Travis & Stephanie Evans Family: June

Travis's church calling is 2nd counselor in YM, so he's over the deacons. They have a bunch too. Since the 11 year olds were added to the quorum I think there are like 18 boys. They went to Lake Powell for scout camp right after school got out. And I may have subtly suggested that Collin is allllmost old enough to be a deacon. It worked. And Trav is a champion husband for taking him. Collin is the mostly easily bored of my children. He needs constant activities so summer is exhausting. Having him gone for 4 days was pretty darn nice! And he had a BLAST. He jumped right into the mix and made fast friends. His peppy personality is great like that! It was just sad to see him in the following weeks beg to go to mutual with Travis or ask if he could help pass the sacrament if not enough boys showed up. He wanted so badly to be one of them after sharing such a fun experience with them at the lake!

Date nights have been few and far between. Our lives have been so crazy. So I found a babysitter on a Saturday morning so that we could hike Camelback mountain! I've wanted to do this hike for forever! We left before the kids woke up and did the Cholla trail. It took us about an hour to hike up it and 45 min. to go back down. I'd heard it was a difficult trail but it wasn't as bad as I thought. You have to use your hands to climb up big rocks, but it's such a well worn trail that the path was clear.

We went to breakfast afterward and it was way yummy. I was debating between the benedict and crepes and ended up ordering the benedict. So after Trav ordered his, he added on the crepes too. Whataguy. He gets me. :) We ate it ALL.

Olive was reading and suddenly got indignant, exclaiming, "How RUDE!"

Turns out the words read, "cute fluffy rabbit" but she thought it said "CUT fluffy rabbit"! Haha. Love her!

Tanner's legs the way he ran across the trampoline was cracking us up!!

Such flare!

He was NOT happy about something. His stink face was cute enough to capture though!

Workin' on his flips!

Pretty proud of him, actually. No way I'd ever have attempted something so scary at his age. Or MY age!

Recital time! Of course, first come the dress rehearsals. These ballerinas were making up games together and so cute!

Bestie Benson.

It's so nice when our neighbors go out of town (the husband is a pilot so they travel a lot) and they let us use their pool!

Bestie Posey.

Finally!! He FINALLY said "dada"! We have waited long and impatiently for this day!!

Tanner Bo Banner turned TWO!

Present time!! He just got one, big present. A dump truck. He seemed pleased enough with it!

Dad and Collin were at Lake Powell so it was just the 4 our us celebrating! Donuts for breakfast, of course!

Shelley, and some of her kids met us at the IDEA museum and we stayed for hours!

Olive has come so far in her reading this past year! I was impressed with her cruising through this book without much help!

Boys will be rough and tumble BOYS.

Dive meets are hot, Hot, HOT!!

Weston improved this season for sure!

A sneak peak at Tanner's swim lessons on week 2 or 3.

Daddy missed her recitals, but Grandma came for the Friday night one which was her ballet number! These last 3 hours so they're not for the faint of heart! Aunt Aubrey babysat for us, which was so helpful to not have to shell out $50 to a babysitter!

We tried a new place near downtown Gilbert called The Toasted Mallow and we were fans!

She let us know she saved our seats! Oh, you're a doll, Miss Olive!

Saturday morning was her other recital which meant we had to miss Aunt Abbey's baby shower. :( So sad!!! Olive rocked her dances, though and it was so fun to watch her!

Big things are happening in the dental world! Way too long a story to write here, but Travis is joining up with another dentist and combining their practices. His name is Quin Gardner and seriously the NICEST guy. This has been in the works for a little while and things are finally coming together. Travis is also buying another practice from a dentist who is retiring. His name is Kevin Cook and his practice is just up the road from Travis's office. So, Quin and Travis are leaving their buildings and moving to Kevin's. Kevin will stay on and work for them for about a year. His building is much bigger so we're excited! It's just also very outdated, so a lot of work needs to be done.

The boys do dive team at Greenfield Jr. High and sometimes I'll cave and let them get the free breakfast when I drive to pick them up. I always feel so guilty using a service not meant for us. I guess our tax dollars are paying for it though. They only like it because it's sugar cereal, juice and processed banana bread and blueberry muffins. Gag.

Tanner's pleased as punch face made my summer.

We try to go visit Grandma Ann or "pomegranate" as much as possible! She's always so sweet and grateful we come even when my crazies are fighting and preventing much visiting from happening!

Playing princess.

Riverview Park

This place was miserable with Tanner. There are play structures so completely dangerous here and very accessible to toddlers! Like, Tanner could have fallen to his death! UGH. It was sweltering and I spent hours following him around. I met Camilla and Jessica there but spent very little time visiting with them, unfortunately. The one place that was fenced off and would have been fun, was the splash pad, but Tanner wanted nothing to do with it!

I took the kids to get the free lunch at Mesa High afterward and it was. a. TRIP. going back on campus. I've been to the football field and tennis courts but not back inside campus since I was 18. I can't even explain how weird it felt walking down those stairs and being in the cafeteria. Twilight Zone weird. Out of body experience weird. The thing is... when you're in high school you sort of feel like you've "made it". You're done with elementary school and junior high so you feel all old and mature. Almost like you've reached the top of the food chain. So to be almost 20 years past that point of life... to be a MOM with FOUR kids??! I'm pretty much a dinosaur.

Then on to swimming at Grandma's house! It was a big day!

EWWWW, Tanner!!! I'm gagging! So much dog hair!

Demo started inside the house and while we were outside we heard the LOUDEST noise. Honestly, like dynamite. My heart stopped and we rushed inside to dust everywhere and the men laughing. They had been chiseling away at the fireplace when it cracked and ALL came crashing down at once. It had to have cracked the foundation. If the basement had been underneath it surely would have gone through the floor. I was terrified that Casey was underneath the bricks and the adrenaline rush made my hands shake for another 1/2 hour. It scared me half to DEATH! Dang, men!

I guess there is a huge wildfire in the mountains. I pointed it out to the kids while we were driving and Olive asked how I knew it was a wildfire. I said, "the news". To which she asked surprisingly, "You watch the news??!" And I had to laugh, because in reality, I don't. So I admitted, "Grandma told me". Haha.

We invited friends over and went to Greenfield pool to swim! I even played Nice Mom and let them get something from the vending machine. You'd have thought they won the lottery!

I felt like Trav and I needed to celebrate.

Celebrate surviving the year.

Because I truly, barely made it.

I've been dancing with a nervous breakdown since January.

Normally, I partially dread the summer because of the constant house messes, the never ending "I'm bored. Let's go ____", the fighting, the chaos of no schedules, etc. etc.

But not this year!!

I can't WAIT for summer!

I'm already living in chaos.

The house is always a mess.

I live in my car.

The schedule OWNS ME.

Life could only get better when this school year madness ends.

I couldn't wait for freedom! Sweet, beautiful, no more driving 80miles a day FREEEEEDOOOMMMM!!!!

I booked us a room at The Scottsdale Resort at McCormick Ranch on Friday, June 21.

I decided we could also call it an anniversary trip since we'd be driving home from Utah on our actual anniversary.

We met Shelley and Casey for dinner at Charlestons first. I got the Dynamite Shrimp salad and it was... well, dynamite. In more ways than one. Super yummy. But did not agree with my stomach. We went to see the new Aladdin movie afterward, but I was sort of in a trauma state. Luckily, by the time we drove to the hotel, I was doing a little better.

I was a little worried my body would stay on autopilot and wake up early... and it did... but thankfully, I was able to go back to sleep and dozed off and on until 9:30am!!! NINE THIRTY!! That's crazy.

We went to the pool for a couple of hours, then headed to the spa for a couples massage! Ooo la la! It was everything. I wanted to die on the spot. Why aren't massages a regular part of life? They really should be.

Back out to the pool for a couple more hours, a pina colada and amazing nachos.

Then, we showered back at the spa and got ready to do a temple session at the Phoenix temple.

It was our first time coming to this temple, besides the open house. I love being inside new temples. We barely made it in time!

We finished our 26 hour getaway with dinner and dessert at The White Chocolate Grill.

If you didn't already know, I really really bajilly adore this man. I don't know how a husband gets better than him. He is good to his core. So selfless. Honest. Thoughtful. Does everything he can to help me with the kids. Wayne and Paula raised a pretty incredible human. I am indebted to them big time. I know that it is rare to have a marriage like ours and I am grateful every day for the past 13 years I've spent as Mrs. Evans.

Who loves Aunt Aubrey?!

These kids do!

She watched them while we were gone and we're very thankful!

Earlier this week a stake counselor asked us to meet with him to tell us our ward would be splitting this Sunday and Travis was being called into the bishopric. Tears sprang to my eyes. I know he'll be so good. I'm really excited for him to have this opportunity. He'll learn so much and I know he'll love and serve the ward the best he can. I wasn't surprised though. As rumors of the ward splitting started milling, I immediately thought Trav would be put in the bishopric. We've been in Elliot Groves ward with 600 members. They are splitting the ward and redoing some boundaries so we are now in the Bloomfield ward.

Instead of doing it during sacrament meeting, they called a stake meeting that night to announce everything. My parents came and Trav's parents came at the end to be there for when he was set apart. Abbey was sweet enough to come to our house and watch Tanner so he could finish his nap and I didn't have to deal with him during the meeting and setting apart.

Steven Milius was called as bishop and Wayne Pomeroy was called as the first counselor.

Bishop Milius has been our pediatrician since we moved back to Arizona. And I absolutely LOVE him. He is the kindest man. His wife, Courtney is cousins with my cousin's wife, Rachelle. And My Uncle Jim was his home teacher growing up. Their backyards were kiddy corner to each other. And, it turns out, Wayne's wife, Nancy was partially raised by my Aunt Jori, when she was married to her first husband. Jori text me after she heard to tell us how much she loves Nancy and the Pomeroys. Such a small world!

With our upcoming Lindblom family trip to Aspen Grove, the idea of having family t-shirts had been tossed around. I certainly didn't have time for that, so I didn't volunteer, but as the trip was now a week and a half away, and no one had taken the initiative to do them, I suddenly felt the prick to make it happen. I didn't particularly care if we had family t-shirts, so the fact that one day it wouldn't leave my mind, made me think it was a sign. I'm not creative, so I didn't know what I'd do, but I sat down in front of my computer with pen and paper and right away two ideas came to me. I thought it would be cool if on the back, we each had our own number... the number representing when we entered the family. So my dad would be #1, my mom #2, me #3, Shelley #4, etc. Including inlaws and grandkids. Kind of like a team jersey. Then, on the front, I thought it would be cute to go simple and just have our name, and then "Being Groovy since 1982" since the word groovy to totally my mom's {word}. She told us all growing up to "be groovy and don't burp your bottoms!" I know. Weird. And very embarrassing for us as kids, but now we think it's funny! My parents were married in 1982, so there's that. I called my mom and ran the idea by her and she loved it. I kept it a secret from everyone else though because I knew that if someone didn't like it or had a different idea or wanted me to change something, I'd combust and it'd never get done. Then came the work of figuring out when everybody got married and all the grandkids were born so I got their numbers correct. I was so scared I'd mess it up! Travis got home from work early, so I took Olive with me and we headed to a t-shirt shop that promised they could get the job done within a week. They had a design artist that created the logo and after 3 hours of hashing out the details, we had a shirt! They didn't have all the sizes we needed, so I ran to Old Navy and JoAnns and found the kids sizes we were missing. When the guy told me it was going to be $950 I almost choked on my gum! My mom offered to pay for it, but I had no idea it would cost that much! My mom wasn't answering her phone, so I called Marcie and she pep talked me into going ahead with it and I'm so so glad I did and it all worked out!! I loved how the t-shirts turned out and I loved wearing them at Aspen Grove with everyone!

I've had this idea to hand out cold water bottles on a hot day at bus stops since last summer. We FINALLY made it happen! And I decided I'd try to go one extra step and add homemade cookies to it too.

I wasn't sure how this would work out or where to go, so I just started driving and we ended up at Pioneer Park. We were able to park close to a bus stop and set up camp in a bit of shade. While we were unloading, Olive and Weston saw a man aimlessly wandering across the grass so they hurried over to him, but were turned down! Yikes! I wasn't thinking that would be a problem! I had to coach them to say "It's free!" and we fared a little better after that. I totally understood that people probably thought we had a motive... like we were selling something or advertising something, so sometimes when people said, "no thanks" or waved us off, we just persisted, haha. Just take it! It was really cute to see the kids so excited about who got to be the next person to give away the water and cookies. We would spot bicyclists from far away with palpable anticipation! It was very hot, but the kids didn't seem to mind. I put on music and they danced and did cartwheels and had fun with the umbrellas. We probably stayed around 1 1/2 or 2 hours before packing it all up and trying another spot on University. We only stayed there maybe 15 min. Not a great spot. We finished passing out the rest by just driving around and spotting people walking. I did a lot of rush park jobs and running with the kids to whomever we had spotted. I should have counted the water bottles but I would guess we handed out around 30 water bottles and just as many bags of cookies. I think we were all pooped and ready to be inside air conditioning after that but boy it was fun! I had a good feeling inside and I hope my kids did too.

We had to keep this little cookie monster away from the stash though!

In between dive practices, the coaches played the "Git Up" by Blanco Brown and did the dance that goes with it, on the deck. The kids loved it and I'll admit I was fascinated by it too! We watched videos on YouTube and learned the choreography so the boys could join in at dive practices. If you were a fly on the wall of our kitchen this summer, you'd have seen lots of dancing happening!

For one of the last dive meets, they had the kids bring cowboy hats if they wanted and perform the dance before the competition started. I was at Tanner's swim lesson and so bummed to miss it! Collin took particular pride in learning the dance and showing off his moves!