Ben not only had Monday off for Labor Day, but Friday as well. The first Friday of the month is also our stake temple patron day. We decided this would be the perfect opportunity to go out to St. Louis. We met some friends from our ward there and took turns in the temple so we could attend as couples. Because it is so far away, people will often drive out and have one of them go Friday night, stay at a hotel, and the other goes in the morning. Because of the money we spent on new stuff for the house and eating out while we were moving, we didn't have enough to spend the night. That made for a long day, but it felt good to be able to go to the temple. There is also a park right next to the temple where the kids played all day.

It didn't occur to me until a week before this that school was not cancelled on Friday. We ended up having to pull Sydney out to go. We found out on Tuesday that there had been an assembly on Friday, and Sydney had been named Student of the Month for first grade. I felt bad that she had missed that. We have her certificate up on the refrigerator.

I started physical therapy this week to try to finally fix an old back injury. I had tweaked it while on bedrest with Tyler and kept thinking that time would eventually calm things down again. I've really been trying to lose weight, but I kept aggravating my back with the exercise I was doing. So far it seems we are just angering things back there, but I am hoping to be able to start doing some real exercise soon.

I have taken on a couple of new students for piano lessons. I still think it's funny that I teach piano at all. I started as a favor to my friend who begged me to just try since she couldn't find a teacher around here. Then someone in my old neighborhood found out that I was teaching them and asked me to teach her little boy a few weeks ago. She has since given my name to one of her friends who called and asked me to teach her little boy. I have warned all of them that I have no teaching experience and a house full of crazy little kids while I'm teaching, and yet they still come. There really must be a shortage of piano teachers around here. Looks like I might be teaching Sydney myself despite how much I don't want to do that.

Tyler is cutting his first tooth. He is really miserable. He looks so funny because he keeps sucking his lips in over his gums to feel it. Silly little guy.