Harrison is starting 2nd grade.
His teacher is Mrs Heugly. She seems great. Brenna actually had her as a student teacher last year, so she's had a brief taste of McArthur children and she's still coming back for more.
Brenna will be capping off her elementary experience as a 6th grader with Mrs Rasmussen.
I am glad these two "littles" have one more year together. The rest of their school years will be spent without a family member at their schools, so I hope they love being together-ride the bus and hold hands and hug each day, you know the things I imagine in my head that really don't happen.
Katelee is a freshman at the middle school and dying to be a freshman who attends the high school. She looks old enough, but she'll have to wait one more year for that. She's stuck with the junior high fellas for just a bit longer.
Grant and his luscious locks will be kicking off his junior year of high school. He has a lot of fun things ahead, so here's to hoping it is a wonderful year.
It always feels good to get back into a schedule, to get started on new goals and growth. I am going to continue substituting when I can. I love seeing the elementary kids and our people love visiting me at the school. The older children here; however, still refuse to allow me to be their teacher and I need prior approval from them before accepting positions at their schools. We will see if I agree to their conditions.
Not only did we start new with school, we are starting a big project in our back yard. We are redesigning our entire landscape.
Stay tuned for a fire pit, new patio, some hammock posts for lounging and trees. It's going to take some serious time to complete. Brenna could not understand why it was projected to be weeks of work. I overheard her complaining to Harrison about it. She thought it should be easy to build a fire pit- stack some stone and voila, masterpiece. Harrison told her she is thinking like the 2 lazy pigs from the Three Little Pigs story. Ha!! I am so glad he is helping her realize we need time and effort so when the big bad wolf comes, it doesn't blow away. Now, a wolf has not come yet, BUT...the floods did.
We have never had water come into our basement, but the very day after our yard was torn apart for the project, there was a massive storm. It rained for hours and hours and hours. Everyone around the neighborhood was running from house to house to help pump water from windows. I kept thinking how lucky we'd been in our house since we have lived here. Well, Katelee came home and went into her room...apparently, our luck had run out.
Her room was completely soaked. The drainage had been torn up with the backyard project.
So we got to start another new project in Katelee's room. Our landscaper actually came over and helped me pull the carpet while Dave was at work.
Then it was our friend, James to the rescue yet again. He pulled off our baseboards and cut into the sheet rock and came back to put new ones on when we had dried out. When we tried to pay him, he responded in his fabulous Scottish brogue that we not be daft. Guess we will have to pay back in a steak dinner. We are so grateful for him and kind people who jump to our aid- we do not have skills and talents in anything handy, so all is appreciated.
Right after school started it was our Harry baby's birthday- a big one...EIGHT years old!
Harrison chose to take a few friends to Boondocks and out to ice cream for a party.
Only a couple were able to make it (Krew and Paxton), but it was loads of fun shooting them in the laser tag arena
and slurp ice cream like wild animals.
Much to my dismay, Harrison has discovered the world of Pokemon so we have to speak Poke-language and open presents of stacks of cards that add to the hundreds he already has. But, he loved every minute of it. His baptism was just a couple of weeks later
and we were so happy to have lots of family there to support him.
Grandma and Grandpa McArthur and Dean and Sharon came from Arizona and then lots of family from around here. Blake and his family came from Idaho because after the baptism we kicked off our week at Snowbird.
Harrison is pure gold. He is still sports obsessed (thank heavens pokemon doesn't monopolize every moment of his day). He is doing fall soccer and is the absolute most fun to watch of any kid playing sports of all time. His enthusiasm and the way he gets pumped up on the field, court, diamond, is unrivaled.
He bore the sweetest testimony after his baptism, spurred on just by the inspiration of the spirit. He drew a random picture the other day of two penguins one said, "Jesus is real." the other replied "Oh." It made me smile that simple but sure belief was on his mind.
He explained to me how he wished a friend knew about Jesus and how he wanted to tell her Jesus is real and she lived with him before, she just can't remember. He is just a joy...and super funny...we are always having a good time with Harry.
He loves playing games and our favorite is still Skull King when he dressed us like a rascal buccaneer with his accent to speak over the music we play in the background. He has caught on really quickly and now hates to lose. When he was behind in points the other day, he was really mad. We told him messing up another player is part of the game (he had been doing it to everyone else) but when someone made him lose a round he was very upset and explained to us that the game should be about "friendshipping" Nice try, you sneaky pirate. We seriously love him soooo much and are happy he had a wonderful baptism and is a true example to all of us of light and love.
He has a natural inclination to lead and listen to the spirit so we are proud of this step on his covenant path.
We had a great week at Snowbird and look forward to our favorite (ok, MY favorite season) of fall. We used our Lagoon passes for Frightmares one weekend and had a good time. Pretty sure it was the only time Dave made it there all year. He still is not so much an amusement park guy and said the best ride is the Skyride that takes you across the park when you don't want to walk.
The kids were so excited for him to join us though. We arrived first -with Grandma!- and then we had to meet Dave later. When we were waiting, both Brenna and Harrison said they would go find Dave and talked about how they love him. They ran to him and held his hand and I could not get out of my head...our holding hands days are numbered. Well, maybe I can get Harrison to hold my hand still when he is 16, I sure would be delighted.
We loved having Grandma experience the Halloween spooktacluar Lagoon as well, she may be in her 70's but she ran circles around Dave's riding ablities. We only thought she was stuck in a seat once. Haha!
So now we are off to our start of school (yay High school dances are back on! 
Grant his cute ward friend Sadie to homecoming)
...football games
...Harrison cannot contain his excitement for his turn...our new house project...maybe new hobbies (our neighbors couldn't believe I had never been shooting and taught me how.
It was quite an adventure that I was not looking forward to, but actually enjoyed)...
...a gate opened with baptism...so much ahead on our horizons. It's exciting. We are not always ready for what's ahead (like when Katelee came home with her baby from Child Development-
she spent some of the weekend in tears when she couldn't get it to stop crying...maybe I laughed, yes, but I was struck that she couldn't have prepared herself for her feelings and reactions to the task at hand. We anticipate something and nearly always it is a little bit different. Whether what's ahead in our new year is expected or not, it has begun and we are off to a new fresh start.
