Spirit Week

Any kid in the SGA at Madison will tell you that Homecoming week is a killer. Add early morning seminary, a full day of classes and in MK's case, field hockey, and by the end of the week the only thing left to run on is adrenalin. Tough as it is, Mikey and MK still had a blast and made the most of it. Monday was 80s day:

Tuesday was USA day:

Wednesday was Jersey Day:

Thursday was Disney Day. Mikey about gave me a heart attack when he came downstairs dressed as The Beast:

MK found Lightning McQueen slippers at Unique so that was the extent of her outfit.

Friday was class T-shirt day. And the parade down Maple Ave.

Our favorite Homecoming Princess, Bethany Hartt:

And the James Madison 2011 Homecoming Queen is..................................................Yep! Bethany!

So sweet that Amy came home to crown her! MK and Liv with the Queen:)

Obligatory Pre-dance pictures. Mikey with his cute date, Janessa James.

The group:

MK went towards the end of the dance (sans date) to help clean up as part of her SGA duties:

Goooooo Cougs!

We went to Cafe Rio in Manassas on Saturday and saw a cute little girl in a BYU cheerleading uniform. Brought back memories of MK 10 years ago:

September

Well, s'long summer. You've been hot and wet. I'm looking forward to crisp fall days and cheering on the Madison Warhawks as well as the BYU Cougars on the gridiron.

Since the earthquake, we've had Hurricane Irene blow through which was over-hyped and amounted to pretty much nothing. A week or so later we had Tropical Storm Lee that snuck up on us with little fanfare, but caused serious flooding. Enough rain fell (about 10" in four days) to actually close down the area schools, using up one of our allotted snow days. So many roads were washed out that it took Jessica three and half hours to get home from work when it normally takes her 15 minutes. This was the scene not far from her office:

It's finally sunny and nice out and will hopefully stay that way for a while. MK is enjoying her second year on the Madison JV field hockey team. Go MK!

She's also playing on a very low key fall league basketball team. Add those to a busy social life, SGA, seminary, school and homework and she doesn't know if she's coming or going half the time. Mikey is pretty much in the same boat, minus the sports, but as soon as homecoming is over, he'll be getting a job.

Yesterday, amid the 9/11 commemorations all over TV, the twins celebrated their 27th birthday. I have tons of pics of them but hardly any with me. This was pretty much all I could dig up:

Holy Moly. I don't know which is worse, the TV screen glasses or the pasty white skin. At least the twins are cute. PS: Because of their extremely strong preferences, one of them was exclusively breast fed and the other was exclusively bottle fed. If you know their personalities at all, it's a no-brainer to guess who did which:)

Finally, Something Earthshaking to Blog About

We've been having a very quiet/boring August around here. MK has started up with field hockey. Mikey's been racking up hours behind the wheel in anticipation of getting his license. We've had long hot days and a couple of torrential downpours but nothing truly newsworthy. Until boom. EARTHQUAKE! Wait a minute. I thought the only thing we had to worry about in DC are nukes. But no, now we apparently have to worry about our houses shaking apart too. MK's room took the brunt of it:Sure, her room was kind of messy to start with, but now it's a bona fide disaster area:) We were sitting in the family room when it hit and couldn't believe how much things were shaking. I'm embarrassed to admit that we really didn't know what to do. We ended up running to a nearby closet and standing in the doorway with adrenaline pumping and hearts beating like mad. Crazy!!

Shark/Beach Week

What could be better than watching Shark Week on the Discovery Channel? Why going to the beach of course. Especially since the only dorsal fins we've seen so far have been on the backs of dolphins. Here's the beach we biked to and what it looked like on a 93 degree sunny day at high noon. For the most part we had it all to ourselves and was it ever nice. Last night we ate at Bills. It was pretty fancy pants, but MK lightened the mood doing her horse face. She is too much!! Since Mr. Whippy's was only about 1/2 a mile away Dad thought it would be a good idea to get there by "walking off" dinner. Works for me! We stayed at the Hampton Inn on the channel. This was our room. and the view from our balcony:Since today was overcast we opted to ride bikes more and spend less time on the beach. Here's MK teasing the sea birds: At the Pony Overlook--they're back there somewhere;) Before leaving the charming island of Chincateague we hit up the local gift shops for fudge among other stuff. Now we are in Exmore VA. Staying at another HI with an even bigger/nice room. For dinner we ate at the Exmore Diner. It was quite the cultural blast from the past. The regular customers were mostly 80 somethings and full of personality. The service was unbelievably fast and the food ridiculously good. Sweet potato fries with cinnamon sugar? Are you kidding me? Just sinfully delicious. As were the onion rings, butterfly shrimp, and scallops. It was half the price of last night's meal and every bit as good. To illustrate how easily amused we are, this is us back at the room. MK flying
and planking:

Next stop: VA Beach.

Back Home

The Open House was a smashing success. The wind was blowing hard enough to knock over the flower centerpieces on the tables, but when 7:00 rolled around, a plethora of prayers were answered as the winds calmed and the temperatures dropped. A perfect St. George summer evening! Denise's backyard was jaw dropping stunning. Seriously something straight off of HGTV. We love the Wades! It was so fun to have all 7 of our kids along with Steph and Krista there. Everyone stayed, enjoyed cake and had a great time. We got back to the hotel around 11:00 after watching J&L open presents. The next morning we had a fab time at breakfast with everyone at the hotel. Then later we went back to the Wades for some amazing food made from cafe rio recipes. We all decided it was even better than cafe rio. We watched a slide show of the wedding pictures and then headed back up north to Lynndyl. Another round of Utah in a Box (monopoly) and Uno with Grandma. And the next thing we knew we were landing in Baltimore. We came home to colony of cicada killer wasps. There are at least 20 of these mounds all around our yard: The wasps look menacing, but are actually very passive. They are also very hard to get rid of :( I have to say that the combination of the wedding, trek, the trip to Utah and now high adventure has left our lawn a complete disaster. I have gone from pulling weeds to just mowing over them. In other news.... it's been hotter than hot around here lately. We're talking heat index of 120 degrees record breaking hot. While I prefer the AC, Bruce and MK would rather go here to cool off:
Fortunately the heat wave has ended just in time for Dad and Mikey to take a hike. A LONG hike. As in 100 miles along the Appalachian Trail. With 8 other scouts and some leaders. Ahhhhhh. Did I mention they are doing this in 6 days? While they are off building their characters I think I'll take MK to Plaka Grill for lunch today:)