Elizabeth's First day of School

Ellie's First Day of School-August 21st


Ellie is very excited for school this year. She is in the third grade and
her teacher is Mrs. Bellingston.



The first day of school they jumped right in learning
cursive letters (t,u, and i.)




Ellie is not so excited that Mrs. Bellingston said there would be
homework every single night!

The first day of school was a little bit hard for Ellie because this was her first
time at Copper Canyon (her school now) since we let her finish the last school year
out at her school in our old neighborhood, Overlake.

I was so proud of Ellie when she came home from school and said that one of her
new friends is someone who has to use a walker during school. I was amazed that
she took the time to befriend someone who is a little different then she is.

Savannah starts school next week in a.m. kindergarten.

Dare Devil seeks Adventure

This Saturday we: Aaron's Family, Our Family, and Jonathan and Kimberly spent the afternoon at Raging Waters. After spending sometime in the children's area, we decided we would go explore the park. We walked to the other side of the park in search of the Lazy River. As we walked, we passed this slide, (seen on the right hand side of the picture) called the Waimea Wave.

The Waimea Wave is a "H2O Rollercoaster RAGE-thrill." boasts Raging Waters. Raging Waters continues to say, "What goes down, now goes up! Experience the outRAGEous thrill of a Rollercoaster with the exhilerations of a waterslide. "

Those of you who have been to Raging Waters have seen this slide. It's a slide that most adults walk by and don't have the guts to try. However, this Saturday we walked past it and the first thing out of Savannah's mouth was, " I want to try that slide!" The adults who were there wondered if this would be a good idea for such a little girl but decided we would find out for her. Jonathan took Savannah to the life guard and questioned the safety of this slide. After several minutes, we concluded that it would be o.k.

We rallied the adults who were brave enough to go (Aaron and Jonathan) and sent them on there climb to the top of the slide. I stood there, very nervous, wondering if I should run after them and tell them that I had changed my mind, Savannah is just to young to go on that slide. I decided that I would stay and give her Dare Devil self a chance to try the slide.

The rest of us watched from the side lines as we waited for them to reach the top of the slide.

Jonathan came down first, he was going to go to the side in case Savannah needed help when she reached the bottom. Aaron stayed at the top to make sure Savannah got on the slide. Jonathan came down saying what fun the slide was but rushed to the side. Now it was time to be nervous!!! I thought to myself. Savannah came down the slide to everyone cheering, claping, and yelling how proud we were of her. She had a huge smile on her face. (After she went river rafting last week she told everyone what a wicked ride the river was) so Grandpa Elwood asked her if the slide was "Wicked" and she proudly said, "yes." She also said that she would like to go again. So we let her go a second time. Unfourtuntly. that wasn't quite the same reaction becuase she tiped over at the bottom.

I wish I had my camera with me so that I could have taken a picture of the excitement on her face. Hopefully, the next time my dare devil seeks adventure I will be able to capture the joy in her eyes...

Pictures From Seattle

Trip to Seattle

The day after we came home from St. George, Ellie, Dayton, and I, were off to the airport at 4:30 in the morning to go to Seattle for a few days. Aaron stayed home with Savannah and Abagail. After one day of being home with the girls, Aaron let me know that he had the hardest of the four. I think it was Monday when I called to talk to the girls. Aaron said, "Hold on. They are in the backyard." A minute later he returned to the phone and said, "They were in the backyard. I can't keep track of those two girls." "Great," I thought. "I'm in Seattle and my girls are MIA." (Uncle Adam and Aaron, my husband, you need to swap parenting tips. Aaron... no feeding blueberries to the babies while you wife is out of town. Adam...don't let your wife know that you lost your children while she was out of town.)



Dayton cried the whole way on the plane until the very last 10 minutes. He finally fell asleep on Ellie's lap. What is it with my kids wanting to fall asleep on Ellie? If I had known he would have done that, I would have had Ellie hold him long before.

* * * * * * * * * *


On Sunday we went to Sacrament and then went to see the Blue Angels, a flight show, over the
lake. From afar, we were also able to get a glimpse of the speed boat races. The show was awesome but you would not believe the parking nightmare we faced to get there. Cars were parked front to rear, over dozens of blocks, on both sides of the streets. It was so bad that only one direction of cars could go down several of the streets. If we saw someone was already
coming down the street, we had to back out, and wait for that car to exit so that we could enter.

Not only that but I quickly learned that if I was going to come back to Seattle, I need to be in better shape. You are either walking up a hill or down a hill to get anywhere. Walking down to the air show was not that bad. The walk was a little long and we walked down dozens of stairs but that didn't seem to bother me. The only person this was hard for was Ellie who volunteered to carry the stroller down the stairs.

The way up was horrible. I was trying to hide how out of breath I was. Here I am with my eight year old daughter who once again is carrying up the stroller with the greatest of ease, my sister who just delivered a baby three weeks before, my brother in law who has his son on his shoulders, all making it look easy. Here I was struggling to get up the stairs with Dayton. The most embarrassing part was Jen noticing that half way up the stairs I stopped to glance at how much further we had to go. She said out loud, what I was thinking in my head, "Nope. We are not at the top yet."


Here are the boys at the Air show. We were sitting on a hill. It was so cute to watch them try and walk of this hill. You could tell they hadn't had much experience walking on unstable ground. For every step they took upward, I think they took three steps backward.


Dayton trying to escape my reach to go explore.



Jen, Ellie, and little Hazen at the air show.



Here is picture of Ellie, Dayton, and Asher back at Jen and Rob's house. This may have been Asher's first time playing ring around the rosy??? He caught on very quickly. Dayton, he won't participate in ring around the rosy during nursery, but loved playing with Asher and Ellie. Asher sure loved having his older cousins to play with. He got a kick out of Ellie. Ellie could make Asher laugh for minutes just by acting goofy.

We were also able to go to the Seattle Aquarium while we were there. The kids thought this was a lot of fun. We learned that Dayton's little face he makes looks a lot like a fish. Jen nicknamed Dayton's face "the fishy face." Ellie liked to touch the star fish and also liked being able to watch the Octopus be feed. She practically memorized the facts the person was giving about Octopuses. Dayton loved the seals. He stood and watched them for awhile not wanting to leave.

I wish I could post more pictures but I can only post five. I'll post a slide show above.

We had a great time in Seattle and are thankful to Jen and Rob who let us stay with them for a few days. We are also glad that we were able to share a few days with the boys, Asher and Hazen. I'm sure Ellie will remember this trip for years to come.

St.George with the Elwood's

For as long as I can remember, Aaron's family has been making a yearly trip to St. George. The first year Aaron and I were dating and the first years of marriage, Aaron I would go along. But after Savannah was born, it was hard for us to pick up and go and even harder to sit through the plays at Tuacahn which is one of the main reasons we would go. Now that Aaron and I are getting better at keeping track of multiple children, we decided to resume our yealy trips to St. George.

We left for St. George on the 29Th of July and returned to SLC on the 2ND of August. Surprisingly, the drive was not that bad with the kids, and only took us 4.5 hours to get there and 4 hours back. The kids were excited to know that they could swim for as long as they wanted each day. They love to being in the pool and since we chose the hottest days of the month to be in St. George (105-107 degrees) it was nice to be able to go swimming whenever we wanted.


Here is a picture of the girls and their cousin Skyler
at Tuacahn. I took the girls to see Sound of Music
and Aaron took the girls to see High School Musical.



This is the sweetest picture. After several hours
in the pool, the kids were very tired. I asked Ellie
to hold Dayton while I started cooking dinner. He
passed out on her. Not long after, Abbie followed.
They were so tired.



While we were in St. George, we took a tour of
Brigham Young's Winter House.


We were also able to visit St. George Dinosaur
Discovery. This is the site were Dinosaur prints
were found on a farm in St. George. When they
discovered what these prints were, the built the
museum so that people could view the prints.


One of the Dinosaur prints at the museum.

Grandma Wendy Comes to Visit

Early July we (my family and Jonathan) received a call from my Mom letting us know that she had an opportunity to come see us. So with two weeks notice, we prepared for her arrival. We were very lucky to have Grandma Wendy come visit us for those two weeks considering she was just here late March early April. The kids were so excited when she came. We waited until the night before to let them know that we would be picking her up from the airport the next day. (If you check out Jonathan's blog, he has the cutest pictures taken at the airport.) Everyone in the airport stopped to stare at the sweet reunion. Several pilots stopped to witness what they called, "a Kodak moment."

We had a very busy two weeks while she was here. I was driving to SLC or Layton nearly everyday while she was visiting. To some that may not seem like much of an effort, however, four kids in the car for an hour both ways for nearly two weeks, the kids were very restless near the end of that daily adventure.

While my Mom was here, we mostly just hung out. Ellie and Savannah slept over at Grandma's a few times (which I bet Jonathan and Kimberly are glad is over,) We went to breakfast and dinner a few times, we took the kids to Hogle Zoo, we visited Grandma and Grandpa Taylor a few times, but for the most part we played outside. The kids thought it was the greatest thing to play baseball with Grandma and to ride the new electeric scooter she purchased for the family.

Aaron and I left with the kids on the 29th for St. George, so we had to say goodbye to my Mom that day. She ended up going back to Kuwait on the 30th of July. This was the hardest goodbye for me. I think I cried for an hour, which Aaron never understood. (Men. I think most women might have understood why I was upset!!) Part of this emotion was probably pregnancy hormones. But most, I'm sure is missing my mom. She'll be back for a visit when the newest member of our family is born. However, she may not be back for good until June of 2010 which is very hard for me to comprehend.

But for now, we keep her and the other members of the Armed Forces in our hearts, minds, and prayers.

We Proudly Annonunce

Aaron and I are proud to announce that the Krazy Elwood Kids will be having a new brother or sister in February. We are all very excited and wanted to share our happy

news with those of you who have not heard. We will keep you posted and let you know the sex

of the baby in just a few short weeks.....