My mom got tickets with her school for us to go see Wicked with her. Neither Kurt or I had seen this play before and knew nothing about it other than it is related to The Wizard of Oz. I was worried with all the hype I have heard about it that I would be let down. It did not disappoint. The storyline was great in that it tied in the movie and gave some background history. The two main voices were excellent. The show went by really fast and was very entertaining. We loved it!

After a really fast 3 1/2 week summer it is ime to start a new school year. Jake is now in 3rd grade. He was really nervous starting at a new school. We met his teacher before school started and she seems really great. He said he had good day and knew 2 boys in his class that go to scouts with us. Of course the Backpack Fairy made a visit the night before and left some school supplies that Jake was asked to bring to school, Cookie Crisp cereal to have for breakfast, and fun foods for lunch. Here’s to another great year at school with lots of learning and growing.

We took a few days and went to Lake Powell with my family. We stayed in a trailer at BullFrog that actually turned out to be really nice. We had our own room and a place to cook food and eat. The first day on the lake we took a boat ride, did lots of swimming, and rode on the tubes. The second day we hiked to the sand dune, chased lizards, hiked to some Indian ruins, I slalomed, Kurt wakeboarded, Jake tried skiing with Jeff (after lots of coaxing), and Josh wakeboarded with Jeff. We had a great time and I had a hard time getting my little fishes out of the water. Lots of pictures on our flicker to the right.

This year our city did the musical of Annie. Kurt once again played in the orchestra with his violin. I took the boys to see it one night. Jake liked the play and watched the whole thing. Josh got through the first half but the second half was a struggle. I thought the girls in the play were really good. The summer musical is always a big time commitment for our family with Kurt being gone to so many practices and performances. We are so happy that our city provides such wonderful opportunities in the arts for families.

Kurt called me on a Friday coming home from work and said that the wind just blew a farm sprinkler on top and over the car. The car was still drivable but it was a mess. The sprinkler made dents, scrapes, rip pieces on metal off the body and ruined the windshield. We knew this car was on its way out but were hoping to get one more year out of it since we were trying to get money saved to do our backyard. The car is 15 years old and has more than 160,000 miles on it. It was my high school graduation present car, my college car, the only car that we had for 3 years when we were first married, the car we brought Jake home from the hospital in, and so many more memories. I am sad to see it go but we are excited for our new car.

After borrowing a truck for a week and still waiting on the insurances to get something pulled together we decided to start looking. We drove lots of different SUV’s and just loved the Honda Pilot. We liked it because it is not too big but is bigger than what we have. I am getting used to all the technology that is put into the cars now and the boys love having their own air vents and plugs for vacations. It is nice to have a third seat so we can take other people and we have already started carpooling to school.

We are looking at this as a blessing and something that was meant to be. Like I said the car was on its way out, we will get some money to go towards the new car, and Kurt was not hurt and it could have been worse if the wheel went through the window and hit him.