Reunited (And it feels so good...)

We were SO excited to get Justin back home after a long summer apart and we had fun coloring this banner for his arrival. We weren't sure how Ian would react since it had been a while, but the second he saw Justin in the airport he screamed, "Dad!" and ran straight to him. Josie warmed back up to him in less than a day and Rachel and Bridget were just delighted have everyone back together.

Cory and Kristen came home from Alaska for Brady's wedding and it was fun and busy to have everyone together. Cory put together this really fun racetrack and mesmerized the big kids for the afternoon.

We headed up to Logan to clean out Justin's office and spend the afternoon at Books and Buddies with the Kjars. Rachel and Ian were so excited to see their fun friends and they even got to eat some treats in a tree - talk about a delightful afternoon!

Rachel and Ian ran their first race in the Davis County Fun Run.

What, me? Running a race?

Rachel was a little nervous...

and Ian was a little tired...

but once it started they both did great! Here were the fun "medals" they gave out.

We were able to meet up with the Kjars again at the Ogden Dinosaur Museum and had another fun outing with friends. Even though Rachel was a little shocked by the size of the dinosaur replicas and told us that she didn't want to be a paleontologist anymore, she got over her fears and ended up having a blast. Here they are digging for bones.

Playing on the dinosaur jungle gym with Gordon.

Ahhh - one of the "world's most dangerous creatures" escaped!

Dinoburgers, anyone?

Josie has officially become a menace. She is in the pulling-everything-down-phase (that's the technical developmental term, right?) and is giving us a run for our money. Here she is taking out all the sandwich bags.

The pantry is officially off limits to our big girl now.

One afternoon Ian decided to bury Josie in teddy bears. She broke free rather quickly.

Our big news is that we have an officially big girl! Rachel is now a kindergartner and could not be more delighted. She is going to Reading Elementary in Centerville until we figure out where we will be and her teacher is Mrs. Newland and she had some neighbor friends in her class so she wasn't scared at all about the first day. Justin and Bridget went with her for the first day (it was kind of a back to school event for the kindergarten classes) and after it was done she was asking, "so when do I get to go by myself?" She did great on her assessment and has been having a fantastic time for the past few weeks. Ian has been reveling in his newly found freedom and so this transition has been a really good thing all around. We can't believe that she is already this grown-up and we look forward to a great year of kindergarten.