Random August

Chase finally got his permit!  4th times the charm!  I pretty much had to drag him there every Friday to take the test and force him to study, he was not interested at all. But now that he has it he wasn't to drive every minute of every day!  Ahhh! Save us all!

Cooper could not have been more excited for school to start!  He wore school clothes and a backpack every day for the last week of summer!

Summer soccer tournaments- not my favorite thing!  But the kids love them, and that's the important thing right? Scott's team did great and won second place twice.

Zoe and her Lego's!  She is obsessed!  She saves up her money for months to buy them.  It's pretty much the reason she loves mowing lawns with Matt!  And the second they arrive she is in her room for hours until they are all made! Cute girl!

Why does school start in August?? I'm never ready! I really, really think after labor day would be perfect!  I wish we could have had two more weeks without school or soccer tournaments to just relax by the pool!  But, none the less, here we are- starting school!  The kids were excited about it! And, go Gardners- we represent every school this year... Preschool, elementary, Jr. High, and High school!  Woo Woo! Chase has taken a picture with Gabe on the first day of school every year since kindergarten, so we met at Del Taco before taking them to school for a pic, becaus eyou don't mess with a 9 year tradition!!

Kindergarten actually starts a week after everyone else. So Coop has two first day of school pics :) He came home from school glowing, and sang me songs and told me stories, and even danced for me!  What a stud!

Teresa and I are down to just these little guys at home each day. So we try and let them play as much as we can.

Chase gets home earlier than everyone else and gets Will to himself for a little bit.  They fluctuate between being best friends and worst enemies depending on Will's mood.

The long hair... Why? I tried talking him into a ponytail for his game but he prefers it just dangling in his eyes???

Will got a bug, and the two of us sat on this chair (in between trips to the toilet to puke) for about 5 hours.  I kept trying to talk him into laying in the bathroom, or on my bed with a bowl, but he kept insisting that I sit with him on this chair. So that is what we did!

Matt and I are taking an art class together! Matt loves art, I am not very artsy, I would say I'm more craftsy- but it's fun to hang with him and do something with him that he enjoys!  And I was very proud of my first ever pastel painting!! The teacher said pastels is more about learning to use them and blend colors than it is about the actual drawing so she let us trace a picture! Which was very, very nice for my lack of artistic ability!

I dedicated this one to Lola- My little Che Che

After a summer full of swimming her ends were mush!  We tried coconut oil, and deep conditioning, but ended up just having to cut off about 6 inches.

California Family Vacation

We finally made it to California this summer with the kids!  We haven't been for years, and this year we just made it happen!  It was delightful!  We loved every minute of it!  We bought ourselves a new ride for the occasion!- Oh yeah Baby!  Best road trip car ever! After squeezing in the Tahoe for our St. George trip and wanting to gouge our eyeballs out, we just decided to go for it!  When we showed Chase the picture of it and told him we were considering buying it he said " Okay, that is seriously so freaking ugly!  But we have to get it!!" And so we did!  Big Pimpin with the G's- Haha!

Talk about a comfy ride though!  Everyone's seat reclines.  No one has to touch anyone else.  There is a pretty big TV in there that we just kept on at all times on the way there and back.

We stayed with the Dobron's, which was awesome!  They are very kind to let our family of 9 pretty much take over their house for a week!  We spent a few days of our trip just relaxing at their house and playing in their amazing pool!

We teetered between the idea of hitting every amusement park California has to offer or just doing the beach.  We settled on 2 beach days, 2 pool days, and Sea World.  It was a great balance of entertainment/ relaxing! My kids loved the beach!  We probably would have added a third beach day if it weren't for the fact that everyone got pretty toasted on the first day.  Our fair skin is not meant to be in the California sun for 6 hours apparently, because despite using 50 SPF we were all pretty crispy after the first day.  The kids built a pretty intense sand castle with Matt the first day, and a gigantic sand donut the next!  Everyone got pretty decent at boogie boarding, even Cooper and Lola which impressed me! We played sand soccer and had sand ball fights (Will's personal favorite game!). And Chase and Scott spent hours at the Jettie catching crabs and finding sea shells.  We loved it!

Sea World was probably my favorite part of the trip!  We met up with Friends there and just had an amazing day! We were there from opening to closing, that's serious stuff!  I was surprised Will held out, but he actually took a great nap in the stroller and woke up ready for round 2! The shows were so fun, especially all the night time stuff!  The older kids loved the rides! We went on a raft ride and got totally drenched!  Of course we chose to do that one as the sun was going down so we were freezing and had to, just had to go buy Sea World hoodies (Matt's favorite thing to do at amusement parks, buy their merchandise... Not!) We hit the carnival for a bit and let the kids try desperately hard to win a huge stuffed animal at the ring toss game. No Dice!

Everyone was wasted by the end, and crashed on the way home!  Such a perfect day!

We came home feeling exactly as should after a week long vacation- Exhausted and happy!  Goodbye California! Until next time- XOXO

Swimming Fun

Our favorite summer pass time! We tried to make it to the pool at least 3 times a week.  It got kinda tricky this summer because it doesn't open until 1:30 and that is nap time and then we often had soccer to get to by 5 or so, but we made it work!!  A lot of times I would drop off kids with friends right when it opened and then I would meet them over there after naps.  We would grab a pizza for dinner and eat there or buy burgers and hotdogs from the little pool grill. I would sit on the side and chat with friends while throwing in diving toys, and the kids would run themselves ragged!  Ahhh summer, I miss you already!

Manila Pond

Our own little Man made beach!  We frequented this place quite a bit this summer too! The little guys could and did just play in the sand all day long!  And the big kids brought rafts and paddle boards and had a blast!  

They loved catching fish here!  Cooper caught three!  He said they were slippery and they kept trying to jump out of his hands, and he even caught the one who was sleeping and kept trying to float away... Haha!

Lola was pretty disappointed when I wouldn't let her bring her fish home! After all that hard work!  What a mean Mom I was! 

Chase and Zoe got swimmers itch here though.  Kinda nasty!  They were covered in little red bumps.

We even brought the scouts over for a little fishing trip.  Good times!

Summer hikes

We tried to take advantage of living in the mountains this summer by hiking as much as possible!  We made it out about twice a week.  Once, usually early in the morning for a run or a harder hike and once usually with everyone to the falls because it's pretty short and the kids liked doing it.

The girls and I tried running up Grovecreek. It was a bit bigger than we thought it was :) But we made it up pretty far.

Zoe and I ran to the G trailhead, then we hiked up the G and then we ran home. Talk about a decent leg workout!! Woo Woo!

Random July

For the week after the 4th of July they had a huge flag strung up between the canyon. Every night they would light it up and have different performances at the trailhead. You could see it so good from our house.  It was really pretty! We didn't see any of the performances, but we did go up to see the flag before they took it down.  Really Cool! 

Trying to capture the sunset from our Balcony. Not a bad view eh?

Picnic at Grandma's!  We tried to do this once a week during the summer. The kids love getting together!

All of Lola's swimsuits have tigers or cheetahs on them (she is obsessed!), and everytime I turned around Will would be wearing one of them (or two in this case). When I would ask him why he was wearing Lola's swimsuit he would say "Because I don't have a Tiger one!" So everytime I went to the store for the rest of the summer I would quickly peek at the boy swimsuits to see if I could find a Tiger one... No such luck!

Playing Ninja's before swim lessons one day.

Our backyard neighbors have a brown shed in their back yard and Will is sure a witch lives in it!  He asked me daily to come help him fight the witch in the brown house, but finally decided to take matters into his own hands.  He came out one day with a mask on (underwear on his head) and a sword and proudly declared he was going to go kill the witch!!

The kids loved to race me to the car after swim lessons and lay on the warm hood until I got there :)

One of Matt's raquetball buddies played the lead in Joseph at Hale Center Theater.  So we went with a group of people that he plays raquet ball with to watch him.  It was amazing!  The first time I've ever seen Joseph, and I loved every minute of it!!

The high school buddies.  We had these guys over for a BBQ.  It is always fun to get together with long time friends!

Chase, Zoe, and Scott practice soccer all summer long, and Cooper and Lola were so jealous!  They asked me everyday when it would be their turn to go to soccer. So this soccer camp in July was just what the doctor ordered!

Will got his first dentist check up!  He didn't let them do much, but he loved sitting in the chair and wearing the glasses!!

Pioneer Day

We had tons of fun hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa T's for the 24th!  We celebrated some birthdays, played on the water slide, ate yummy food, and lit off a few fire works!