Friday night fun

Last summer Jerry and Matt went to a Bees baseball game and sat next to a couple that have awesome season ticket seats.  So this summer, we bought some tickets from them so we could enjoy some great seats, too.  I'm not sure if there is anything I love more than baseball games on a summer evening.  We just randomly picked the games in about March, so imagine our delight when we found out before the game that they were celebrating the 20th anniversary of The Sandlot movie.  Awesome!  They had some of the cast members there like Hamilton Porter, Squints, Yeah Yeah and one of the twins, Tommy or Timmy, I can't remember which one!  We didn't wait in the enormously long line to get autographs or photos, but we did watch The Great Hambino catch the first pitch!  Fabulous!

 

 They have 4 seats so we figured we'd let Matt bring a friend along to all the games.  It works great because he has someone to talk to and Jerry and I can watch the game.  So fun!

The Bees got killed, but that's ok.  The seats are actually the first row behind the entrance to the visitors dugout so we had fun cheering for them.  Matt had a ball thrown to him and that makes him feel great!   After the game they were showing The Sandlot on the screen on the field.  We hadn't planned on staying because the girls were home with a babysitter.  But another friend of Matt's from his baseball team had come and offered to keep Matt and the friend that came with us.  So they all stayed and watched the game.  It was fun to let him do that.  He's growing up!  They didn't get home until 12:30 so he was feeling pretty cool! 

 

It was such a fun night out.  Quite possibly my favorite summer night!  Go Bees... or whoever they're playing...!

Pinterest fun

Thanks to pinterest, we've had some fun lazy afternoon activities.  And speaking of pinterest, it came up in a conversation between friends recently.  A friend of mine that I follow mentioned that she never makes or eats desserts.  Since I follow her and she follows me I knew of all the pins that she pins that have to do with desserts.  So I brought that up and she said, "Oh, I never make anything, I just pin it if it looks good."  I was so puzzled by that, I mean I'm all for wasting some time, but really there's got to be better ways than pinning things off pinterest that you have no intention of doing anything with.  Am I right?  Do you do or make your pins?

 

Anyway, today we attempted to make some fun chalk art.  The kids had fun and it was a great way to spend an afternoon that was too hot to be active.  It's hard to see some pictures because of the lighting.  Maybe I should start pinning photography tips!

 Matt made a superhero cape...

 I made a bunch of balloons that were floating Abby and I up in the sky...

 Kate tried the balloons out.

 And so did Sara...

 Sara made some butterfly wings...

 And she tried out the superhero cape...

I thought Kate's butterfly wings turned out the best.  She worked the longest on hers.  We were going to take better pictures later, but then it rained, so we couldn't.  Check for us on one of our pinterest pins!

Shh... it's a cecret

With only 6 weeks of summer vacation, we don't have a lot of time for down time so our next adventure was paddleboarding for Jerry and I.  I don't have any pictures because we didn't want to take our phones on the lake, so you'll have to take my word when I say it was awesome!  I'd found a groupon for it so that made it even better, right?!  It was a lot easier than I thought.  I expected to be falling in a lot more, but I only fell in when we were messing around.  Our biggest adventure was when Jerry had to rescue a swimmer from drowning.  A group of people tried to swim across the cove we were in and Jerry was watching the kids, but behind them one of the dads started having an asthma attack and Jerry had to pull him onto his paddle board and paddle him back to shore.  Dumb people not wearing life jackets!

 

The next Saturday we wanted to take the kids on an adventure.  We gave them some suggestions and were quite disappointed when they could barely look up from the ipad long enough to grunt at us.  So even though they were less than thrilled, we loaded up the hiking gear and took off.  It makes me sad that my kids aren't begging every second to be outside doing something.  I'm not sure what to do about that.  We just continue to drag them along and hope this is somewhat normal.

 

So, even though there were some whines before we even started, we didn't let that deter us!  We headed up to Cecret Lake, one of our favorites and an easy hike for kids.

 

Once we were at the lake, everyone was very happy and having a great time.  They all even thanked us at one point for taking them.  They're normal kids, right?  We enjoyed the weather and the view and our picnic lunch and had a great time together.

 What a bunch of awesome hikers!  They really are tough kids when they want to be.

 Even Abby had a great time!  She didn't like the backpack at first, but once Jerry started walking she fell asleep almost immediately.  She had fun grinning at us.  I love bringing her along with us.

After our lunch, we found a really fun geocache and then headed back down.  It was great to get up in the mountains.  Oh, how I love them!

The 4th of July

We were all happy to sleep in on the 4th after our day at Lagoon the day before.  But we couldn't lay around too long because we were headed up to Park City.  Jerry's brother was in town and we wanted to hang out with them for the day.

 We headed down to watch the parade.  I was shocked at the number of people lined along the streets.  Apparently, it's a popular parade!  It is also the most random parade I have ever seen.  There were some, umm, unique exhibits!  It was fun and Jeff positioned us perfectly in the shade so we had a great time.  Kate and Sara had a great time with their cousin Juliette.  It was really fun to see her.

This is a position Abby had gotten used to this summer.  She's been really good to come along with us on all our adventures!

 

Later in the day we headed down to the park to play.  Matt had a lot of fun helping Josh play around on the equipment.  We hardly saw Kate and Juliette they were having so much fun.  After the park we had a wonderful dinner and then came home.  We didn't stick around for the fireworks because everyone was so tired.  It was a fun day though with family to hang out with!

10 months!

To celebrate Abby's birthday we went swimming.  And had cake.  And a party.  Just kidding.  Except for the swimming!  We have had so much fun with Abby this month.  It has been a great month because the kids are all home all the time and I can see her look for them and interact with them and I love it because everyone is happy.  Some of my favorite things this month include her imitating us.  If she ever hears anyone cough, she'll cough back and then laugh because she thinks she's so funny.  I still love her screams and attempts at conversation with us.  I love watching her try to figure out and attempt independent moving.  She scoots around on her bum and between that and reaching really far forward she can get a lot of things out of her reach, but still stays contained in a certain area.  She loves to pick up food and eat by herself and the other kids love feeding her.  They are good to ask if it's something she can have and chew properly.  She is finally sleeping better through the night.  I haven't gotten up with her in a long time.  Her naps are inconsistent, but so are our days so I can't expect too much there.  She is starting to understand that certain items have certain uses.  For example, after baths when I comb her hair, if I give her the comb she'll try to comb her own hair.  I think she's probably the smartest baby ever born!  We really do love our bundle of joy!

 

 We are really trying to get  her to figure out crawling or at least some form of movement.  Our phones are a good temptation as well as many other off limit items.

 Matt will frequently sit down with her and play.  She loves it and I've noticed she is more comfortable around him.  One day Jerry and I left for a few hours and Abby would have nothing to do with the babysitter so Matt took her downstairs and played with her and she was totally happy!

 Kate still loves to smother, but has enjoyed rocking and reading to her.  It is great for both of them.

 We were lucky to get a visit from my sister in law, Stephanie.  Abby was so excited to see Quinn.  She has started to recognize other people her own size and loves to try to initiate interaction with them.  It's very funny.  I was hoping Quinn crawling around would motivate Abby, but no.

 We went hiking and Abby had a great nap in the backpack and loved hitting Jerry in the back of the head.

 I love feeding her bottles and looking into these big blue eyes.  She is gorgeous!

 I couldn't decide which of these two identical pictures I liked more, so I posted them both.  She loves to play with anything she can get her hands on and sometimes empty otter pop wrappers still have a little surprise inside!

 Here she was just cracking herself up.  She likes the tile because she can scoot around more easily.

 She is moving toward crawling.  She gets a little more on her knees than this but can't quite get both legs behind her and then keep everything under her.  But we're working on it!

 Again, playing with Matt.

Her flexibility still amazes me.  It's not just one toe that she can fit in her mouth, but all 5!  After we got back from Durango, her doctor called me and wanted me to have a second round of x-rays taken of her hips.  He was looking for some improvement in the one that was "one standard deviation" away from normal.  The report is that the second round is normal which was expected, but I'm glad to have  doctor who's not afraid to say let's look at this again just in case my original thoughts were wrong!

 

She still loves her baths and I'm still soaked at the end of them.  She makes me laugh with how crazy she is!
 

Abby is such a joy.  We can't imagine not having her and we can't imagine life if she were a boy like we all thought.  She's made a pretty big mark on our hearts already!

Lagoon Day

We were so excited for our annual day at Lagoon.  It is seriously so fun and a day that we look forward to all year!  After going every year for 5 years I feel like we've got it all figured out.  I didn't take too many pictures because I was too busy having fun, but here are a few.  We got lucky again and with it being the day before the Fourth of July holiday, the park was pretty empty.  One employee told us that there were about 5,000 people there and on a normal day there is about 12,000.  We were loving it though.  That means all the rides, none of the lines!  Awesome!

 

We started the day out at Lagoon A Beach.  Abby and Sara had a lot of fun playing in the more shallow pools.  Kate, Matt and Jerry had a lot of fun going on the slides.  I joined Matt and Kate for a couple and it was fun.  It was a great way to start the day off cool.  We stayed until we were tired of the water and ready for the rides!

 

Matt, Kate and Jerry waiting in line.  A few minutes after this picture, Matt chickened out on the ride.  It's a flight simulator and it holds you upside down for a few seconds.  Kate wasn't about to back out though.  I found out this day that Kate is hilarious when it comes to roller coasters.  She had a blast! 

Here's the cart with Kate in it upside down.  It didn't phase her at all.  I took her back later in the day because I've never ridden this ride and they wouldn't let her ride it because she was in inch too short.  Hmm.  Not sure how I felt about her being allowed to ride it earlier in the day.  Glad everything was ok!

 For part of the day, I took Abby and Sara and did some rides in kiddieland.  It was a bit of a hard day for Sara because she wanted to be with Matt and Kate, but she just wasn't tall enough for the big rides.  I know she felt left out a bit.  We did some of the really fun family roller coasters with her and then I just took her for some special time.  She loved the bumper cars.  I loved how she'd zero in on someone and chase them down until she bumped them.

 She rode helicopters, planes and bugs.  She also did laps on dinosaur drop.  She loved it!  I was very proud of her for being brave enough to do things by herself.  She likes to have company, but I wasn't about to let Abby on those rides with her.  Next year I will and Sara can have a friend that's also too short!

 While in kiddie land, we rode the carousel because it was something Abby could do.  She LOVED it!  I think she'll be a little daredevil.  We took her on another ride that swings and turns and she laughed the whole time.  That was fun!

Kate was the champion of the day!  She and Matt made a deal that if one of them rode Wicked, the BIG ride, that the other one would too.  Well, Kate wanted to do a few warm up rides and then Jerry called me while I was with Sara and said, "She wants to do Wicked.  You have to come watch."  So we headed over.  Matt wasn't ready to do it so Jerry took Kate.  They had to wait in a special line because Kate had to ride sitting on a booster.  I wish I'd taken a picture of Wicked.  It's awesome.  You get in the cart, slowly turn the corner, and then immediately blast out of the building and start going straight up.  Literally, straight up.  Then you go over the top and go straight down.  Literally straight down.  It's freaky and awesome!  Anyway, while they were in the special line, I kept expecting to see them turn around.  Nope.  Kate was determined to do it.  Pretty soon I see them get in and I was nervous and guilty thinking I'd just sent my daughter to her death.  Or at least scar her for life from fear.  When she came off there wasn't much expression on her face and I was thinking the worst.  I asked her how it was and she jumped and yelled, "It was so fun!  I kept my eyes closed the whole time!"  I thought that was so funny.  I figured she'd be done for the day, but I wanted to go and Matt decided he'd come along and she wanted to as well.  I was shocked, but ok.  So the three of us went.  I knew Matt was nervous.  I could see it in his face, and he told me.  I kept thinking he'd chicken out, but I think he didn't want to be shown up by his little sister.  So we got in the cart and they made Kate sit in the middle which meant I couldn't be by Matt telling him it would all be ok.  I almost thought he'd climb out of the cart.  Nope, we were all going.  As we blast up I hear Matt scream and I was wishing I could reach over to him.  It was fun though.  Matt was proud he did it.  He told me later that he screamed on the way up because, "he knew in a few seconds he was going to be going straight down and there was nothing he could do about it!"  I thought that was funny, and well spoken!

 

At the end of the day, Kate rode Wicked 4 times!!  Crazy girl.  Colasses is the other big coaster because it has two loops that go upside down.  Matt rode that twice and liked it and Kate rode that one 4 times as well!  She's got the bug!  I just need my brother Rex to take her to Disneyworld and ride Space Mountain with her! Ha ha, Rex!

 

It was fun that Matt pushed his limit.  I was glad to be there with him, but if he never rides a big ride again, that's ok.  I think he will though.  I asked him after Wicked if it was as bad as he thought it would be.  He said it was worse!  But he was pretty proud that he did it! 

 

We had a great day. We had fun riding all the rides and enjoying the day.  Another very successful day at Lagoon.  It's much more fun when I'm not pregnant and can actually ride the rides!  Until next year...

Durango trip - The final chapter

Thursday my kids didn't want to go anywhere.  Knowing that we had a long drive the next day, I didn't force them to go anywhere.  We finished up doing some things at Grandpa's house that we hadn't done yet, or enough of.  Matt drove the 4-wheeler around some more.  He is quite responsible so I let him take Kate and Sara for rides.  He's a protective big brother!

 

 A big request that the kids had was to play The Farming Game, think Monopoly-just with farms.  I don't mind playing it even though I hate Monopoly.  So even though it took us almost 5 hours to play, we played until Matt actually won enough money to really win.  It was fun.

There was also a lot of trampoline jumping.  Kate and Sara couldn't get enough of it.  Abby even liked little bounces.  Of course I had to impress the kids with my mad back-flipping skills!  It was a lot of fun.

 

 



Abby loved Grandpa's dog, Jackson.  She squealed with delight everytime she saw him.  We have to work on gentleness, but it made me want a dog really badly!

 

It was a great time in Durango.  I think we packed more into this trip than we ever have before.  It is fun to take my kids on more grown up things and Abby is so good to just come along.  I had a lot of fun hanging out with my nephew Seth.  Maybe teenagers won't be so bad.  He was still a lot of fun!  I'm glad to get to see my family even though I don't live close to most of them.  I'm always grateful for my mom and dad for taking such good care of us.  And my brother was great to take us on the boat and put up with my girls and their sill attitudes!  My kids love to visit them all!  Until next summer, I'm sure we won't miss it!

Durango trip part 4

Wednesday morning we all woke up refreshed and feeling great.  Well, sort of.  Kate and Sara had this grand idea of sleeping on the trampoline.  Their cousin Seth was kind enough to agree to sleep with them and then Matt and Sam joined in as well.  The parents all had a pretty good idea of how well the idea would work out!  But we had been at the lake all day and everyone was tired, so we thought if they could just get to sleep, there might be a good chance of them making it all night.  They finally got all tucked in around 10.  Seth, as the adult supervision, kicked Jay and me back inside while he told them all a story.  We sat inside and chatted while we listened to them talking and laughing outside. After about 30 minutes it got quiet and then it stayed quiet for quite a while so we thought maybe, just maybe they would make it.  The adults all went to bed and let them work it all out.  At about 11:30, Kate woke me up asking me if I could tuck her in... inside the house.  As I did, I noticed Matt already in his bed.  He'd come in just before her.  But then I didn't hear anything else the rest of the night.  In the morning, I thought Sara maybe had made it all night.   But no, apparently she woke up about 1:30 and was moaning because she thought she was all alone so Sam walked her in and then went back out.  How sweet of him!  I had to laugh though.  None of my kids made it all night, but Sam and Seth did and it wasn't even their idea!  Pretty funny!

 

The rest of the day we played a little closer to home.

It was all of a sudden 10 or more degrees hotter in Durango, so we decided to not go hiking, but instead play in a side creek of the river downtown.  The kids had a great time and spent a couple of hours playing there and rearranging rocks.  This is the tower thing Sara built. 



Even Abby got to get in and play.  I just stood next to her and made sure she didn't eat the rocks.  After the creek, we went to Baskin Robbins for some ice cream.  My favorite ice cream!

 

 Every time we drove up the driveway Sara wanted to get out and run up to the house.  She absolutely loved it and she'd stop at the horses and wave and say hi and then keep running.  Kate joined her once or twice.

 That evening we went to Jay and Lucy's house.  Kate wore her swimming suit so she could sit in the hot tub, but she decided it was too hot to get in.

 We went with Sam to feed and check on his 4-H calf.  My kids were not so into it.  Sara helped the most and Kate helped a little bit.  I had 4-H calves for 2 years.  That was enough for me.  I wasn't too into it either.  But I think it's pretty cool that Sam and Seth have the chance to do it.  Yea for them!

After that we headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Matt loves sitting and talking to Grandpa.  I remember many hours sitting around the kitchen table talking and talking so I loved watching Matt sit and talk with Grandpa.  Grandpa was telling him all about how cow/bull sales work.  My dad had taken a bull to the sale earlier so Matt was very curious. 

We ended that night a little earlier than we had been.  Sara was asking to go to bed at 9.  That never happens!  We'd played so much everyone was getting tired, so we went to bed early and slept in!

Durango trip part 3

Tuesday was a fabulous day at the lake.  It was extremely empty which was great for us.  The weather was awesome.  The water was a bit cold, but after about 30 seconds it felt good.  My kids had a great time.  It was Sara's first time on a boat that she remembers.  Huge kudos to my dad for getting the boat ready for us!

 

 Sara had fun sitting on Uncle Jay's lap and pretending to drive the boat.  She thought she was pretty cool!

 Sara and I were the first to brave the water and try out the toys.  Sara was a bit nervous and wanted me to ride the tube with her.  We were having a great time until long story short... we tipped over the back of the tube.  It startled both of us and the water took our breath away at first.  I could tell Sara was panicking and I was trying to tell her that it was ok because she had her life jacket on and I was right there, but the water was so cold I couldn't talk very well.  Jay picked us right up but I had Sara stay in the water with me for a minute and feel how her life jacket held her up and practice swimming in it so that she wouldn't be afraid.  In hindsight, of course I should have done that with her before we got in the water.  Oops.  She recovered just fine and I made sure we rode the tube again later in the day.  In the mean time we had lots of other fun stuff to do in the boat.

 Kate was the most brave one and she tried out a water ski trainer.  She sat down on it, but when she felt brave enough, she could stand up.  She told me after that she had decided before she got on it that she wasn't going to stand up.  But when she was on it and asked a couple of times for it to go faster, we all yelled at her to try to stand up.  She did it!  She didn't stand up quite all the way, but I was so proud of her for even trying.  She did fabulous!

 Here she is cruising along!

 We stopped and had some time to swim in the water.  Sara and Kate loved it.  Aunt Lucy was so nice to help them all get in the water until they felt comfortable.  They had a great time!

 Kate also got to pretend to drive the boat.  Nice how she's looking at me, right?

 Here is Kate and Henry on the tube.  They were hilarious!  They would lay back and sun themselves and then we'd see them turn their heads and talk to each other and then go back to sunning.  They were having a grand old time!

 Even Abby had a great time!  She didn't get in the water at all, but she loved riding on the boat.

 Then it was Matt and Sam's turn on the tube.  They were a little braver, but Matt was pretty cautious.  We sneaked and sped the boat up when  Matt wasn't aware.  Not too fast, just enough to give him a little bit of a fun ride!

 Kate and Henry chatting away.  They had a great time together.

Matt enjoyed driving the boat the most.  He had fun riding along and watching everyone else try out toys.  He said it was one of the most fun things he's done.  I was glad they all got the chance. 

 

I even tried wakeboarding, but I should have stuck to skiing.  I've tried it before, but I should have just done what I know best!  I loved watching Sam and Seth wakeboard.  They'll be pretty good soon!  It was a fun day and we loved hanging out with Jay and Lucy and all their kids!