The Connors are so nice to let us use their pool when they're out of town, and they're out of town a lot!
For some reason, it's always amusing to me after cutting the boys' hair to see what moles appear.
Our annual, summer swim with the high school girls was fun! We were sad LaRee didn't come.
The night after we got back from our trip to Austin, we got to go a Phoenix Suns playoff game! Trav's marketing guy, Kirk, has season tickets and bought some playoff games.. Really nice of him to let us use them. They played the Denver Nuggets and won! I was getting annoyed at all the turnovers in the first half, but they pulled it off. The roar of the crowd was deafening at points. The Suns went on to win the Conference but lost to Milwaukee in the Finals. Just as exciting as the game was the half time show! Jimmy Eat World! Except when they put their picture on the big screen I groaned a little. They look like a bunch of OLD GUYS! Ughhh. That means WE'RE old. They only played two songs, but we definitely knew all the words and happily sang along!
Every year my boys have begged for me to buy the school yearbook and every year I tell them when they're in 6th grade I'll spring for it. Well, it's Collin's 6th grade year, but it was actually Weston's begging that propelled me into making a book. Of course, with everything going on, I didn't get it ordered until the week before school got out, then it got delayed in shipping and finally arrived the day after the last day of school. Offff course. So I planned a little ice cream night at my house so they had a chance to sign each other's yearbooks. It was really cute to watch them look through it and exclaim and laugh and point out all the things they remembered from the year. Then they begged me to drive around so they could play OO7. I'm the nicest teacher EVER!
Young Men's camp was the first week of June, a Wednesday through Saturday. They camped in Flagstaff and did the Extreme Ropes Course and hiked Mount Humphreys. Apparently, Bro. Cluff was a gourmet chef and they all ate steak and tri tip tacos like kings! Condolences for Nate Payne's truck when a certain young man spilled a whole cup of soda in it then later puked in it. No good deed goes unpunished. This is the second time Collin has hiked Humphreys with Trav and he handles it really well. Proud of my hiker boys!
Scarlett had the cutest mermaid party at my mom's house! We all got the giggles over the towel hair dos!
It was our turn to have the Goodman kids spend the weekend with us while Shelley and Casey were in Florida. Weston and Rusty went fishing, I crammed them all in the car to see Peter Rabbit 2, we swam at the Connors (best blackmail pic of Rusty in the mermaid tail, haha!) and spent hours at Uptown Jungle in Chandler. They played nonstop there and it was definitely my best investment of the weekend. When I saw Lindi and Della's dresses for church I knew Olive and I needed to follow suit. Cheetah girls! And all with matching braids, too! If I remember anything from this weekend it will be what a 5 start sister Lindi is to Della. Anytime Della was crying or having a tantrum, Lindi bent over backwards to give her what she wanted or make her happy. It happened repeatedly every day. I probably wouldn't have been so accommodating, haha, but Lindi sure was!
When your sister in law owns a kids swim shop, you get cute matchy suits!
It's 115 degrees outside and this kid picks flannel and jeans! (But MAN he's cute!!) It was a battle all month. Why he wanted long sleeves and pants is beyond me! The record heat of June had me sure that God was trying to burn us all to a crisp!
While Trav and I were in Austin, we had Lincoln Monahan coming over to feed and walk Winnie. Well, apparently, Winnie was really bored with us gone and took to tormenting Jeffy, our tortoise. I got a distressed phone call from Lincoln's mom, Tasha, on Sunday night that she found Jeffy in Winnie's cage in bad shape. His shell and leg had been gnawed on. We though he would die, but he seemed to rally for a few days. Then he died. The kids (mostly Weston) were so sad. We had a little funeral for him and buried him in the backyard. He never really grew like Shelly did so maybe it's ok he went to tortoise heaven.
Time for Winnie's mothering capabilities to be taken away! She got spayed and my word I had no idea what an ordeal it would be! She was at the vet's office all morning. When I picked her up around 2pm, she was groggy and not herself. So weird to see a drugged dog. We had to give her medicine for a couple days and she had to keep the cone on her head for two weeks which meant she couldn't use her doggy door and we had to take her out to go to the bathroom.
I guess it's time to take my classroom down. So sad to throw away all the art work. Such a weird feeling to be dismantling what feels like I just put up. Still can't believe it's over.
More cleaning demanded I throw away the old, broken ball that I used to tell Travis I was pregnant with. Come to find out, Collin had never heard the story! I told him that before he was born, Trav and I were at Target and he picked up this toy and said how he couldn't wait to be a dad and play ball with a son someday. So I secretly went back to the store later and bought the ball and kept it hidden. When I found out I was pregnant, I put the pregnancy test inside and handed it to him as a surprise! Sad to part with it, but it was broken and coming apart. Can't be sentimental forever.
When you get new Vans you do NOT take those bad boys off.
Tanner was ready for bed when we discovered he had jeans on under his sweatpants. What in the world?! He was all sorts of crying when we made him take them off.
I dropped Olive off at Inspire studio to audition for their academy team. She had never been there before and knew no one. She was teary and clingy and I wondered if she'd be brave enough to let me go and stay for the whole thing. I half expected a phone call after I left. Well, it never came. She stayed the whole time and we found out later she made the team! I was SO proud of her! It called for a celebratory acai bowl.
FATHER'S DAY!
We LOVE this man so so much! He requested eggs benedict for brunch and it was a bit of an ordeal. My hollandaise sauce had to warm on the stove too long and ended up curdling. The poached eggs were a mess. The potatoes turned out better than I'd ever done them before (I sliced leftover baked potatoes and fried them in a cast iron skillet) but getting 6 plates of eggs benny out hot at the same time was more than I could do! A curse word may have slipped out an one point. And we had to borrow some eggs from the Connors. But man, was the food well received. Collin declared it his new favorite food ever. THAT is saying something!
The kids love to give gifts. They had all gone to Nordstrom Rack with me to pick out some new shoes and shirts. Collin made him a cardboard cut out of him on a paddleboard with a word bubble that says "fastest on the river". It was adorable! Collin is so creative and gives such great gifts. Weston had picked out a mug at TJMaxx that said Best Dad ever.
Tanner was so excited to have all the attention on him at grandma's house while he unwrapped his birthday presents!
Got some updated pictures from Craig in Honduras. Our parents couldn't be more proud of him.
Finally! Tanner graduated to the next level at EVO! His face says it all. He really hates going to swim lessons and cries and protests every time so this was a win for both of us!
Since we were spending actual Father's Day at our in-laws houses, we went out to dinner the night before at Xaviers then got Andy's custard for dessert and went back to my parent's house to play Ah Heck. We had such a good time together. Abbey asked Travis if he knew why her gums were bleeding when she brushed her teeth and I blurted out, "Are you pregnant?" Flustered she said, "yes" and we all screamed. I feel bad that I outed her... I didn't mean to, it was just the only reason I could think of for bleeding gums and spoke before I thought of the consequences. Sadly, the next week, she miscarried. I guess Katie had the same thing happen to her a few days after Abbey.
Maybe it goes to show how done I am with summer that I let Tanner stay with his brothers at the lake to go fishing. It was just one hour at the Highland Park lake, but apparently it was disastrous. It started raining and they claimed they were freezing cold. Even with a big, sports umbrella to sit under and it being over 100 degrees. They didn't catch anything and Tanner whined the whole time that he had to poop. Oops.
Some time at the river with my cous!
We welcomed a pebble ice maker to the family! Got it for $100 off on Amazon Prime Day. It's lovely.
Karen and Reddin both had to be at girls camp so Livy spent a couple of nights with us. Olive was in heaven. We ended with a girl date to Joes Farm Grill and it's now Olive's favorite restaurant. I'm loving their farm salad and sweet potato fries!
This sign cracks me up! "Olive's fun room it is a fun room fort in room opin door sofft, tiny like opin only like a crack". Hahaha. She begged to sleep in the fort and I've come to the part of parenting where I shrug my shoulders and say, why not? Baffles me how kids can sleep on the hard floor.
How cute are they, just laying on top of each other, watching tv?
Camilla has been dying to go paddleboarding down the river. She wanted us to go with all our kids without husbands. I said, I love you and NO. So we went with just our girls and that alone was trauma. Posey fell off the board after the first turn and was crying. Camilla needed a lot of instruction and guidance and at the very end she missed the get out point! I threw my paddleboard to the side, yelled at Olive to stay put and ran as fast as I could along the beach yelling the whole time for Camilla to get off the board. She nearly missed the exit completely then I don't know what the heck I would have done! I jumped in and waded out to her to help her pull it in and get it back to where we needed to be. I was exasperated. Love her. But that whole experience was awful. At least we ended the night on a good note at Mod Pizza.
Collin had an appointment to get his retainer at the orthodontist and talked me into a "date" to get breakfast burritos at the new Farmer Boys restaurant on Higley and Baseline. Cheers! Then we grabbed some flowers at Frys and got the rest of the kids to pay Grandma Ann a little visit for her birthday! 87 years young!
A couple days after our strenuous river trip with Camilla and Posey, Olive and I were off to do it again with a girl I minister to in the ward. Her name is Ashlee Wolf. Her daughter, Charlotte, is Olive's age and I thought this would be a good way to get to know her better. They live in the apartments and don't seem to have many opportunities for fun, so even though I did not feel like paddle boarding again, I was happy to do this for her. WELL, I had no idea what was in store. It was windy like a hurricane was imminent. I have never seen wind like that at the river. It made paddle boarding impossible. We paddled with everything we had and made almost no progress. At one point we got blown so hard we were thrown to the side in the weeds and couldn't get out. We were all tangled up with tubers. I was so tired and we had been at it so long and weren't even to the bridge yet. I really wondered if I'd need to call Travis to come get us. Bless Ashlee, she was a TROOPER. She never complained. Just gritted her teeth and kept at it. I felt so bad that this was happening! Somehow we made it through. It took 2x as long as it should have, but we did it.
