New School Year

It's that time of year again!

The Friday before school started, we went to the school open house so the kids could see their classrooms, find their desks, and meet their teachers.

Tuesday, Aug. 22 was the first day of school.

I took a few (or maybe a lot) of pictures of the kids before we left

Of course they wanted some pictures with Dorie!

We continued our tradition of walking to school all together on the first day

A squinty sunny picture in front of the school. So far the year is off to a good start!

The Solar Eclipse

On August 21 (Mike's birthday!), there was a solar eclipse. Here in Utah, we got 91% coverage of the sun. Lots of friends and neighbors headed up to Idaho to see the total coverage.

The kids and I made some pinhole projectors to monitor the progression of the eclipse

We noticed that shadows were looking pretty different

Around 11:30 am was when the sun was covered the most. It was quite weird to see it be darker in the middle of the day, although it didn't get completely dark

I loved the shadows from the Swedish aspen!

It was fun to see all the pictures people were posting on Facebook. These two pictures were from some of our neighbors who were more creative!

These were pinhole projections before and after totality

I also saw some cool shadows people made with collanders

A beautiful picture National Geographic posted

and a funny comic from The Oatmeal - haha

Mike's Birthday

We celebrated Mike's birthday at a Sunday dinner. The rest of the Burtons had to go home for school and work, but Andrew and Karin were staying a little longer, so it was fun to have them there.

My kids are always wanting to play games with Andrew

Oswald came over to play. Vienne loves the doggies

Family picture

Blowing out the candles

Evie brought her stuffed Hedwig owl, and Vienne loved it

Opening presents

Nora made her card a paper fortune teller with a birthday message inside

For their present, Beth and Reece gave Mike an "Escape Room" experience. We were able to go the next day (which was Mike's actual birthday!) and it was really fun. 

The one we went to was called "House of Escapes"

 Our group was split into 3 teams, and we were able to explore the whole basement of the house to find clues.There was a big timer clock set for 90 minutes, which was our time limit.  The primary objective was to find the antidote to survive, and then there was a bonus challenge. The puzzles were pretty hard, and for the last 15 minutes, they said we could all collaborate. We were able to finish the primary objective, and make some progress on the bonus challenge. 

Getting our instructions and backstory before the clock started - the story of our escape room was based on the movie Clue.

Whew - working together we were finally able to find the antidote

Our group picture at the end - woo hoo!

The House of Escapes is right next door to Sodalicious, so we stopped in to get a sweet treat afterward

Cheers

The gifts from the kids and me came a little later than expected, but Mike was able to open them on Monday night

Andrew's Mission Open House

On August 9, there was a special open house celebration to celebrate Andrew and his mission call.

In the afternoon, we did a session at the Salt Lake temple with many family members.

The open house celebration was at 6, and included a yummy dinner buffet and some fun decorations based on the mission area.

The mission that Andrew was called to is the Adriatic South Mission, which includes Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo, so the flags of those countries were hanging up.

Beth brought Papa's old camera to take some pictures

It was a really nice evening with family

These cute cookies came from Granite Bakery