The Night Before School

 The mountains are my happy place.  Bringing my family to the great outdoors fills me with peace and wipes away the stress of daily life.  Even when New Fish throws one of her epic fits, I am still happy to be outside.  New Fish only likes hikes that are strenuous and require climbing over rocks, a stroll around the lake "makes her legs hurt."  She only likes long crazy bike rides as well.  If it isn't a challenge then it suddenly becomes too hard.  After we found some big logs to jump off she forgot to be upset and we ended up having a lovely afternoon.

After our afternoon in the mountains we did our annual back to school dinner.  It requires party hats, decorations and fancy drinks.  This year our theme is "I Am Like A Star. " Our pep talk included all the ideas of reaching for the stars etc. but we mostly focused on the words of the primary song and "choosing happy things each day."  We frequently talk about choosing happy in our family. We try hard to recognize feelings, disappointments and the hard things but we want the kids to know that only they can choose happiness, to choose to overcome obstacles and enjoy life. We want them to know that they are so incredibly loved by their Heavenly Father and by their parents and hope that will give them strength to overcome any hardships that may come their way.  I think it is pretty much what all parents want for their children.  We ended the evening with father's blessings given by Two Fish.  The girls look forward to these blessings and I think it gives them a good start to the school year. My father and Two Fish's father always gave us father's blessings before the start of school.