Utah trip

Every summer I try to take my kids to Utah to visit my parents and other family there. We started our trip going to Enterprise to attend my nephew's, Jason, mission farewell. (he's the second nephew to leave in just the last few weeks, it makes me feel really old!) From Enterprise, Corey had to head back home to catch a flight to California, to work for the rest of the week and the kids and I headed to my parents house in Payson, Utah.

It's always such a nice break. Especially from the heat and I always think a change of scenery is good to help with summer boredom.

The first day there we went to the Payson City pool. We love it there and spent the whole afternoon enjoying it. 

 The kids rotated between the water slides, the lazy river, and jumping off the diving board. Emery spent the whole time in the kids area. I bet she went down the water slides there at least 100 times. They were all so worn out when we left.

One of the days, we met up with Corey's brother Jeremy, his wife Angela, and their three kids, who live in Saratoga Springs, at Trafalga in Lehi. My other sister-in-law Kim from Enterprise, happened to be vacationing too, with a couple of her boys and they met us. We had so much fun that day.

There was go-carts, bumper boats, laser tag, mini golf, rides for the kids, and an arcade.

 I was so glad to have Jeremy there, he was such a good sport to take kids in the bumper boats. He got soaked so I didn't have to.

We ended that adventure with Chick-fil-A. A must stop when we are in Utah.

We also love to go to Provo and go bowling at Fat Cats. We have done this for the last 3 years or so. This time we went with a fun family, the Fitzwaters, that live by my parents. They have 5 kids also and close in age to mine. We had a blast with them and my kids played with them each night that we were there. 

 Of course, my dad always cooks good food while we are there and my my mom and I always get in some shopping time. It's always hard to leave.

On the way home, we had to stop at my brother Nick's house. They had their third baby the day before. There was no way they could have kept me from stopping to meet my new niece, June. I had to pull myself away, I could hold those little ones all day.

We really had a good time and it's been hard to get back into the swing of things around here. I think we are all still functioning in vacation mode.

Life according to my phone

1-Celebrated doughnut day at Krispy Kreme

2-Hit Sonic happy hour on our way home from Krispy Kreme. Overkill? Yes, but I needed a diet coke.

3- Hailey and Emery joined Corey and I on a Cafe Rio lunch date. They chose to share a salad.

4- Hailey in her new glasses. My poor kids never stood a chance with our bad eye genes.

5-Summer wears us out. I have found Emery like this on several afternoons.

6-A little piano recital.

7-Emery on her birthday date.

8-Kayden leaving for youth conference. I had to be there at 4:30 in the morning to help had out breakfast to all the kids. They drove to lagoon lagoon that day then spent the next day touring church sites in Salt Lake. Then arrived home around midnight, Kayden was exhausted, but had a great time. 

9-Taking a swimming break to enjoy popsicles.

10-Just a cute one of Carter and and his shadow.

11-Brendan on his birthday date.

12-We had a string of super, super hot days. The mirror said 128°, but seconds before it said 130°. Ridiculous. Why we're we even outside?!

13-Brendan bought a Lego set with some of his birthday money. He constructed this and left it outside my door hoping to scare me. I humored him and he's teased me since.  Gotta love boys.

14-Hailey also bought a Lego set. She picked the Lone Ranger set because it had a horse.

15- Corey moved our old basketball hoop over the pool. Carter and Brendan have been in heaven ever since.

16-Hailey got to play a little laser tag at a birthday party. She loved it.

17-Did something I never, ever thought I would do. I took and passed a concealed weapons course. A group of us took it with our husbands. And crazy enough, I loved it. I actually enjoy shooting now too. Who am I?

18-The girls have been taking a little summer dance class and always play a game of freeze dance when we get home. 

19-Playing a little Wii sports. They haven't played it in years and were laughing the whole time.

20-Cotton candy ice cream face. My dad stopped to visit for a couple of days on his way home from a job and treated us. Ice cream and grandpa is about as good as it gets.

21-Finally put up my 4th of July decorations 2 days before the holiday. It's still up.

22-Emery bought a hula hoop with her birthday money.  None of the kids can do it except Brendan.

23 & 24-Little dancers during their class.

GIrls Camp

Back before the birthday madness, I went to girls camp. I am the 2nd counselor in Young Women's and I love it. I have been in Young Women's before, but it's been quite awhile. We have a really small group of young women so I didn't need to be at camp the whole week. I actually went up and back a couple of days, with our secretary, and that worked out perfect. I could hang out with all the girls and leaders, but I could have a nice shower and sleep in my own bed. That is really the only kind of camping I like. 

(Top Row- Melissa Patton, MaryAnn Brown, Me, Ginger Caron. Bottom Row- Chris Carlson, Jody Zeller, and Alex Carey)

I have such a good time with these women and girls. Young women's is really a time consuming calling, but so fun at the same time. And girls camp is always such a wonderful experience I was really glad I was able to go even if it was only for a couple of days.

The 4th

Our 4th of July was pretty low key. The older boys spent all last week with Corey's parents so I had just the 3 younger kids to myself. It has been ridiculously hot so we knew we weren't going to go far. 

The kids played all morning in the toy room, then after lunch we decided to go to the movie. We saw Despicable Me 2, the kids loved it. Then we came home and spent the rest of the afternoon swimming. We generally BBQ on the 4th, but it was too hot to even do that so we settled on pizza. Then went out front for fireworks.

Our neighborhood has always had a good fireworks show. We don't even need to go anywhere. We bought a box of our own to set off while we waited for all the big ones to go off. We also did a lot of sparklers. A lot. We had quite a few boxes of our own and then the neighbor gave all his boxes to our kids when his daughter ended up being scared of them. My kids thought it was great.

I always miss having family around to celebrate with on big holidays, but am grateful for my own little family. Grateful to celebrate our freedoms and blessings we enjoy living in this country. Even if it is in extreme heat!

All the celebrations

We survived our busy birthday week and each kid had their own celebrations.

Carter started his day with his choice of cinnamon rolls and eggs for breakfast.

Then is was present time. Emery is always ready to help get those opened up.

He got some pretty fun stuff including an air soft gun and a punching bag. His main thing was a pair of basketball shoes. I had to have him pick those out though. We did find out his foot has grown two sizes and he now wears a size 11. He was pretty excited about that too.

He is always all decked out in basketball gear now.

He was able to take a friend to the movie and then we took him out for his birthday date. He chose Cafe Rio again and stuffed himself full.

That night we ended his day with ice cream cake.

Emery celebrated her big day next. She was so excited. Her smile didn't leave her face all day.

She opened all her presents in 2 minutes flat. She was shaking with excitement. It was hard to even get a picture she was moving so fast and we were all laughing too hard.

She started to ask for drums quite a while ago. I didn't want to commit to a full set so we just got a drum pad, but she was thrilled and has loved it. She also got a microphone and a my little pony train. 

We spent the day swimming and then she wanted to go to In-n-Out and target for her birthday date. The girl loves a good cheeseburger and shake. She a girl after my own heart. But the funny part was, she felt bad that she was on the date without the other kids and insisted we bring some burgers home for them. Then we went to target and she bought a hula hoop with a little of her birthday cash.

We ended her day with cupcakes.

Brendan started his day with a request for doughnuts. Then it was on to opening presents again. Emery was there to help again, wearing her favorite shirt...again.

He also got an air soft gun, a pogo stick, and some other fun toys. 

We took him out to Broadway pizza. One of the few foods he actually eats and Broadway is his favorite kind. It's one of our favorites too. After his lunch, we made another target trip, he wanted to buy a new game with some of his birthday money. 

We ended his day with brownie sundaes.

 

It was a fun week. We kept things pretty low key this year, but with 3 birthdays in the same week, it seems like a lot no matter what. But I love celebrating each one and making them feel special on their day.