We returned home from our Coeur d'Alene and Donnelly cabin trip to celebrate the 4th in Rigby. We had a wonderful day. Before we knew it, Daddy was back to work again and we were smack in the middle of summer vacation.
Annie lost another tooth - on the 4th of July! She was happy to find a dollar hidden under her pillow the next morning. Then she found out that her friend across the street got $5 for his tooth. Now Annie wants to know why the Tooth Fairy paid him more. Any ideas?
We are fully into the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. My house has a constant stream of kids coming and going. Some days I love it. Some days I just need quiet and there is nowhere to find it. I find myself wishing for the kids to be older and more self sufficent. Many of my friends are talking about how much they love summer and having all their kids around. I definitely struggle with the mom guilt of wanting my personal schedule and space back.
To help cool off, we love sneaking over to the lake. The kids are getting really good at building things in the sand. And the girls are becoming stronger swimmers.
One night the girls took advantage of the sprinkler in the grass. They got so muddy and laughed so much.
They are so cute together!
Grammy and Grampy sent us some money for Joey's birthday. We surprised him with an early gift so that he'd have time to enjoy it through the summer. We bought new sand toys and an inflatable killer whale toy. The whole family has been enjoying them. Thank you Grammy and Grampy.
The kids have been working hard on the library summer reading program. If we get the reading minutes each day and report them weekly to the library staff, we earn prizes for the family.
We cashed in our black light mini golf and laser tag certificates. We had such a fantastic time together.
We played two games of tag and one of the golf. We were soaking wet with sweat after running through the laser tag course two times. Luckily, we also had vouchers for free ice cream cones. The cool treats were the perfect way to end our family date night.
The raspberries are finally coming on. Mommy is willing to suffer the heat of summer as long as she gets raspberries.
The girls are working hard to earn their share of the Disneyland trip. The goal is to earn $200 to pay for tickets - everything above that it theirs to keep and spend in the park.
It has been so hot that we don't want to run the dryer and heat up the house. Trampoline to the rescue. As long as it isn't a windy day, we can dry our clothes in about an hour on the tramp.
Annie was ready for a change and asked for a haircut. She loves long hair but she doesn't like trying to get the tangles out every day. We took off about 6 inches and she loves it. She can't stop looking at herself in every reflective surface she walks past.
The laser tag was such a big hit the first time that we went again. This time we had vouchers for laser tag and a pizza buffet. The kids couldn't wait to get out and play together again. Mommy and Daddy love it too.
We crammed into a tiny booth hoping it would help us contain Joey at the restaurant. No such luck. It worked for a few minutes, but Joey was ready to bolt the first chance he got.
We were able to bribe him to stay put with his own cup of soda. We are so happy the kids did their summer reading. We had fun reading together and enjoying the prizes together.
Joey was sick with a runny nose and cough so he stayed home from church with Daddy. Mommy received this picture of JoJo wearing Mommy's shoes. He must have missed Mommy.
By evening he felt well enough to enjoy some chocolate frosting. Since Daddy turned 40 this year we decided to have a big party for him. We rented a shelter at the lake and had a big dinner and party. Mommy made 8 dozen cupcakes. At the end of the night we only had 6 left!
Annie was on the decoration committee
Some friends gave Daddy Axe body spray in the "Totally Ripped Abs" scent because they were so amazed at his abilities in the Spartan race the month before. Daddy keep it in his office at work.
Mommy was so busy all night that we didn't get any pictures once the party really got started. Oh well. We enjoyed the night and loved celebrating Daddy and how much he means to all of us. We had over 50 people at the party. It was a wonderful way to celebrate Daddy's 40 years.
Tommy and his friends like to beat the heat by building forts indoors. We pop popcorn and they hide in the for telling stories and playing games. The girls even slept in the fort with Tommy a few nights.
Our stake put on an amazing Book of Mormon adventure activity for families. The youth in each ward were assigned a story from the Book of Mormon to act out. Some wards wrote songs and made up dances. The costumes were funny. We had a great time.
The Primay kids were called up to sing Book of Mormon stories. I was too far away to be sure I got the kids in the picture. If you look closely you can see Lily. Annie is hidden behind a friend. Tommy was crying in my lap and refused to go sing.
Jeremy resurface the driveway. We ended up buying a lot more product than we had planned on. Our driveway was just soaking it up. It looks great and hopefully it will hold up to our harsh winters.
The girls enjoyed sleeping in Tommy's room a lot this summer. One night we checked in on them and found Tommy sleeping head first on the floor.
Tommy's teachers go above and beyond each Sunday in Sunbeams. They had a lesson on temples and the teachers brought in sugar cubes and frosting to build temples. Tommy was proud of his temple. He wanted to carry it to the car on his own. The walk to the van after church took F...O..R...E...V...E...R! Once we made it home, the girls couldn't wait to eat the sugar. I think I might try doing this on a General Conference weekend in the future. It would be a fun activity to do while we have conference playing.
Puna and Papa had some vacation days available due to a scout camp cancellation. We met them at Mesa Falls for a picnic lunch and some exploring time. Papa taught the kids how to burn wood with sunlight through a magnifying glass. Annie loves her stick with initials burned into it.
Temperatures were hot that day. All the kids had red cheeks. Joey was fearless and ready for adventure. He kept running off and searching out every opportunity to disappear.
The kids were so hot from walking the observation decks. But we still convinced them to try the lower falls hike.
We left Puna and Annie at the car, and the rest of us started down the trail.
All the kids did so well on the hike. We were disappointed in the view at the end. We were left at the edge of a rocky cliff and couldn't even see much of the lower falls.
Papa wanted a better view, so he found a way to get down to the water. He tried coming back up a different way and ended up scaling the cliff face. Scary!
After all that time in the sun we were ready to cool off with some ice cream. We stopped at Frostop Drive In in Ashton for onion rings and ice cream.
We decided to try the new Kids Town interactive play center. It was the perfect place to play the afternoon away. Annie loved all the opportunities to dress up and imagine. Lily helped all the little ones figure out the new place.
Tommy dressed as a knight and slayed a dragon.
Lily and Annie opened an ice cream shop and sold me their super deluxe cone. It was so tall, Lily used all her concentration to keep it piled high.
We spent the most time in the Italian restaurant. Annie was a superb chef and Lily was our server and front end manager.
Next door, Dr. Tommy Hall was giving Papa a check up. Apparently being barefoot makes you a better doctor.
In true Joey fashion, he bounced from one side of the building to another. He never held still.
Big smiles all around. We can't wait to go back to Kids Town!
We took Puna and Papa to the lake to play in the sand. The water was a bit cool so we didn't last long.
Puna took the kids shopping for a back to school outfit. The boys weren't interested in clothes at all, so we climbed on the toys with Papa instead.
We celebrated Joey's birthday early since the Wanner's wouldn't be with us again before the big day. Mommy and Puna tried bringing a Pinterest creation to life. It wasn't perfect but the family enjoyed the horse cake. Joey couldn't tell what it was. A little too abstract for him. We tried.
Annie made a little birthday banner with horses on it.
Joey loves the Happy Birthday song.
Chocolate cupcake coma! Yum!
Joey's favorite gift was the horse and cowboy set from Puna and Papa.
He slept with the horses and cowboys that night. Thank you for another great visit Puna and Papa. We left the Wanners at our house for a mini Hall Family Reunion in Utah. We met everyone at Thanksgiving Point for a day at the Museum of Natural Curiosity. The museum was so large and the kids were so excited. We weren't able to stay together for pictures. Everyone took of with a cousin or two and never stopped moving. I only got this one of Joey. I guess that tells you how much fun we were having.
That night we had a big dinner and hot tub party at Grammy and Grampy's. Tommy was very concerned about getting burned in a "hot" tub. We had to really convince him that it was a warm tub and he wouldn't get burned. After watching everyone else enjoy it for a while, he was brave enough to jump in.
The next day we took the kids fishing - or rather, catching - at Cold Springs Trout Farm. The fish in the ponds were so thick you could reach in and just grab one, but that is against the rules.
We decided to let all the kids give fishing a try.
Annie caught the first one. Must have been her new lucky red boots.
Lily caught the next one. She was so proud but too nervous to touch it or get close to it.
Tommy and Joey decided they didn't want to fish after all. They were content to feed the fish.
Once again Joey was on the move. A little worrisome with so many water features and rock walls to climb. Joey didn't like having to hold hands with us.
Lily finally got brave enough to hold her fish so Mommy tried to scoop it out of the bucket. Maybe he just wanted his own photo op. He flew right out of my hands. It took some convincing to get Lily back over to hold her fish.
This was such a beautiful place. The kids talked about it for days afterward. The fishies are still in the freezer. We're waiting for Daddy to take a business trip so we can fry them up.
We also did a hike up Waterfall Canyon. It was a short but STEEP hike with lots of climbing over big rocks and trees. The kids absolutely loved it. Joey didn't want to be carried. He kept saying, "No, I do it!" when we'd try to help him over an obstacle.
Lily and Madilyn love being together. Annie sometimes gets left behind which is tough, but we love seeing the cousins make memories together. Hopefully once they are a little older, there will be room for little sister too.
Tommy and Joey were real troopers on the hike. Tommy was more cautious on the way down so we got a few minutes behind the group. We came to a V in the trail and Mommy knew we needed to take the path on the left. Tommy disagreed because he felt like the main path on the right was the way to go. He was convinced we were lost and cried the last 10 minutes of the hike, very angry that Mommy took the wrong path (which was really the correct path). When we arrived at the parking lot Tommy was so upset that he climbed into the van and hid on the floor under his blanket. Maybe he'll trust Mommy on the trails from now on. Or maybe not.
Our zucchini plants were going crazy for a few weeks. The girls and Mommy decided to capitalize on it by selling zoodles to our bread customers. The grocery store sells them in packages for $5 so we sold the same weight for only $2. Mommy had to spend a lot of nights on the phone telling people how to cook their zoodles after that. But since the zucchini was free, it was a great little way to earn extra money this summer.
While working in the garden one morning, the neighbor's animals started to charge their little pasture gate. One calf was pushed through the barbed wire fence and rolled into our garden. Joey was on Cloud 9. He wanted to get up close to the calf and talk to it. The poor calf was panicked and his Mommy was mooing like mad on the other side of the fence. Joey was doing his demon cow moo, which didn't help the situation. I called the neighbors and they came to retrieve the calf. Joey was sad to see him go.
We finished July off with lots of playing in the water, popsicles, friends, late nights, and lazy mornings. Before we knew it, July was over.
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