McKinley Jane and Grant Alan

The first day of homeschooling went surprisingly smoothly which makes me think that the following weeks will be harder once it's not so new and exciting but we will see! We are doing a "Chicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom" theme and they will be learning a letter and a number each week. We are currently doing school from 9am-1130am and then stopping for lunch. The morning goes by fairly quickly and they really listened better than I thought. Keep us in your prayers though because I'm sure this will be a roller coaster of a journey all the way through! Doing circle time to start the morning Getting ready to head upstairs to start our first day!

Tons of pics this month so I'm going to make this a picture posting because not much else is new! McKinley at the aquarium Enjoying a movie and some popcorn after a long day My mom and I watching "The Help" at Ipic theatres...love that place! Grant enjoying some relaxation time with mommy Doing the chocolate factory tour and then making a chocolate pizza. So much fun! McKinley enjoying her chocolate sample With all their buddies at the factory tour My mom and McKinley riding the lightrail in Phoenix...a must do! McKinley riding the lightrail Waiting for the next trail to come after Mom made us miss our first one :-) We rode the lightrail down to the Old Spaghetti Factory to enjoy lunch McKinley digging for fossils at the dinosaur museum Grant panning for gold Get 'em working early :-) Grant playing with the kitten at our babysitter Kathy...

Our community held a Hawaiian Luau and it was by far my favorite event of the year that they've hosted! It had an authentic hawaiian buffet, mai tai's and a luau show. The kids favorite part was the ice cream served in coconuts and pineapples! Actually they were enthralled with the show and even though it was way past their bedtime they sat there the entire time!

We went to the water park and it was so much fun now that they're able to ride some of the slides. It was so dead the day we went that we even snuck them onto the big slides with us!! They loved it...little daredevils!

It was a first camping trip for both the kids and I!! We decided to head to cooler weather so we went on the Mogollan Rim past Payson where the daytime temps were 80's and the nighttime was in the mid-50's. It was so beautiful and absolutely wonderful to get out of the heat! We only did one night for our first time, but will definately be doing this more often because we loved it! We spent the afternoon by the lake watching the fish and climbing rocks. We went back to our campsite and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows then played around in the dirt. For nighttime we took our air mattresses and slept all nice and cozy in our tent! The campground was awesome and not near as "roughing" it as I had imagined. Each campsite had its own grill, fire pit, picnic table and was set far away from everyone else. All the roads are paved so next time I'll bring their tricycles. Obviously McKinley didn't mind being dirty! Sitting down for hotdogs! There were a ton of craw...