Miles goes to Preschool!

Since all the other kids got a first day of school post, Miles gets one too. He is a little young to start school (he just turned 3 this summer) but because of my work schedule, I thought his time would be better spent in an academic environment than at a babysitter's house all week. He was totally excited to start and go to school like his big brothers.

 These are his gang signs, so don't mess with Miles :)

So far, so good. He attends three days a week. Mike is responsible for dropping him off each morning. He also uses his lunch break to pick Miles up and bring him home since I don't get done teaching in time. Then I meet them at the house so Mike can go back to work. You can't imagine how grateful I am that Mike is willing and able to do this. Miles loves it too. As he likes to say, "Daddy is my buddy!"

First Day of School

This was the first summer in a long time where I felt like we were able to really get in everything I wanted to do. This was probably because I didn't have to worry about YW camp or Youth Conference this year. So by the time the first day of school rolled around, I was actually ready and looking forward to it.

Mason - 1st Grade

 Mitchel- 6th Grade

 Max - 3rd Grade

 They were all excited to start too.

 Mrs. Beecher is a first year teacher. Mason told me that he thinks she is beautiful and really nice.

 Mitchel has Mrs. Parish. The sixth grade has an army theme, so all the teachers were camo on the first day. (I did too which you will see in a minute)

 Max has Mrs. Hagen. He is attending Fox Hills this year in their gifted magnet program. I will miss seeing him at school with us, but I think he will be very successful over there and put his genius mind to the test.

 And here I am on my first day of teaching. The first week I spent just helping out and testing students. I got my own 5th and 6th grade reading classes the second week.

It's going to be a great year and I'm looking forward to teaching and watching my kids learn great things!

My Classroom - Before and After

This is what my classroom looked like at the beginning of August when I first went in.

BEFORE

 AFTER

This is what it looked like at the end of August after my Mom and I put up bulletin boards and got everything looking nice and cute.

 The place with the mountains is my reading center. Every time a student reads a book, they get a die-cut tree to put up with their name and the name of the book they read.

 If you were a student in my class, this is the view you would be seeing most of the time.

 My desk.

 My birthday bulletin board. On your birthday you get to use one of the M&M dispensers to get a handful of M&M's.

 I'm ready to go. I can't wait to meet my 5th and 6th graders. I feel like I have done everything I can to prepare for them. I feel so blessed that I got this job. I'm looking forward to an awesome year!

August Adventures

More fun than ever was had by the Harkers in August. When summer starts to wind down, I try to kick it into high gear and get in as much togetherness and fun as I can.

We spent a day swimming at Murray Pool with some of my friends and their kids. Look at my little fish!

I worked with Julie and Kristen in YW and miss seeing them and talking to them, so this was a fun day to be together and catch up.

We visited the Herriman Beach again with some moms from my ward. Really great to get to know them better and soak up the sun.

The other moms had to leave, but the boys and I stayed for a while longer to be silly and just hang out together.

Back in January, we had promised Mitchel if he did all the right things in school until the end of the year, we would take him to Lagoon. I had won two free tickets off the radio and our neighbor gave us some discount passes, so we finally went. It was a blast to see my kids so excited about the rides. I must be getting older, because my head couldn't handle any of the spinning rides.

It was a really hot day, so getting soaked on the Rattle Snake Rapids as one of our first rides was a good idea.

We all braved "Wicked," even Mason!

I have continued to get up at 5:00 each morning this summer to go to the gym or go running. One morning when I got home from the gym, this was the sunrise I was privileged to see. It was totally hot pink because of some fires in the area and all the smoke that was in the air. Beautiful.

Max was awarded his Wolf badge at August pack meeting.

Thanksgiving Point does $2 Tuesdays in August so we went down to goof around at the gardens. This is the boys showing how hot it was that afternoon.

So we cooled off at Noah's Arc.

My favorite, and one of our last, activities of August was an afternoon spent at Classic Waterslides. I have driven by them for years off the freeway and always thought they looked kind of lame. Boy, was I wrong. They were a blast! The lines are very short so you just keep going on them over and over. They are fast and crazy and we loved them!We should have tried them years ago.

The also have big blow up water slides that are awesome!

Mike's work had a end of summer party at Mike's boss's house. It was fun to be with the people he works with and get to know them better.

We tried out the new splash pad and park in Sandy, UT. We took Mason's friend Hank with us.

A good time was had at Taylorsville pool with the cousins.

Max went off the high dive for the first time, and then kept doing it over and over. It took a lot of courage, but I finally managed to jump off it a few times too. (I couldn't have my kids tell me I was chicken!)

I had wanted to check out the new Museum of Natural History at the U of U. It was totally worth it! This is the best museum I have ever been too. There was so much to see and do. We were literally there for 4 hours and still didn't see and do everything. Loved it!

Loved this quote (and how my boys posed in front of it!)

Well, that's about it. Summer is over. Time to get back to real life. I'm always sad to see summer come to a close. I know that these moments are precious and one day I won't have cool little buddies to hang out with me. They are such a joy to be with. I love playing with them, learning with them, talking with them, laughing with them, sometimes yelling at them, but always loving them. I am looking forward to a new school year and seeing all that they will learn and how they will grow. I am so proud to be their mom!