The Girls Back to School Pix

I received Jaime's pictures in the mail yesterday -- cute! -- so I thought I'd post my girls' back-to-school photos taken on August 16th. As you heard, we had a pipe back up in our basement last weekend, but it wasn't sewer water, it was bath water, so we were grateful for that. Also most of our stuff in the storage room is in plastic tubs, so we didn't have very much damage. Have a good holiday weekend! We're going to try to hit the pool one more time.

A Couple more pictures of the Bridge

The damage is pretty amazing. The end abutment with all the damage had been protected by a rock blanket. The rock blanket consisted of several dump truck loads of boulders, 2 to 3 foot in diameter. I've got another picture that shows all these boulders more than 100 yards down stream.

Flooding in Missouri

Well I've been incredibly busy at work the past couple of weeks checking on bridges that were flooded out due to the heavy rains. I thought you guys might be interested to see some of the pictures. This bridge is about 3 miles north west of the Wilkins' home near Morrisville. They had 12 inches of rain in 24 hours, 10 of the inches came in about 5 hours.

Room Edition Almost Complete

Our Family Firsts

Alyssa's 1st Day of Kindergarten - Aug. 28th

Sydney's 1st Solid Food (Rice Cereal) - Aug. 21st

Andi's 1st Day of First Grade - Aug. 20th

Spencer's 1st Day of Third Grade - Aug. 20th

Room addition

So mom now that you have gotten so good about posting pictures-please take one of your new room addition now that you have carpet and furniture in it!! It is so exciting that you have it done. (or at least the main living part of it done)

Nauvoo

I think I have figured out how to send a picture--but the servers we are connected to--two of them--won't let the image show up. I'm going to keep trying so here goes.

Mom

Scottt & Merrilee Jarvis Family Photo

We took this picture at the end of June. We'll get a new picture to send out with our annual Christams letter, but I didn't want to wait that long to add Sydney to the family photo. BYU football starts on Saturday!!! We are WAY excited, and Donna and Robbie will be sitting by us this year. Fun!

letter

Hi everybody,
I was going to write my letter for the week this morning, but the keyboard wouldn't let me do g, h, or the space bar. I turned off the computer for a bit, but it still wouldn't work. Next I unplugged it altogether for a while--and now it is working, but I don't have time to do my letter right this minute, so thought I'd do this quick note to let you know that I am trying.
Mom

Thanks Todd

I also wanted to say that I really appreciated Todd coming down and bringing Nora. She is so cute and it was so fun to see both of you. Tell her mom thanks for letting you bring her down. Shayla loved getting to be with Nora and Tanner, even if she did think that she needed to be the boss (i wonder where she gets that from). I loved all the little words that Nora could say. She seems way more grown up than Shayla. Thanks again Todd!!! I appreciate the time that we got to spend together.

Missouri Trip

Family-

It has been so fun to see everyone's comments. I am so glad that almost everyone is using the blog site. I was worried about whether anyone would want to so love getting to see what is going on with everyone. It makes me feel close even though I am far away.

We had a great time in Missouri. It was really fun getting to see everyone. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to get to see us and hang out with us. Also, thanks for the meals. I know that it was a hard week to come with all the kids starting school. So I really appreciate the effort that was made on our behalf. Cade still is talking about Kallie, Brie, Baylie, biggun, Garrett, Hailey, and Tanner.

I wanted to post a few pictures. Some are of the room addition for Jana and Merrilee. The others are of the family. I have pictures to send to all of you. I will try to get them in the mail this week.

Back at work

Today is my first day back at work -- obviously I'm working very hard because I'm blogging! Gary & I taught our first seminary lesson last night and it went well -- I told the kids that this was my 11th year working with the youth, but Gary's first day! He did great!
We had a great time with Donna and her family. Tomorrow I'm headed to a scrapbook convention in Tulsa until Saturday, so I'm happy about that! My last summer hoorah!

Kindergarten is a waste of time!

Per Jana's request, I'll tell you about Garrett's comment about kindergarten, I think a lot of the family here already heard this on Sunday, so sorry. I picked up Garrett on Friday, after his 3rd day of school. I asked him how his day was and he replied that he didn't like kindergarten (which I knew wasn't true, he's liking school) so I asked him why. He stated very adamently that "it 'wastes' my time!" He said "I don't get to play a lot, they make me work a lot". Due to the extreme heat and then the rain on Monday, he didn't have outside recess until jjust yesterday so it was no fun for him, so he's liking it better now. I also have to tell you that he learned what a "widgie" is. He came home and asked Hailey if she wanted to know what a widgie was. He proceeded to give her a wedgie, that's what he meant!
I posted a comment to Rachel so make sure she reads the note from us.
Merrilee, Garrett's pics come back tomorrow so I'll be mailing them out soon. Tanner's 1 yr pictures were so cute too!
Kevin (and 2 of our neighbors) put up a new basketball goal for Garrett tonight for 2 hours, he's very excited. He's going to play basketball at The Courts in Spfld this fall with his buddy Evann.
We had a great visit with Donna and Robbie's family. I wish Garrett and Cade could have played more together, Cade called Garrett "Eric" and Garrett called Cade "Caden" the whole time so it was pretty humorous. Cade and Shayla are so cute. I should have invited them out Mon night but I didn't want them to feel like they needed to drive all the way out and spend any of their short time over here. I should've at least invited them though.
See ya later

Rachel

Here is cute little Rachie in her bright orange cast!

Rachel's ankle

I had written an email saying that Rachel was going to be having surgery, well the doctor is postponing that for at least 2 weeks. After I wrote the email he called me later in the afternoon and wanted me to bring Rachel back in to do more x-ray's. The other doctor in the practice didn't want to do this surgery on an 8-year old because of the pain factor. They are going to see how much healing she does over the next 2 weeks and if she is making progress then they will forgo the surgery all together. If it isn't making any progress then they will still have to do it. We are praying hard that she won't have to have surgery. I just do not want her to go through that at all. I was glad the other doctor could see how difficult it would be on such a young child. They came back from their dad's yesterday afternoon and she seems really good and didn't have to take any pain medicine while she was with him. We made funnel cakes (a great idea we got from Kevin and Jaime) and watched the High School Musical 2 encore. We sure have a great little family!! Even Cameron watched it with 2 of his friends-and no offense to those who liked it-but it wasn't near as good as the first!! I will keep you posted on Rachel's progress and send a picture of her in her bright orange cast later today!!