Yesterday was Susanna's birthday--she turned 15.  It was a good day for her and she enjoyed presents and a special family dinner with French Silk Pie for dessert.  She is looking forward to getting her learner's driving permit! It was a little extra special day because our son Garrett came home from his mission that night.  A little before 10pm (so late for my youngest two to be up--we didn't get home until past midnight) we all got in our van and drove up to the airport.  After a short wait, soon we saw our son Garrett coming down the escalator with 4 other missionaries.  Garrett has been serving in the Ukraine Dnepropetrovsk Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the past two years.  He really enjoyed being a missionary and grew a lot in his spiritual and emotional maturity.  He was so positive in his emails home every week and it was fun to read them. Here is Garrett, hugging his brother whom he hadn't seen for over 3.5 years

Yesterday was Camille's birthday!  It was a school day and Camille was concerned that her teacher hadn't sent home the poster that is supposed to be read on your birthday in her class.  It turned out that one of her parents put the wrong date for her birthday on the teacher's information sheet--it was an honest mistake. We sent treats for her class yesterday and we finished the poster this morning so she could take it in today. Here she is covering her ears while her brothers sing VERY loudly. For her birthday dinner, she requested this dinner that no one loves as much as she does:  6-Can Chicken Tortilla Soup.  We serve it with rice.  You make it with literally 6 cans of various ingredients--the easiest dinner ever.  We always have it when we camp because it requires nothing fresh. Her amazing Activity Days leader brought over a chocolate cake the day before so I didn't even have to make a cake for her--she decided that was the cake she wanted to have

I have to admit that I am not a sports fan.  So I've really pushed music a lot more than sports.  Which is not to say we haven't done sports.  We did a lot of soccer with my oldest boys until I couldn't handle the craziness of soccer season any more (our worst season was 4 boys on 3 teams with our oldest doing soccer reffing).  We've also done swimming, a little football, basketball, and cross-country and track.  This fall, my two high-schoolers are on the cross-country team for Orem High. At the beginning of the school year my daughter wasn't planning on doing cross country but her friend convinced her to sign up and so she bikes to the high school every day from the junior high to do the workouts.  She's really enjoying it although fitting in all her responsibilities and some free time has been challenging.  She's done well and has actually been on the varsity team as a freshman which we weren't expecting--that's brought its own challenges. My

At the top of my blog is a picture of a mountain covered with snow.  It's called Mt. Timpanogos and it is very much a part of our everyday landscape.  I look out my windows and there it is in all it's glory.  It's a beautiful mountain. I've had a goal to climb this mountain for a long time but this summer it finally became more concrete.  I'm not getting any younger so this was the year!  My husband and I did a lot of practice climbs--not for him because he's already in great shape--but for me. For Mother's Day, I got a pair of good hiking boots and socks.  Then a week later Scott and I hiked Squaw Peak.  It was quite muddy and my hiking boots had great traction.  Over the summer I frequently hiked the Y on Saturday mornings and kept up my running.  We did several family hikes. The second Saturday in September we hiked almost to Emerald Lake, about a nine-mile hike.  It was all good practice for me. Finally we decided to do it on the last Saturday in S