Summer 2013 - July Edition

I know!! Twice in one week - I can hardly believe it myself.  It's another HUGE post, because, well, I can't edit down my photo's very well!! I just love too many of them.  Just know that I have MANY more I would like to share :) So sorry - but ENJOY!!

July 2013:

Technically this happened in June, being the very last weekend of June, but it was our annual bake sale/lemonade stand that we do every year before the 4th of July holiday. You know, just to get everyone in the spirit.  Of course taste testings were happening:

and when the cookies were gone in an hour I went back to the kitchen and whipped up these cute little cherry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and a few cherries to garnish on top.

They didn't last long either and the girls came in with a cup full of $25 in cash and coins!

The following week we celebrated the birth of our country with the Wilson's.  I have already shared lots of holiday photo's but we also went to see the "Despicable Me II" movie and spent a day at Seven Peaks together.

We had a great time- so much fun! Audrey and I even took a trip down the Boomerang slide together-

scared the crap out of us!! But we are now bonded together for life through our fear and survival :)
This ride happens to be Abby's favorite ride and she was able to convince Lizzy and Grace to ride it with her.   Here she is with Grace:

I like to call these kids "The Five Amigo's"

They are inseparable- together from sun up to sun down this entire summer!  It was decided that we put a walk through in our fence so that they could just play together in the backyard without running through the house all the time. BEST thing we have done in a long time!!

Next up we did one of the most anticipated events of the summer.  Our LAGOON DAY had finally arrived!!

Abby has been wanting to go for- I don't know- EVER!!

All I had with me was my cell phone, so these pictures aren't the best, but they work. We had the time of our lives together as a family!! All three girls were so great- walked the entire day without complaining, no stroller needed and no tears. Everyone went on all the rides and were so adventurous. It seems I didn't take any pictures of the "Big" roller coaster rides that we went on.  I suppose we were just having to much fun to stop and be bothered with that!!

We went with my brother Cory and his family and this just made the day even better.  We arrived around noon and stayed until the park closed at 11:00pm that night.

Bombora and the Dragonfly were the favorite rides for Eva. Abby LOVED Colossus and Wicked. Olivia also LOVED Wicked and she liked the over head sky tram.

And then they crashed in the car. A total sign of a good day!!! :)

After that we spent the following weekend camping at Payson Lakes with my brother Cory's family, my parents, and my brother Kelly's family joined us on Saturday to play and have fun.

This lake is so beautiful and we enjoyed swimming, eating and paddling around on Cory's Paddle Boards.

Then we went again to Seven Peaks, but this time we took my brother Brandon's kids with us.

Grandpa joined us later that evening and all the grandkids wanted him to ride with them! He is just the most fun Grandpa a kid could have.  Abby even got him on the Boomerang ride

as well as down the Jagged Falls yellow slide.

In fact, by the end of the night, Grandpa, Abby, Laurynn, and Olivia were thrill seeking it down that slide one after another!

Finally, to close out our exciting month, Abby competed in two soccer tournaments.  They played very well in the Utah Invitational finishing in 2nd place:

And the next tournament was up in Park City.  I was out of town for the entire event (up at Flaming Gorge for Girls Camp) so I don't have any photo's.  The competition proved to be more intense this round and they finished in 4th place but she had a great time driving back and forth with her dad and going out to eat just the two of them. Eva and Liv were gone having too much fun at my parents house that week!!

And that (take a breath) wraps up July!!

Summer 2013- June Edition

Hello!  Anybody still out there?!!  All of my good intentions to keep posting up our full and fun summer seem to have crashed and burned.  Even my dad has been reminding me that I need to post up all the fun things my family has been up to.  So now that my girls are officially back in school today I am going to take the time to sort through all the hundreds of photo's and attempt to pick the very best to share with you. I have a hard time doing this because I just enjoy so many of them- so I apologize that this post is so long.

We will begin with June:

We kicked off the summer with a huge splash by going boating with my brother Brandon and his awesome family.  They purchased a new boat this spring and we were more than delighted to take them up on the invite to go out to Utah Lake and spend the afternoon together.

Brandon warmed us up by giving us an exciting show on the wake-board. It was evident that he is still right at home on the water.
My girls have never been boating before and I was so proud of how brave and adventurous each of them were to get in the water and give Knee Boarding a try.

Abby

Eva

Olivia

 They were all AMAZING!

We had a blast, thanks again Brandon and Jenn.

Next up we built a new swing set.  Our old one was not only too small for our growing girls but one afternoon the swing section decided it had enough and broke.  Paul bought plans and hardware online and then we picked out our lumber at the local Depot.  He did an amazing job putting it together!!

My parent came over to help one day and just a couple days later it was completed.

After this picture was taken we added the two person swing on the end and all the neighborhood kids love it, especially Abby, who can now swing just as high as her giant nerves will allow.

This month we also enjoyed celebrating our town next door with most of our family in my brother Cory's backyard.  Food, dessert, basketball, trampoline, slack-lining, and fireworks shot off right in his back yard.

We like to call this picture "cousin lovin" Abby doesn't think it's very funny :)
We are just kidding of course, but they are great cousin friends.


It wouldn't feel like summer without the pool in the backyard.  This year it was enjoyed more than once by filling it up with water balloons as well.  Oh the fun!

Let's not forget father's day.  The only dad I remembered to take a picture of this year was my own father- but this shot is one of my favorite of the summer.  They just LOVE Grandpa G!!

Our first camping trip of the summer was up American Fork Canyon in the Granite Flats campground.  We really love it up there.  It's beautiful and not to far from home.  This time we took our good friends the Williams from next door, you might have noticed our fourth child Kate in almost all of our pictures this summer!

(Nice photo bomb Paul!)

We had a two night stay with a hike up to tour Timpanogos Cave- we all LOVED it!

Swim Lessons!!! Abby was SO not interested this year.  I did make the mistake of telling her last year that if she passed level 4 she could be done.  She did not forget over the winter as I had hoped, but she had soccer practice that entire 2 week session anyway.  So Olivia and Eva hit the pool deck for another epic year of learning to float and stroke.

They did a great job, but once again that level 3 and 4 proved to be a challenge.  They were both so close to passing, just a little more work next year.

Oh, and Abby did join us a couple of evenings, but just to swim on her own terms!!

We also had to throw in some trips to the local Manila Pond.

To make things even busier we also have Peaks Passes and went at least once a week all summer long to Seven Peaks with our cousin Brooklyn.

Looking at all this, I will just dub June the "Month of Water"!!