Drew's First Day of School!

Well, it was Drew's first day of kindergarten today and he was so cute when I dropped him off. I could tell he was nervous but didn't want to show it. He smiled and found his seat and was just as cute as can be. I did catch him looking around uneasily a few times. I think he'll love it though. Two in school! Liza will go on the fourth.

Jericho Road Groupies

For all of you Jericho Road groupies out there the Arrington kids have something to brag about! James and I along with our kids attend a group called the Genesis Group. It is church organization catering to black or minority members of the church (but anyone is welcome). We go once a month for a program and refreshments. So far it has been a lot of fun and the latest thing that we have done in connection with Genesis is that the kids performed with Jericho Road. One of the members of Jericho Road attends Genesis and invited the children to sing as a choir for their recent benefit concert. All of our kids did it except little Si. The kids sang "This Little Light of Mine" and they were also back up for Jericho Road on "Like a Child". It was really fun and they put on an excellent show along with several other performers which included but was not limited to, break-dancers, some divas from High School Musical 2, Jenny Frogley, Alex Boye (thats Abinidab on David and Goliath for all you Liken fans out there) and my personal favorites for the evening, Jacob Lutrell and the Divine Heritage Choir. The concert was held in connection with Reach the Children and 100% of the money made went straight to children in Africa. Fun fun fun. Anyway, I've included some pictures. Enjoy.

First Day of School!

Well, it's that time of year again, School, yay! Here is a pic of Madison with her friend Madisyn on their first day of second grade. I can't believe I have a second grader. Eeeeek! Andrew starts kidergarten tomorrow and Eliza starts preschool on the fourth. I will add their pictures soon.

Last Thursday our family had a little adventure. My side of the family decided that for our family reunnion this year we would go to Lehman Caves in Nevada and camp for three days. James and I were dreading it a bit because the last couple of times that we have tried to camp with the kids it's been a nightmare. We were optomistic however hoping that it would be better since they are a bit older than the last time. It was a little over a four hour drive and Mills started throwing up when we were about an hour away. She remained a bit sick the rest of the time but took it well. It really was pretty good except at night. Bedtime was nuts and I seriously wondered what we were doing there. The first night in poured all night long. We were in a summer tent and therefore got a few drips. But all in all I am surprised we stayed as dry as we did. It was pure providence. We had decided to let the kids sleep in the van that night. The idea was to crack the windows and pitch our tent right next to the van so we could hear them just fine and they would have good ventalation. Problem was, due to the rain we couldn't crack the windows. We cracked one and draped plasic over it to keep the rain out which sort of defeated the purpose of ventalation. So all night James and I slept uneasy worrying that the kids would be short on air. We got up a couple of times just to open a door and let fresh air into their steamy abode. The next night they slept in the tent with us and we were spared the rain, though there was a lot of really loud wind. And Mills woke up to a false throw up alarm. All in all, we had Andrew pee his pants twice, something he had been doing really well on until the camp out, Liza pooped her pants a couple of times, something she'd been doing extremely good on until the camp out, Mills being sick, along with two other cousins, and James getting diarrhea, a raccoon or skunk padding around our tent door due to me totally forgetting to put Lily's dog food in the car, Eliza falling directly into the fire. She was walking backwards and fell right in bum first. Monte and I grabbed her and pulled her out and amazingly she was o.k., all except for a blister burn on her hand where she grabbed the metal edge of the fire pit. Christian sliced his finger nearly to the bone with his pocket knife while carving. He passed out a bit and that was quite exciting. My mom had to drive to Baker (about 20 min.) and buy some super glue to patch it up. Due to it being a cut that really should have had stitches, they couldn't just bandage it. Hooray for super glue. It was quite an adventure. Next year will be better. On the upside, we saw lots of deer, went on a fun hike, the stars were amazing, the mountains were beautiful, and Lehman Caves was just as cool as I remembered it. Ta ta.

Little Un's

Here's some pics of our kiddies in no particular order.

Mills' Art

Maillie and Snotty Si

Super Si


Shy Girl

Watch out Ladies


Eliza and Drew

Birthday Boy's Night on the Town

Reflections

Happy Ones

Chili Man

Lofty Aspirations

Birthday Boy

Well, yesterday was James' 30th birthday. We had a fun little date thanks to my mom watching our kids for us. We decided it was high time that we had a little bit of tourist fun right here in S.L.C. and let me tell you people, we had a lot of fun. I decided to take James to Salt Lake and let him choose his own adventure since usually when we are in Salt Lake it is during Christmas season and there are hoards of people, not to mention five little high-need creatures tailing us and we really have a hard time doing much. I took him to temple square and gave him some options of things to do. We ended up going to the Joseph Smith movie and crying our eyes out. And I am not just talking about me either. Yep folks, James had tears gushing down his cheeks just like every other time that we have seen it. I should have taken a picture, but you know there's that darn "no pictures in the theatre" rule. Before and after the movie we meandered about looking at the gardens and historical buildings, being able to take time to enjoy them right down to their ionic columns and roaring lion heads. What with the little creatures being absent it was easy to do this. For those of you who don't know, I am a sucker for historical stuff. Seeing old buildings or artifacts is Disneyland for me. I know, many of you are thinking right now that I am a total geek, but there you have it. We then went to dinner at the Garden room on the roof of the Joseph Smith Memorial building. It was delicious despite its early nineties decor and it had a great view. After dinner we became real tourists as we toured temple square, took borderline disrespectful pictures (which I have added), and were actually able to listen to the presentations and such. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. And I highly recommend it for all of you home grown or foreign folks, with out the little creatures that is. Ta ta.

Girls Camp!

Hey folks. I am the Secretary for the Young Women in our ward and I just got back from girls camp a few days ago and thought I would share a bit about it because it was SO MUCH FUN. I wasn't aware that you could have so much fun at Girls Camp. Every one of our Young Women loved it too, and many of them said it was their favorite yet. We went to Beaver High Adventure Base which is a Boy Scout camp. They worked us from morning to night doing very rigorous activities. We sawed wood (with the old fashioned two-woman saw as we called it), chopped wood, made old fashioned candles, shot black powder rifles, 22's, shot guns, and bow and arrows, went rock climbing and rappelling, learned to sword fight and waged a full on battle, with foamy swords of course, and made some excellent tie tied shirts. In between all of these seriously fun activities, we hiked, and hiked, and hiked some more. Even the biffies (the outhouses) were a jaunt across the field. Being a leader, I suppose I could have sat back and enjoyed the relaxing mountain air but for some odd reason my old "conquer all" nature came out and I ended up doing everything. It was a good workout for my now ageing, post-childbearing body, but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, and it made me feel like a teeny bopper again. I unfortunately forgot my camera so I will post pics if I can get some from the girls. Ta ta!