Sneak Peak

Here is a sneak peak of our family pictures. Ryan had to jump the stream each time we posed as a family. Good thing our camera had a 30 second delay and we could take 6 pictures at a time :)

This my favorite picture but I don't think I am going to use it for our wall or Christmas cards because you can't see Lindee very well. If she would have been on my knee it would have been a winner.

Jenna took this picture of Ryan and I! She did a great job.

I think this picture is the winner even though Lindee isn't smiling. By this point her feet were soaked and she was cold and didn't want to pose with all of us again.

We tried to take a picture of all of the kids but Lindee was done and wouldn't pose anymore so none of them turned out. Plus all the boys wanted to do was play in the water and snow. If you notice all of the kids jeans are wet at the bottom by the time we took individual picutes. We did get this cute picture of Ryan and the girls.

Jenna's Concert

Jenna is in 5th grade this year and the school has a 5th grade orchestra. We went to the music store and Jenna chose the viola to rent. She has really enjoyed learning to play. Recently she had her first concert. They got to dress up in their halloween costums and play a few renditions of Twingle Twingle little star. I thought it turned out pretty good concidering they have only been playing for about a month.

Boise Temple

We were able to go to the Boise Temple Open House! It looks so beautiful with all of the dark wood in it. It really meant a lot to take our kids there because that is where our family started 13 1/2 years ago!!

The Ussing clan

All of with the temple in the back ground. This is all of Ryan sibblings. We were missing 2 peole though. Kristians husband Chris and their daughter Rachel.

Here is just one of our family.

Brigham City

We took the opportunity to go to the Brigham City Temple open house. It was beautiful inside. It had a peach theme to it with peach pedels increaved into the woodwork and on the tiles in the floor. We had reservations but we still waited in a 2 hour line to get in. But what a great opportunity for our kids. We plan on going to the Boise open house in a few weeks. The kids will get to see inside where Ryan and I were married and our story started!

ALl of us outside of the temple. We set up the tripod and got a great picture!

Before we went to the temple we went to the Brigham City Cemetry where Ryan's grandparents are buried and his great grandparents. We couldn't find them so we went back after we saw the temple and found them.

Fair and Birthdays

Ryan and Jenna's birthdays are a day apart. We went to the Utah State fair to start off the celebrations. We walked around and looked at all of the animals and exhibits. We saw this huge kholribi

and then the kids got to use their one free ride they got for reading so many minutes at the summer reading program. Jenna and JT picked the Zipper! They had a ton of fun and admitted it was a little scary.

Luke wanted to know what it was like to fly so he chose the hanglidder ride and Ryan went with him.

Lindee loved the Merry go round!

After the fair we hopped back in the car and I drove us to where Ryan was picking out his birthday present. He had no idea what I was getting him so he was so excited when we drove up to Sportmans Wearhouse and he know I was getting him a gun. He has always wanted a hand gun so I finally gave in and let him pick the one he has had his eye on! When we got home we went shooting so he could try it out!

On Sunday we had Jeff's family over to help us celbrate.

and he got to open the presen that the kids got him. A red tie for the Utah Utes! We looked all over for a UofU tie and couldn't find one so red will do for now!

Jenna turned 11! She wanted to decorate her own cake so she invited the neighbor girl over to help her. It looked really cute until they put all of the springles on it. But she loved it because she did it.

Jenna got a ripstick and ramp (to share) and a new game for her DSI.

Pre-school

Lindee has been waiting forever to finally be starting school. I did joy school with her last year with 6 other moms, but this year she started at a preschool 2 miles from our house. She loves it and asks everyday if she has school. She goes 3 days a week for 2 1/2 hours and couldn't be happier!

First Day of School

Here are all of the kids on the first day of school. I always have mixed feelings when the kids return to school. But the kids don't. They couldn't wait to get back to school so they could play with all of their friends they hadn't seen all summer.

Jenna is in 5th grade.

Luke a 4th grader.

JT or, John as he likes to be called, is in 2nd grade.

Stripped Kitty!

We were mowing our lawn one night and Ryan looked over and saw this

there were feathers everywhere outside the chicken coop. He went inside the coop and there were 3 dead chickens. So we went and got some traps thinking we were going to catch a cat (our neighbor has about 10 cats). Well the next day was Sunday so we went outside and the trap was tipped over but the chickens were still acting weird. Jenna looked in the coop and saw a dead chicken so she came running in to tell us. So Ryan goes out to take care of it. When he opens the coop he sees a little black and white stripped "kitty" looking at him. We didn't know what to do so we just shot it, but boy did it stink and still does 2 months later. We saw more digging a few days later and set the trap again. This time our dog Penny went out to investigate and got sprayed by it. She comes running in and into her kennel. Ryan and I were upstairs and we smell this horrible smell and sure enough we had caught a skunk. But now that we caught it we didn't know what do you do with a caged skunk. We didn't want to shoot it so we read on the internet that if you cover it with a blanket it won't spray you because it can't see to spray. So we did that and then drowned it.

Here it is in the cage.

After Ryan drowned it. We have killed 4 skunks since then. Hopefully we have got them all!

Zoo

The weekend after the hike we went to the zoo. We haven't been for a couple of years. The kids really enjoyed it.

The Hogle zoo!

Who's the biggest ape?

The zoo has a new exhibit with polar bears and seals. The polar bear would swim rigth up to the glass and then swim back. The kids loved him, but so did all the other kids and it was hard to take a picture. But here we are posing outside of the exhibit.

We really like the bird show that they do. It is awsome! The birds fly right over your heads. Ryan snapped this picture of Liberty the bald eagle. Liberty was injured by a car and can't be released into the wild. She actually can't fly just flap her wings. What a magnificiant bird to represent our nation!

Kids and hike

Here are just a few random pictures of what we had done this summer.

An awsome fort that the kids made with almost all of our blankets. They had fun making it but cleaning it up was not so much fun

JT loves the water and can always find things and balance in them for a boat

Jenna with our two new "kids"

Lindee being cute!

Luke earned his Bear this summer. Ryan is the cubmaster and I am on the committee over Ryan so it has been lots of fun to both be in Scouts with Luke. At the beginning of summer we have a list of things that we want to do with the kids, by the end of the summer we rush to get the last few things in. So every weekend in August we have done something fun. The first thing we did was go on a hike. Now it wasn't just a little hike! It was a 7 mile hike. Half of it was up a mountain and the other half was down the mountain. We hiked into a lake and it was beautiful. We had a great time and the kids did great. Even Lindee did a good job but declared after the hike that she did not want to go hiking again for a long time!

Resting on the trail

I think we were only a fourth of the way of one of the mountains. We were tired especially JT.

On the side of the mountain resting.

Here the kids are resting by a rock. We were about half way at that point.

This was usually my view. The 3 older kids would be way up ahead while, me, Ryan, and Lindee followed.

Here we are resting on a log that had fallen over the trail.

When we finally reached the lake after 4 hours we all stripped down into our underwear and went swimming. We had our own private lake until about 10 minutes after we put our clothes back. Then someone joined us. Here is Luke enjoying the water.

Posing by the lake. It had a great view.

Here is a view on the way back from the lake.

We made it. It took us 4 hours to get up to the lake and 3 hours to get down. We were only planning on it taking us 5 hours round trip. But we made it and the older kids already want to go again. Posing by the front of the trail.