Happy Birthday

So the big 8....I can't believe she is 8. this year I was a little stressed because we had just gotten back from a trip, school started, i needed to plan her party and the plan her baptism party. I was venting to Jeff one night when Karlee walks in and Jeff says, " Karlee i will give you 50 bucks and take you out to dinner if mom doesn't have to plan a party for you!" to which she replied, "OK!" she chose to go to Fudruckers and the Mattisons came too. when then came home and had a donut cake and played headbands! Happy Birthday sweetie!

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!!!!!

Oh how I have waited for this day to come. The kids were so ready to go back too! happy learning!

Gunsite

The Ganems have a cabin just outside of Prescott so we decided to take one final getaway for the summer. We had a lot of lazy time, which was so nice. The first night we were there we played a song game where you have 2 teams...you write down some random words and then draw. You then have to think of songs with that word in it alternating back and forth. We played moms against kids(dads came up the next day) and we have never laughed so hard. the next day we thought it would be fun to swim in a lake...then Lisa & Tiffany decided to add a hike in the plans....I am not much of a hiker. only because I don't see the purpose in walking around aimlessly. But I was game to hike and end with a jump in the lake. Well there is no swimming in the lakes allowed. We made the kids run up and down the doc and do crazy things and then we attempted to do a jump at the same time....That didn't really work out so well. We met the dads in down town Prescott for dinner and walked around for a while and then went home for more games. The next day the boys loaded up the truck (outside too) and went to the shooting range. We had a great time!

I really can't believe that these are all the pictures of swimming I have for this summer. We went swimming nearly every day. Karlee and Grady are like little fish and Cole likes to tease from the edge of the pool and occasionally jump in to cool off. We went to The Ganems house every Tuesday and had lunch and swimming with a ton of kids. It was super fun for the adults to lay in the sun reading magazines and having great conversation. But by the time school started I was so done with swimming.

Newport beach

It has been a couple years that we were able to go to Newport with the Crandalls. It was super fun. The entire Crandall/Harman group went. We had three units with a total of 8 bedroom and 6 bathrooms. There was 44 people in all...yikes! So we just beached it for the first few days. On the first day we saw a huge group of people swim out to where the waves first start to break and realized there were dolphins catchin some waves. so cool! Jeff spent the majority of his time digging holes for the kids. We bought some boogie boards and Karlee sure was catchin the waves. Cole was content to drag his around on the sand with him. He did get the board close to the water and then when the waves would come in he would ever so lightly move. Grady spent most of his time playing in the sand and running back and forth to the beach house and back. It was kind of a nightmare with  him because he is such a wanderer. on Sunday Tyson got lost and we had to get the beach patrol involved...it was super scary, but they told us that if we have kids that wander to write their name and a phone number on their hand. So when we decided to go to Magic Mountain that is exactly what I did. Karlee and Cole were tall enough to ride all the ride but 4 and they had a blast. I think they were a little scared on Goliath for a good reason, cause it is pretty intense. Jeff and I switched off in kiddie land with Grady and we didn't loose him. The rest of the week was filled with golfing and deep sea fishing for the boys, and shopping an pedicures for the girls. We finally had a big enough group to have a good game of volleyball and some late night Mafia which was so much fun. The week went by too fast, but was so much fun!

Fourth of July in Heber

Lisa's Family found a great place to stay at for the 4th of july and were nice enough to invite us. It had a big wreck had with a full size kitchen, a master bedroom, 2 full baths and upstairs was a loft with a bunch of bunk beds. then if you walked down the road a little ways you came to 4 bunk house's and 2 full baths. We satyed in a bunk house. It was perfect. We did all the normal festivities...parade and carnival to follow, but the huge bummer was NO FIREWORKS! bummer! we still had so much fun. after the parade we went swimmimg in the lake that was on the property. The kids had a blast jumping off the doc into the water. while i was taking all those action shots, Lisa yells my name...I turn around to find that grady has found a boat and oar and was taking off on his own. what a crazy man! The Grandma's read with their feet in the water and all the kids got boat rides. The quads were also a huge hit. We found some great hills and had lots of fun. what a great trip.

Random summer memories

It was time to get ready for bed...as i went into the kids room, i found that grady had found himself a nice little place to play the ipod. I walked over to Lisa's to see if Grady had wondered over, only to find him playing games with Brendon. His remote was not hooked up, but he didn't know the difference. The Girls decided it would be so fun to make their own smoothies. They experimented many different things and honestly...not to bad. Grady and my mom have a really special bond. Most every night they read together and i often find them in this position. I Love it! My dad had a lot of curbing put in one day and we caught him in a good mood. He let all the kids (even Roco) put their hands in...we put the names of all the grand kids that weren't there.