Trey got married

And boy are we glad! His sweet wife Moe is wonderful, we have loved getting to know her, she's such a great addition to the family.

Trey and Moe got married in the Salt Lake City Utah temple. It was a great excuse for Scott and I to make a quick trip to Utah and spend time with family. As we boarded our plane we realized two things: it had been awhile since just the two of us had a getaway (not counting church things we've chaperoned), and I had not flown on an airplane since Lydia was a baby. We really loved having so much time to be together without work and day-to-day obligations cramping our style.

We stayed with Brad and Susan (thanks for the hospitality!), and it was so much fun hanging out with them and Andrew and Sammy. On our way there, we stopped by Wymount and BYU. There was a crazy amount of things on and around campus that were different. We were sad about some of the things that had been torn down (DT!), but impressed with the new buildings, and sometimes frustrated that we couldn't even remember how something had looked before. We were relieved however to find our old quad at Wymount was still intact.

Wondering if the current residents of apartment 88 were looking out the peephole
and wondering who the weird old people were.

On campus we found Brad and went by his office. Bonus: two Emmys! 

Then we walked through the Wilk and there was some kind of donor dinner going on. Bonus: two apostles!

Brad also took us to the Chocolate, where we had our first (but not our last) cazookie. 

Most of the rest of the weekend was full of wedding festivities. We loved getting to meet Moe's family, and spend time with The Lehi Barber (now living in Salt Lake City) (and whose boys are so big it almost made me want to cry) and Troy and Dan who had flown in.

I didn't take any pictures at the wedding or reception or luncheon, etc, but they were all lovely and there was a nice photographer there getting plenty of snaps of everything going on, so probably Lisa will share those soon.

We had one free morning that we spent hiking Stewart Falls with the fam. It was fun and kind of weird because it was just different enough from all the Smoky Mountain hikes we enjoy to be disorienting. Plus, not having our kids with us on a hike felt off.

But I did take a few of pictures of that.

Here's a shot of Trey and Moe I lifted from Lisa's Facebook just so you can see how cute they are.

Field Tripping and other end of school year activities

May is as bad as December. Maybe worse. Busy, busy, busy. All good things, all fun stuff, all time commitments you're glad you have, but holy heck! There was not a free day to be found in May. We had field trips, field days, concerts, award ceremonies, plays...you name it, it was in May. (Did I mention there were still track meets and softball games mixed in?)

Here are some of our wonderful end of school year memories...

Lydia's class went on a field trip to the Smoky Mountain Heritage Center. Coil pots, old-timey games, it was great.

Afton's class went on a field trip to the zoo. She was adorably convinced that the otter was following her water bottle as it swam back and forth by the glass.

Josh's class went to Tuckaleechee Caverns. It was a very cool trip and the kids all got to drink right from the underground water there, their guide claiming it was 97% pure, which is better than bottled water. I wasn't thirsty.

We had our second annual teacher appreciation brunch at the church one Saturday morning, and it went great!

Emma had a track banquet where she received her varsity letter (as a freshman!), super proud of her!

Lydia and Afton had their dance recital. Cuteness ensued.

Lydia was on honor roll and got some sweet field day ribbons, as did Josh and Afton.

At fifth grade awards night Josh followed in Ben's footsteps by racking up the medals and certificates. Honor roll, Presidential Scholar, his teacher chose him as the top boy science student, his class voted him most talented, and he had the most AR points in the entire school (1060).

Ben got on honor roll certificate of his own, as well as being one of the 10 seventh graders chosen to receive the Overall Academic Excellence award, which was described as being for outstanding academics, character, and citizenship.

(See here for a nearly identical post from two years ago, with two look-alike photos from field trips.)

Emma and Ben = Track

Those kids love to run. They get that from me. And they're crazy fast. They get that from their dad.

Emma surprised us all by switching from sprinting to distance and loving it, running mostly 800s and 1600s. The first three times she ran the mile at a meet, her time was almost exactly the same, about a 3 second variance. The last meet of the year something came alive in her apparently, because she PRed by 20 seconds. It was awesome.

Ben added 3200s to his meets, and reports he just may like it even better than the mile. He PRed in the 3200 by a large margin in his last meet as well. This kid is a force to be reckoned with, can't wait to see him keep running in the fall too.