Boise River

This week I took the kids to the river to play. We haven't been there yet this summer. The kids LOVE playing there. They get to play in the sand and they play in a little stream that runs by the river. It is great. The bad part is there are mosquitoes and the sand makes for a ton of clean up. I had to vacuum out my car forever after that. It was fun though and I will have to take them again soon.

On Wednesday I made tin foil dinners and we went as a family and had a picnic in the park and Scott floated the irrigation ditch with the kids. That was a good time as well. On Thursday I caravan-ed with a friend on her Boise parks quest. She and her kids are trying to visit as many Boise/Meridian parks as they can (there's at least 50 in Boise alone). We hit two parks in Meridian. The kids had fun. We were going to join them on Friday as well but I had too much stuff at home to do that day.

On Thursday I found a dresser at the DI  that I want to upcycle and use as an entertainment center. I started that project yesterday. It is going to be a TON of work. I hope it works out! Fingers crossed.

On Friday night we had our friends the McFarlands over for dinner. I'm so sad they actually moved to Twin that night. They were in the middle of packing and came over for a bite to eat and then continued to pack and move that night. We will miss them!

Saturday I spent the day researching painting furniture, buying supplies, sanding and painting the first coat of primer. Once again fingers crossed!

Kid Quotes:
Corbin:
I had to sub to the music leader in primary today and as soon as church got out Corbin said, "mom you know what's annoying about you, you didn't sing Follow the Prophet." Ha. (That's his favorite).

me: "babies eat everything." Corbin: "ya even kids."

Gabby: "He said, get away you dog!" He hates dogs just like you." For record I don't hate dogs (except for mean dogs that chase you when you are running) I just don't want to touch them or smell them or be around them. Ha.

Piper: "Don't worry Gabby, I will save you!"

He is so lucky to have a sister to dress him up.

Love him!

This is so great and fun for the kids and the water was so warm. The raging river is far enough away the kids don't even get near it. Such a great kid spot.

Crawling babies in the sand...not my favorite! But look at that face!

The kids were having a fort, snack party before church today.

Atomic Days

It's been a pretty crazy busy week. On Monday I did a ton of work trying to get back into the swing of things after coming back from vacation. After dinner that night I took the 3 kids swimming at the pool in Eagle with Anna's family. Any chance I have to go swimming with them I try to take them up on it. I ended up babysitting all 4 of Alex and Anna's kids all day Tuesday and Wednesday. It was pretty exhausting. We all survived! I went to the park and unloaded what seemed like 50 little children, one old man walking his dog said, "do you have any more in there?" It was pretty funny. We went to the park, played in the sprinklers, baked some cookies, made bracelets, played video games, watched movies etc. Seriously 9 hours straight is a lot of hours to kill. Ha!

On Thursday I spent the whole day getting ready to leave for the Beal reunion in Arco. Kelsey and Justin flew in that night and got to sleep in the triple bunk bed. Oh the luxury. We woke up super early and loaded up and headed out. I ended up leaving Ryan home with Scott. We decided we would both be much happier with this arrangement. It's not easy or fun to take a baby on the road and Scott doesn't really love going to my parents house when it's really crowded and so HOT (no AC, we are spoiled and like it cold over here). So it ended up working out great. Scott had a great time with Ryan in his air conditioning watching some super nerdy international video game tournament all weekend.

All of my siblings and family arrived sometime on Friday. Chase and Rachel were able to come from OK and Kelsey and Justin from Vegas. Yay! Almost the whole weekend I mostly sat in a camping chair chatting it up with whoever was present. Friday got a little long because I didn't seriously do anything else. I thought about swimming or playing volleyball or playing games but mostly I just sat in some lawn chair all day. Ha. Hart and Jory set up a huge projector and we watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It was really fun and that movie is so funny and I haven't watched it forever. It's especially fun to watch funny movies with my dad because he laughs tons and it's highly entertaining to me.

On Saturday a few people went and ran in the 5K fun run in the morning. Keaton won the raffle grand prize of propane valued at $250. (That will make a great gift for my dad). Awesome. All of us went and watched the parade. My kids got tons of candy. They got super close to the parade too many times. Piper is not scared at all especially when candy is involved. You've never seen a 2 year old get so much candy especially with such stiff competition with all of the cousins. She's scrappy and people were kind to let the 2 year old grab candy.

After the parade a few of us headed up to Mackay Dam to enjoy the drive and take a quick dip. The water was cold and dirty but it was fun to ride with my parents and talk with them and enjoy the scenery. It was also really refreshing to get wet. My girls had a fun time throwing rocks in the water. The rest of the day I sat and chatted in a lawn chair. That night we chatted around the fire. It was a really fun time. The kids had tons of fun playing with cousins. I loved that they spent 2 full days outside. It was great. We had to drive home super early so Kelsey and Justin could catch their flight back to Vegas.

They needed a last minute sub for Corbin's primary class. His class is rowdy but it was fun. I loved that I could tell Corbin was proud to have his mom sub. It was cute. I'm not looking forward to the day when he will be embarrassed to have me sub. Ha.

My kids and Gabe and Christy's kids

Trailor ride with Granny

Gabe brought his swimming pool.

Chatting in a circle. There was a lot of that going on. A lot! Ha.

Mackay Dam. I was the grandma of this group for sure.

The "beach"

Movie Projector

Aunt Jory and Gabby

Piper, Kelsey and Justin

Parade watchers

St. George Vacation

We had a great week in St. George. The weather was crazy mild for St. George in July. When we got out of church today in Boise Scott said he thought it was hotter here than when we got out of church in St. George. Well he was right. It's 109 in Boise today and I don't think it got over 101 the whole time we were in St. George. It was crazy! I loved it. We were actually able to go outside here and there without wanting to die. One day it was 80 degrees. 80 degrees! It was so great. I was able to sleep in and still go for a walk nearly every morning without frying to my death.

The kids had a blast playing with their aunts and uncles and Nana and Papa. The biggest hit was 15 month old cousin Greta. Gabby especially couldn't get enough of her. She was constantly by her side trying to dance with her or chase her around the room.

Corbin loved swimming. He is a fish! He swam as much as he possibly could. Sometimes swimming 4 hours straight. He didn't wear a life jacket the entire week. Granted the pool was very small but he is a good little swimmer. He also loved watching a kid show in the movie theater room with snacks and playing video games with the big kids. He was a huge fan of the snack closet and was often found rummaging around in it.

Gabby loved the kids room that had a lot of toys for her to play with. She was not a big fan of swimming and screamed like she was being stabbed to death when I tried to get her to swim to me with her life jacket on. I was able to persuade her to swim with me a few laps with her life jacket on while I held on to her. I got her to put her face in the water and blow bubbles about 10 times the whole week. She loved dancing with Greta and having an unlimited supply of fruit snacks and fish crackers.

Piper loved swimming. She was also a little fish. She swam with her arm floaties by herself all over the pool. She kicked, kicked, kicked and loved it. She also loved having someone to give her full attention at all times. Papa was especially good for that. She also like playing left, right, center with Nana. She loved eating lots of grapes.

Ryan kind of liked the pool sometimes for awhile. He was mostly a big fan of finding any leaf he could get his hands on to try to eat and choke on. He especially liked the restaurant Ninja where he ate rice and sauteed vegetables until everyone was done and I had to finally cut him off so we could leave.

Scott loved playing video games especially when at least 4 of them could play at the same time. He enjoyed watching some of Gettysburg in the theater room and hiking with Corbin.

I loved watching my kids have so much fun all week. I loved swimming, playing games, going to the movies, and eating snacks. I too was often found in the snack closet rummaging around. I may or may not have gained a few pounds last week. Ha!

Cuties!

Hiking adventure

So cute! I love that she has Carole's purse in this picture. 

Scott's most favorite moment was probably when his mom joined in for a bit of zombies action.

At our pit stop in North Ogden Scott found a HUGE caterpillar. You can't tell from this picture but that thing was so fat.

We drove from St. George to Boise straight yesterday. With 2 pit stops it took us 10 hours. Long day! The kids did pretty darn well. The car was especially peaceful when all 4 clunked out at the same time.

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4th of July

Scott went to Texas again on Monday and Tuesday. We thought his last trip was last month but the sale of the property was postponed another month. That night we ended up having a girl's night at my house. We had a fun time chatting into the night. Tuesday night Scott got back and we got caught up on the last couple of episodes of 24. Wednesday Gabby had her follow up appointment with the ear, nose, and throat P.A. Her throat looks good. I guess her big scabs fell off. She handled it like a champ because I don't even know when it happened. She handled her surgery and recovery amazingly well. The P.A. said that only about 10% of patients are like that. Lucky us! Last night I went to check on the sleeping kids and I couldn't hear Gabby breathing. I had to go right up to her face to hear her. Amazing!

Kelsey and Justin came late Wednesday night for the weekend. Justin's uncle hired them to help set up the fireworks for the city of Boise. We got to hang out with them for a little bit before we headed to Utah. They were great at entertaining our kids while we were packing.

We left for Utah for our big St. George trip on Thursday. The main reason we came down on Thursday was because Scott really wanted to go karaoke and it turns out that place got shut down. Scott was very sad. On Friday we went to  the delicious Holladay City 4th of July breakfast. The rest of the day we hung out and later had scrumptious burgers on the deck for dinner. We were waiting to go to the Holladay fireworks but while we were waiting there were people lighting illegal fireworks all around us. We had a great fireworks show right in Nicole and Rustin's backyard. It was great.

On Saturday we caravan-ed down to St. George. The house has tons of bedrooms which is great. The pool is pretty small so that's a little sad but I'm sure we will still have a blast swimming all week. I can't wait to watch Corbin swim all week. I'm hoping to work with Gabby this week as well.

Kids Quotes:
Corbin:
"How old will you be when you are killed?" Bah!
"Mom, are you cute?" Me: "Do you think I'm cute?" C: "Yes." Me:"I guess I'm cute then."

Gabby: "Piper kicked me and I didn't kick her." (Hmmm..quite a telling statement).
"Mom they're so sparkly and gorgeous and sparkly."

Piper: "Mom, you got new pink shoes? Great job!"

Cute Ryan having a little cuddle with Corbin