Summer fun

We don't have very many pictures to prove it, but we've had a good summer.

The bad stuff first though...we had to say goodbye to three families.

The first to depart were Matt, Ann, Emma, Ben, Kate and Will who took off to Illinois. They are one of the funniest couples I've met..I laughed all the time when I was around them. At the end of their time here we got together a couple of times to play rockband. Funny stuff. And their musical talent is amazing. Ann can sing...and Matt can too, Bon Jovi ....and I'll miss free Prism tickets from Matt :(!

Then Tricia, McKay, Cameron, Jessica and Thomas had to go and fly the coop to Pennsylvania, which isn't all bad cause they're super close to NYC (my bff) and will let us come stay..evenutually ...for a day or so ...maybe. They are the smartest people I've ever known, really, hands down. Also one of the nicest. Thomas was one of our regular play dates and we will miss him and Tricia is a wonderful person/friend. I learned a lot from her and wonder now who will keep me grounded. Ah well...there are six new families moving into the ward. Tricia replaced Misty so I'm sure Heavenly Father is sending a replacement.


During the holidays we would gather with McKay, Tricia and crew for a white elephant Christmas party , but since we won't be able to make it to PA this year we held a Christmas in July party and did our white elephant exchanges. It was fun, apparently too much fun cause we have not pics...but here's a pic of them I stole from their web site :).










Then Earl, Bernee, Melainee, Joe, Kenslee, Evee, and Cord headed back to ID after their one year stint here. We loved having them here. More energy in one family than I've known collectively from everyone else I know...for real. They were always on the go and very athletic. Bernee challenged me at the gym and Joe and Kenslee kept me on my toes when they came over. The girls loved their house and thought we were supposed to move into it when they moved..alas not to be.
Here's a pic of Bernee, Rachel and I after the Turkey trot last year...









Good people who are missed...already.


On to the better stuff....

We started out going to St. George Island, with mom, Frank, Carmen, Rachel and kids. We all had such a good time we said we should do it once a month..no..once a week....that really didn't materialize like we hoped and haven't been back since.

But we also went to Wakulla Springs with Bernee and Rachel and kids and it was cold, but so nice. The kids loved it. Laura jumped off the 2nd level jump because Kenlsee promised her five cookies. Cole and Joe caught minnows and made an aquarium. The kids all made a canal from the "beach" to the water and kept turns continually filling up.


We went to Orlando at some point, to the temple. The kids are always so good about going. I think it was just a day trip. We went into a souvenir store just to look and kill time. Every time I turned around Hannah had six things in her hand and had just dropped five cause she couldn't hold it all, it was cute, but we won't be using that as a time killer again.

We met Brandon's work friend Tomas and his kids at Ichetucknee....such a nice place. The water is cold, cold, but in July it's just hot enought to enjoy. I wasn't sure how Hannah would do, but we went down it twice and she did just fine.

My sister Melissa had a baby, Alec Christian on June 23rd (?)...she asked the docs to induce and they weren't crazy about the idea, but Alec came in over 10lbs...so it was all good.

Brandon had a family reunion in ID we wanted to get at least him to and we wanted to see baby Alec, so we got him a flight from Charlotte to UT and we stayed and hung with Lissa while he reunionized. We all had a good time, but parenting is so much funner and easier with him around. But there's also nothing like saying hello again after being apart, such a good feeling. :)
We had such a good time, but of course it's nice being home.

The kids took four days of swim lessons from a nice girl in Carmen's ward. Everyone progressed, Cole swam and floated!, Hannah went underwater and swam with a noodle and Laura was swimming backwards and diving (she didn't like the diving).

I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff. In one week and three days I will send all of the my kids to school (Hannah PK4). It is a whole new chapter of life. I will miss the kids and wondering what on earth I'll do with my time, but am excited for Hannah to go to school, she's going to be so cute and probably make lots of friends and for me to be able to work during the day and our family gets a whole other night of the week back..wow!

Now for the cooler weather to sweep in!

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose

in choosing books to read, cause you know you can't judge a book by it's cover.....this is how my luck has gone so far this summer.

Say you are one of them...didn't finish this one. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't what it was..It was all bad things happening to children. I'm all for giving a story it's due, especially if someone had to live through it and most likely someone somewhere may have had similar stories, but something I read about the author gave me the feeling he hadn't seen, heard or even come close to experiencing these horrid situations. Probably I'm wrong, but I didn't want to put my emotional energy into reading them. There are five different stories. I read the first two, investigated the book and decided I wasn't going to finish it, but then I thought I should at least read the last story that held the book's title...I wish I hadn't. There's my 2 cents...

Fairest - a twist on Snow White, Cole and I read this together, it was pretty good, there are others by the same author, putting twists on other fairytales, we're going to try those as well

This was on Cole's summer reading list...it is def. a tween book, but a nice quick read that's cute.

Eleven, this was also on Cole's reading list and I didn't enjoy it very much, the blurb (?) led you to expect more from the story...just kind of boring.

And the one I finished today, the kind of book that makes you wish there was more...sort of. It's science fiction and I'm usually not a big fan of that, but a friend recommended Scott Card a few years ago so I decided to give it a go. It's def. not a warm and fuzzy book, kind of the opposite, but you are endeared to the character and there are twists and it was a couldn't put it downer.

I'm moving on to more of Cole's summer reading and there are other's I've read and can't recall right now, but if I do I'll blog-u-ment them ;).

Great Day!

So a few weeks ago Brandon said he wanted to meet up with a guy who works for the state that lives down south and they had decided to get together one Saturday at Ichetucknee springs. I was less than thrilled although I think I was really good and did not express this to Brandon. I was secretly hoping this thing would fall through. My memories of this place is arctic land and potential gator slaying of humans. So the day comes and it didn't fall through and I am bracing myself for miserability on many levels. We get there and after getting a little lost, driving through rain, tying our tubes on top of the van. We get there and meet up with the guys from BRandon's work who are really nice. We go hope on the river and it is crowded, Brandon found out that this river is floated more than any other river in the United States, approximately 5000 float the river a day...whew.
So it was a bit crazy getting us actually on the river and floating, but we got there and it was so nice. It was chilly, but with most of your body in the tube it was just refreshing. There was seaweed, maneuvering, limbs and I did look to the side a couple of times to double check for gators. But it was really just so nice, it even rained. The funny or not so funny part was thinking we were getting on a 1/2 float that turned out to be an hour, it made it feel much longer than an hour. We went and ate and went back again, even Hannah w/o a nap. She loved it! Laura swam the first part of it with her swimminies which was a little nerve racking. Then she got cold, but even after the second run everyone was ready to do it again. They have little rafts for kids or people who don't really want to be too wet. Hannah wanted to stay with me in the innertube. It was so nice I would highly recommend it. It was better than sweating it out at disney and much cheaper. :) Nothing against Mickey. Here's the link....
http://www.floridastateparks.org/ichetuckneesprings/
We didn't take the camera for obvious reasons, but so many times I wanted to take pics of the kids, so next time we'll definitely spring for a water proof disposable.
Thanks Brandon for a wonderful idea and trip!!

Summer school

So we started our home summer school last week. On the first day the kids were super excited, second, somewhat excited and then it kind of went down hill from there, but the important thing is we're still going. This past week Cole had a hard time joining us but he did after a couple of threats. So here's what we did....

I already knew that we would do devotional and exercise as we had started that before school officially begain. So Laura started the idea of getting in our recliner and driving to each venue..."church", gym, school. If Laura wasnt' so into the school thing I don't know if it would've lasted as long as it has. So we sing a couple of good morning songs, say the day, date and what they think the weather is going to be that day. We then read a story. Then we talk about our topic of the week. The first week was our senses, the first day was touch and I had them feel into a bag and tell me what was in it, and we went along like that each day with different senses. Then they're given their worksheets and it's free time until after lunch where I would read a chapter book out loud (this didn't last too long, we finished one book, but have yet to start another one, we will though) and we would do a craft later in the day. I topic this past week was ....surprice, United States. I've got to get on next week's!

so all told we spend a couple of hours working together and the rest was pretty much normal. I really think it helped give structure to our day and even when the kids didn't like it they liked it in the end.

Hannah is adorable doing the exercises and she's pretty good at counting to 10 and saying her abc's. She doesn't like "circle time" though, but she's getting there.

The week we start back at swimming lessons twice a week, so it'll change our school up a little bit. But so far so good.