Where did summer go?

My kids started school today! This summer has flown by! It's been a crazy summer and we kept ourselves busy.
Here is a quick rundown of some of the fun we had!

In July Jake went to scout camp with the young men so I took the girls to Idaho for a week with my parents. This year while we were there we took a trip to Craters of the Moon. If you don't know what that is, it is a place in Idaho where there used to be volcanoes, many, many, many years ago. Now you can go and see inside the volcano cone and see the lava tubes and go inside some caves. It's kinda interesting and I hadn't been for a lot of years so we thought it might be fun.

Here's a picture of the girls down in one of the caves- This one, I think, was the Beauty Cave. We also went in the Boy Scout Cave, but we didn't make it very far. It was really wet inside. After I stepped in water over my shoe we decided not to go any farther.


This is the girls sitting on some of the Lava rocks outside of the visitors center.
Next we had a couple of birthdays! Juliana turned 5 and...


got to have a birthday party. She has wanted to have a water party since a neighbor had one a year ago, so we bought a little pool and played with wet sponges and water balloons. One of the things we love the most about where we live is all the kids in the neighborhood. It was fun having all the kids there.


Juliana's party was the same day as Christena's 11th birthday. She wasn't happy about it but I think she had fun too.
Jake had to work on Christena's birthday so a couple days later, she finally got to have her cake.

This year she wanted to have a Twilight cake. She's read the first 3 books but her mean mom and dad won't let her read the 4th book yet and she can't watch the movies until she is 13. She decided to buy the first 3 books with her birthday money and is now on her second time through them.
One of the biggest things that has kept us busy is finishing our basement! We finally have everything framed and we are getting ready to get the electrical done. Once that is finished we can get our first of the 3 inspections done.

Thanks to everyone who has helped! We couldn't have done it without you!
And now the first day of school. I can't believe how fast my kids have grown up. Christena is now in 6th grade, her last year of elementary school. Savannah is starting 4th grade, Olyvia 2nd and Juliana will start kindergarten in 1 week. It has gone so fast. Today it was so quiet with only Juliana at home. I can only imagine how quiet it will be next week with all my kids gone.
I don't know if I will like the uninterrupted time to work, or if I will have to watch disney channel all day so I don't miss my kids. I guess I'll know in a week!