell

Once again, (I think this is the 5th year that we've done this) we spent a few fabulous September days at Lake Powell with dear friends.  And once again, we had an amazing time.  :) 

Beautiful weather, smooth water, cliff jumping, waterskiing, wakeboarding, fighter-tubing, ladies-tubing, ice cream at Hall's, red-neck-submarine rides, delicious food, and lots of laughs.

We sleep in these:

But spend our days on the lake:

 

New this year ... Emery cleared the wake while wakeboarding.

Here's a photo of all the kids (minus 3 ... Tates had to leave early).

One afternoon we explored the Moqui sand hill:

And we even stayed an extra day and made the trek to hole-in-the-rock and Rainbow Bridge:

 

Loved the trip. Can't wait for Powell 2012.

nine

Happy Birthday to my sweet Luke.  Nine years old today.

Sam on (or should I say off) the tube

As I was looking through my photos from our boating outings over the summer, I noticed an alarming trend.  A trend that should not be overlooked.  (Because as the self-proclaimed official family photographer, I feel it's my job to document important things like this.)

Let's go ahead and count the number of times Sam falls off the tube (and, for the record, these are just the times I actually captured on camera) ...

1)

 2)

3)

4) 

5) 

6)

7) 

Summer wrap-up

We love summer-time around here, so before the boys headed back to school we managed to squeeze in a little more summer fun.  Here's a re-cap: 

more boating

wakeboarding:

And meet our newest wakeboarder:

waterskiing:

Sam almost learned how to slalom!

tubing:

one of my favorite photos!

and a beautiful sunset:

backyard golf ... the boys loved this golf hole we put in the backyard.  They even designed an 18-hole course around this one hole.

Davis County Fair/demolition derby

braces ... Emery would probably disagree with this being included on the "fun" list.

and last but not least, the alpine coaster with the Thomas family

first day of school

Summer seemed to fly by this year, and none of us were ready for school to start. We still had a long list of things we wanted to do before the days of alarm clocks and homework came around.  Ready or not, here's what the first day of school looked like around here ... 
Emery - 9th grade:

Sam - 6th grade, and Luke - 3rd grade:

golf team

Viewmont golf team tryouts were held earlier this month.  Emery knew all summer long that he wanted to try out for the team.  I knew he could play well, and he had certainly put in tons of hours practicing (or should I say years of practicing), but I was still a little worried about try outs.  As a mother, I didn't want to see him fail, and there were a few things going against him ... after all, he's not really even in high school yet (but 9th graders are allowed to try out for the team), and he's not exactly tall or big for his age, so others can hit the ball quite a bit further than he can. 

He played great and not only did he make the team, he made the varsity team (the top 12).  Congratulations, Em!