Fourth of July

I picked up Katie and Chris at the airport late on the 3rd and boy was I excited to see them.  I couldn’t stop talking the whole way home from the airport and I was as happy as ever to see Chris grinning back at me and squeezing my hand the whole ride home.  So fun to hear all about Katie’s girl’s camp in Colorado Springs and have her back with the rest of the family.  Just makes everything better to be together again.

The next morning we woke up early and headed over to Nikole and John’s house for Fourth of July breakfast of potato egg sausage casserole, Nikole’s delicious homemade cinnamon rolls, fruit and chocolate milk.  It was especially fun to have all 15 grandkids together for the day!   In the back… Katie holding Payton, Tyler holding Bode, Emily, Ryan holding Dallas and Spencer.  Middle… Megan, Luke, Kayla, Haylee and Derek.  Matt and Bridgette in front.   Marshmallows all over the floor from the marshmallow fight that Grandma had instigated earlier.

Isn’t that Kayla the cutest thing?

We sat around and visited for a few hours while the kids played in the backyard.  At 2:30 we took off for the movie theaters to see Despicable Me 2.  Mike had driven up from Phoenix for the weekend and was meeting us at the movie after spending the morning with Scott and Elisha.  I told the kids to be on the look out for him but even with the ‘heads-up’ Luke just about freaked out when he saw him… “MIKE!!!!”  It was pretty cute.  My kids love Mike… but who doesn’t.  We fought over who was going to sit by Mike, drive with Mike and talk to Mike the rest of the day.   The movie was fun.  After the movie we all decided to go pick up dinner wherever you wanted and bring it back to Nikole’s house to eat.  We grabbed sandwiches from Jimmy Johns.  We hung out at Nikole’s until 8:00 and then headed over to Sandy to watch the fireworks.

We did a few sparklers, ate treats, put on glow in the dark bracelets, played some games like ‘Who has the hat?’ and then sat down to watch the fireworks.   So fun to be with everyone for the fourth!!

Snowbird Tram

On Tuesday we headed up the canyon to take the Snowbird Tram to the top of the mountain.  It was a blazing hot 100 degree day down in the valley but was considerably cooler up on top and it felt so good!

It was fun to have Ashlyn and her boys and Aunt Carol and her step daughter with us for the day.   And so fun to look around and take in the beautiful Utah mountains.

Beautiful Utah mountains…

A little snowball fight…

Weekend with Scott and Elisha

We enjoyed a great weekend with Scott and Elisha and family.  As soon as we got back from St. George on Thursday, we headed up Scott and Elisha’s house in Kaysville.  And just in time for homemade pizza.  Elisha is such a great cook and they are just perfect hosts… it’s so fun to be there with them.   My kids were SO excited to be with Molly and Foster again and meet little Nate.  They got along great and had so much fun playing in the backyard together that first night.

Friday Scott had the day off and we headed to Seven Peaks.  It was C R O W D E D but we found a tiny piece of grass, laid our towels down and got busy playing in the pools.  Ryan thought it was the ‘best day ever’.  I know, surprising… but he was in heaven going down one waterslide or another all day long.  Emily and Megan loved the waterslides too, and playing with the boys and going in the lazy river.  Foster taught my boys a thing or two about being fearless in the water and by the end got Luke to go down a couple of the little slides AND get his face all wet…. and say ‘Ya!’ while giving each other a thumbs up.  Progress!  Matt loved floating down the lazy River with his lifejacket.  He is a happy boy in the water.  Too funny that the boys (including Scott and Nate) had the same bathing suit.  And Molly ran to get her matching suit on when the girls put theirs on.  So fun to have these cousins together!

Saturday morning we headed out to the Ogden Train Museum and wandered around outside looking at cool trains.  It was  H O T  but fun to wander around.

Molly and Megan were so excited to be ‘twins’ for the second day in a row.  They searched for things that they had that they would match it and then wanted their hair done exactly the same.  C U T I E S!

Matt is four.  Foster is almost five.  Luke is five.  And Nate is about 15 months.

Standing in front of an old snow plow train.  Cool looking!

By this time we were melting in the sun and ready to head to Farr’s to get cold Ice Cream.  Man, that cute little place was packed… AFTER we ordered.  We got there just in time.  We ate our ice cream on the tables inside thrilled with the air conditioning and then headed back home.  Pictures from the internet.

We put Nate to bed and left Scott at home to work on his talk and the rest of us headed to Kaysville's Cheap Theater to see ‘The Croods’.  We bought popcorn and drinks and had a great time.  We love a good cheap theater… this one even had better seats than our favorite in Washington years ago.  Saturday night we played some games with Scott and Elisha.  Several games of Guillotine and some Carcassonne. 

Sunday we got to hear Scott and Elisha speak in church, which was so neat.  We’re hardly able to be there for each other for things like that so it was particularly meaningful… and because they were excellent talks on forgiveness and the Atonement.  Sunday dinner was BBQ chicken and pasta salad, which Megan LOVED.   More games with Ryan that night. 

Monday we packed up, cleaned up and then headed to the Farmington Pool for a couple hours.  The pool is small but has great slides and diving boards, which the kids loved.  Matt and Luke both made a ton of progress and (with lifejackets) kept jumping off the side into the pool by themselves over and over and over again.  It’s so fun to be at a pool enough to see them loving it – we just didn’t do that enough in Germany.  We said goodbye to Elisha, Molly, Foster and Nathan, picked up McDonald’s milkshakes for everyone for jumping off high diving boards etc. and headed back to Grandma and Grandpa’s house.