Summer can't be over yet!!!

I know, I know, the kids are back in school, and its over, but I am not happy about it. I love summer time. I love fall too, but then its winter - uuugh. Here are a few summer time photos I never got around to posting.

Camping at Bear Lake. Is the water ever NOT choppy because of the wind. It was a blast, but windy. And why is it that it is only windy on the beach. Not at our campsite - only on the beach.




Miss Ariah was content to play WITH EVERYONE ELSE'S TOYS. We must not have had cool enough stuff.

Dirt and Uno. Need I say more.

OK I admit it. We are terrible at starting fires. It takes forever, then dinner takes forever and the whole food thing is hard when your camping. I always tease Adam about how long it takes him to start a fire. He was an Eagle Scout for heaven sake. Shouldn't these things be second nature? We always get a good one in the end. I love you honey :)

We did Minnetonka Caves while we were there. It was rough taking turns carrying a toddler that kept saying hold me hold me up 888 stairs. Good workout, and neat caves. The kids thought is was way cool. Last time I was there, I was with the YW and we went through the cave with Carmen Rasmussen from American Idol. That is my only claim to fame.

We sold our tent trailer and bought this spring bar tent. It does the job and takes less space to store. I miss the trailer, but for only going camping twice a year, I finally decided it wasn't worth keeping it around. We enjoyed ourselves...... until midnight the second night and Cole was coughing so badly that he couldn't breathe. It was awful. We had to pack up in the pitch black and make the 2.5 hour trek back home so we could have meds, and humidfiers, and warm beds. We got home at 3am. Note to self - Cole is a scrawny little kid, if he has any signs of illness - DONT GO CAMPING!

THe kids did a carwash this summer for some extra money. They were so cute. One of thier little signs that they held on the road said, " Stop for a wash, kids will make your car so shiny." NO ONE STOPPED. THey were heart broken. They were only charging .50 too. So I got on the phone and called good friends over to have thier cars washed. THey felt rich by the end of day. $6.00 each. I have generous neighbors and friends. They thought this was the best ever.

Back in School

My sweet little Cole on his first day of preschool. This poor kid misses the Kindergarten deadline by hours. All his little friends are in "big kid school", and he isn't. This is his second year of preschool.
He has informed me that he doesn't eat snack at preschool because he is practicing for kindergarten next year. They don't get snack so neither should he.



My big girl Ambra on her first day of first grade. I didn't think I would break down like I did last year, but I did. All day school - sob! My little girl is lost to the world - no longer in my home all day every day.

Her cute little friend Bailey. They are the best of friends. We carpool with this cute little family.

Her new teacher Mrs. Farris.

Second day.

My hubby on his first day of school. He is teaching seminary in Centerville. He has two classes for the year. This has been fun, but very challenging for him. I'm sure he is doing wonderful. He always does.

Too Busy!!

I am too busy. It is taking me forever to update my blog and for that I'm sorry. I am just trying to fit in lots of play before school starts (that is tomorrow). So sad. Summer needs to be longer and that's all there is to it. We have done lots of fun things this summer, camping, pineview lake trips, Idaho and St. George trips, Lagoon, oodles of swimming, Cherry Hill, bike rides, picnics, river floats - probably wont' get to posting it all, but who knows. I am giving couponing a try and I swear it is taking over my life. Any blog time I had now is taken with this couponing thing. Whoa - it's like a part time job. I committed to a five month trial and am on month two, so we shall see. I am logging my time and keeping track of savings and overall spending so I will keep you posted. I do have tons of free toothpaste, brushes, floss, shampoo and cond (well it was $1 or less - the good kind), like 60 boxes of cereal I got for .25 and .50, fruit snacks, dressing, and the like - it's pretty exciting only paying tax on certain items. Fun. Anyway, that is my excuse.



This is our fourth of July trip to my moms in Idaho. We had a blast.
Miss Ambra at the splash pad.


We went to Grandpa's friends horse to do 4 wheelers and horse riding.

Grandma was content to watch.

Ariah wanted nothing to do with the horses. Only the doggies. She was in heaven.

Riding horses for the first time.

More splash pad. We need one of these in Layton!!

Parade. Whoa, Adam is a dork. I didn't see this awful face till just now. What a geek :) I guess thats his way of rebelling all these silly pictures.

My mom does the cutest tables. That is a cookie flag. So yummy.

Happy Fourth (like two months ago).

Remember all that rain we had in June? Well it created a lake effect in the field at the park by our house. I took the kids in their grubbies there one day and let them run wild. THey thought is was great fun.


Does this little poser remind you of anyone??

There were a lot of worms in here. The kids kept picking them up and flinging them across the field. EWWW! It seems I should care that my kids would enjoy doing that, but I don't. Must be the three kids thing - some things just don't matter like they used to.

Look how deep it got. Wow, that is alot of rain.

That's about as far as little Miss Ariah would venture. This is only the last 5 minutes of our stay too. She mostly just sat by me and my book and was content to watch the two other monkeys having a blast.

Swim Lessons

There is a great swim teacher in our ward that does my kids swim lessons. They have blossomed so much in the water. I can say that my kids are swimming now. I don't worry about Ambra without floaties - she does great, and Cole can swim across the pool too. Wow. Good job kiddos.



The first day we went to watch, I couldn't keep Ariah out of the water. I finally put her in her swimsuit, and she was just fine to sit here on the stair for two weeks and watch.

The last fifteen minutes of our time is free time. The kids get to play and wear floaties if they want to. Her slide and diving board are the best. Sometimes I even got in that last fifteen minutes. That blue water is hard to pass up.

Whoa!! Look at that hurkey. Cheerleader anyone?? Ya right, she wants nothing to do with that stuff. She's my little sporty chick.

Aww cute. Autumn and Bailey had lessons with us. They loooove to play together.

I did not just turn 30!!!!!

So my hubby totally gets the award for best 30th bday!! He woke me up at 7 am sharp with kisses from kids and gifts. I got gift cards for a little shopping spree and lotion from my favorite bath store from the kids.

Then he said, Lets go! We love to play tennis together so we went over and played tennis. I LOST! Couldn't he let me win on my day for cryin out loud. He said it was because I was 30.

We stopped and got a Jamba and some Great Harvest for breakfast.

Then he said, "remember when you dressed up like Cinderella for Halloween? I need you to look like that at 5:00 tonight. Ethan (his bro) will be here to take the children." I was thinking "what in the world?" Now what. I totally thought we were going to a midevil restaraunt or something and that he was trying to get me back for making him go all over town on a treasure hunt for our anniversary, but no....


...he planned a surprise party with some of my friends. Apparently I was belle of the ball and he wanted to be king. It was so fun. I was totally surprised.

My cute little ones had to dress the part too. We had quite the royal family that day.

Her he is cooking up the meat. You should have seen that grill loaded with all that meat. I didn't know our grill could hold that much meat.

Here we are with some of the crew. Thanks honey for a great 30th!!

Last Game of the Year!!

Well my little/big girl Ambra loves playing soccer. I put her in dance with high hopes and it totally flopped. Apparently she is a sporty chick. That is fine by me (I guess) :) She really enjoys soccer and is good at it. We play it together as a family at home for several of our Monday Night family activities and she can't get enough. Here she is on her last game of the year.

Isn't she beautiful??

Ambra and her Coach - and her trophy. So cool.