Many parents worry how everyone will cope with summer vacation-it just seems so long. But, the fact of the matter is, it flies by every year. We are getting the back to school emails, and running around this way and that with activities, there have been very few boring times around these parts!
Right after we returned from Yellowstone, Katelee and I got to see Newsies! Paige and my mom joined us and it was pretty much the greatest thing ever!
Katelee played on a volleyball team for the first time, and apparently has fallen in love with that. So, for now, she is quitting diving and moving on to team sports. No pictures of her grass volleyball team-but I will take some in the fall. We arranged to have a cousin swap this summer-our girls would stay down in Arizona with their cousin Karly and we would have her brother, Max, here to hang out with Grant. The kids were so excited to do this, and I dare say it lived up to their dreams-except Max got sick and ended up in the Instacare with strep throat. Before the strep hit, we did do some fun things. They went to Seven Peaks and got burned to a crisp, we went to Snowbird, to the Salt Lake Arts Festival-
where we channeled our inner artists,
did crafts, and partied!
Dave took Grant and Max to the air show at the air force base that is 45 min away from us. The traffic was so crazy, they were in the car for 3 1/2 hrs before they parked, but they said it was awesome.
The girls tried to not melt on the surface of the sun aka Arizona. They were in heaven with Karly having a pool in backyard. It was a full week of swim, swim, swim.
We have had some water time at home this summer, as well. Brenna did swimming lessons, we just went to Cowabunga Bay last night.
We've hit the splash park, and our community pool with the fun aquaballs...
When we went a couple of weeks ago, we were driving home and Brenna turned to Grant's friend and said, "My dad is so strong, he is not squishy at all." Then, she went on to say, "My sister is a little more squishy than me, but my mom she is the QUEEN of squishy." Bwahaha! Guess mom in a swimsuit is pretty much the queen of squishy on display! Dad, on the other hand, is holding up nicely as you can see from his birthday pic from last month...
Right after Dave's was the 4th of July. Our silly city decided to do fireworks on the Saturday before the holiday-bug. But, we got an extra day to celebrate, I guess. We had a festive meal and then went to the park for the firework display. Once the terrible band finished, we had a great time. It's so fun to go with little kids and see their reactions. Harrison was hilarious.
He kept yelling, "DANG!" "Oh my gosh!" The actual 4th of July, we went to our street's annual pancake breakfast, where Dave busted out his signature dance moves.
We went to dinner at Amy's
and made it back to our neighborhood for quite the street displays. People went all out. Way to celebrate America!
The kids have been busy playing-night games are a regular occurrence and a summer necessity. Grant has been volunteering at the special needs school a couple of the weeks and really enjoyed that. Katelee had a week long theatre camp at Hale Center Theatre and once the tears stopped about the early wake up calls, she was in heaven.
We've gone to movies and museums. We love the children's museum downtown. We spent nearly 4 hours there. Harry was obsessed with the helicopter. I can't blame him. It's spiffy. He is all about superheroes these days. Although, Star Wars still has a small piece of his heart, as he displays his choke hold on a regular basis. He uses the force to choke us and when we do it in return, he grabs his neck, struggles for air and falls over dead. It is so funny.
Other yearly events we always look forward to are the community health fair with the best face painting in town...
and the 24th of July float preview party. We got to go with Grandma, Grandpa, Paige, Jason, Caleb and Grace.
Grant has had a couple of camp outs and he got to go on a date with Dave to the shooting range. I dare say it was the best day of his life.
The boys got out of the house while the girls celebrated Paige and baby boy Sohm who will be here in less than 2 months!
Shannon did a spectacular job with the decorating and the wild animal/jungle theme. We had a lot of fun putting it together.
Katelee won the baby food tasting game, not too shocking when one of the other players (Emmalee) guesses banana cucumber as a flavor!
We all are anxiously anticipating this baby's arrival-even Harrison talks about asking Paige to hold her baby. Brenna just jolts Paige's stomach, so that will be nice when she doesn't assault a pregnant person anymore.
Last weekend, Dave and I went to the Piano Guys with Amy, Mark and Lauren. It was phenomenal!
Memories in the making going on over here! I sometimes reflect as my kids are all gathered outside, barefoot, riding carelessly (and dangerously) around the hood and I think of how they will remember their childhood. How they will look back at their summers and activities. I know I am living the days I will miss. I can feel (even with the tantrums and lack of sleep and sunburns and arguing and sleep deprivation from late nights) that these are the best days. Hopefully I still feel that way in about 4 weeks when summer is officially over!
