The First Week of School

Jared, Mark, and Rachel started school this week. Jared is in 7th grade,Mark in 4th, and Rachel in 1st. They each had a good week. Jared had the most homework, but only 3 days worth of it. The kids like their teachers and are excited for this week. I just hope they are as excited 4 months from now. Hunter and I did ok. Hunter was bored and asking at 9am everyday when the bus was coming home, but we kept busy with playgroup, wal-mart, and just getting out of the house. Hunter doesn't start pre-school until October. For me, other than the 7am chorus of "But I'm still tired Mom" and the 5pm crying vs cranky contest I made it. I start work tomorrow subtituting as an aide in Special ed for 2 weeks. The business begins!

Summer ends!

The summer has finally come to an end. Tomorrow is the first day of school. We have had a wonderful summer. We went camping, and to Sea World. We saw family we havn't seen for awhile. We celebrated birthdays and enjoyed our time off. Andy recieved scans and found that his virus is back but the lord has blessed us again to not have cancer. I have posted 4 posts today to catch us up over the summer. I hope to post more often once we are on a schedule again! Thanks for all who check in!!!

Rachel turns 6!!!!

Our little girl turned 6 this month, August 12th. She is just growing so fast. We love her dearly and she is so much fun.
She had a Princess Peach cake this year decorated by her Daddy of course. Rachel helped with the dying of the icing and where to put the sprinkles. She loves to help in the kitchen.

Rachel got a Pokemon card from her brother Mark of Piplup, her favorite. She also got a Belle barbie, a High School Musical purse that lights up, and a Princess DVD game. She also had some friends come over earlier in the day to play. She said it was the best day ever!

A Wonderful 4th of July

For the 4th of July we decided to go on vacation. We had heard about KOA and that they have air conditioned cabins, since you don't want to camp in a tent in Texas after April. We chose a camp ground East of Dallas and were on our way. We had some fun adventures on the way, like the van overheating, waiting for a tow truck in the Texas heat, and getting a rental car, but we reached our destination and settled in for 3 days. The main draw to this camp ground was the pool. From the picture you can see how awesome it was. We spent anywhere from 2-4 hours in it everyday and the kids loved every minute of it. Hunter learned to swim with a floaty and Rachel learned to swim underwater. The older boys and Mom and Dad would play basketball in the pool or dive for dive sticks. It was great to see us all have so much fun


Our cabin was on a man made lake which was full of fish and Turtles. The kids loved watching them swim and eat all of the bugs. The sun sets from the porch were awesome as most Texas sunsets are. We even saw a woodpecker in the tree next to our cabin. On the 4th of July they had a firework show over the lake so we just sat around roasting hotdogs, making smores, and watching foreworks. It was great! Here are some pictures.
Our cabin

The view from our porch

A turtle from the lake

Woodpecker- look really close in the center, he is there!

Rachel decided that we should move into that cabin and the kids still talk about the trip. We were able to relax and enjoy each other as a family which we haven't done for a few years. We enjoyed ourselves so much I think we will make it a yearly occurrence!

Jared Becomes a Deacon

June 28, 2009 our oldest son Jared was ordained a Deacon into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was a very wonderful pay day for us. Jared had his Grandma and Grandpa Hardy, Grandma Van Otten and Oma and Papa Bascom there along with close family friends. Jared has since started passing the sacrament, which he is very proud to do. He is loving the Young Men's program and fells very blessed to have the Aaronic Priethood. He is looking forward to his first trip to the Temple to do Baptisms. We are very proud of jared and his decision to receive the Priesthood. Below are the men who helped in the ordination and Jared"s best friend.
From left to right- Papa Bascom, Mike McHann, Mark Rich, Bishop Ashby, Greg Pocock, Jared Hardy, Jared Pocock, Grandpa hardy, Andy Hardy, Chris Zarsky.

Jared and his best friend Jacob McHann. They will be Deacons together next summer.