Pioneer Day...

Pioneer Day...For those who don't know. Every year we celebrated the early members of our church fleeing persecution and making the arduous trek across the plains and entering the Salt Lake Valley to find peace and freedom to worship God.

The kids dressed up and they had fun activities and games...they made butter, washed clothes with a washboard, played the pull the stick game, and flung cow pies(mock cow pies, thank goodness) Rachel & Jared both beat out the older kids in the cow pie flinging contest. They were all excited...they probably have no idea what a real cow pie even is.

WATER PARK

This will be a highlight of our summer. What a fun little place to take the family. Rachel and Jared were all over the place. Guess where Ellie was? If you guessed wrapped around my leg for all but the last 5 minutes. You guessed right. She is such a cautious little thing. Right before we left she decided it was actually fun and didn't want to go.Rachel and Jared are climbing up the rope ladder.

Dress Up!

ELLIE
The past couple of times Ellie has player dress up she comes up with the same exact outfit. It is quite unique. She is too cute and I thought I would share with everyone the little things that put a smile on my face and makes being a mom so fun.

Favorite Summer Pass Time

We have spent most of the Summer living in my parents pool. Thank goodness they live so close. Everyday my kids beg me to take them over to grandma's house to go swimming. Ellie even stopped getting dressed in the morning...she would wake up and immediately put on her swimming suit.

Jared decided he was done with the floaties one day, took them off and started swimming. He is very confident in his abilities. He will jump in, dive for things at the bottom of the pool and swim with his head in the water. Sometimes as a mom it is hard to watch your kids learn by trial and error but the outcomes are usually rewarding for you and your kids!

I think Rachel was born to be in the water. She has loved it since she was a baby. She just had a pool party for her birthday and had water relays, I think she beat just about everyone, including a boy in her primary class that is a year older. She might be quiet as reserved but she is VERY competitive. Rachel could swim for hours.

This is Ellie in action...Last summer she HATED the water. She would barely stick her feet in the water. My parents got Ellie a vest floaty and now she thinks she is one of the big kids. She swims around just like Rachel and Jared. She will even jump in and go under the water. I'm glad she has made this advance...summers wouldn't be very exciting watching everyone else have all the fun.

Rachel is so funny. She always has to plug her nose. She is afraid of getting water up it. Rachel got a snorkel set for her birthday and loves it because the goggles cover her nose and she can swim without plugging it.

Here is Jared...

Visit to the Firestation

For our playgroup we went to visit one of our local fire stations. The kids really enjoyed it. The firemen showed the kids how the truck lifts the ladder, what they look like with all their gear on and they let the kids sit inside the truck. It was cute because a couple of the kids wanted to know where the pole was they slide down on (most west coast fire stations don't have one because they are only one story...) and they wanted to see a dalmatian dog. Even with the couple disappointments it was still fun.

This is Jared & a couple of other boys trying to pull a dummy, it didn't budge!

Rachel saves the dummy!! With Rachel's help they were able to pull the dummy to safety!

These are all the kids that showed up for the tour

Jared trying to drive the fire truck.

Rachel & Ellie taking a turn in the fire truck.

Summer Fun!!

The best part of summer is having fun with family and friends. This was one of those days. I watched my friends kids in the morning, and then my best friend from high school came over with her two little girls and spent the day with us. It was so much fun. It's great to know that after all of these years we still have a wonderful friendship.

Here is a picture of all the kids together. After swimming and playing in the sprinklers they were all eating otter pops. One of my favorites as a kid, nothing like an otter pop on a hot day!

New Job...

Many of you know that Bill has been looking for work for almost 5 months now. He started a new job on Thursday!!! He really enjoys it and I hope it leads to more opportunities and opens other doors for him.

MISSING...

On Monday afternoon around 4:30 we discovered our Mazda had been STOLEN right our of our driveway while we were home. We were going to go swim over at my parents house and we went to load up in our van and Jared came running back to me (I was getting the last minute things in the house) and said "where is our mazda?" I told him that it wasn't funny to joke around like that. (He is always playing jokes) "I'm not joking mom, our Mazda isn't there!". Sure enough it was gone. I loved that little car. It was one of the few nice things we had. Well, it's just a car. We are hoping the police will still be able to find it. But as the days go by...So Sad.

It's about time!

I haven't had current pictures of my kids in a long time. So I finally broke down and took some current pictures. Even when you make your children "pose" for pictures somehow there personality still comes out in them. Here are a few...

4th of July!!

For the 4th of July we went to a parade with Bill's sister Amy, then to a movie to get out of the heat, we watched Kung Fu Panda. My children thought it was hilarious. They were belly laughing. Then we went over to my parents for an awesome BBQ and swimming. And No, my two year old does not have a drinking problem, Old Town has a Root Beer Shop. Ellie was finishing off everyone's root beer so I had to get a picture of it.

First Trip to the Beach this Summer!

Normally we would have been to the beach several times by now, but the gas prices have kept us from going as often. It was overcast the day we went so the kids didn't play in the water that much but it was a huge relief being in the 68 degree weather rather than the 100's. Jared is being his goofy self. He was almost unrecognizable with the sand that covered him from head to toe. The picture of Jared that looks like he is meditating, I think he getting ready to chuck sand in the waves. But it is a pretty funny picture. Rachel built a sand castle and looked for seashells. Ellie played in the sand but screamed anytime she got near the water. What am I going to do with her? My other kids are so adventurous...

City has a birthday party!!

The city we live in always has a birthday celebration the Saturday before the 4th of July. They have games, food, live music, and the best part...Fireworks. We walked down to the park where they were having it. We had just bought a new wagon earlier that day and were trying it out. It's a great wagon. It folds up so it is easy to take to the beach, wild animal park, or hauling things for soccer. It also has real rubber tires which is great for the beach, and it is big enough to old all three of my kids or ice chest & beach stuff. I'm bragging like I get commission off of the sales...we've just been looking around for a while for one. My parents actually spotted it at a roadshow at Costco.
Anyway, we had lots of fun at the city celebration.

Hang on...

At California Adventure they have a place where the kids can climb on ropes, rocks, swing, and slide. This is Rachel and Jared swinging on the tire swings, which are basically zip lines. Rachel did pretty good but Jared barely got his leg on and was hanging on for dear life, when he hit the tire at the end to stop him he went flying...but he hung on. You can't see it on the video because I saw a panicked look in the Disney employee as Jared hit the tire so I was making sure Jared survived rather than making sure I got it on video. There is a picture of Ellie climbing on the rope ladder which is pretty impressive since she is frightened of everything, including when we go to the grocery store and she is walking, she is always looking over her shoulder and trying to run and hide behind me because she is afraid they are going to run her over with their shopping carts.

You might get wet...

We took the family to Disneyland again and decided to try something new...the canoes. The kids have never been in a canoe before and they were pretty excited. Rachel was bummed because she had to wear a life jacket. You have to be 7 in order to go on the canoes without one. When the the Disney employee asked how old she was she blurted as fast as she could "six almost seven" I guess she was hoping they would only catch the "seven". Well we finally got loaded and Jared and my brother David where sitting in front of me and Rachel. Bill & Ellie were behind us. I didn't know you could get so wet. David kept colliding with Rachel's paddle and would cause it to splash her, and Jared would smack his paddle in the water so he would soak me every time he went to paddle. Rachel and I looked like we had just gotten off Splash Mountain...nope, the seemingly innocent canoes.

Summer Projects

Summer vacation is full of projects and crafts. This is one the kids came up with on their own. They made a bird house in the middle of our lawn. Rachel and Jared worked really hard on getting it just right...they always keep a look out to see if any birds have moved in.