The BIG First Day.

This year, we have three kids at the same school. This will be a first and a last for the Stewart family.
Most likely, this is the cleanest and put together they will be all at the same time this year:


Together in the schoolyard:

Finding our way to the Kindergarten Line-up:
The supremely confident 5th Grader plus posse:
The Studious Second-Grader: Bring it on!
The trepidatious Kindergartner! It's the class line-up. . .and. . . the moment of truth has arrived! The school BELL. But look! No Tears! What a great job, Ivy!

And finally, The Lone Stewart Child: "Who took my playmates?!"

I love the Mountains, I love the rolling Hills, I love the Flowers, I love the Daffodils!

Vickie and Alan took us up to the Albion Basin up Little Cottonwood Canyon. We have skied here many times, but never come up during the summer. The pictures hardly do it justice, but I think you'll enjoy it anyway:






























Later that night, everyone (and their dogs) came to the Millcreek Canyon Gathering.


We twisted the kids' arms and convinced them to perform a few songs from "Joseph." (Just kidding about the twisting arms. If you've ever met my kids, you know that is a joke. No twisting necessary. Unless you want them to stop.)
This is also where they performed the aforementioned Shakespeare scene.

And actually, not quite everyone was there - G&G Muir weren't feeling up to canyoneering, so we made a special visit later that night.




Our Utah visit has come to an end. We love the Beehive State! And especially all our family who lives there.

Sunset in Salt Lake

Sunday afternoon Theater

What do you get when you take one Stage, a closet-full of costumes, a bit of inspiration from Grandma Palmer and three performance-hungry children on a lazy Sunday afternoon?

Shakespeare!

Macbeth, to be specific.

My charming children were busy all afternoon practicing and memorizing the scene with the Three Witches - you know the one - "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble...." When we finally all sat down at the same time for them, we were blown away!

Ivy's line in a creaky little voice was my favorite: "Harpier cries:—'tis time! 'tis time!"

Witch #3:

Round about the caldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.—

Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Of course, we had to reprise the scene for the Family Gathering in the Canyons the next night. This time, up in the mountains, it seemed all the more sinister...

Eli and Ivy (Witches #1 and #3) dutifully put the ingredients into the cauldron as Lizzie (Witch #2) rattles them off.
"Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;"

"Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."
Lizzie, who is much too proper to use words like "hell-broth," substituted "bad-broth." See, she's not such a bad witch after all.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and caldron bubble!!