July 2022

We had a fun 4th of July weekend.  We met up with family at the Riverton Fireworks.  They were such good fireworks and we were right underneath them.  It was fun to just hang out, listen to music and relax.  On the actual 4th we took the kids to see the new Minions movie.  That night we watched fireworks on our deck which we had never done before but it was actually kind of fun watching the valley light up all over the place.  And it was nice not going anywhere and fighting crowds for one night.

The next day we went down to Mt Pleasant with my entire family for 3 days and 2 nights.  We got this campsite reserved to ourselves and it was so fun.  We had a huge pavilion, fire pit, lake, grass area and each family got their own little cabin.  We played a lot of corn hole, kayaking, jumping off the diving platform and had so much fun.  I volunteered to be in charge of the food so it was kind of busy doing that but it wasn't too bad and everything turned out great.  I love how well we all get along as a family.

As soon as we got back from Mt Pleasant Jaron had his first soccer tournament, The Surf Invitational.  All the games were in Orem and it was so hot.  He played 4 games in less than 48 hours and ended up going to the finals but they lost in the finals.  He was still excited to be part of a tournament and he still got a medal so all was good.  

That night after the soccer final, I took the girls to the Draper Rodeo with Jennifer.  They love the rodeo and I love that they dress up for the rodeo and looked so cute.  It ended up being a little cloudy so it wasn't as hot as we had thought it was going to be.  Rodeos are always so fun.

I took the kids to the Tracy Aviary.  We hadn't been for a few years and it was raining the morning we decided to go but we still went.  It poured on the way there but only rained for about 20 minutes after we got there so it was a nice morning.  We felt so lucky because they hadn't been having their bird show since Covid and the day we got there they were doing dress rehearsals for their first bird show since Covid.  They were only letting a few people in as to not scare the birds and we were lucky to get front row seats.  We all got to participate during different parts of the show and Aria even got to hold a new bird to the show, a burrowing owl.  It was a fun morning.

The kids always beg to do Lemonade stands and I let them do one a summer.  So Sunday we baked all the goods and got everything ready and Monday was their annual lemonade stand.  Grandma and Grandpa were their biggest customers but they ended up selling out of most of their stuff and always have a fun time selling and making some money.

One thing I don't have a picture of but has taken up the most time this summer is the kids bought themselves a Nintendo Switch.  They've been wanting a gaming system for a long time and we've always said no but we finally gave in along with some rules and limits.  One thing was they bought the system themselves.  And they bought the extra remotes and the games they wanted.  So I was glad they could earn money and spend it on something they really wanted.

7-11 free slurpee day finally came back this year since covid.  It's always fun to do something again after having a 2 year break and this was a fun little activity.  We also took the kids to Lucky's, another sno cone place and they serve the hugest sno cones! This was the kids size!

Part of the kids summer to do list was to sleep on the balcony one night.   So they did it.  They were so excited getting everything set up and ready.  I didn't think they would last night and they did come in early in the morning but they all slept out there most the night and had a fun time.

I don't document this very often but we checked the twins to see who was taller.  Aria has been taller for the last little while but it looks like Siena and passed her up for now.  They seem to go back and forth, I guess it depends on who is on a growing streak.  We'll see how it ends up in the long run.

We had our annual 24th of July ward breakfast and the kids still like participating in the bike parade so of course I have to capture a picture each year.

I've always wanted to hike Stewart Falls and never have so we decided to do it this year.  It's actually a pretty long hike, 2 miles each way but the falls were very pretty and I was glad we did it.  Aria and Jaron got all wet standing so close to it and Siena, who is very vocal about her dislike of hiking did pretty well despite the complaining.

Here's a quick picture to show you one of the reason I love where we live.  Shane and I were on a night walk and saw and heard this owl.  It flew to the top of 3 houses and it was so pretty to watch.

After the fun time we had on the kayaks at Mt Pleasant, Shane searched on KSL and found a great deal on 2 kayaks for sale and so we got them.  The kids have fun on them and they're small enough they fit into our van to transport.  This was at the small Highland Glen lake right by Lone Peak HS.

And that wraps up a busy July month for us.  It was also Jaron's birthday but that will be it's own post.

Jaron turns 9!

Jaron turned 9 this year!  Jaron is really living his best life right now.  He gets his morning chores, piano, reading, etc. done and then is off to find friends to play with.  We often don't see him for the rest of the day until I track him down and tell him to come home and eat dinner.  He has lots of friends in the neighborhood.  He still spends most of the time with his friend Graham.  He's also spent a lot of time with Parker, Aiden and Lincoln.

His true love though is still soccer.  He gets sad if his practices get cancelled, always looking for someone to play with him.  His favorite thing to do with me is play penalty kicks.  This is where we take a rubber ball (like the cheap ones from walmart) and I throw it at him as hard as I can and he tries to block it.  If it's not that we're bouncing it back and forth to each other seeing how many times we can go back and forth without it dropping, or just playing catch.  He loves those balls and is constantly kicking it around.

For his birthday we hung out in the morning playing with his new soccer goal and his friend Graham came over for a while.  That afternoon we went bowling and to Pizza Pie Cafe for dinner.  We were going to go kayaking with the new kayaks we had gotten but a storm blew in and so we just came home and watched a movie and went kayaking the next day.

On Sunday we celebrated all the July birthdays at Grandma and Grandpa's house as is tradition.

The following Monday we had his birthday party.  This year we decided to just take a few friends and go to Splash Summit for the afternoon.  He took, Graham, Lincoln and Aiden and it was such a fun afternoon. Then we stopped by In-N-Out for dinner.  Low key compared to other years but it was fun and the boys all had a great time.

Jaron is such a sweetheart most of the time.  He loves to snuggle with me, will do things I ask him to do and is very obedient.  He does have a hard time being the youngest and the only boy so he does get frustrated pretty easily when things don't go his way but overall he is a happy, good kid who tries his best in everything he does.

We love you Jaron!

June 2022

Summer has officially kicked off and our month of June was Jam packed.  In addition to all the stuff below, we also have Aria in horse riding lessons, Siena did a 3 day basketball camp as well as an hour long basketball camp on Fridays. We've been busy busy busy this month but the kids are staying busy so I'm happy about that.  Each day they also have a chore, piano/violin, reading, a math page and 5 minutes of typing practice.

Jaron signed up to go to BYU Soccer Camp with 3 friends and teammates.  He had such a fun time with his friends and loved going every day for 4 days, 3 hours a day.

My Dad turned 80.  We took him to the golf range and hit balls and then had a dinner for him at Jennifer's house.  It was such a fun night hanging out with everyone and celebrating my dad.  He is still so active playing golf all the time, always comes to help us out with anything we need.  We gave him a new golf bag and made a large print of  80 reasons we love you and everyone contributed. 

Christy came into town for the dinner and our NKOTB concert.  It's always fun when she comes to town because we do lots of cousin and sibling time.  We went swimming at Whitney's parents house and to Classic to go rollerskating.

We had such a fun night at NKOTB (New Kids on the Block!)  It was such a fun concert and we loved getting each of the boys in the band to look up at us and smile or wave.  We made a pretty big scene.  Afterwards, we waited outside hoping (we had heard it happens quite a bit) for Donny or some of the band to come out and take pictures.  We waited until after midnight when all the busses had left before we finally gave up and went home.  We made friends with one of the security guards, Jerry, who we kept trying to get information from and he had very little.  It wasn't until we realized he had left without saying good bye that we knew it was over.  Only walking to our car did we see him again as he was walking to his car and we yelled out to him (he was thrilled to see us again...not...haha) but it was such a fun night.

Shane and I went to dinner with Jennifer dinner to celebrate her passing this really hard HR certification test that she had been studying for 4-5 months.  It was so fun and so happy that she passed it on her first try.

Aria talked us into getting another pet.  She keeps begging for a dog so finally when she asked to get a parakeet we let her.  Meet Scottie.  She has checked out books on birds and specifically parakeets and has done such a good job of keeping his cage clean and holding him and taming him.  He's pretty cute and is surprisingly very quiet.  He chirps when he's out of his cage and Aria is playing with him but other than that rarely makes a peep.  We had to have Jennifer come clip his wings because the first day we had him he flew up to the window above our front door and it was quite the event trying to get him back into his cage.  

This summer we decided not to renew our Get Out Pass and instead get season passes to Splash Summit.  We've already gone several times and it's been a fun change to go do this summer.  The kids are able to just go off and run around on their own while I relax in the shade.  Jaron has gone on all the big slides and even gone head first on most of them.  The girls have done most of them as well but are a little more hesitant.

Our stake hosted a primary activities day camp over in Alpine.  It was a fun time.  The girls went in the morning and boys in the afternoon.  I was asked to help with the girl's groups.  We did tye die shirts, homemade ice cream, making their own slings and parachute games.

Jaron and Siena put on a magic show with their magic kits one night.  It was cute watching them perform their tricks and how they got it all setup and wore their magic hats.\

We had dinner up the canyon one night, hot dogs and smores.  Always a fun evening and it's so easy since we live so close to American Fork Canyon.

We had the basketball trophy presentation while Christy was in town since she won the trophy this year.  Jaron was excited because he got last place (about as hard to do as winning) and Grandpa always gives the loser a Snickers bar and we all snicker at the person for getting last place.  All in good fun of course.

Just a cute picture of how we read our scriptures one night, we had a scripture train.  The kids thought it was pretty fun.  Whatever keeps them happy while reading scriptures.

I signed the kids up for a Math Camp at UVU this summer.  I called it a Rocket Building camp cuz that was the theme but the kids found out it was a Math camp and they were not too happy about it.  They went M-F from 1-4 all week.  It was a pain to take and pick them up each day down in Orem but I think they had more fun than they would admit.  The last day we got to come and watch them launch their rockets and they had a little pizza and award party.

We got tickets to go see a Real Soccer game.  I had never been to a MLS soccer game before and it was such a fun night and even more fun that they won.

Some cute pictures from Father's Day - Aria gave Shane a coupon to do her hair in messy buns a while back and he cashed in.  I thought they turned out so cute and hope she'll do them again sometime.

We rode our bikes one evening to Snoasis for snow cones.  It was 5 miles round trip and the kids did really good except for a few hills.  It was a fun night and something different to do.

One night Shane found an ad on KSL classifieds for anyone to come pick cherries from their cherry trees.  I'm not a big cherry fan but Shane is and the kids like them to.  It was kind of fun going and picking as many cherries as we wanted and sure saved a lot of money not having to buy them at the store this year.

I signed Siena and Aria up for a cooking camp last minute one week.  Their friend Katelyn was doing it as well and they had some last minute openings.  They made pasta, breadsticks, suckers, and cake pops.