1st Day of School! - SKID!!!

I am a week behind on this post, but I am a little slow these days, sorry! Ellie and Tate went back to school last week!!! I love summer and having my kids hang out with me, so going back to school is not a fun time for me. I miss them and hate that I am not in control all the time. I obviously could use a little therapy over my parenting issues!!! But I am starting to see that it is good for Emma and I to have some time with just the two of us.

Here is my little 4th grader that goes to a really big school now, and as we have been calling him this week, "Tater - My big 1st Grader!"
White Pine School here she comes...you won't know what hit you!

Mountain View will never be the same with Tate there!

This was Tate's 1st day of COLD lunch! He was so excited! Ellie is quite familiar with it since she is such a picky eater.....wonder where she got that trait from!:) I hope that Tate makes it through the 1st month of school without going to the Principal's office. After the first day, he was informing me about how Ridge Garrard(Alan's son) and him were talking about maybe starting a food fight. I quickly informed him that they had better not consider that one again!!! Am I going to make it through 12 years of this?????

Well, Tate's new nickname from Cody is "Skid Row" ! He was running into the school today and got pushed down, accidentally, by another kid.

He got a band aid on his knee and an ice pack. This would be his second trip to the office for an ice pack this year. On the first day of school, he got stung by a bee!!! At least he is making friends with the office staff. Good thing ice packs will cure anything!!!

Now you see why I want to keep my kids home with me!!!

The Later Boat

So here it is, my first contribution to our blog! Are ya proud of me Em? First of all I would like to state that I have no clue what I am doing, so Em if you don't like what I have done then just fix it!
After all the hard work we have done this summer we decided to buy a boat and have some fun. We are really proud of this little boat. It starts up every time you turn the key and it doesn't smell like gas. This is treat after the last boat we had. Mom and dad would know what I am talking about, they could tell you some horror stories of their own about the last boat. Apparently we are lucky to still have them around after what happened to them, uncle Sam and Aunt Chris. Oh yeah, it doesn't tilt to the side when you are on the water either!
We need to come up with a name for it. Don wants to name it Martha (this is his nick name for me). The neighbor suggested See Ya Later. We are open for suggestions! Let us know what you think.
Can't wait for every one to go boating with us!
Em, let me know how I did.
Sarah

Cody Surfing in Bear Lake!

This is a video of Cody trying to surf in Bear Lake. You have to start out with your knees bent and your feet on the board, but they are not strapped in so it looks pretty hard. Cody could not get it with that starting position, so he chose to start out on his stomach and then try to pull up onto his feet. I don't know what he was thinking... you can't really go from belly to feet while the boat is going soooo fast. It is pretty funny though. Ya gotta love Cody!

A Rough Few Weeks!

It has been a rough couple of weeks at the Garrard household. I thought that I might update the bloggers on our situation. We went to Bear Lake and had a great time with the whole Garrard clan, but I received a mosquito bite there that made me wish that I had put a little bug spray on myself. I somehow got M.R.S.A. staph infection in the bite and waited tooooo long to go to the doctor. By the time I finally went (or should I say Mom made me go) it was too late. My leg had to be cut open and a drain put in. I had the drain replaced three times and the last appointment, I managed to pass out. Fun stuff!!! I finally got the drain out of my leg on Monday, and now have to let it heal from the inside out. I would like to pass out right now just thinking about having a big hole in my leg. The worst part is that Dr. Blauer is being very careful and making me take 2 medications 5 times a day, between that and the aleve I am pretty drugged all day long. If you speak to me, keep that in mind, not real with it. I was making dinner tonight and put the package of buns on the stove....Ellie luckily said "Mom are you trying to cook those?" If anyone knows how to get burnt plastic off of a glass stove top please let me know.

I do need to give Cody a big thank-you. He has been my nurse and changed my bandages over and over again. He is a good sport because I know that he has not enjoyed it. He has been a good man these past few weeks, poor Cody, only I would get a flesh eating virus right by my butt!

Poor Emma had to go to the doctor with me, cuz she got a bite on her face. It just kept getting worse, so I took her in. She is finally looking better, but I feel bad that it got this bad.

This picture was taken last week, she looks even better now. Would have posted pictures of my trauma, but I'd rather not put my backside on the Internet. :)

THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS ALWAYS USE BUG SPRAY!!!

Miller's Cruise to Mexico

We went on a cruise to Mexico for our family vacation. We saw Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas. Personally I liked Cabo the best. It had the most beautiful blue water. Our cruise started out with me being sick the whole second day at sea. That was fun. Christian made sure to capture that moment on camera. Then we found out that our first shore excursion was cancelled so we booked a trip to swim with the sea lions instead. That was fun. Skylar was scared of them. She didn't want to touch them or feed them or have them kiss her. They had toe nails and that freaked her out. Me too a little. But they were cute. They would smile when they heard their names. Camden wasn't a big fan either. He kept trying to climb out of the swimming pool. We were suppose to go swimming with the dolphins for our next shore excursion and when we got there they didn't have room for Camden. Which was frustrating because we tried to let them know ahead of time that we had a child under 3 and they said that it didn't matter. Apparently it did matter because they wouldn't let him in. So we all left and the kids didn't get to see the dolphins. Even though we had a few set backs we still had a great time.

Ryan loved the Sea Lions

I was a little afraid of their big wiskers

Camden didn't want a kiss, but I wanted the picture

They had me doggy pattle in the middle of the pool and then she jumped over my head

Christian did it too

Ryan my brave boy fed the sea lion a fish

Skylar let a parrot be on her shoulder though. That was brave for her.

Ryan really wanted me to buy this picture even though it wasn't very good of him because he wanted everyone to know that he did it.

Nebraska cont....

These are some pics from the day that we played in Amber's backyard. It was a fun day because it was relaxing and we just hung out and played. There are no pics of Ryan. I think that this was the day that he started getting sick. Poor kid. Tate wasn't much into the water fight. I think that is because Grandpa Keith likes to win and was drenching everyone. Amber and I got a lot of our projects done this day. We always have too many projects to do when we get together, we just can't help it. Fun Day!!!

my cat George

here is a few pics of George my new cat.

here is a pic of George and Baxter.

his full name is Curious George of the Jungle Garrard.


This post is by ELLIE!

Catch-Up

I am playing catch up on my blogging today. When we went to Utah for Ellie's Birthday, we stopped at Don & Sarah's house that they are fixing up to sell. It was a darling house and so I decided to take advantage of it and have a little photo session of my kids. They were all pretty awnry and didn't want to cooperate, but I thought that I would post them anyway, because the house is soooo neat, and hooray for Don and Sarah - they got it sold!!!

Mom took over for a minute! I personally like to be on the OTHER side of the camera!

Leave it to Sarah to pose Tate!

My personal favorite of Taten!

Grandpa with his kids!

Isn't it a cute front porch!

Family Pictures!

We went to Logan for Cole's Baptism this weekend. Afterwards, we went to a park to have pizza and cupcakes to celebrate his birthday. How fun to get baptized on your birthday!!!

Kathy wanted family pictures, so we all changed into matching clothes and gave it a shot. It was sooo hot and muggy that we all were sweating terribly. I am not sure how the big group pics turned out, but I , being me, wanted our family picture standing in the stream. I passed my camera over to Tom and we gave it a try. First problem was that when I looked through the camera the light was perfect, but Tom was taller than me so I think that the camera was not in the shade with us, and the flash drowned out Ellie's face. Tried to fix it, but wasn't successful.

Second problem was that the water was soooooooooooooo cold that no one wanted to stand in it.

We would run in and try to pose for the pic and then run out and see if it was a good shot.

Poor Tate finally started crying and said that he couldn't do it anymore. I would say that he was wimpy, but you'll notice that Cody's foot is coming out of the water in this shot, cuz he couldn't stand it either. I left with the biggest brain freeze headache ever.

The things I will do for a good picture!!! All that and it didn't turn out quite like I had envisioned it. I still love the pictures though. They are more us than the perfect posed shot. They might all make it on the wall in one big collage poster!!!

Zoo

A twin moment....look at those crooked smiles!!!

It was a fun day at the zoo. Amber kept saying that it wasn't a very good zoo, but I thought that it was perfect. It wasn't crowded and there were just enough animals to look at. Too many animals and my kids get bored. The gift shop was great too. Tate got a pair of sunglasses for 75 cents. Perfect!

Zoo

My little monkey!!!