Alana and Soccer!

Alana is going to be one busy little girl this fall. Instead of putting her in preschool, I decided to give her a variety of activities to try. She's signed up for soccer, gymnastics, tap, and ballet. We'll see if any of them stick!
Today was Alana's first soccer practice and she jumped right in. She loved being with her friends, running around, and wearing pick soccer socks.



After watching her this morning, I'm wondering if she'll have the grace for ballet...

Stake Sisters Temple Day

This morning I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the temple. I love the temple! The stake leaders provided babysitting and lunch. Great way to start the day!

A Tribute To Elvis

Since we live here in the Memphis area, we just HAD to experience a part of Elvis Week at least once. Tonight Craig and I, along with our friends Greg and Jen, went to the annual Elvis candlelight vigil at Graceland. What a cool experience! There were hundreds of people gathered to honor "The King". I must say that Elvis fans have their own unique 'look' to them.
There was a 2 hour wait in line just to get to the front gates for those who wanted to walk up to the graveside with their candles. The walk up the drive and back down was another hour. We chose to skip the line and just light our candles from the many homemade shrines that people set up in the streets. Greg shared his plethera of Elvis knowlege with us as we walked around. Fun night!

The end of an era...

Nine years ago we bought this '93 Jeep Wrangler for $5000. The gas gauge has never worked, it lost air conditioning about 7 years ago, we had to pull the radio out every time we turned it off or it would drain the battery, we held our breath before starting it up each time -- stubborn, the top is a pain to take off and put back on again, but despite all this we absolutely loved it!
However, with the Government willing to give us $4500 for it, we decided it was time to get a more reliable vehicle (with air conditioning). So with a tear in our eyes (okay, not Craig's eyes, but mine!), we took it out for one last hoorah with the top off and drove it over to the Honda dealership where we said good bye forever.
The tears dried up quickly, though, as I drove home in my (I mean our) new Honda Civic. But we'll always have a place in our hearts for the Jeep.

July

We did a lot of traveling during the month of July. Here are the highlights...

The kids and I drove to North Carolina to spend the 4th of July weekend with Michelle and Josh. Josh took the boys indoor rock climbing, while Michelle and I checked out the new IKEA. We all went to Paramount Carrowinds on our last day. Fun short trip!


A few days later, we drove to Branson, Missouri to spend a week with all of Craig's family. We did the Butterfly Museum, Ripley's Museum, White Water slides, rented a boat and tubed Table Rock Lake, Go-Karted, and enjoyed lots of fun family time!







At the end of the month, Craig's parents came to the house to watch Alana, Tolan and Bryce, so that Craig and I could take Jared to Chattanooga for the weekend for the state tennis tournament. Jared did great and had soooo much fun. He won his singles match 6-0, and lost both mixed doubles matches 4-6, 3-6.