Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Summer so far...

Like always, summer started with a bang!  For us, that meant our fridge broke so we lived out of coolers for 3 days until the new one arrived.  When the new one was over an hour past our "2 hour delivery window" and we were on a time crunch anyway, that poor customer service rep got an earfull.  I feel kinda bad now, but he should know better than to mess with a mom that's had no fridge for a while. Obviously he's not married yet...

But I am happy with the new fridge.  I took some before an after photos for your viewing pleasure.  Here's the fridge before.......
  
And the new and improved "after." Don't mind the messy kitchen...remember it's summer?  This stuff is bound to happen. I'm liking the black look and all the lights in the fridge work!  That hasn't happened in a few years!

 This little dude is still growing like a weed.  I liked this picture we got of him at someone's soccer game.
 And Kate wrote her name for the first time!  She was very proud and I thought it turned out great.  Good job Kate!
 This one just makes me laugh.  Don't know what we just fed him but apparently it's not too good.  Ha ha ha!
 Here's one of Kate and her bestie, Erika.
 We do still have a kitty.  He's absolutely nuts when he's awake but then he'll pass out in strange places. He's still cute and we still like him.
 This picture is called...."Find the Kitty"
 Yep, he took a snooze up there too.
 We decided it was about time we took a family hike, so up Farmington ridge we went.
 There was a nice little waterfall to stop at on the way up to the big waterfall which was a much needed rest. It was HOT!


 There were even some old cars along the way.

 We made it up to the top and I was feeding Will a granola bar while everyone else went wading in the stream. I come around the corner to find this.....Kate apparently was one of the boys.
 When she wanted to get her shirt back on it was a good 10 minute process.  And like the awesome mom I am I didn't offer any help. I just snapped pictures as she went.





 Trav and Josh were the only ones that hiked to the big waterfall.  They took this picture which looks really nice.

 But they had to climb down this to get there......(That's me and Rach at the top.) 
 I also got to meet up with my oldest friends for lunch last week.  It was AWESOME!  I love these girls.  Lisa (the one in the middle) was my honest to goodness first friend.  I remember sluffing pre-school (yeah, you read that right) to go play at her house.  We also got our kindergarten shots together along with a million other memories I have of her. Jenn (on the right) didn't become my friend until later in life...like when I was 5. It was so good to catch up with them.

 Lisa recently found out she has cancer and is going through chemo (hence the hat and scarf...which looks amazing I might add). I'm sure it's not easy but she has the best outlook that I've seen.  She's so positive and knows she will beat this nasty disease.  I know she will too.  Keep it up girl!  You've got this!
 Here's a few of the 2 musketeers as they were playing outside the other day.  Yes, kitty is getting bigger.
 My favorite picture of all....


I know you're asking yourself,  "How could this innocent little face cause so much trouble and hunt my baby?" I ask myself that same question all the time. 
 Then, last week, my neighbor had this awesome idea to have a hot wheels race in her driveway.  Everyone brought their cars and the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place even got a real life trophy. Everyone did get an otter pop though. The kids had a blast and it was so cute.


 The photo finish.....obviously this wasn't a close one.


 Josh got 4th place....so close to the top 3.  Here's his totally awesome car.
 William liked the track.

 We pulled the pool out right before that crazy wind storm we had last week.  The kids got to play for a little bit before they had to run inside for shelter.
 We also moved our sandbox so it's a little less spidery and a little more usable.  Good move since William and Strider have played in it almost every day since.
 Wow, this post is getting long.....

Now we're on to Father's Day.  Man, these kids sure lucked out with their dad.  He is the best in every absolute way. 
 As tradition, he got some new "Joey stories" along with many other gifts. And yes, I totally forgot to get a picture with him and all the kiddos. 
 That night we went out to Trav's brother's house for dinner.  The kids had actually slept there on Friday night, then we picked them up on Saturday night after going to the temple. Then we were back to invade their house again on Sunday.  Yes. We had 28 hours of no kids. It was so strange! the house was eerily quiet but we made good use of our time by going out to dinner, a late movie (it started at 10:20. And yes, I did fall asleep in the theater), but then we slept in until like 10:30 the next day. I wish I could say we did more exciting things than that, but I cleaned the house and it stayed clean for a whole day, and I went grocery shopping all by myself.  It was actually really nice. But I did miss all those blue eyes!




 Trav's dad has also recently been diagnosed with cancer, but his kind can't be cured.  We are all trying to make the most of the time we have left with this wonderful, wonderful man.  He opened up one of his gifts...
 Which was a beautiful walking stick. The first words out of his mouth were, "I'm not that bad yet!" Even at 82 and having spent the past month in and out of the hospital he still doesn't think he's old.  Just as a disclaimer though....he's by far the youngest 82 year old on the planet (and the busiest).
 Here's cousin Milo who orchestrated the whole "cousin sleepover" thing. He even came and picked them up to take them to Draper on Friday.  He was Will's favorite.  Milo, I can't thank you enough.

 Here's one of all the grandkids that were there.  We're getting official pictures taken later this week so we can get some good ones of grandpa before he gets any sicker.
 By the end of the night he was using his walking stick like Moses and told his wife that she was being replaced and not to be surprised if he's snuggled up next to it in bed.
 Our family with grandma and grandpa...
 The 3 generation shot....
 I promise I'm getting close to being done. But not yet.  Our neighbors had a TON of boxes that they let us borrow and so the kids built a giant fort out of them.

 Once they got daddy the architect involved we knew it would be super cool.


 Will is so funny when Trav throws him in the air. He finds me and makes eye contact and has a huge grin on that cute little face.

 Here's the finished product. Awesome huh?  Unfortunately we left it out last night thinking..."the kids can play in it tomorrow and then we'll have them clean it all up." Yeah, we didn't know it was going to rain all night and day.  Now there's a big puddle of cardboard in my neighbors yard.  Mmmmm...that's going to be fun.