Summer fun times

This last week we crammed in quite a few fun summer activities. On Monday night we got together with my family for a pool party/BBQ. Chase and Rachel were in town with their brand new (3 month old) stinking cute baby. The kids loved swimming as usual and boy am I glad Ryan can swim with puddle jumper floaties this year. They are the bomb! On Tuesday morning I met Chase, Rachel, and Hudson at Camel's Back park for a mini hike with my kids. I've always wanted to take my kids there and I figured maybe it could be something to do with Chase and Rachel. It was hot but it wasn't too terrible yet. It's a fun short hike for little people and you can overlook the city of Boise. On the way home we hit a new burger king with a big indoor gym. After a quick nap we headed out for the dollar movie Angry Birds. That was a busy day!

On Friday night Corbin and I went to Brigitte's pool party at the Natatorium. I didn't want to take the other kids because I figured they could get cranky since the party was from 9:00 -10:30 pm and also because they don't allow kids to wear floaties. DUMB. So I took my big kid swimmer and he had a blast playing with some of his cousins. The best thing about the Natatorium is definitely their big tube slide.It's pretty fun.

On Saturday morning we headed over for Brigitte's baptism. She and her cousin had  combined baptisms. It was perfect. I wish every baptism could be special like that. We still all remember going to my nephew Braden's baptism when like 20 or 30 kids got baptized. It was 2 or 3 hours long. It was the worst! Ha. Anyway a special cousin baptism was great and will sure be memorable for those cute cousins I'm sure. Afterwards we headed over to a church pavilion for a lunch.

Saturday night Scott's work had a family picnic at the zoo. It was super hot and pretty crowded. A lot of people work at Ameriben. It was fun though. Our kids LOVED it. We haven't been to the zoo in years and years. It was a smashing success plus free dinner which also means no cooking. Winning all around. The kids were so excited and adorable. Cute little Ryan especially loved it. He gets so hot and sweaty in an instant. Plus with his short little legs running for 2 hours straight, that boy must have been tired last night.

Just three more weeks until school starts. We will see what summer fun we can cram in until then.

Picnic in the park. We go to this often.

Internet picture of the view down the hiking trail. There is a much less steep way to get to the top.

That bunny was huge. Piper's covering up quite a bit and you can't get a sense of how fat that rabbit was.

Servil

So red and sweaty. 

Christy, Brigitte, and Gabe.

Update

I don't have much to write about from last week. We went to the park several times and we finally went with friends to the river. We usually go all the time in the summer. I can't believe we just went for the first time. Summer is simultaneously going too slow and too fast. The days are long with lots of fighting, mess, and chaos and yet we haven't done enough summer activities in my mind yet. There are about 4 weeks left before school starts so I want to make a list of things I still want to do with the kids this summer.

Ryan quote, "Piper, can you stop crying please?" Ha. He's one to talk.
"That's so cool." I don't remember what he was talking about but he says it in such a cute voice.

Piper quote while painting fingernails, "mom, where did you get that fabulous pink?" Ha.

Well that's all!

St. George Vacation

We just got back from our St. George vacation. It was a success as usual. 2 Fridays ago I spent the day cooking and packing to get ready to leave for vacation. Scott couldn't take work off so I was on my own. I got up early Saturday morning and loaded things up and drove straight to Salt Lake. We met the Cannons at their house while they finished packing and then we went to lunch at Hires. I pawned off all of my kids and drove alone to Beaver. After that Jeff drove my car and I slept in Janet's car. We made it to the house and had dinner and went swimming. The rest of the week we played games, went swimming, went to movies, went to the Bear Paw, had a Harry Potter movie marathon, went shopping, went to the botanical gardens, karaoke, and more. Never were we more hungry and too full always at the same time.

I put Ryan back in a diaper which pretty much made it the best vacation ever. The kids had so much fun because we have had a pretty lame summer up to this point. Ryan has never really been in a pool for longer than 5 minutes at a time and this vacation he became a fish. I was really nervous in the beginning because I wasn't sure how well his floaties were keeping him up and how he would do. He almost immediately went off the slide all by himself and we couldn't keep him from swim, swim, swimming the rest of the time. He would jump off the rock cliffs and he was just a crazy dare devil. It was quite the shock for me. The other kids loved swimming as well. Piper is super tan now and Gabby's oh so fair skin was barely kept from getting too burned.

Ice cream at Beaver

Botanical Gardens

Roasting at the Botanical Gardens

A little pre-dinner nap

I LOVE when Corbin is cute with Ryan.

Sparklers! Poor Ryan burned his hand bad on one of those. OUCH!

Time to VEG out.

Silly Ryan

Ha. Love this.

My old roommate happened to be in the Salt Lake area this week as well so we were able to meet up. I just loved meeting up with her. Love her so much.

4th of July

Last week nothing much happened. I just continued trying to potty train Ryan. I'm really starting to regret potty training him. I should have waited until after summer was over. I feel like I wasted two weeks of summer and now he doesn't have it totally and we have to deal with accidents on vacation. Boo. I tried to put him in a diaper before we went to Arco and he freaked out. He said, "I don't want to wear a diaper ever again." So I put him back in his underwear and we drove to Arco. He didn't have any accidents there except for poop. He still poops in his underwear. He doesn't totally have the peeing down either because last night I tested him to see if he would tell me when he needed to go and he had an accident. He wakes up dry almost every morning and then he randomly doesn't. I bought some pull ups today but he saw right through those, "diaper." I got him to put them on explaining that they are special big boy potty training pants. After a few minutes he said, "I don't want to wear a diaper anymore." Oh the joys! Maybe just maybe he will put on a pull up if I leave him and say go to a movie while we are down in St. George. We will see...

The kids and I headed out to my parent's house on Sunday to celebrate the 4th. Lucky for us we rolled in just in time for Sunday dinner. Yum. Scott can't really take time off with his brand new job so he won't be vacationing with us this summer. After dinner I went and visited my friend Barb from high school. Later that night Trisha's family came then Alex and Anna's family and then Hart and Jory's. That night we lit off some fireworks and then gabbed until 1:00 in the morning.

On the 4th Trisha, my mom and I started the day with a morning walk. We headed downtown for the Arco city parade. It's perfect! You can show up 5 minutes before it starts and it lasts 15 minutes. The kids get tons of candy. It's the best. After that we headed over to the Arco city park where they were hosting a free lunch. The rest of the day we just hung out around the house. Some went up in the mountains and did a hike to some falls. Our neighbors have little puppies that they let us borrow for the day. The kids LOVED playing with them. That night we went into town again to watch the Arco fireworks. Those are the greatest too. My aunt lives right at the top of the hill where they light them off so we can watch at her house. The fireworks are just long enough to get a show and then you can drive straight home. We really enjoyed Arco for the 4th. I don't think I've been to Arco for the fourth in at least 10 years. It was good times!

Tuesday morning we packed up and drove home. Now I am trying to mentally prepare myself to drive my kids to St. George on Saturday. I can do it! Right? Really I just need to make it to Salt Lake where I can hopefully pawn off some of my kids for the remainder of the drive. Wish us luck!

Before

After. I used paint I already had. I purchased the desk for $10 and spent $5 replacing missing hardware. Not bad! I love it. The only home I have for it is in my closet. Gabby has taken over it as her drawing station. 

Summer fun

Fireworks with cousins

Parade

Basket of puppies