Summer - Part 3

We have had a great summer! Grace pulled out the snorkel set we bought her for Hawaii about 5 years ago (used for about 15 min. total) and mastered it.

We took a great trip to Southern Utah that started with the Green show at the Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City. . . and a lemon tart - can't not get one.

We went to one of our favorite spots - Zions and hiked the Narrows. Beauty!

It got really hot after that so we decided to go to St. George so the kids could see the temple and other sites. We ate figs off the temple ground trees.

We were going to go to Cedar Breaks but woke up to clouds and rain, so I cajoled Jon into taking us to "Vegas" (he hates it there) to show the kids where he lived for 5 years, see the temple and go to Trader Joes:

A grounds worker asked if we wanted a family picture but the cement heated our behinds up to about 300 degrees and he was taking his time posing us and the background and we were drenched with sweat after this:

We drove to the "Sev" that Jon spent half of his time at when he was young and both of us were telling our "sev" stories - 2 pieces of candy for 1 cent, slurpees etc. The kids asked what a slurpee was (!) and after explaining it, and them saying they had never had one, we had to fix that. The kids first (according to them) slurpee:

We went to the Green show again and Texas will always follow us - we saw some kids from our old ward there with their cousins! (Notice Collins same face in all the pics?)

We all agreed that the highlight of the trip was the 24th of July (Pioneer Days) in Beaver. I love this parade! The taxidermy "float" has vamped up from a little tractor to a Mule:

And we got 9 bags of cheese curds. That's 2 1/2 lbs of fresh cheese curds! YUM.

The kids "loot" of candy (the otter pops were already eaten) and Jons flowers:

And the most welcome part - the firetruck hose. The kids were completely soaked.

It was a great trip. Collin even said it was better than he thought it would be - amazing!

Summer Part 2

Collin has had quite the eventful summer so far! At the end of June he went on Pioneer Trek for 4 days and even though it was really hard, he had a great time and would do it again. Before trek:

After trek: too bad you can't see the layer of dirt all over him and his clothes!

We have the best neighborhood! We had a "Rockin' Robin Rd" street party the night the kids got back from trek:

Collin was trying to stay awake during the whole meal:

Collin is now officially taller than me. :(

I was SO glad to be back in Provo for the 4th! It's my second favorite holiday and Provo is the best place to be for it.

Gracie Loo and her newest baby cousin Ada in matching stripey shirts:

And YAY to finally being able to do fireworks again!! We had a bbq here and then started setting up for the big event:

Doing sparklers:

The pyros getting all set:

Notice it wasn't dark before the boys couldn't stand waiting anymore and had to start:

I didn't get a shot of doing the Grand Finale and the boys making a mad dash to the nearest firework stand to get an even bigger, even better GRAND Finale.

Grace and I went to the DUP Jubilee "up to the Dell" and had a good time:

Collin went to EFY at UVU for a week (they came home at night) with his cousin Bowen:

Now we're just enjoying the last few weeks of summer till school starts!

Summer Part 1

This summer is just flying by! We started it off by having an impromptu Eclipse party outside our house. We have the BEST neighborhood ever!

The second week in June Collin went to Scout Camp, Grace went to Jons parents and Jon and I went to Southern California. We spent a few days on Catalina Island:

The weather was cloudy and cold so we never even opened our dive bag, but we ended up seeing a lot that we hadn't planned on. The highlight of Catalina was renting a golf cart to drive all over the island. 

We went to LA next and to La Brea tar pits which we learned about in Homeschool last year:

We walked around the museums:

Then rode the ferris wheel at the Santa Monica pier:

San Diego was next. We ended up going to the zoo and the weather was perfect for it!

When we got home we hiked to Stuart Falls:

Where 18 years ago that weekend Jon proposed to me at this very spot!

Collin being awesome after climbing up to the falls:

 And the kids on the way home (I love sleeping pics!)

More Spring . . .

We barely saw Jon from the middle of March to the end of April. He was working on his AMAZING store for the Tahitian Noni (Now known as Morinda) tradeshow in Salt Lake. I could do a whole post just on the store, but just know that he did a great job.  This is him at one of the counters at the store showing us the collectible pins he designed:

We found out that Grace has a green thumb when Jon took her to get plants and she passed up playing with her friends to plant and weed and mulch with Jon.

Collin earned a bunch of Merit badges from scouts. I took about 10 pictures and his eyes were closed in EVERY one of them, so I think this is the best:

The tradeshow was during the week of Spring break so we weren't able to go anywhere, BUT we surprised the kids with a trip to California over a weekend. It was an early flight (Collins puffy eyes), but they were excited (Grace's eyes):

Collin ONLY wears turquoise and usually has these attached to his head lately, but at least I got a rare smile!

La Jolla beach. This time Collin has white earbuds. You know, more discreet . . . 

The bathing beauty. Collin was in the frEEzing water the whole time, but the rest of us stayed on shore:

It was a great trip, but way too short. Thank goodness there is so much beauty in our backyard to enjoy.

Spring

It's been another eventful month. I left my camera at our DUP (Daughters of Utah Pioneers) Spring Convention and haven't gotten it back yet, so these are just from my phone. Collin just finished the Geocaching Merit Badge so we got to go find some and hide one and we found a great new canyon to explore right above our house:

The boys went snowboarding every Saturday and some night runs too:

It ended up being a girls day for making Ukranian Easter eggs at my moms house this year. These are the things I missed while being in Texas! Grace pumped out 5 completely different and all beautiful eggs:

We had a girls dinner for my sister right before she had her baby:

And meeting Laura's baby, Ada when she was 3 hours old. Collin said he wasn't going to hold her and then kept saying it was his turn and was a natural. He was rocking and bouncing her like a pro:

Our neighborhood puts on a great Easter egg hunt for 3 age groups for the 3 parks in our neighborhood. It was awesome! Collin was bummed that he's too old for it now. But he did get to eat about a dozen donuts!

Grace hunting in the "upper" park:

And finding an egg in a tree:

My baby turned 10 years old this year! I have kind of gone through small children withdrawls for the last couple of birthdays with her, but I guess I must have finally accepted that there is no turning back. It was a good birthday. She "only" wanted the biggest, hugest stuffed moose ever, so we obliged:

She named it Hirvi (moose in Finnish) and takes it everywhere:

For her party she wanted a luncheon and to do an Easter Egg hunt. She wrote me a detailed menu:

And we got mountains of plastic eggs and candy for $20 at the post Easter sale. Yay! The friends from the neighborhood:

And after the hunt: