Caleb's Football Pics and Senior Pics

 I just wanted to share some of the favorites from Caleb's senior football pics and his regular senior pics! They were all taken by Breanne Serrano (in case I forget) and they turned out great! 

Back to School and Homecoming Week!

It's been about a month and I have so many fun pictures I've taken in the past month, but I can't post them all! I'll try to limit myself to just the best ones!

First Day of School

School started on Monday, August 25. It was Caleb's last first day of school! :( First day of his senior year! He actually left for weight training before any of the rest of us, so I had to take his "first day" picture later in the day. Me and Avery left the house together and headed to the junior high around 7:50am. 

The first day was pretty good! I have a sweet deal this year because I'm still teaching only part-time, but they raised my pay to a .75, so I'm making about $800 more per month. The ironic thing is, I looked back at my old pay stubs and I'm actually making $50 more per month than I was making my first year of teaching in 2020 when I was full-time and putting in like, 12 hours a day! So it's pretty nice to be working until 1:00 every day and making about the same! Basically, I get there are 8am and teach until 12:30 and then I usually have Avery and her friends that eat lunch in my classroom and I leave between 1:00-1:30.

Lately, it's been Avery and Briella and sometimes also Tayvree and/or Phoebe. I'm glad Avery seems to be wanting to branch out a little this year and expand her friend group. She's in my English class for 1st hour, which is fun. Hopefully she doesn't get too embarrassed by having her mom as her teacher. 

Caleb is taking a pretty easy course load this trimester. He starts his day with his zero hour weight training "class" for football. Then he comes home and has a little break during what would be first hour. He wanted this so he could have time to take a shower and eat breakfast after running out the door for weight training early on. Then he just h as to be back to school for second hour when he has a video game design class that apparently is also a math credit! Then he has a regular gym class third hour, then he comes home for lunch, and then he has another break during fourth hour, during which he is supposed to be technically doing his online English class. Then at about 2:30 he has his fifth hour which is just football practice. So really, he just has three class periods of physical activity and one class of video game design. Not a tough trimester!

Gabe was so sweet to humor me and take a "first day" picture in front of his piso door! He made a sign that said "13 months as a missionary"! haha He was in Alcazar when this picture was taken, but he just switched areas and went back to Aranjuez, which is crazy, but more on that later!

Here are our first day pictures!

Homecoming Week Festivities

I always love the fun and excitement of homecoming week, but I think I was especially trying to live it up this year knowing that it's Caleb's senior season of football. Each day, we dressed up as different crazy things at the junior high. Then on Friday, we got out early at 11:10 and the parade was at noon. I actually got out at about 10am, which was really nice. I went to Jimmy Johns, got a sandwhich, came back to the parade and parked in a good spot, then watched it with my friend Ashley Pendleton and some of her friends. I waved to Caleb as he went by on the football float, and all my past students as they rode by on lots of different floats. Avery had walked with Briella to get food at Swig and then she came back over. Here are some pictures of the week and the parade!

Then after the parade, I went home and got some fruit salads ready for the team dinner. Me, Shelly Wilkes, and Katie Phillips were in charge of helping Ashley Wheeler with the dinner before the game for all the Varsity players. We got there at about 3:30 and did hot dogs and salads. Then I laid out some blankets to save some good seats and went home for about an hour.

That night, my friend from Wisconsin, Laura Smith, ended up being in town because she was dropping her college aged daughter off at BYUI. Time sure flies because it feels like yesterday Laura was coming out to BYUI as a freshmen and I was a newlywed! So she and her daughter ended up coming to the football game with us and then she stayed overnight in Gabe's room so she didn't have to start driving home late at night. 

The game was... so heartbreaking. We ended up losing by ONE point. It was very sad, But it was still a good game and a fun night. The stands were packed. I just wish we could have won, but lessons were learned. Caleb was pretty bummed, but it was okay by the next day.

On Saturday, Caleb had the Homecoming Day date and dance. He went with a cheerleader friend named Audrey Sutton. They went golfing for their day date, which Caleb always loves. Then he and Sidi came to our house to get ready. I ended up going over to Katie Phillip's house to help with the dinner at about 5:30. The boys weren't super organized, so it ended up being the moms making them dinner and it all worked out. They had chicken alfredo, salad, breadsticks, and I brought Costco desserts!

Last Month of Summer!

It made me so sad writing that title just now! I feel like this summer started off slow at first, and the first week of June, I was like, "How am I going to get through this summer? I'm going to be so bored and it's going to go so slow without Gabe here and Caleb working and Avery sleeping until noon!" But then by the end of summer, I'm always like, "Ugh, I have to start waking up early again and having a schedule and adult responsibilities?!" lol But then once I get past the first week, it's all good again. I feel like I just have a hard time pivoting. 

Anyways, here are some things we have been up to just in the past 2-3 weeks! I figured this would be my last "summer" update, and then the next one will probably have the back-to-school photos and all that! There's going to be so many fun things coming up in the next month or two! School starting, Caleb's senior pictures, football games, homecoming, my mom coming to visit! Fall is always a fun and busy time of year! But before I get ahead of myself... here is what we've been up to in the past couple weeks!

Floating Warm Slough

This is always one of our favorite ways to get some water fun in our lives during the hot summer days! We've floated with the Summers family once (I think that was around my birthday), and we've floated with Claire's family a couple times, and then just me and Josh have floated once, so I think we have been about 3-5 times this summer. Caleb didn't come on this one because he was at football practice. Here are some pics of that one with Claire's family!

Koda Getting Bigger!

Our cute little puppy isn't so little anymore! He will be as big as Zeus (or bigger!) in no time! I haven't even weighed him lately, but I'm guessing he's like 30 pounds! (He was 10 pounds when we got him at 8 weeks old, on June 13!) So he's tripled in size! He loves to run all over the yard with Zeus first thing in the morning, and he's ALWAYS hungry. He tries to be sneaky and go into the pantry and eat Zeus's food if there's ever any Zeus hasn't finished. He's cute and I'm glad we have him because I know he will eventually be a big, beautiful, calm dog, but right now he sure is a handful!

Golf Tournaments

Josh and Caleb got to participate in the DARE golf tournament a week ago! It was so funny because Josh had to play at the last minute because the ICCU lady's son got hurt, so then all of a sudden, she calls Josh and says, "We need to you to play. I have your costume. It's a Happy Gilmore theme!" Josh was just soooo thrilled to dress up like the crazy guy with the nail in his head and the Tshirt that said, "Guns don't kill people, I kill people." (I thought it was HILARIOUS. Even more so because Josh hates that kind of stuff that draws attention to himself in any way! lol) Caleb, on the other hand, already had the Gimore hockey shirt in his closet! So that worked out! Haha The ICCU lady that was in charge of sponsoring their team and getting it all ready even decorated a golf cart! It was so funny! It had the alligator on top and everything!

Caleb's Boy Trip to Boise

Caleb gets only one week off from football the whole summer, and that's "dead week" which is the first week of August. He filled those days up with lots of fun! On Monday-Wednesday, his friend, Collin, had planned a trip to Boise to go to a waterpark (ok, his mom planned it lol) and they drove to Boise and stayed in an Airbnb and did lots of Top Golf. It was Caleb, Colter Summers, Collin Plaisted, and Porter Williams. They had a lot of fun and they got back Wednesday afternoon.

Young Men's Campout

After Caleb got home from Boise, Josh and Caleb left on Thursday morning for the young men's overnight campout. It was really low-key and Mitch (our neighbor) was called to be in charge of planning a camp, so it was a little thrown together! haha They just went to Ashton and camped at Jason Moore's parent's land on the river. They rented rafts from the BYUI place and went fishing and camped in tents and then came back on Friday by 1:00pm. It was fun, but I honestly am a little sad for the boys that they don't go to the week-long Boy Scout camp anymore in Island Park. Gabe always had fun at those with Porter. Even Avery did a 3-day camp in Ashton (in cabins, but still). I think they just need to plan ahead better for next year, but I won't have a boy in young men's anymore after this, so oh well I guess! They had fun, but I think Josh was glad it was only one night. He's a primary teacher, so it wasn't even his calling to go, but he just went because Mitch asked him to and Caleb was there!

The Rexburg Quest

I'll be honest, I kind of don't even want to write about this because it's going to put me in a bad mood again! lol But honestly. This was a thing that we did as a family, like a big city-wide scavenger hunt/race and we SHOULD HAVE WON!!! We were robbed. Not only were we ahead of every other group by like, 30 minutes the majority of the time, but then at the very end, our group was the only one where EVERY person in the group completed the ropes course. I can't even talk about it. It makes me so mad. But anyways, this local realtor lady named Sydney, who is also our Summerfield neighbor, put this whole things together and it took about 4 hours on a Saturday and it was really fun... until we didn't win the $5800. But, here are some pictures of us at the ropes course, which we rocked at! Even Avery did amazing at it. She was so brave! But we didn't get the cash and now I have to think of another way to get $5000 for a trip to Spain next summer!

More Golfing

I had a few more pictures of golfing that I wanted to share! Caleb's life this summer has really fallen into 3 categories this summer - 1) Football 2) Golf and 3) everything else. It seems like he is either at the high school for football or at the golf course for work or fun. But I even went and bought a golf punch pass for Teton Lakes so I could see Caleb! We have gone a few times as a family, and then the other night Josh and I just went with Denise and Nate Routson. (Their son, Buddy, just left for his mission in Las Vegas, but he and Gabe were friends and on the same soccer team.) Here are a few pictures of us golfing!

Freakier Friday

Back in like, oh... I'm guessing.... 2003 I think? There was a movie that came out called "Freaky Friday." It was a good Disney movie about a mom and daughter that switch places, and I remember seeing it and liking it when I was like, 18 or 19. Anyways, they made a sequel! Avery had seen the original one too and liked it, so we decided to make it a mother-daughter date night and go see the new one on the Friday that it came out in theaters! So me, Avery, Claire, Annie, and Bob went to see it together. It was really good! But my favorite part was taking these pictures as we were getting ready to go into the theater! lol I have to say... Avery has come a long way since last year at this time. She just seems like she's settling into her new teenage body and is more talkative and fun to be around. I think her hormones are starting to level out! Phew. Last summer she was just soooo moody. Especially as she started junior high and things were just overwhelming. I was beginning to worry, "Are we ever going to be friends?!" But now I can say, I have hope for the future! When we went to Utah together, she was talking my ear off the whole drive there and back, and we had a lot of fun! She still disagrees with me a lot on clothes, but she's starting to actually wear shirts that fit her and aren't a XXL! I have to post some family pictures too! But here is out funny reenactment of the movie poster! (And Claire and Annie's too! ;)

Gabe Still in Alcazar

Gabe is still just plugging away in Alcazar! He's been there a total of about 8 weeks now. He had a cool experience the other day when he happened to be at the temple. He is in a zone that's close to the temple, so he gets to go occasionally, and he said when he and his companion were coming out, the elevator doors opened and there stood his friend Bautista (who is 18) and his older brother, Bruno! Bautista is from Gabe's first area of Aranjuez. His family became like Gabe's second family when he was just a brand new greenie. They had him and Elder Bright over for dinner almost every Sunday and they always were talking about their oldest son (Bruno) who was serving a mission. So it was just awesome that Gabe got to meet Bruno for the first time and see Bautista again! Here is a picture!

Also, he had kind of a sad say recently because the one guy that they had been really working with (named Victor) and was set with a baptism date messaged him out of nowhere a few days before his baptism and was like, "I'm not ready to be baptized. I'm sorry." And then totally ghosted them. So Gabe was super bummed. But then like, 4 people suddenly popped up out of nowhere for Gabe and his companion (Adams) to start teaching! It was a miracle! So now they've been teaching Gina, Gabby, Anabel, and Nicolas! I will put a picture here of Gaby. (She's got a pretty sad life right now... I hope they can get her out of her current situation... She basically lives in a garage... see pic)

And then here's just a funny picture of Caleb flexing to show Gabe how great he looks. lol Gabe is unimpressed. 

Family Pictures

Claire took our family pictures out at Cress Creek on Sunday. It was the LEAST I have ever prepared for family pictures and they still turned out cute! I just was like, "Gabe isn't going to be in these, so I will never hang them on my wall or do anything with them,"  but I did want one to use for a Christmas card. So we took the 8x10 framed picture of Gabe along and took some with me holding that! haha (Maybe it looked kind of weird, but oh well.) Avery looks sooooo grown up and beuatiful in these pictures. I can't believe how much she has changed since last year at this time. It's like she's finally becoming a little more confident and comfortable in her own skin! She's going to just get more and more beautiful and Josh is going to have to settle down when all the boys start flocking to her! It's hard to decide which ones to post, so I'm just going to share a bunch!