The Fourth

Fourth of July for us is filled with Food, Family, Fun and of course Fire works. This year we had a busy and amazing day. During the day we went to see my sister and her family visiting from California. We had lots of food and the kids got to play with the slip n slide and they got to roast hot dogs and smoores. It was great to get the cousins together again.Cali and Ella eating their popsicles


Cali, Andrew, Sean and Ella

After that we headed over to My sister in Laws parents house to do Fire works with the other cousins. It was a lot of fun for the kids. Sparklers were the hit although Cali burned her poor little finger on one.

This is me with my good friend Holly. She is the sister of my sister in Law Laura. Craig and his mom with her dog Molly Cousins and Fireworks

from L to R Hailey, Jacob, Andrew, Cali and Sydney. We were missing Laura nd Lindsey who went to stadium of fire to see the Jonas Brothers. They had a really good time and got to see amazing fireworks.

Beautiful Aunt Holly with the twins Sydney and Hailey

Cali with her"girls" as she calls them. She cannot tell them apart so rather than get it wrong thats what she calls them. They are inseperableOur little family

I Always try to reflect on this holiday and get a new appreciation for my country and my freedom and think about all the brave soldiers who continue to fight to protect our country and have died for it. i am so greatful to live in this country. I feel so blessed to have been born here.I am truly proud to be an American girl. It was a great family day. i really enjoyed all of it until we got home that night and saw that our dog got spooked by the fireworks and chewed up our wood blinds trying to get out. Oh yes the blinds that give us privacy from all the neighbors. Clearly a terrible mistake on our part. Something I wasn't ready for but I guess I will get those white plantation shutters I have been dreaming about. Won't do that again.

More Summer Stuff

One thing I love about summer is my sister Sara usually comes out for a visit with the kids. She stays at her husband parents house in Lehi and they let me come hang out with all of them. Every year they bring out a huge slip n Slide for the kids to play on. Even the big kids sometimes get to do a few runs. It is so much fun! The cousins don't see eachother that muchh since they live in California. It was so fun to see them. Here is Sara and I enjoying watching the kids play...My little Calirific Andrew Man..
My nephew Sean who is just 6 Months older than Andrew


Sean and Andrew-Cousins are awesome

My nephew Owen who is so adorable and looks just like Sean did

We also spent 4th of July with them so I have more fun pictures of that day to come.

Summer = Swim

Summer for us sure = swimming. Lots of swimming. We do swim lessons for the kids every year at my inlaws house. It is so awesomje and convenient accept there is no bathroom close by. Other than that issue it is so nice to have a private pool to have lessons. A nice girl Craig gre up with named Michelle and her assistant Miriam, works with them every summer. It has made a huge difference in there swimming ability. Because of Michelle we were able to get Andrew started with Pre comp swim team. We are trying a new club called cottonwood heights this summer and so far it has been much better. On 1 day a week Michelle works with him on perfecting his strokes and 2 days a week he practices at the outdoor club pool. This pool is my inlaws....

This is Andrew at practice doing pushups and warming up foranother day of swim practice.

This is Andrew swimming at his most recent swim meet. He swam 3 heats. 25yrd Butterfly, 25 yrd Breast strok and 25 yrd free style. He got first place in all three heats. Way to go Andrew! We are so proud of you. You are awesome!

The next sport we have lined up for him is tackle football. Mom is not ready for this but dad has been planning it since he was born. I hope he is ready for that because I sure am not!

camping adventures

It is a tradition to go camping every summer with just our little family. This year Craig could not WAIT to get up the canton so we could camp. We ended up at Tanners Flat up little cottonwood canyon. Apparently he checked the weather and even though the chance of rain was more than 50% he thought it would just blow over us. well any of you who know how much it has rained in Utah this spring, you know that if there was a chance of rain, it was going to rain. We got everything set up, our fire going and dinner on the fire. All of the sudden a huge black cloud came right over our heads with huge gusts of wind. We had about 1 minute to collect everything, throw it in the tent and get inside the tent before we had a huge downpoor. We stayed in the tent hoping it would pass quickly but it didn't. The tent started getting wet inside and the blankets were getting wet and the pillows were getting wet and we decided since we were 15 min. from our warm beds we would pack up what we could and go home. Craig agreed he would come back for the tent in the morning. We borrowed a a tent from Craigs mom and dad that was bigger than ours so when Craig decided we should try camping again the next night, we brought our own. Craig laid out the muddy tent to dry on our lawn and burned a huge section of our lawn. It is barely looking green again. Here are some pictures before the downpoor. Atleast I got those...

Waiting out the storm. Since we werent able to do smoores I gave the kids some powderd doughnuts to tide them over. Here is the evidence on their faces..

The next night of course the weather was perfect. Sunny and warm so we decided to give it another go. This time we went up American Fork Canyon so we could bring our dog Ute. Ute loves to go camping. We have to do some 4 wheeling to get to the good spots which of course makes my dog car sick. So he threw up on the towels I luckily put underneath him. This camping business is a lot oif work! Once we got there we all had a great time. We found the best spot right next to the river and in an open area wher we had views on the mountains and gorgeous aspen trees.

Miniature Golf With Nina

One of the kids favorite things to do with Nina is Miniature golf. This is a tradition that goes way back to when Andrew was 3 years old. When Cali was born and Nina came to help...she would take Andrew miniature golfing every day. Til this day they love to go and when anyone gets a hole in one we all sing...Shake your boody, shake, shake your boody. It is so fun. My mom came out to help with my Thyroid scan and since it was a clean scan and I was cleared I got to go have some fun with My mom and the kids. What a relief. Thanks for always coming and having fun with us Nina! We love you!

Cali Graduates Preschool

Cali Had the opportunity to go to a neighborhood preschool with her twin cousins this year. They are the best of friends and had such a fun year together. This teacher is named Teacher Kathy and the girls love her. She has taught my two kids and my brother and sister in laws kids. She is retiring after this year so we were happy to get all our kids through before that happend. It is bitter sweet because now Cali has graduated and will be going into Kindergarden. I will have two kids in school now. We are so proud and so excited for her. My little girl is growing up fast. The kids put on a graduation show which consisted of song, nursery rhyms, days of the week and months of the year. Cali sort of stole the show with how LOUD she was. The other kids had a little more shyness than her. It was cracking me up it was so loud. Here are some pictures from her special day....

Sorry this is so delayed. Things have been more than crazy around here. More to come...

I Promise

I have been telling myself for weeks to do a new post. I have lots of summer activities to update. Between swim lessons and camping and swim team for andrew, 4th of Juky etc... we have just been running around and staying busy. i was going to start working on it but on thursday my mother in law got very ill and she has been in the hospital for a couple days.We thought it was a stroke in the beginning but We are extremely concerned and dont know exactly what is going on. We do know that she has had a brain absess and has bacteria in her spinal fluid. Right now she is not aware of whats happend to her. She is aware that she is in the hospital but she came in with severe pain. Today she is feeling better pain wise but not fully coherent. She is on heavy antibiotics and steroid to reduce swelling in her brain. They are running many tests and everything is just a guess at this point. We are all very worried about her and we know she needs all the prayers she can get. She will need to stay at the hosital for several more days. We are all very worried and hope we can get her better soon. The doctors think they are on the right track now but we just dont know anything for sure.