South Fork

We finally got to do some of our own fireworks the night of the 5th. We all got eaten alive by mosquitoes. What were we thinking not using bug spray?

An attempt to capture a smile on camera...

Mckinley has been asking me for years to do a lemonade stand and I never let her because it stresses me out too much. Well I finally decided to just let her learn how to do things on her own and I'm trying to not baby her as much, so she did one. She did everything herself and had a successful first day! I think they only stayed out for like 45 minutes and they made $6.50. So cute.

One of my favorite activities we did when all the cousins were in town was go up the canyon to South Fork Park for an evening. We had a picnic dinner and played lawn games and Tara did an FHE lesson for the kids. The weather was perfect and we had such a great time.

Shellee was so sweet to hold Jackson for me a ton so I could enjoy myself.

I stole this last picture from Chandra. We were playing Kub. We live in such a beautiful place.

Family Pictures

Since we had the entire family together and we don't know how long it will be before we are all together again, we arranged for family pictures to be taken. We went to Hobble Creek and while we were waiting for the photographer, we took some of our own pictures.

These are the pictures from the photographer.

 Big family! And always growing.

Grandparents with the grand kids.

The location was really beautiful and the photographer was quick and did a great job. Now we need to get some printed for our wall!

4th of July

We decided to skip the parade again this year on the 4th of July. I know it's a big pain to arrange going to the parade, but it really makes it feel like the 4th of July. This year felt very un-holiday ish. 

We started out the day going up to Bridal Veil Falls. We had a good time there and Jackson slept in his stroller the whole time which was so nice!

The kids had so much fun climbing around on the rocks and stepping in the freezing cold water. I know this water is melted snow, so naturally it's going to be very cold, but I walked in it and oh my gosh, talk about PAIN! You couldn't stand in that for more than a few seconds without your feet going numb.

After that we went to Ross and Karen's for a BBQ and to just play. We went home in the afternoon for a rest and came back to do fireworks but the weather was kind of windy so we ended up skipping the fireworks and just went home to bed. The kids did go out on the trampoline and watch some of the neighbor's fireworks though.

We decided to do balloons the next day, on Friday. This is my all time favorite 4th of July tradition, but it has been getting busier and busier each year and we were in a pretty rough patch with Jackson this year at the beginning of July so we weren't sure if we would go. We ended up going, but not early. When we got there the balloons were up in the sky, but we did get a great parking spot and still had the pancake breakfast. A little bit different than our typical experience, but it was still nice.

We walked across the street where they were doing free balloon rides for kids but ended up that we were too late and they had stopped accepting new people. I doubt we would have waited in that long line anyway. I found out this year that they blow up the balloons at night and light them up and I think I want to try that out next year.

Cousins!

Brandon's brother Jordan is being assigned in England with the air force for the next four years. So his entire family came into town for the fourth of July. We always love when cousins come to town.

One of the first nights everyone was here all the boys went up to a summer league Jazz game and the girls all got together and had Cafe Rio.

I don't even know when this was, but I saw it, and it was too cute not to post.

Tyler loves having a brother so much!!!

So a few days after everyone got into town, on July 3rd, Ross and Karen rented out the entire Scera pool just for our family. It was so fun to have the pool completely to ourselves and not have to wait in line for the slides! The kids had a blast.

Karen held Jackson for me for a while so I could swim.

It was Haley's birthday that day so we all sat around after swimming and ate Costco birthday cake. Yum!

When I got out of the pool and was about to change Jackson into his pajamas, he smiled at me! Haley was standing with me and she said oh, that was a cute smile. And I was like, Haley! That was his FIRST smile! A birthday present for her. Ha ha. So he has been smiling for a week now but I haven't caught it on camera and Brandon still hasn't seen him smile. This was a picture I took right after he smiled when I was trying to get him to smile more.

Summer School

I signed up the three oldest kids for summer school. It ran for 3 weeks and 2 days and pretty much all they did was work on putting on this play. It was the Empty Pot. A story about telling the truth. It was a low quality production ha ha, but the kids loved it. And I loved having somewhere for them to go every day. It also forced me to get out at least once a day and go pick them up and have the free lunch at the school. It was good for all of us. 

We will miss the free lunches during the summer. This is the last year it will be available at our school. That was the last chance for summer school too and I'm so glad we took advantage of it! Tyler made a new friend and Mckinley had so much fun hanging out with her two best friends every day.