Summer Lovin'

I'd say we had a pretty good summer. The first 2-3 weeks was spent relaxing and hanging out for the most part. We had a few fun outing days, we went to Hamilton Pool once. FYI, taking four kids to Hamilton by yourself scores you major Good Mommy points. Good thing because I really need some.

Brighton & Adaira are always happy to show Daisy around the pool, whether she likes it or not!

 Lucky for us, Daisy LOVES swimming. She could be half drowning and choking on water, but you pull her up and she has a huge smile on her face.

 "Hey Brighton, smile!"

 "Don't give me that smile, give me a good one!"

 See this girl's happy face?

 Dale had a blast, there was no way I was going to have two non-swimmers that I had to keep watch of, so Dale had a life jacket on the whole time. Good thing because he was all over the place!

 I kept trying to keep Daisy up on the shallow beach area and she kept pushing herself deeper and deeper, then would try to run, then fall, then start to drown. I pick her up, she smiles, and presses repeat....

 Gotta teach this girl to swim for sure. She was so happy the whole time.

 Adaira, our toothless girl. She's been losing about a tooth a month, but they are taking 4-5 months to grow back in!

 Yeah, I try to keep track of Daisy and Dale ends up floating around outside the perimeter of the children's area. Thank heavens for life jackets.

 Happy kids!

 We also went to Big Surf. This time Justin came with me and we left Daisy with a babysitter, yay!

 Excited much?

 Hard to see them, but Adaira is on the orange slide and Dale is on the red one in this picture.

 Big Surf has a kid/toddler section that was perfect for Dale. I hung out in there with him and he just went down the little slide over and over and over.

 I was laughing in this picture because this was at least our third take and when I would say "ready", Justin would smile at the camera for a second, and then turn and kiss me. Finally I was like, "What are you doing smiling at the camera first?"

The last week in June I took the kids up to the cabin for the week, accompanied for a few days by a ward friend (Emrie) and her kids. Justin was supposed to come up Friday evening with another friend and stay with us through the weekend. The friend's car broke down just outside of Apache Junction, so they didn't end up coming. The next morning I hauled all the kids home.

 Hauling the kids up there. Everyone took a nap on the way.

 We went to a park in Pinetop next to a lake with a mile trail going all the way around.

 Cute kids!

 What a fun time with all those playmates! Do you like Dale's pensive pose here?

 We hit Subway on the way home since we didn't want the nappers to fall asleep in the car and miss lunch. Dale, of course, ended up stuck between the booths. So there you go.

We harvested our apples in late June. Brighton & Adaira really enjoyed working the sauce maker. Around 9pm I told them they needed to go to bed and I would stay up late finishing (we had two whole coolers filled with apples), but they protested and were having such fun (and getting along so well) that I decided to let them stay up. They helped me until 11pm, when I told them I really needed them to get some sleep. In all honesty, they were a huge help and probably shaved an hour or more off the project for me!

 4th of July

We were back up at the cabin for the 4th of July weekend and ran into some friends at the park we love to visit in Pinetop. The Call/Auxier family! Adaira played T-ball with their daughter a year ago, and we all had fun playing freeze tag at the park and walking around the lake. I don't think I ever mentioned it, but about a year ago we were up in Show Low with some friends of ours, at this same park, and we started a game of freeze tag with our kids, adults against kids. The kids' team kept growing and growing with other little kids at the park who wanted to join the fun. Little by little we recruited the parents of those other little kids to join us so we could stand our grand. After about 30 minutes there was a group of about 30-40 of us playing freeze tag! It was pretty epic, and now whenever we go back to that park the kids always say "Can we play freeze tag again?!"

A few of my brothers and my Dad were also up there with us. It makes me happy to see my kids developing friendships with their cousins. I didn't have any cousins within 10 years of my age growing up, so I never had those kind of relationships. I hope my kids enjoy them.

Adaira with friends, Dad & Don in the background

At the dock, keeping Daisy contained so she doesn't dart off (her new favorite thing to do)

Don & his girls

This has got to be one of the cutest faces I've ever seen. THIS is why this kid has managed to survive my wrath for almost four years after all of his antics. He is so beautiful.

Lots of dog lovers at the park, and Dale & Daisy couldn't get enough. I think it might be time...

Believe it or not this is the first time I've let them play in the water, I don't know why...

The day after the 4th of July, I took the older three to the Show Low rodeo. Of course we didn't get there early so there weren't a whole lot of seats for us, but fortunately I had brought a blanket, so we found a clear spot under the bleachers (the bleachers sit about 5-6 ft high).

I really enjoy rodeos!

Took the kids to Show Low Creek the next day. We had come here two weeks prior and the water was moving pretty good. This time around there was still quite a bit of water, but it wasn't moving much and was kind of stinky. Eeeuuuwww...we didn't stay too long.

Dale and Brighton both tan incredibly well.

It wasn't too cold for the kids, but too cold for me, so I just stayed on high ground. We all sat under this little trail bridge out of the sun.

My dad, Duane & David & their families came for a little while too.

A few weeks into July we had our annual trip to Kinder Springs. 

Our family excursion this year was to Clear Creek, about an hour away from Kinder Springs (but geographically much closer, the road was just awful and slow). We hiked about a mile and half down this canyon (about 600-700 feet) and found this beautiful tranquil spot. The water was super clear and there were crawdads EVERYWHERE! Usually you have to tip over a rock to find some but these were just out in the open all over. You could look and easily see a dozen of them at any time.

I love Adaira's sassy look and my look at her in this picture, story of our lives... btw those socks are not flattering to my big ankles...blegh

Cute Daisy in the backpack

It started to barely sprinkle, so out comes the umbrella!

Justin finally caught one!

Daisy's cute little head peeking out from behind Justin's makes me smile in this picture. Along with the fact that Adaira is kicking up her leg and Brighton & Dale are actually smiling.

Doll

LOVE this face

Our first year camping with a trailer! The boys loved staying in the trailer, so did I.

Dirty face, dirty clothes, missing a shoe. Looks just right for camping.

Yumm..

Wouldn't be Kinder Springs without nighttime ROOK games. That and hearing David spar with Don, calling him a "Big Dummy" and Don referring to David as Trayvon all night.

Adaira loves her cousin Charlotte, and Charlotte loves Adaira. Brighton, seeing all the attention Adaira gave Charlotte, asked me several times if I thought Adaira loved Charlotte more than Daisy. Then he interrogated Adaira about it as well, and saying how he couldn't believe she would love Charlotte more than her own sister, lol.

Kalvin was celebrating a birthday the day after we went home, so there was a small party for him with a pinata and all the kids took a turn beating it.

It's dangerous to have flying candy and swinging bats + a dozen kids in the same area.

Cool dude

Adaira & Kalvin

 

You think that sounds like a fun summer? We aren't even done yet!! Three days after coming home from Kinder Springs, we left to Lake Powell to stay with some friends of ours on their houseboat for 4 nights!

Literally less than a week before we went to Lake Powell, I told Justin that it would be so awesome if we could leave just Daisy with his mom so we wouldn't have to worry about two non-swimmers on the lake, plus she still needs naps or is super cranky, and probably wouldn't sleep well in the open sleeping accommodations. I thought it was a long shot with such short notice, but he called Joanna and she agreed! What a relief! As much as we love our sweet Daisy, she would have been miserable on this trip, and it wouldn't have been nearly as fun for us. Huge shout out to Joanna for taking her for us. We met her Flagstaff for breakfast on our way up, she left back to Seligman with Daisy, and we headed on up to the lake.

 We brought up the party platform and some tubes, the Owensbys (I called them Spy's for short) had rafts and other floating toys.

 Adaira & Justin being goggle nerds together.

 Dale was pretty much in heaven. I was SO worried about him on this trip because he isn't a swimmer. I just had waking nightmares of him waking up in the middle of the night or early morning and sneaking off the back of the boat and drowning. It never even came close to happening, but I guess it's still good that I shelled out almost $200 for last minute back to back swim lessons the week before we left? :/

 Surprisingly, we really didn't spend too much time skiing or tubing on the ski boat. I think we only did it once.

 Dale snuck a nap in the afternoon we were on the boat for a while.

 Adaira & Zadok, they got along fabulously, but I think Isaac was Adaira's favorite (or maybe she was his!)

 Justin sporting a look that was half metro, half creeper. He couldn't find his sunglasses so was borrowing my extra pair, coupled with my dad's old shirt that Justin loves because it is so thin and worn, but still protects from the sun, but missing the bottom 3-4 buttons so we joked it was his 'sexy' shirt showing his midriff.

 This kid had a great trip

 Evenings of swimming off the back of the boat or playing on the beach (we were parked at the beach, so off one end of the boat they could walk to the beach, off the other end it was deep enough to swim).

 Justin & Adaira making s'mores over the stove.

 Dale fell in the bathroom and hit his chin to hard on the floor it split right open. Poor kid.

 Isaac & Adaira

 We did the tour at Glen Canyon Dam, Dale wasn't the most cooperative, but it was still awesome.

 In front of one of the old turbines.

 On top of the Dam.

 Tubing fun.

 We stopped at the Dam for a while and swam, the water couldn't have been more perfect!

 Angie and her kiddos

 I love Dale's scowl here. No idea what that's about.

 Dale did NOT want to go out on the tube. Just like he did NOT want to go down the slides at Big Surf. Of course after he does it once he loves it, so I picked him up kicking and screaming and took him out there. Guess what happened? Kid had a blast.

  Lots of sun this summer means glowing skin to offset those pretty blue eyes.

 This was our beach for the week. So fun!

 Fabulous picture right here

 and here...

 top of the boat, getting ready to go down the slide.

 We put this raft underneath the slide pretty often and we and the kids would try to land on it.

 I have some major tendons going on in my neck...

 Brighton wanted Justin to take a picture of him "dancing" in the air.

 Adaira doing her "Call Me Maybe" pose...

 Toothless

 Did a little cliff jumping, this was about 12ft high or so.

 Proud of herself

 Brighton has become braver the past year or two. He jumped several times. I credit Justin to helping him, he went first.

While at Lake Powell, we missed meet the teacher night, but I'm pretty sure the kids thought it was worth it. We got home Sunday afternoon, school started Monday morning.

 Adaira all ready to go, loving her new clothes!

 Brighton always goes for the shirts with cartoon jokes on them.

 Daisy wan't interested in being a part of all the fuss.

 She is ALL OVER not wearing uniforms this year (I switched her to Brighton's school)

 Dale has afternoon preschool this year. He still has an IEP for special education goals, and will continue getting speech therapy once a week. When talking to the special ed team they seem optimistic that he could progress enough this year to start Kindergarten next year. Time will tell, I hope so buddy!

They had a great first day of school, despite not having met their teachers or knowing who else was in his class. Fortunately for Brighton, two of his best friends from last year are in his class this year, so he was SO happy! Adaira makes friends wherever she goes, and both of them had a great first day/week of school.  That's our summer!