Boating Fun

I haven't posted anything in so long! We've had an exciting Summer, though. The big event was the arrival of another Kiehl family in the Central Ohio area! Tom's brother Sam and his family moved here at the end of June. They lived with us until their house was ready for move-in a couple weeks ago. It was two months of fun and adventures! They have three great kids, Jake-15, Spencer-12, and Alli-8. Our kids loved having live in playmates! And with Sam's family, comes the boat! We've had lots of fun on the boat since it's arrival. Meg has learn to wakeboard, which is pretty amazing to watch. Our boys love riding on it with their big cousins, too. I have a couple pics of Jake getting some serious air, Tom getting the hang of driving the boat so Sam can wakeboard and Tom wakeboarding too. Meg can't wait to see Mommy attempt to wakeboard next summer after baby Vivien's arrival! We'll see about that...

First Days of School!

Meg just started the second grade and Charlie just started Kindergarten! This is a big year for us! They both were excited to start, but no one could have been more excited then Charlie! Can you see the excitment in his face???

Meg has Mrs. Miller this year, and Charlie has Mrs. Holland. Mrs. Holland had a baby over the summer so she missed the first couple weeks of school, but she is back now and everything went smoothly! Kindergarten is only 1/2 day here, and goes from 8:15a to 11:05a...so it's a quick day, but full of fun!

We are excited for a fun year of school!

Zions National Park

The first photo is one from the Wildlife Museum in St. George. The kids all had fun here...especially because they got their own binoculars to carry around while they were there!

The rest of the photos are ones that Betsy took when we went to Zions National Park on our last day in Utah. I was nervous about going because of the excessive heat, but it was beautiful. You really need a few days there, lower temperatures and either more strollers or less toddlers, but the one hike we were able to go on in our 5 hour excursion was amazing! Luckily it was along the Virgin River and we could get in and cool off...which we took full advantage of!

A trip to the St. George Temple

First, thank you Betsy for the photos!!!

One night we all took a trip over to the St. George Temple. These photos include all of the grandchildren (except Betsy's twins who stayed in Texas with their daddy!). I love these photos!!! You can tell they were getting tired of sitting and posing! What good troops! And what a beautiful temple!

More St. George Fun!

Can you believe they were cliff jumping!?! I wasn't there to witness it, but you can see Tom doing a "can opener" in one of the shots. Meg actually jumped off that! The kids loved jumping in the pool all together...you can see Bode and Charlie down at the end jumping in too (they were being dare-devils and jumping into about 1 ft. of water!).

St. George 2011

We were able to take another Kiehl family vacation this year! We went to St. Geoge, Utah, which is in the very Southwest corner of Utah. We all stayed in one big house that had a great indoor and outdoor pool, which was the highlight for the kids!

The best part of these vacations is seeing all of the 21 grandkids getting to play together. We got to do some fun things while we were there: hiking, swimming, boating, cliff jumping, historical sight-seeing, eating, shopping, jogging, playing, laughing and more eating! It was quite a week.

I didn't have my camera with me everywhere (of course) so I am going to attempt to include some of Betsy's photos also...we'll see how that goes. I will walk you through my photos:

Most of the girl cousins in their matching birthday shirts...Henry didn't want to be left out either!

Several photos from our hike in Snow Canyon (was that the name of it?). The kids really loved this. I was worried it would be way too hot, but in the shade of the canyon it was perfect! You can see all the red dirt that gathered in Meg and Alli's shoes!

I love the photo of the four boys: Bode and Charlie and Anson and Henry. Good buddies! Each of those two sets of boys are as close in age as it gets with the grandkids. I'm so glad they can have life-long buddies like that!

It was so hot there during the day, it was almost unbearable to be outside. So, every evening after dinner we would all go out and the kids would swim...it was a major highlight. You couldn't ask for more beautiful evenings...if only the temperature could be that great all day there!

We look forward to these trips every year and are so grateful that Grandma and Grandpa Kiehl can provide these for all of us!