Sofia and Alex start school...

So the summer's gone... now that all three kids are back in school, I have to figure out what to do with all my "free" time. I suppose getting caught up on the last month of our lives will be a good project for today.

Sofia and Alex are starting at a new charter school this year. Thus the "oh so original" clothes for the first day. Luckily for them, the dress code is fairly lax, and they will definitely be comfy at school. I don't think Sofia would have agreed to go if she had to wear a skirt like some schools require for girls.

Sofia's a STAR...

In July, Sofia auditioned for the Herriman Arts Council Summer Production, "School House Rock, Live". She made it into the yellow cast, and spent the next 5 weeks rehearsing:

"Conjunction Junction, what's your function?"

"A noun's a special kind of word, it's any name you ever heard..."

"I'm just a bill, yes, I'm only a bill, and I'm sitting here on capitol hill..."

There were 3 casts who rehearsed separately and then put it all together at the end. There werw about 120 kids involved. Sofia made some new friends and really had a good time. Last week they were live on the Early News one morning, then they had three performances. Each night she was excited that some of her extended family could be at the play.

Here are three short clips from the play. Unfortunately, my memory card was full, so I didn't get all of her songs.

Nikki's First Day of 8th Grade!

Today (August 25th) was Nikki's first day of school. She was very excited until she looked at her schedule and noticed that she didn't have classes with any of her friends. She left at 6:55am and had a pretty good day. She likes all of her teachers, and is very excited about her theater and spanish classes.

Saturday PM Jeeping

We had a great time in the morning, and around 4pm headed back out to do Hell's Revenge. Jose wasn't too concerned because we did this trail last year. Don't get me wrong. There were some parts we were not too excited for, but it wasn't going to be anything new. Or so we thought...

We started out just fine with Jose getting his foot stuck on both the gas and the brake at the same time. We were on a section of the trail where we could only go forward. Jose yelled for Adam to get out of the way, but... Adam didn't hear. Luckily, Brandon has a great mind for fixing things and figured out how to use the tire jack and a hammer to pound the bumper back into its proper form.

When we made it out to this fantastic overlook of the Colorado River, I knew that we were not where we had been before... Conrad "forgot" to tell us that last year we took a short-cut on Hell's Revenge and he had some "fun" in store for us this year. Jose just about died as we had to hug around a sloped curve with an endless drop-off on his side.

The last bit of "fun" was following thos black tracks down to meet up with Conrad and Adam. It sure presents a lesson in trust when your little brother says, "just a little to the right, ok now you just drive straight over the cliff and keep your wheels headed for the black tracks in front of you." You can bet that Sofia and Rachel (not without complaints on their part) were sitting down, with their seatbelts on for this part of the trip.

Saturday Morning Jeeping

Saturday morning, we rented four jeeps from Brad's Cliffhanger and went out for a fun day of four-wheeling!

I think that the most anticipated part of jeeping is being able to stand up as we drive along. Sofia especially was so excited to stand. She even got Grandma to stand up with her!

Conrad planned for us to go on a trail called "Fins and Things". It didn't take long for us to decide that the "things" were bumps. Kristi was certain that Kate was going to end up with Shaken Baby Syndrome, and I thought that I was going to have a bruised brain as well!

Alex doesn't mind missing football...

Alex's coach is adamant that they need to do 40 push-ups and 40 sit-ups daily. Alex thought this slab of rock at Windows would work nicely.

Coach Sham also requires the boys to stay hydrated. Alex (and all of the rest of us) filled up his water bottle at the spring just up the river road to ensure not only that his coach would stay happy, but that he would return again to Moab.

Somehow I think the chances of his return to Moab are greater than his return to Rome, even though he also threw a penny in Trevi Fountain to ensure that return.

Knight Family in Moab

Two summers ago, Kurt and Jenn taught the kids how to carefully dig down and extract a slab of sand at Sand Dune Arch, then to carve interesting shapes (mostly arches) out of the slab. We spend hours at Sand Dune Arch trying to create our own... This summer, Adam came up with the best plan of action. Instead of trying to get a slab of sand and carefully carve out an arch, he just pulled a slab of sandstone off a nearby rock and carved away. This masterpiece was dubbed, "flat side arch" for the flat back side.

Kate of course is adorable!!!

Where are the Curls???

Nikki and Sofia disappeared for a couple of hours this afternoon, and when they returned...

Sofia's curls were gone!! "Hi mommy!" she exclaimed trying to make sure everyone noticed her straight hair.

She spent most of the time screaming "don't burn me" but she was VERY excited about the final product!

"I love it!!" she said when asked to explain "I like how now I can brush it without getting hurt! My favorite thing is seeing how it goes all the way down to my pants."

Now she wants her hair straightened every day.

Sofia's Baptism

We've had a great week visiting with family and celebrating the Fourth of July, but the highlight of the week - and you know it must be important because I am actually posting...

Sofia's Baptism!!!

I am so happy for her. She is a super sweet little girl! We were all a little tired after our late night of Fireworks, but it was definitely worth getting up early to be at this special event.

Here's the group shot! It was great to have most all of Sofia's cousins, aunts, and uncles with us today!

Laura's Wedding

The first few weeks of January were very hectic as we got ready for Laura's wedding on January 18th. Everything turned out very nice, and we had a wonderful time visiting with all the family. Thanks to Eric (Amberly's baby who was due on Christmas Day), Laura and Adam decided not to plan a Christmas wedding. It was so nice to visit with everyone, enjoy the wedding, and not have to worry about Christmas and New Years celebrations on top of it all.

My two handsome men Laura's Wedding!

Sofia and Rachel were very excited to have caught flowers from Laura's bouquet, UNTIL someone told them that whoever catches the bouquet is the next to get married. They quickly disposed of their flowers.

Nikki didn't even try to catch the bouquet!

It's a good thing too because we're in NO hurry to marry her off!

After the wedding, Amberly asked me what I was going to do to occupy my time since my part-time wedding planning job was finished. I said, "I don't know, but I'm sure I will find something. I always do." It wasn't two days later when Amberly, a couple of our cousins, and I were talking about Amberly's upcoming trip to Paris and wouldn't you know... I found my new project!

I'm organizing a two week trip to Rome, Paris, and London with Jose and the kids in March!!! We are SO excited. It has been a whirlwind of planning, but I finally have our tickets (trans-atlantic flights, night train from Rome to Paris, and Chunnel from Paris to London) and I've decided on 3 of the 4 hotels we'll need (still debating on Paris). We also applied for the kids' passports - and believe it or not, they came in ONE week. Now I have 4 weeks to finnesse our sight-seeing itinerary and learn French and Italian - hahaha!!!

If you have any suggestions on must-sees let me know.

2007 Holiday Season

If you ask Sofia, she'll tell you "Hooray! Christmas is here!!!" She has been counting down the days since Thanksgiving. For Jose and I it is more of a sad feeling - if Christmas is here, then the Holiday season is coming to a close. We have all greatly enjoyed all the time we've spent in our family doing fun holiday actvities.



I'm still trying to get the hang of this blogging thing - so the month of December is in reverse on our blog (which is how it would have been had I been posting regularly!!!) Hopefully as we go into the new year, I will be able to keep it current!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning began with Jose waking me, "Jolynne, it's 6:30!" Agggggg!!! I had prepped the kids the night before - Sofia and Alex were not allowed to get out of bed until it was light outside (8ish) and Nikki was prepared for a 6am wake-up call (because she prefers to sleep until 10am). Unfortunately, I forgot to tell Jose of my plan to sleep in!

So we woke up my mom and dad, and my brothers (Conrad and Brandon) and then proceded to get the kids up to open gifts. Everyone was happy with all of their gifts and we had a great time together. Although we did miss the rest of the Knight Clan - Laura and Adam spent Christmas in Denver; Kristi, Steven and kids stayed in Page; Amberly, Ivan and boys were in Detroit with the new baby; Kurt, Jenn and kids with Jenn's family somewhere warm; and poor Karl... he spent Christmas working up - camping out in the mountains where it was about -12 degrees!

Merry Christmas to all!