Summer 2012

What an awesome summer we have had so far.  Here are just SOME of the highlights of all we've been up too!

June 9, 2012 Justin ran in the Herriman 5k with his dad!  He took 3rd place in his age group and 10th overall.  That was really good because there were a lot of runners.  We were so proud of him he even beat his dad.  He got an award and a medal!

June 9, 2012 Rob with Brittney at the Herriman Parade!

June 2012 Robs grandfather passed away on June 9th Here is Rob with our boys and his dad at the grave site.

June 2012 The kids at the funeral home.

June 2012 The kids at the grave.  It was a beautiful ceremony.  He was an amazing man and my kids loved visiting with him.  They loved going to the farm.  He loved to sing and had such a fun attitude with everyone.

My 3 girls at the grave

June 2012 tonight was the Fathers and sons!  Ryan was so excited to go that I told him 2 weeks ago if he was completely potty trained then he could go with Justin and dad.  It took 3 days and that was it!  so while the Boys went camping the girls had our own little girl party!  We watched barbie and a mermaid tail, made ice-cream Sundays, painted our toes and nails, braided our hair, had a sleepover in moms bed, played games, went shopping, and laughed and had a great time without the boys!

June 2012 Katie at the schools dance festival! She did the twist!

June 2012 Justin at the school dance festival! He did Achy breaky heart!

June 2012 at my parents house for fathers day!  I made Rob and our Dads these cute shirts that you put on and lay down and the kids drive all over their back with cars and things.  They were so fun and the dad's all loved the back rubs!

June 2012 end of the year fun! Katie at her classes teddy bear picnic!

June 2012 Justin with his High Flying Hawk award!  The highest award you can earn!  Way to go buddy! He worked really hard for this and we were so proud of him!

Katie with her class and High Flying hawk award.  Again so proud of her! Great job kiddo!

Justin with his teacher Miss Daines!  He really liked her he just doesn't love hugs so that why the funny face!

Katie with her teacher Miss cook!  Also really awesome teacher!

June 30, 2012 took the kids to boondocks today we played miniature golf and laser tag.  Kids had a blast!

July 2012 Brittney at the splash pad.  Our cousins were in town from TX so we went to the splash pad and had a BBQ and then let all the kids have a sleepover in the backyard.  They all had a great time!

The girls sleeping in the tent!

July 4, 2012 Sandy city parade Rob and Justin! This was such a LOOOONG Parade! The kids sure had fun though!

July 4,2012 making smores over the fire!  Justin loves to charcoal his marshmallows!

End May 2012 This year Katie decided to do Up with Kids a singing, dancing and performing play.  They performed Tangled. Here she is in blue on right with her best friend Brooklyn on Left as chameleons.

May 2012 Katie and Brooklyn as fairy's!  They had so much fun doing this play!

June 2012 another Fathers day photo.  All the kids playing on his shirt! He loved this idea.  Still puts it on all the time! Thank goodness for pinterest!

June 2012 all the kids with their dad on Fathers day!  Dad is their hero and they all love him so much!

June 2012 Katie with her new summer haircut!  She wanted it short!

Megan with her new haircut also.  Short too!

June 2012 Brittney just hanging out in her cute birthday dress!

June 2012 pack meeting the kids all made rockets then we launched them off this machine one of the guys in the ward built.  They went so high and far it was a BLAST to watch!  The boys love this it was really fun!

July 7, 2012 So here is the first picture of many from our family vacation this year.  We started by heading to Reno.  But then the next day we drove through Donner's pass here we are in front of the memorial and statue they have there. 

July 7. 2012 Our Family in lake Tahoe!

July 7, 2012 Rob playing with Brittney in Lake Tahoe!

July 7, 2012 We hiked up to this waterfall with the kids in Yosemite National Park. 

July 7, 2012 another Hike in Yosemite!

July 8, 2012 Today we went to Kings canyon and Sequoia National park.  Here we are under a tree that had fallen.  These trees are huge but beautiful!  A true site to see!

July 8, 2012 Our family in front of the General Sherman tree in sequoia!

July 8, 2012 Justin and Katie holding some pine cones from these massive giants!

July 8, 2012 driving our car under a tree that has fallen!

July 9, 2012 Salt creek beach in CA.  This beach was gorgeous totally will go again!  The boys with their fort they built!

Ryan playing on the beach!

Brittney at the beach!

Brittney, Megan, Ryan, and Katie playing on the sand!

July 9, 2012 Our family at Goofy's Kitchen!

Megan and Katie with Minnie Mouse!

Justin with Dale

Rob with Dale!

Ryan with Pluto

Justin and Chip

The girls with the Fairy God Mother!

Cinderella and the girls!

Geppetto with Rob and Ryan!

July 10, 2012 The kids in Sea world!

July 10 Sea world this was Katie's favorite part of our trip!

Megan feeding the sea lions

The kids petting the dolphins!

Kids at Sea World!

July 11, 2012 Family at Lego Land

While in Lego Land we went to a show Justin here in red and Katie on right in yellow were chosen to be in the show.  They had a fun time doing this!

Ryan with his Lego buddy Bob the Builder!

Ahhhhh!!! Ryan's getting eaten by a Lego Shark!

The kids and Rob after going on a very wet ride!

Part of the mini Lego city! This alone is worth seeing in Lego Land It is amazing!! And this is only a part of it!

The kids in Lego land before a show it was a fire truck show.  Cute and wet!

July 12, 2012 Today we spent the day in CA adventure!  The older kids loved the rapids ride!

Ryan was so excited to see Mater!  He is our Cars Fan!  The whole cars land experience is so amazing and lifelike.  The neon at night, everything is exactly like the movie with no details spared down to the new road and everything!  It's really awesome!

Mom and Brittney with Minnie Mouse in her Pilot attire!

The family with RED in cars land!

The family with Lightning McQueen!  Although it doesn't show in the picture Ryan practically chased him down he was so excited!

Ryan is so excited right here he loves Jake and the Never Land Pirates on the Disney Channel and he about died when we saw Jake in person!  Just look at that smile!

In Ca Adventure they have the Disney dance Party where you can go and dance with many of the Disney Characters.  They bring out 7 or so of the villains and you get to dance with them then they bring out 7 or so of the Good characters and you get to dance with them.  They do a dance competition and all kinds of fun games and stuff.  Here we are dancing while waiting for the villains to come out!  They won't sign autograph books but they will dance and occasionally pose with you!

Justin with Captain Hook (Shmee also came out)

Justin with Prince John!  He was hilarious I love how they stay in character he asked everyone for money, I actually even gave him some and he was showing it off to all the other characters!

 Megan with Cruella De ville!  (we also danced with the queen of hearts, Jafar, and the big bad wolf)

Then came the good characters.  Her is Rob and Brittney with Lilo!

Megan and Rob with Daisy Duck!

 Katie with Clarice (chip and Dales girlfriend)  We also saw the 2 step sisters Anastasia and Drizella, Marie from Aristocats, and Clarabelle.

Getting ready for the toy story ride!

To infinity and beyond!!! That's what Ryan and Megan are doing in the photo with Buzz!

Ariel in the world of color.  We watched this that first night pretty cool what they do on water!

July13, 2012 Today we went to Disneyland!  We had a wonderful time here!  Just after going on splash mountain for our 3rd time in a row we ran into Brer Bear!  He was hilarious!  We also saw Winnie the pooh and Tigger right before! 

Ryan really wanted to go on this boat like captain hook has he kept saying.  He was delighted when he could steer too and shoot the canons!

Having a quiet lunch at the blue bayou!  Inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.  Great food and fun atmosphere!

After lunch we went on some more rides then we found our seats for the Disney Parade.  Disney just doesn't do anything poorly!  This parade was so awesome!  Here is Katie while the genie was walking around! 

Later that night we did some shopping (that's where mom realized not long after she misplaced her diaper bag with everything in it!) AHHH it was horrible we spent the next 2 days cancelling credit cards, calling banks, etc luckily we got it back with everything inside the next night at dinner what a relief but sure made it hard to enjoy ourselves in the mean time.  We sure did try though.  We went to fantasmic and watched the fireworks later that night.  Just as cool as I remember.  The kids loved seeing tinker bell and Dumbo fly over the castle and Ryan loved peter pan fighting Captain hook on the boat.  The girls loved the princesses of course and Mickey as always save the day it's such a fun show!

July 14, 2012 our last day in Disneyland.  We spent the majority of the day in Disneyland until we had to go to dinner in ca adventure.  Here are the girls so cute!

Our family!  Yes Mom made them all matching shirts, bought matching skirts, and made bows for the girls hair.  Yes Everyone thought they all looked so cute!

Alice and the Mad Hatter.  (the mad hatter was so grumpy and hilarious)!

The family in front of the castle!

The family with Mickey Mouse! 

Justin trying to pull the sword from the stone!  He couldn't!

Katie with Rapunzel after being in the tangled show she really was excited to see her.  Ryan was a bit disappointed when rider wasn't there!

In Disneyland they have a new thing where you can go up and listen to bands play music (mostly country style) while up there characters wander around it was really fun and no one around.  My kids were practically alone with all of them!  Here is Justin and Rob with cowboy Minnie and Mickey!

The Family with cowboy Chip and Dale!

The kids with Cowboy Goofy.  (we also saw liver lips and shaker from the country bears all decked out in their cowboy attire)!

It was so hot we headed indoors to watch the show at the golden horseshoe have lunch and ice-cream.  We sat in the booth up next to the stage and it was really fun. 

Megan, Ryan and Katie looking for fairy's!

Tonight we went back to California Adventure to go to our Princess dinner at Ariel's Grotto.  The food was super and the kids loved seeing all the princesses.  Megan was a little sad she didn't see Belle but other than that we saw about everyone they wanted!  Here are the kids with Ariel!

Megan with Aurora!

Jasmine and Katie!

Rob with his favorite princess Snow White!

Brittney with Cinderella!

 

Overall Ariel's Grotto was a great experience we even got to watch the World of Color from the restaurant and it was front row perfect viewing!  So cool.  The only downside was the next morning Nicole broke out in hives all over her body and itch.  I think I ate something seafood wise that didn't like me I was on benadryl and sound asleep the whole drive home.  Rob had to come through as super dad and on his own.  Which he did very well.  But it was a super trip one we will treasure forever!  Totally fun and worth it!

July 19, 2012 Today My mom took all the grand kids and their moms to the zoo with her.  It's an annual tradition and the kids have such a fun time.  Here we all are!

Me and my kiddos!

Megan and Katie the polar bear is right behind them you just can't see him.  This is so cool if you haven't seen the new exhibit it's fun and the otters too!

Visiting the giraffes

Seeing how well my kids measure up!  Pretty close!

My kids with Grandma!

All summer my kids have loved playing outside in the water this is just one of many of the days they spent in the backyard! 

Brittney has found a new hairbrush!  My noodle scoop!

Happy 24th of July!  Megan with a sparkler!  We celebrated small since school started the next day for us!

Throwing pops on the cement in the backyard on the 24th of July!

July 25, 2012 Katie and Justin started school today here they are together before they left for their big day!

Nothing says summer like Popsicles! 

Megan and Ryan picking raspberries and blackberries from the garden!

Dad vs. kids a common sight at our house! kids duelling and sword fighting dad!

 

Aug. 2, 2012  My little girl is off to her first day of Kindergarten!  OH MY GOSH!  Why do they have to grow up so darn fast!  She was so excited and has loved it every day.  I'm so glad she loves school!  She is such a great loving beautiful daughter!  Good Luck sweetie!

We have also been working on quite a few projects this summer!  This is one of them.  Fixing around the indoor trampoline.  It took some time and hunting to figure out what to do but we finally got it resolved these are foam pads that we had to put all around the tramp after laying down outside flower bed weed blocker then we filled it in with this foam stuff.  On top of that we placed square tiles all around.  I'll post another photo of the completed project later.  It turned out really nice when it was all done!

My kids have LOVED watching the Olympics, and it didn't take long for them to go outside and pretend they were their own true Olympians.  Here they are doing the balance beam!

I think they are doing gymnastics and pole vaulting here!

Aug. 2012 Another project was to rip out the small amount of concrete and replace the entire side of the house and back of the house with new concrete, rock walls and flower beds.  Ryan loved to watch all the big trucks come to the house and even dressed up like Bob the Builder when he saw this truck since it reminded him of scoop!  It's been crazy around here!

 

August 17, 2012 Tonight we had a family party up at my parents church pavilion!  Here is Brittney on her bike.

The grand kids having scooter races.   After they all got gold medals!

Megan and her cousin Brecken Making snakes with water bottles you blow into them on the end is a washcloth with elastic around it and then you did it into the water and soap solution and blow out comes long bubbles or snakes!.  My cute sister saw this on pinterest it was really fun!

We played horseshoes!  Here is my sister with her ringer!  She had several of these and beat everyone

My dad under a sign I made for him.  He has been going through cancer treatments for the past 6 weeks and today was his final treatment!  We are all so excited and pray it will never come back.  I think he hopes this more than anyone!

Megan congratulating grandpa on mo more cancer!

We also celebrated April to August birthdays.  Rob, Katie and Ryan from our family all got to celebrate their birthdays!

At Christmas Justin got a guitar.  when we opened the box it was broken.  My mom and dad have been looking for another guitar ever since then.  They finally got him his guitar and it was such a nice one.  They gave it to him that night.  He was so excited!!!

Justin thanking my mom!

Rob and Katie putting on lip gloss that Katie got as one of her presents!

All the Birthday people! 

This is the end for now of our summer fun! I'll be sure to post some more as things get done!  What a great summer we have had so far!!!