Fun With Friends

My long lost friend from Texas came for a visit!!!  We took the kids on a few adventures and had a great time catching up.  I need her to come back because we never got a picture of the two of us:(

 We took the kids to This is the Place and they had a blast!  It will definitely be getting a repeat visit from our family.  I had no idea there were so many fun things for the kids to do.

One of the reasons college was such a valuable life experience (besides the obvious, education) is because of the friends made along the way.  I am so grateful for my friendship with Nicole!  One of my regrets is not keeping in touch better, with Nicole and many others.  If I could do it over, I would put more effort into maintaining friendships.  Getting married, moving away, and having kids makes it difficult, but not impossible.

Bullfrog 2011

We went to Lake Powell with my family this year.  We haven't been with them since the twins were babies, so it was a lot of fun.  My dad went all out and rented a house boat which was a lot of fun.  Plus grandpa has all the fun toys for the lake.  The kids had a blast playing on blue tube, grandpa would be a monster and jump up in the middle or from behind to get the grandkids.  He could barely walk the next day, some of those kids are pretty heavy!

This was a favorite water toy of mine growing up.  Lucky for all of us, it still floats just fine and we all had a blast on it!

My brother Mike proposed to his girlfriend while we were there.  The proposal was quite the production and they were blessed to even have real "fireworks" the night it happened.  Talk about an amazing night!  We love JaKell and we are so happy for them!

Thanks to my mom and dad for a fun and memorable vacation!

The First Day of School, 2011

Let's remember what a painful experience it is to take pictures of my twins.  It seems to be getting worse with age...

David will smile for the camera in the safety of his own home.  The smile will only be for the camera and he will resume to his "I hate taking pictures face!!!!"

Ethan has perfected his camera smile so much that it now looks completely fake and I have to resort to posting pictures he doesn't know were taken so he has a "real" smile on.  

Jacob has a great smile, until you ask him to smile and then he pulls all sorts of weird faces, really weird ones, faces he NEVER makes.  So he remained unhappy the WHOLE entire time I tried to get a picture.

Luckily Tyler isn't showing you all the veins and lovely things in his neck, which he sometimes does when you ask him to smile.  He got to go meet his teacher the first day and I got to keep him home for the rest of the day.

Ethan gladly posed at school with his friends.

The twins would not even look at me!  This is pretty much what I saw after we got to school.

Tyler had his first day today.  He has wanted this shirt "with lots of colors" for weeks now.  He saw it at the store and has talked about it ever since.  I kept waiting for it to go on sale and it never did.  Last night we were at the store again and he saw it.  Oh, he wanted it so bad and it still wasn't on sale, but I caved and bought it for him.  Considering his other school clothes were each less than $5, I guess I made up for it by buying this one at $19.50

Off he goes for his first day of school.  Today was the only time I have ever been emotional sending kids to school.  That's it for me, they are all gone.  That precious school is home to my children and has them more each day than I do.  This morning I prayed for that school.  I don't know why I haven't done that before, I should have, but I will be doing so now, every single day.  

4th of July 2011

Everyone should have a Richfield for the 4th.  Of course, I have only ever celebrated the 4th in Richfield, but it really is so much fun.  Highlights this year were the primary parade-my kids got to participate by walking down main street with their grandma, the side by side-my dad bought one right before the primary parade.  We were checking it out as we left and I wondered how they hauled it home because there were no trailers in sight, but I forgot we were in Richfield, they just drove it home.  And then later that night my mom needed ice.  My car was gone and her car was blocked, so my brother's girlfriend and I drove it to the gas station to get ice, it was awesome.  Navajo tacos, shoe shopping, and seeing high school friends are always highlights of the 4th as well.

 Another highlight was having friends join us for fireworks on Sunday night.  He is not from Richfield and he just kept shaking his head in disbelief that the cops had not come after us for our fireworks.  

I feel bad I didn't have my camera for more of our good times which included many bbqs, four wheeler rides, lots of Kirk's family, and a quick trip to Fishlake.  

More of Ethan's Birthday...

The afternoon of Ethan's birthday, we went boating with family.  Having two boats and switching back and forth, left me without my camera a couple of times.  The lake was beautiful that day and the boys all had a great time knee boarding.  David got up on the wakeboard and mastered a 360 on the knee board.  Ethan said it was his best birthday ever!

 David doing his 360

 Tyler knee boarding with cousin Emma

 Since we went boating on our way to Richfield, I asked grandma to buy a cake for Ethan.  He wanted a carrot cake and boy did he get one!  She made one herself and decorated it with the same decorations she used to use on our cakes growing up.  When you pull out the candles, there is a carrot underneath.

After our fun filled 4th, Ethan had a little friend party back at home.  

The Red Haired Cousins

Last year my parents watched my kids while Kirk and I were gone somewhere.  While they were with my parents, they hauled cows down south with my dad.  They had down time in Rockville and my cousins were there, who they found, played with, and fell in love with.  Tyler has talked about playing with them ever since.  He calls them the "red haired" cousins in an effort to distinguish them from the rest of the cousins.  My Aunt Shillene lives in Arizona and they only come up to Rockville in the summer and we never go down in the summer so the kids don't really see each other that much.  I remember when I was little and used to stay with my grandma in the summer, I remember when Shillene's first daughter was a baby and I was in Rockville for awhile and got to play with her.  I always enjoyed and admired my aunt growing up and haven't been able to spend a lot of time with her as an adult.  Well, this summer they came all the way up north to stay with another aunt.  We all hoped we would get to see them and we did!  The kids had so much fun together and so did I.  I wish we all lived a little closer.  They invited us to go to Lagoon with them, the kids had so much fun and I was so glad for brave cousins who took my kids on rides I don't think they would have normally gone on.  And of course we had to play some games...

They came to our house a couple of days later for dinner.  The kids had a blast playing in the yard and I had so much fun visiting with my aunts.  I really should have gotten a picture of the adults.  Hopefully there will be a next time.