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 ;).

more food for thought

just coincidental, but Tricia P. let me borrow her very cool collections of quotes and there are a few I really liked and this is a safe place to put them, not to mention all the sweet souls who read the blog get to enjoy them too :). the bottom two are hard to read, but I think you can click on it and enlarge.






















My favorite so far, I found this one many years ago but had forgotten about it, so glad to find it again...

Food for thought

http://thepolishedpickle.blogspot.com/2010/06/beauty-marks.html

Princess and the pea

Cole was in the school play, The Princess and the Pea. He played the role of Young Harry (the prince) during a flashback. He wasn't on stage long, but did a really good job. He got the biggest laugh of the night because his opening line he was supposed to be out of breath and it was a really exaggerated out of breath. We're trying to figure out how to get our outdated video camera footage put on the computer, if so I'll post video. Til then here's pics.

Young Harry













Young Harry and the Peasant Girl
I think his line was "You wouldn't understand"













Curtain Call, taking a bow













after the play with two of his favorite things,
candy (bouquet) and David

Who I married...

the most magnificent man on the planet...we coasted in on fumes from Savannah yesterday and he called this morning to tell me I didn't need to leave early for school cause he'd already gassed up before he left for work. Love. It. and him.

Who I birthed....
If I start to put the window down Hannah says, put it all the way down mommy, turn the musikit (music) up and put your elbow on the door....I swear I have not done this enough for her to ask for it every time....who is this child ??

One more...
Yesterday Hannah said on the way home... Happy Mother's Day...Daddy, genius.

Life is good.

Savannah/Tybee Island

A couple of weeks ago we decided to meet my very pregnant sister, in the middle, from her home in Charlotte and Savannah was the place. We wanted the beach so we stayed on Tybee Island, little rinky dink, but it was the beach. We had a lot of fun. We all loved feeling Melissa's baby move (priceless since that won't be happening for us again). Fun fun on the beach, with the exception of the jellyfish that were abound aplenty. We went back to Savannah for lunch on Saturday. Relaxed and enjoyed each other. Here are pics from the weekend. These are not in order, because I'm blogger picture post challenged.

Totally in her element, she said Mommy, I really really really want to very very bad bad bad stay at the beach all day. I think it's not fair that her skins starts to burn at the thought of stepping in the sun no matter what we do :(.

At the top of the Tybee Island lighthouse, all little ones and bout to deliver a little one people walked all the way up!!!!

Tybee Island Museum, totally in his element

Anya loved Cole and apparently all boys according to her mom, Cole ate it up.

See

Typical Anya

at the top of he lighthouse. Hannah's wondering why Melissa was clutching the side of the wall. It was a little scary, but very nice too.

Loved driving down this street in Savannah, lots of big old beautiful houses with big old beautiful trees.

out last day, very windy, cold, sandy flying, while Hannah, Cole and I headed back to the car...Laura could have cared less, I swear that girl is a fish

We got ice cream at Leopold's...it was family owned from way back, but the son of the original owners went on to be a big hollywood producer and many stars have passed through here...apparently Forrest Gump was filmed in Savannah, a picture of Forrest sitting in Savannah was on sale for $300...I think I have that same picture on my VHS cover.

Hannah got chocolate, but there were other very cool flavors, Brandon and Cole got Japanese Cherry Blossom ( I have lotion of that scent and it tasted a little like my lotion, still good). Laura got rose petal and it tasted just like a rose, but not so much that it wasn't good. Melissa got a vanilla shake (boring .... but very delicious)

Awww, couldn't resist :)

more to come, keeps not letting me upload....