July 2013

July was buuuussssy! Picture overload!

July 3-

This was our second year going to Eaglewood golf course with Stew and Nicole. The venue does not disappoint.

^The kids standing by the helicopter that drops the skydivers.

^I think this will be a yearly tradition. :)

^Thanks for the invite Stew and Nicole!

^Madison wasn't scared of the fireworks at all. She watched in awe. The older kids outgrew their fear of the loud booms.

4th of July-

^A once-a-year tradition. KFC. Then some neighbors invited us for fireworks in their circle. Tya made a delicious dutch oven cobbler we ate while watching fireworks. The kids had fun with the sparklers.

July 5-

^Neighbor BBQ. I love being surrounded by friends.

July 6-

^Jake and the Neverland Pirates Cake for Kai's 4th B-day.

When Kai mentioned a Jake party it was fun to try and execute some ideas I found on Pinterest. It's always a lot of work, but fulfilling for us both I think.

^Pirate cupcakes and Jake cake.

^The spread

^Captain Kai got a treasure map that gave us an idea of the activities we would come across.

^Decor

^The grub

^Food for the mates! Thx for helping prep grandmas!

^Fun to see it all come together.

^Upon arrival all the kids got a pirate hat and then we followed the map.

^First they walked the plank.

^Second we did an Alligator ring toss.

^Third the map took us to face painting. Argh matey!

^Forth: X marked the spot at Cannon ball toss at Hook aka Ed. :)

^Fifth and lastly the kids dug for pirates treasure. (Chocolate coins and ring pops)

^Then we ate lunch. Kai got to eat out of a special cup. Then we ate cupcakes.

^And opened gifts. Thank you everyone!

^Some of the fam

^The pirates booty they took home along with pirate swords, eyepatches, and their digging buckets and shovels.

^I think the party was a success. All our mates!

^Love you family!

^After Kai's party we went to a baptism for a friend. They served delicious cold stone. Madison wants some of anything anyone is eating and opens her mouth wide and says, "AAHH!" It's super cute. Sarah was sweet to share. 

^Then later in the day we got together with some friends.  The Nash's visited from Vegas and since the park was rained out, we got together at our place.

^Sarah seems to be fond of Noah. She's always drawing pictures and notes for people. She illustrated herself and Noah. Her drawings are advancing. ;) 

July 7-

^We have some fun prankster neighbor friends. They ran Ragnar as well and decided to hang a Honey Bucket sign from our house. Honey buckets are much liked outhouses provided at races. :) HA!

^Mads upgrading to a front facing car seat. 

^"Happy Birthday" to Kai at church.

July 8- Kai's 4th Birthday

^On Kai's actual birthday we went to dinner, he opened a couple gifts and blew out his candles on his Jake cake.

Kai is an active boy. Some assure me it's normal, others may disagree, but one things for sure, we know he is a good boy. He is so smart. His vocabulary and imagination blows us away. He says the funniest things. I think once channelled, his energy will be a wonderful thing. His listening and attentive skills are getting better. He always wants to be the villain, but I think it's because he gets attention from it. He loves to be engaged with. He is so social and will talk to anyone! He makes adult friends wherever he is, hopefully kids his age will come around. :) We love you Kai. You get a lot of crap and likely get forgotten sometimes, but we're working on it. Such a cute buddy! 4 is going to be a good age for you.

Kai's stats at 4:

41.3 inches (73%)

41 lbs. (85%)

^After the kids were in bed I went and met up with some Bay Area friends. Two that also live in UT now. Fun to see everyone and catch up.

Me, Diane, Hannah and Maren.

July 9-

^I was on the girls camp committee this year- part time. I had previously planned a trip for the same dates, but was still able to help a little and go up for one day. Even though I didn't do much, I love to camp, I loved YW as a teen, and really liked getting to know more of the girls in my neighborhood. We did the usual things you do at girls camp. Eat, sing songs, do crafty things, play cups and games, and then I left. The sunset was beautiful coming out of the canyon. I couldn't resist snapping a couple pics.

July 10-

^As usual we stole Ed's car for our girls trip and headed to Las Vagas for- as Maren calls it, Great Escape #5.  Kristen flew in from Los Angeles and Maren and I drove from Utah. We listened to some awesome old CD's of mine on the way down, sang along, learned more about each other and caught up. More memories begin. :)

^We pick up right where we leave off. I love the comfort level that has grown. Distance hasn't prevented that. If anything I feel like we relate more and more and make the best of our time as it is always short. 

We arrived to the Vdara hotel but fed ourselves some delicious crepes in the Aria next door. Then we headed back to our hotel for some pool time in the 110 degree weather. Lots of sweat. Lots of time in the water. ;)

^Then we got ready and headed out for an early dinner. We grabbed some pics in the hotel casino to document what most people do in Vegas, even if we don't. The only thing we were looking to win is girl time! ;) Ding! Ding! Ding!

^Kristen wanted to try a Vegas buffet, so we went to the Bellagio. We tried bites of many things (since that's all you can fit when you're taste testing that much) and of course went overboard with the desserts. ;)

^After dinner we watched the water show at the Bellagio and walked around for a bit. Whether Vegas is supposed to be humid or not, it felt it! Likely just all the sweat. Eww! Hot evening.

^ESCAPE!  That we did- for the 5th time, and so we took a pic with this sign in our hotel. :)

^We weren't out late at all. We headed back to the hotel and did mani/pedi's to each other this year. Then we played some card games, sang along to Shania, gave mini massages, chilled, danced while brushing our teeth and called it a night. 

July 11-

^Today we started at the pool for a good portion of the day. It was mostly overcast, but still hot.

^Back home, Ed set up the new baby swing with the kids. Cuties. He and Ryan ended up making it a guys weekend too- except they had all the kids. Good deal for us! :)

^After an exhausting day at the pool ;), we primped and went out on the town. We got lunch at Serendipity 3- healthy lunch you can see, and spent the rest of the afternoon in Caesars palace shopping.

^I don't think any of us went crazy with shopping this year, but we found some things. Still fun.

^Then we had tickets to the Terry Fator show. It was good. He is talented.

^After the show we got ice cream- typical of girls trips.

^Evenings bring out some silliness. Before we called it a night we took more pictures in front of the hotel signs.

^And we took some copycats of some silly poses from our first escape.

^Poses from our first escape. :)

July 12-

Shopping bags, bedtime pic and what would a girls trip be without some ugly faces? :)

Maren flew to AZ right after breakfast. Kristen and I hung out at the pool until it was time to leave. Her husband, David, drove with their family to Vegas from LA. When he arrived in the afternoon I caravanned with them to UT. 

^All by my lonesome in the car I listened to lots of music and ate lots of treats to try and stay awake.  I got home in the evening to this...

^The stairs in our garage were narrow and weren't filled in between each step. Ed decided to extend the stairs while I was gone. He cleaned out underneath before he closed it all off. He found the carcasses of 4 birds. Gross!

^He is so handy and great at man projects. It looks so much better!! Well done Ed! One "step" closer to the many projects left to do in this house.

^And thanks to Ryan for helping with it!

July 13-

^Bouncy house

July 14-

^Studly boy

July 15-

^Madison has a discard pile on her tray. She organizes it. Anything in the cup holder spot is no go. :)

July 16-

^The lights went out for about 3 hours one evening. The kids were okay playing with flashlights, but I definitely take electricity for granted. Made me think about emergency preparedness.

July 17-

^Some teens in our neighborhood did a little dance camp that Sarah went to. She had fun.

^Our neighborhood does a little bike parade every year with popsicles at the end. Landon and the kids joined us this year.

^Fun family event.

July 18-

^In our 3 week summer break from Sarah's school we planned a camping trip for our family. Katz's and Layton's happened to be in town during the dates so we invited them to come. The nights we scheduled were supposed to have some rain so we changed plans a little and found a little cabin last minute up Brighton canyon. It was a beautiful drive up!

 ^The cabin was super cute and perfect size for 3 families. 3 bed, one bath, a kitchen and living area.

^Camping always includes lots of snacky foods! Summer is a great time to let loose and enjoy good(crappy) food and great company. Sweet bin, Salty bin, Henry's, Watermelon, Homemade Salsa, Cheeseball....

^Who knows where the kids learn these things from? They pretty instantly made this little fire area all by themselves right after we got there. They love being outside in the mountains.

^After we got settled we went on a short hike with the kids. The scenery was so pretty and felt much cooler than in the city.

^We just relaxed in nature and waited for Layton's to arrive. We are pretty sold on cabin camping with kids these ages. Good deal. We put on a show for the kids and gave them popcorn to wind down.

We kept it camp style though. We still had a campfire and made some dutch oven peach cobbler. MMM!

^And we also just chilled on the couches, had girl talk and snacked. Kristen and her giant piece of jerky. ;)

July 19-

^For breakfast we made delicious breakfast burritos.

^Late morning hike up Doughnut Falls.

^We warned the kids about roaming through plants that can harm our bodies. We thought we did pretty good, but Kai somehow managed to swing through some stinging nettle on our way down. Poor guy. Some mud helped remedy a little.

^The kids loved the hike. Reminds me we need to do this stuff more often.

^We got back to camp and made yummy crossaint sandwiches and even saw a moose. We relaxed a while and then headed to dinner in Park City.

^We found a yummy Mexican restaurant and drove through guardsman pass on our way back.

^We stopped for some pics and the gorgeous view.

^I love these families

^So glad we were able to make this weekend happen together and glad we suckered the Layton's into staying the whole time. Growing our families together has been so great.

We would definitely visit this cabin again. It provided everything we needed for a successful stay.

^More memories to add to the docket.

^We ended the night with some SCUM. Kristen rocked. I'm not even a sore loser....oh wait..:)

July 20-

^We said farewell to Layton's and cleaned up and headed out for brunch at Silver Fork Lodge. We were starved, and beat. Madison can show. Cutest bean.

July 22-

^New shoesies. Let the training begin! Blah! :)

July 23-

^We had a post Ragnar get together. We ate some treats and watched a video Ed made to recap our experience. Great job babe. It was a lot of fun!

July 24-

^We put our pass of all passes to work and met up at Seven Peaks with some friends. It was mostly cloudy, but perfect! Fun day! I love relationships.

^When it's summer and a holiday you eat what you want. :)

^We got take out for dinner and hung out with friends again and did some fireworks for Pioneer Day.

July 25-

^16+ months and feeding herself! Wanting some independence. My baby is growing. :( :)

July 26-

^They are all growing! Sarah started first grade! Big girl! All day school and starting the Chinese immersion program! Love you Sare Bear.

^My friend snagged some free tickets and invited us to an outside concert. Weather was beautiful. Music was average. Company was fantastic. :)

 July 27-

^Meet Charles! We did for the first time! Ed's brother Randy and Moody just moved back from China. Happy to have them here.

^We are loving our neighborhood more and more. We went to a neighborhood party and they do not disappoint. Good food- taco truck included, company and a firework show right above our heads.

July 28-

^Sarah learned how to use my phone camera

^...and my phone video camera. Sillies.

^Our only garden delivery this year. The tomatoes are still in abundance, but no fruit from our cherry or peach tree this year, and any of our other veggies. Shucks.

July 30-

^I love it when people plan outings. I'm always game. My friend's brother works at the Culinary art institute, so a group of us went and tried it out. I ate frog leg! Yikes! The food was different, good, and it was fun to try new things.

I'm sure August will be much slower. Good and bad.