Cousins, FSY, Sea Quest

Ava got to do a fun art class with her friend Emily in the summer.

Tara came into town with Maisie and Sam and Ava had a blast playing with Maisie.

We all went to a free evening at Splash Summit thanks to Megan for hooking us up.

Mckinley went to FSY for the first time. She went down to Snow College in Ephraim. She got to go with a big group of friends and had the best time!

Kristin Murri and I drove down together to pick up all the girls and there was an accident on the freeway with a motorcycle. We watched the life flight come in and land right on the road. I think we waited maybe an extra 45 minutes or so before we could keep driving. 

Brandon took me and Mckinley to a place called Shh! Up and we got Ramen and the most amazing ice cream ever called snow ice. It was so fun! We went back there with the rest of the family and didn't love it as much that time. I'm realizing we sometimes get really "wow"-ed the first time we go somewhere new. Ha ha. It was such a fun memory though!

We drove up to see the Provo Temple grounds again and then drove to Rock Canyon Park to show our kids a place where we could possibly take them sledding. We've never taken our kids sledding anywhere besides the golf course. Although I guess Brandon has been with them to Soldier Hollow.

These brothers melt my heart constantly.

Utah Lake has been really full the last couple of years and this one part of it is so close to the path. Mckinley and I rode scooters along the path and had to stop to go see the water. And look at those beautiful sun rays coming out of the clouds.

Gorgeous sunset.

Took the kids to the Aviary even though most of them didn't want to go. We didn't stay long ha ha, good thing it's free with our PBS pass.

I realized that the high school where High School Musical was filmed is really close to the Aviary so we went to check it out. Would love to be able to go inside someday.

After the Aviary we got lunch at Costco and then drove up to Layton to try out Sea Quest. Also free on the pass. My sister had gone and said it was a little ghetto and she would never drive all the way up there for that, which was why we paired it with the Aviary.

Anyway, this aquarium ended up being way better than we expected and we had the time of our lives there!! It was so fun buying food and feeding all the animals, especially the sting rays! And the birds. Such a fun place!!!

I've always wanted to put my feet in a tank where the fish eat the dead skin off of them and I finally got to do it!

Having these birds come and eat out of our hands was so fun.

The kids loved feeding this giant tortoise.

I absolutely love summer adventures with these kids and making fun memories with them.

Mckinley really wanted to plant a garden this year so we tried it out. The strawberry plant we bought died, as well as another strawberry plant my dad gave me, but the tomatoes, cucumber, and zucchini lived. I need to take a more recent picture because the plants are huge now! They haven't produced quite as much as we would have liked, but for our first trial year, we are very happy with how things have turned out!

 

Summer Adventures

This summer actually started out really rough for me. I had a really hard time making the transition from school to summer and I spent the first few weeks crying constantly (besides our wonderful St. George trip). Then one day something changed and I spent the rest of the summer enjoying it. And not crying. Yay.

Tyler got to go on his first Young Men's campout. It was like less than 24 hours which is pretty lame. But he had a time and Brandon got to go with him. They just invited dads if they wanted to go so Brandon went. Brandon stayed in this tent with Sam, Ben, and Dave Healey.

It was fun for me to get pictures sent to me of Tyler since Brandon was there.

Ava and Jackson slept in my bed with me while Brandon was gone for one night and they were so cute reading before bed.

This was also the summer of bike rides. I can't even count how many bike rides Mckinley and I went on. Mckinley's friends don't get together all that much so she was just usually hanging around with not a lot to do so we would just pick up our bikes and go ride around Lakeside Park, or this one time we rode together to Vineyard Grove Park. The bike rides were so fun!

Ava and Jackson singing in Church for Father's Day. Jackson was too shy to go up on Mother's Day but he totally rocked this one.

This was the day where my summer started to take a good turn. We woke up one day and it was kind of overcast and we just decided to go hike to Battle Creek Falls. It was such good weather and we had a great time.

Got ice cream at Purple Turtle after.

Later that same week we had a day at the pond with Kristen's family and my parents. The pond was super low but we still had a good time.

The Carillon Bell Concert has always been a favorite tradition of mine.  We got to do that this year. It was a small group, but it just feels so summery and so fun.

Kristen had told me about a lego display at BYU so we headed over there after the bell concert to check it out and it was really cool!

Off on another adventure to the Planetarium. Kallie hadn't come with us the last time so I was excited to show it to her. The kids always have so much fun there!

Headed over to the Capitol Building. Kallie whined about it quite a bit but I just love being there and seeing the beauty of it. We didn't stay long this time, but I'm glad we went.

Something I have been wanting to do for a few years now is go see the Kennecot Copper Mine. So we made it happen on a Saturday and Brandon came with us too. It was so interesting and so cool to see! We missed our tour time and had to wait for the next bus and then we got this bus driver who knew so much about it and gave so many interesting details on the drive into the mine. It was awesome!

The size of the trucks is honestly hard to comprehend! Even though you're there and seeing them with your own eyes, they are so far away it's hard to imagine.

Another item on my bucket list was to go see the Up House and it was close to the mine so we hit this up quickly on our way home. So cute and fun to see! Quite a small house though.

Had the best evening riding scooters to the sand park with these two littles! I think all of our older kids were doing something else that evening.