Catch Up!

I am a bullet point kind of gal (bulletpoint, is that a compound word? probably not, since there is a giant glaringly red underline highlighting my erroneous spelling mistake.) Also, perhaps I shouldn't be blogging, because I just had to erase "kind of guy," and change it to "gal," and that was all only in my first sentence!
Anyway, before I continue the ramble, like I was saying, bullet points. I am going to do a quick blog catch up bullet points. Organized bullet points.

• School started 4 weeks ago and it's a big conglomeration of good and bad. The good: I have some cute kids, I have a student teacher this year, which is working out pretty well so far, and I still enjoy teaching (phew!) The bad: I have a really below grade level class this year (as a whole.) Part of that is due to having 5 refugees, 4 of whom speak none or very little English. 4 of whom also cannot count past ten, nor do they know all of the ABC's. SIGH. I also miss Isaac like crazy. And my free time, what is free time? What is it even like to have a clean house (even semi-clean! anymore.)
• Nate and Tara got married and it was a very beautiful, happy event! They were married at Storm Mountain Ampitheater by our cousin Kurt in front of friends and family. It was a great ceremony, and totally reflected who they are as people. Then, they had a reception at the Gallivan Center where my cousin Dave's band played. There was LOTS of dancing, good company, good food, and they had a photo booth which was hilarious. It was wonderful to "officially" welcome Tara to the family, and fun to meet her family from Ohio, too. Congrats, Nate and Tara! I will add photos from this grand even when I can get some from Nate and Tara, because I am sure the photographer they had took much better photos than I did!
  
• Dave turned 40 on September 15th. Yes, the big 4-0. We were kind of low key on the day of (the Pie and icecream cake :) But we will be having more celebrating next weekend, since, YOU KNOW, 40 is kind of a big deal. And for those of you who don't already know, YES, we really are that far apart in age. At least we were born in the same decade (1979 and 1970 ) :-)
• Last weekend we went to Octoberfest, which was fun, but this weekend we went to Causey Reservoir to see the annual Salmon run up the river. It was spectacular. These Kokanee salmon make a run up the river between the age of 3 and 5. They turn from their normal silvery color, to bright red. They smell their way up the river and spawn at the same sandbar that they hatched at. Some of them die along the way, because it's quite a long journey. The water is also fairly shallow, so you see them up close jumping upstream and finding mellow spots to take breaks. Nature at it's best. It's probably about 3-4 hours of hiking, spending time at the river, eating, driving, etc. It was an 8 hour day, and Isaac was a trooper!
• Anyway, those are the major happenings since I last blogged about 3 weeks ago. Until next time!

Abbie decided to run down a very steep, 200 yard embankment to cool off and take a plunge.

The tired woman, goofball man and sleeping baby.

Our little fam...

Isaac with "baba and pop."

Isaac enjoying the ride...

Isaac LOVES drinking from the Camelback.
Maybe a new trick to get him to drink more water? Hmmm...

This was Dave's "birthday hike." Pretty sure he loved it.

Tried to get one up close - it's hard, those suckers are fast!

All those red flashes - salmon!