Plant Cell Cake

Mikayla had an assignment to do a plant cell project.  She had to make a flip book with the parts of a plant cell along with descriptions of what each part does, and then make a model of a plant cell. Mikayla chose to make a cake for her model.  Here is her plant cell cake.

Soccer

Ashlee and Mikayla both decided they wanted to play soccer back in April when sign-ups began.  At that time, I thought it would be do-able.  Soccer starts in August and runs until mid November.  I knew it would be harvest time too and school would be starting back up;  but I figured John would be able to help out.  Well, I figured wrong.  John is not home in the evenings to help get them to practice.  His new job has him working long days.  So I am left getting both of them to soccer practice each week, all week.  They both practice two days a week, so we end up having soccer every day of the week except Sunday's and Monday's.  Both of them are enjoying it.  Mikayla's team is undefeated, her coach would like for her team to be a competitive team, but I am not sure we are going to do that.  Ashlee's team has won 2 out of 4 games.  They are getting better each week.

Big Tree's

Dan and Teresa invited us and Denver and Bree up to see their cabin, go to Church in Murphys,  and go on a picnic to Big Trees.  It was nice to get away from it all for the day and spend the day with family.

Camping in Pinecrest

A couple weeks ago John mentioned that we should go camping.  The girls loved the idea!  Ashlee got on line and tried to find a campground, but everything was either full or had vault toilets (Ashlee did not want to use vault toilets).  The next day I got on line and tried to find a campground.  I found one space open, and by the time I got through the reservation process, it was gone.  Someone else had reserved it instead.  I started looking for the next available weekend and was able to find one available for this weekend, so I reserved it. 
We sold our RV trailer back in February, so this was going to be our first camping trip in a tent, something we have not done for about 7 years.  I was determined that I was not going to bring a bunch of stuff.  I was not going to mess with washing dishes, or even showering for that matter!  We were just going overnight, we needed this to be simple.  For dinner we had foil dinner chicken fajitas (they tasted better than fajita's made at home), for dessert we had campfire cones (very yummy)  and s'mores, and breakfast was cereal, muffins, and donuts.
 Too bad, I could not figure out a way to have the laundry done by the time we got home!  We enjoyed our quick weekend trip.  One last trip for the summer.  The girls started school last week. Harvest started last week too.  Soccer starts this week, so our schedules will be crazy busy.  This is the time of year when I wish there were wither two of me, or a taxi driver to help me out, because it gets to be very hard trying to juggle everything!

Saturday we set up camp, went to the lake and then we went on a hike to the dam.  Spent the evening playing Uno around the campfire.



Making foil dinner chicken fajitas



Taking a break along the trail to the dam.

 Sunday morning we ate breakfast, packed up and took the girls to Lyons Dam to do a little fishing, (they did not catch any fish), before heading home.

First Day of Seventh and Fifth Grades

Ready or not, summer is already over with for Ashlee and Mikayla.  Today they started back to school.  Ashlee started 7th grade and Mikayla started 5th grade today.  I have no idea where the time has went, or where in the world summer went for that matter.  It seems like the school year is getting longer and summer is getting shorter!

Jordan, Karah, Alene, Allison, Mikayla

Ashlee's Teeth

Several months ago we found out that Ashlee needs to have lots of dental and orthodontic work done.  When John switched jobs we found out we would be getting dental insurance with a little more coverage than our last plan had, so we put things on the back burner until we had insurance again.  Before John switched jobs, we had paid a deposit to start Ashlee's orthodontic work and we had 90 days from that time to start treatment.  The plan was to start her dental work as soon as school got out so she would be in braces by the time school started.  But life changed, so we had to postpone things a bit.
So here we are, days before school starting, and we find out that Ashlee has to have 3 teeth extracted and an exposure done for a tooth coming through her pallet, and this all must be done 7 days prior to the 20th of August or we lose our deposit.  Luckily, things fell into place.  The dentist was able to see Ashlee to perform the procedures in time so we would not loose our money.
Monday (two days before school started) Ashlee went in to have some dental work done, dental work that should have been done at an oral surgeon, but due to our insurance situation, the orthodontist and dentist agreed that the procedures could be performed by the dentist to help us out financially.  Let's just say, I do not think the dentist will agree to performing such procedures again.  Ashlee was great.  She did fantastic the entire hour and 40 minutes.  Three teeth were extracted, her pallet had to be cut, bone from her pallet had to be removed to expose a tooth coming through her pallet, and a bracket had to be put on the tooth coming through the pallet, so the orthodontist can hook on to the tooth and pull it into place when the time is right.  As soon as the first tooth came out, the right side of Ashlee's face began to swell up, normal right?  Well two days later, Ashlee's face is still swelled up, she can hardly open her mouth to eat, and says that her bracket feels like it is going to fall off, so I took her back to the dentist, to check on what is going on.  Ashlee was right, the bracket was falling off, the dentist removed it, her face is still swollen, the dentist thinks she must have got anesthetic in one of her nerves, so we will have to wait for it wear off (which she said should be on the down side now, but for some reason it is not), and I am really starting to think maybe we should have seen an oral surgeon after all!
Ashlee has been a trooper.  She has handled the situation well.  She went to school with a swollen face and did not complain, she has woke herself up in the middle of night to take her medication and ice her face.  The dentist has been very helpful and concerned.  She has called several times to check on Ashlee and has been more than willing to see her to check on her progress, but I think a lesson has been learned, that lesson being, that sometimes cheaper is not always best!

World of Wonders Science Museum

Mikayla got a couple of free tickets to the World of Wonders Science Museum and she wanted to use them before they went back to school so today I decided to take them, since school will be starting in one week.  Mikayla and I had been to the museum when she was in third grade for a field trip, but it was one of those really quick field trips,  we felt like we did not get to see or do much.  Here are some photo's from our little day trip.