June was Bustin Out All Over...as well as July!

We were hoppin in June-we got back from our family vacation and it seemed like summer slammed us!  I was the camp director for our ward's girls camp, so last minute preparations and shopping took some time and I was off in the woods for 4 days!  Camp was a blast but I'm glad I don't have to plan another one anytime soon!  Grant went on a week long scout camp to Zions and Bryce Canyon.  He got some serious hiking in and did it all in record heat.  Record heat for southern Utah is no joke-114 degrees-no thank you.  But he absolutely loved it!!

We filled our time while he was away.  The younger two kids did swimming lessons.

This was Harrison's first year and he is not a natural born swimmer to say the least.  The teacher kept asking him to put his head/eyes in the water.  Harry would do it for one second and then pop up with a random bit of information he needed to pass along to his teacher.  Ex: "I had green poop today." "Jesus taught me how to cartwheel."  His teenage teacher did his best to direct Harrison back to the lessons at hand. Harrison did get dropped off the diving board a couple of times, so that required his head to go in the water.  Yay Harrison!  

Brenna did great and has done the high dive a few times on her on since her lessons.  

We went to Jungle Jim's while Grant was gone, knowing the itty bitty rides wouldn't be something he would cry about missing!  We do love the art festival as a family, so sadly he had to miss out on that.  

The instrument zoo was out again and the tuba 

was a favorite experiment for both girls.  

The kids love the crafts.  Thank heavens there were light sabers again, because Harrison was not happy with just the jellyfish project, even though it was plenty impressive.  

Good thing Grant was home for Dave's birthday-he hit the big 3-8 this year!  He doesn't look a day over 30...well, his face doesn't.  The bald spot in the back of his head, well, that's revealing his age.  Ha! 

We welcomed in the month of our independence with visitors. We saw Adam and Lizzy for a day or two and then Brandon and Malia brought Jack and Gwen through as they were on their way to Washington.  We were happy to spend some time with them.  We went to see a movie on the 4th

and then met up with Paige, Jason, Porter, Grandma and Shannon at the park for fireworks.  We have the best fireworks in our city.  We loved playing games with family and friends while we danced to the Beatles Tribute Band.  It is not my favorite to sit outside and melt but I do it happily on days like that! 

Being the youngest has its perks in that you get later bedtimes than the other siblings ever got at that age.  Harrison goes to bed so late, but he is so sleep deprived in the summer, it is crazy town.  He does not like it when we laugh at him, if he is not trying to be funny.  Combine that with lack of rest and it gets scary.  He was so sweet the other day and came up to me to talk. He prefaces his conversations 90% of the time with, "I need to tell you something."  He said those introductory words and then looked at me and said, "I just love you so much."  It was so adorable, I smiled and did a little giggle.  This happy smirk resulted in a scream/tantrum saying not to laugh and me feeling horrible that I turned his declarations of love into an epic meltdown.  

He has been loving summer and I love this age.  Harrison and I were at the zoo before school was out and he was in heaven.  He laughed at the animals, but he also had to point out some landscaping to me.  He pointed to the grass and laughingly said, "that is ridiculous.  That is a ridiculous hole."  Smooth sod is what he looks for.  

We've spent lots of time with friends...

seeing Seussical, playing inside and outside, jumping on the tramp and creating many plays.  It is the summer of script writing and rehearsals for the girls.  

We've gone to the pool to swim, hit up the Riverton City Rodeo where our kids made out like bandits during the cash cow.  One of the kids was stepped on by the calf (one guess as to who is most likely to be injured.  Yep, that girl!), we drove up to the Hill Air Force Base Museum with neighbors.

We went to the float preview, participated in the face painting and balloon shapes with Paige, Jason, Porter and Shannon.

Grace was here for a few days so we got to have her sleep over and work at the food pantry with us.  Our stake had a great primary activity where the kids learned about book of Mormon stories.  

The gym had been turned into Jerusalem with booths and the hallway was lined with an iron rod.  The youth were there in the morning when their youth conference started. It was genius to use it for the primary as well.  

Here the little people are learning about burying their weapons of war.  Man do I wish that lesson translated over to our house.  I will say summer is rough on the contention level here.  So. much. fighting.  But, it is good to see the love on other days as they listen to a book on CD together, jump on the trampoline, etc  One of these days it will seem like the good outnumbers the bad.  One of these days...

There was a whole lot of love going around a couple of weeks ago at Rachel and Toren's wedding.  We loved being able to be a part of their special day.  

We got everyone out on the dance floor, I even made the pre-teen fella give me a spin out there.  He secretly loved it, I am sure.  

We served lunch at Primary Children's Hospital-something we all look forward to every year.  We recognized some faces from our Beauty and the Beast play and while it was sad to see them up their and know their little baby was having a hard time, we hope we gave them a little love in the form of chocolate rice krispie treats! The only pictures I got were these:

Lovely.  Thank you boys-the tabs on the little man's hiney are courtesy of Grant. 

Yesterday, we took the kids to the Jigglefest at Thanksgiving Point.  We had recieed an email about this jello throwing party.  In theory, it sounded super fun.  In reality, it was...for the kids.  I was kind of grossed out.  

It scared Harrison.  He hid behind my leg even before the jello throwing began.  As they counted down, we had an eye on the baby pools full of gelatin, and he just knew it was going to get ugly.  

So, he stayed right by my side.  I got some great video of the kids running over and really it was a ton of  jigglers flying through the air, stickiness jiggling all over.  People were crazy.  I had anticipated doing it with the kids.  But, I totally started dry heaving even just picking up jello chunks out of the grass for Harry to toss.  The kids, of course, couldn't let Dave go unscathed. 

They were completely covered.  Brenna is holding her mouth open because it and her eyes felt like they were stuck from the jello.  After the food fight, the sprinklers turned on and everyone washed off.   

It was a pretty fun event, from afar!  I was laughing...and then gagging.  

We are pushing through summer like champs.  We are loving the late nights, movies, playtime and relaxing schedule.

I am trying to enjoy it all and not wait for 'tomorrows.'  I don't want to plan for things to be more fun or to be better when such and such happens.  I want to make today great.  This is a lesson I learned from the little guy when I told him I needed to start choosing healthy foods...then, I said, tomorrow.  Who wanted to start today?!  Ha!  Harrison replied, ever so wisely with, "Mom, it is tomorrow."  It is yesterday's tomorrow,right?  So, seize the day-seize the summer!

I Left My Heart in San Francisco

We didn't really leave our hearts in San Fran, we went to go rejuvenate them because we had some sad kids when the school year was completed.  Who would have thought?  Usually kids are jumping for joy when they run out the doors on the last day.  But here, Grant was saying goodbye to friends and a school he has been at for 7 years.  It was a big deal.  The girls had exceptional teachers this year. I've observed the teachers all year as I volunteered, as I went on Brenna's very rainy field trip to the zoo

 and at class activities.  Brenna lucked out with this intern.  We know she will be a great teacher in Texas!  We loved Mrs Christensen.  

She was so motivated and organized.  She had excellent structure and helped the kids feel confident and comfortable.  We were lucky to have friends from the neighborhood in Brenna's class.  That helped a lot with it being her first year in the school.  Here are Brenna and Kinley when they received the Leader in Me award.  

Katelee was always sad when Mrs Clayton missed a day of school.

Mrs Clayton had a challenging personal year, but she brought fun and enriching activities to her class.  She knew each kid so well and invested in them individually. She was phenomenal.  Their class put on a play called 'Character Matters.'  It was scheduled for the day after Katelee's moped accident.  Katelee insisted she could not miss, so we got her there for the thrilling performance.    

 By the next week when it was county float time, she was healing nicely.  

We were grateful for good teachers this year!  While it made it sad to say goodbye, we know the kids will look back with fond memories and lots of growth.  School got out on a Friday and the very next day, we caught a flight to California.  When we planned the vacation, we thought we'd split it up between my first choice of the Redwoods and Dave's preferred destination of San Francisco.  We drove a lot that first night to get up the coast.  Katelee had eaten some contaminated food, so she got to experience the first views of the forest as she lost her lunch along the side of the road.  Ewww.  She then puked in the middle of the night, but quite make it to the bathroom because she couldn't find the door handle.  Thankfully, she was better in the morning so everyone was able to enjoy the view from our hotel.  

 We had arrived late so we didn't even know how gorgeous the location was until we woke up.  I'm surprised we made it to our little condo-it was so hard navigating in the pitch black in our ginormous vehicle.  When we arrived at the airport the previous evening, Dave went to get our rental's keys.  There had been a mix up and we stood in the parking lot.  I told my kids at least we weren't given the gigantic beast painted a very unique gold.  When Dave returned, he had been given the keys to the very SUV I had referenced.  So, we lovingly dubbed our ride the 'Golden Nugget.'

The kids grew very attached and wherever we were, they would race to it.  Harrison still talks about 'the Golden Nugget.'  Ha!  We took that car on many miles!  Our first stop was the furthest north part of our trip.  We stopped at some Redwoods and hiked Fern Canyon. 

It was lush and fabulous.  The next day, we walked the Lady Bird Johnson trail, as well as a couple other small hikes.   

The trees/forests are magnificent.  

The kids told me they couldn't believe the trees were real!  Harrison and Grant (and Dave) drove me crazy on one of the hikes.  Of course, grabbing sticks to walk with is a necessity, but apparently, to boys, whacking every living bush is also required.  It got so loud and violent I think we very possibly would have been banned from the Redwood National Forest if a ranger had been around.  I try and gently coax people not to do certain things, but the 3 year old boldly told me that I don't know what I'm talking about.  So, there's that problem.  

 We definitely could have spent another day or two there...well, maybe Harrison was good with what he got.  

At the end, when we told him we were going on another hike, he was not pleased and wanted to be get in the Golden Nugget and get out of there!  He told us his legs wouldn't work and they needed batteries.  Luckily, day 2 wrapped up and we drove south.  Not lucky for us that the kids had to use the bathroom every few minutes, it seemed like!  It took us so long to get to the city, Dave and I were so tired, but we made it safe and sound!

The first sites of the city were seen atop a hop on hop off bus tour!  We ate at Ghiradelli Square, 

stopped at Chinatown.  This was a very important stop because Dave frequently tells Harrison when he is being a stinker that he is going to send Harrison down to Chinatown.  So, to be able to picture where he will end up was important for Harrison.  Ha! 

Very precious goods were purchased in Chinatown- fans for the girls

that provided hours and hours of fun...until Brenna's broke, of course.  But, a whole song and dance was choreographed along the Embarcadero:

 

I can still hear them singing the "I've Got a Fan" song (and fighting about the notes/lyrics).  It turned out to be a very moving piece of music. Ha!  Harrison and Grant both got swords.  This weapon came in very handy for Harrison when he chased pigeons that reside at Pier 39.  

Again, I'm not sure the other people around us appreciated our violence upon the wildlife/surroundings, but we were protected from the pigeons.  Harrison claims he is a hero and I'm not convinced, but saving me from birds is heroic indeed.  

The next day we went to Alcatraz.  We loved riding the ferry and seeing the city line as well as the island.

  It was pretty fascinating.  This was Grant's favorite destination.  He was always ahead of us on the tour.  Granted, we had to spend sometime explaining to the riff raff why you actually don't want to live in the cells!

After the tour of Alcatraz, we went to the Golden Gate bridge.  Katelee was bummed because we had discussed riding bikes across the bridge.  But, we decided against it for a few reasons-one being her broken arm.  We also discovered that Dave has an irrational fear of us being on the bridge and bikes would heighten our chance of pummeling to the frigid waters below!  

 

We still loved our time on the iconic landmark.  We drove by Lombard Street but did not want to attempt that in the Golden Nugget.  Again, as you can tell by the photo, we had a sad little lady not being able to drive it.  

She is the most fun gal, but is pretty emotional.  When we were home before the vacation, she and I were disagreeing about something.  Dave walked in and Brenna yelled out to him, "dad, we are having a bit of a power struggle with the ten year old."  Story of my life right now.  

We had some yummy food in San Fran-at a local pizza place that had gluten free crust and also at Bubba Gump's.  The kids had a good time at that tourist trap.  Pier 39 is always a good time and we capped off our time in California going to the Exploritorium.  

One highlight of the science museum is the drinking fountain.  Everyone had to partake of the toilet water.  

The Golden Nugget had a mishap with a nail, so Dave missed out on some of the fun while AAA came and changed the tire, but we had a great time with the different science exhibits.  

 San Francisco was a perfect place to jump start our summer!