June Randoms

The annual Summer fort made it's appearance...

Making cookies with Emma's fun friend, Jaida...

Emma and Jaida cracking me up with the activity they chose to do..

Our Summer Bucket List- we wrote down a number of things we'd like to do during the summer on little circled cards - we did almost everything on our list!  I don't have the list anymore, or I would write it out here... But I like to make summer idea lists with the kids - it's fun to sit down and brainstorm activities to try to make happen in the next couple of months!

I had a cute Summer Reading program we started up in June - it didn't last long!  That was the story of the summer though, any attempt at organizing the summer, didn't work out well - except for our summer bucket list!  haha

Ice cream!

We went out with our friends to celebrate a birthday, and we all got to party as a result of it - Great Skate is fun for the older kids, but the littles had to settle with arcade games - without tokens - haha.  We found they were thrilled if we gave them pennies though - they would put them in and think the games were working - hahaha!

The last playdate with our favorite friends, and neighbors, the Wards, before they moved.  These kids truly love being with each other - it's not often you find friends with siblings all the same age and everyone has a buddy- even the mom's...  Maybe they will decide to move back?!  Please Lynndsey?!!

Movie night with the kids- I accidentally got tickets for the 3D- I was annoyed, but the kids loved it!

Emma took a summer art class from a friend in the ward we used to live in.  She had an awesome time and the kids were all inspired to paint many of our summer afternoons...

Why does Jake's paintings always end up like this?!

On our way to a summer playdate with our friends who moved away - they still get super excited to see their friends even with the hour drive ahead of them...

The aftermath of Midsummer Night Eve at Grandma Dangerfield's house...

Water park day with friends!

I love this spunky Claire...

Singing her favorite Frozen song...

Making the best of our van being stuck in the shop- eating an impromptu breakfast at the McDonalds next door...

Swim Team and Dive Lessons

We spent a large portion of our summer at swim lessons - Emma switched it up this year and started dive lessons in addition to her swim team practices and swim meets.  Emma is such a sweetie- I'm so proud of her - she has a very positive attitude about the sports and activities that she does.  Even if she isn't the fastest swimmer, she still comes out of the pool smiling and ready to swim again!  She's amazing.

Some videos from dive lessons...
     
Emma just couldn't quite get herself to go backwards into the water...

 

Since we spend a lot of the time swim and dive lessons sitting around watching and waiting - we keep ourselves entertained with my phone taking pictures :)

Kid Dates

Took Claire and Jake on a couple of dates this month - Claire and I went to get pedicures together - this was her first real pedi... she's a natural!  haha...

For a date with Jake, we went to the mall and played at the Lego store...

Then we went to dinner at his favorite place - Red Robin.  He spent a lot of our time there, playing with and showing me his new Lego watch...

I'm a lucky mommy :)

Father's Day 2014

Happy Father's Day!  Dad's are the coolest!  I love MY dad - he always makes everything fun, but also knows when to utilize a teaching moment - I learned a lot of important life lessons from my dad.  I love to see my Ben be an amazing dad to our kids, just like the dad's we both have.  These kids LOVE their daddy...

Father's Day breakfast burritos and fruit...

And a special cookie for later (or as part of breakfast)

And our favorite Father's Day card from the day...

Ben and Susan Backpacking Adventure

The day after getting home from our Disneyland trip, Ben and I left for an overnight backpacking trip.  Apparently when Ben gets some vacation time, we squeeze in as many activities as possible!  haha.  Ben's sister, Emily, was so nice to take all of our kids during our overnighter - I sure love this Ben of mine and the alone time we can find!  

We hiked Hell's Hole trail located in the Mogollon Rim area, about 2-3 hours east of us...

It's a longer hike- about 6 miles in, and then 6 out - and the last couple of miles are HARD - very steep - coming in you are hiking downhill, and coming up it's a very slow, uphill climb...

A nice little break on the way in - by a shaded area and small stream...

On the way down into the canyon...

Once we were at the bottom, we set up camp - and shortly thereafter we found a rattlesnake hiding right in our camp... well, crumb- Ben carefully scared him away with some rocks :)

Cooking dinner...

We were literally the only ones on this hike - we never saw anyone on the way in or out - so we had some amazing privacy! (except for our rattlesnake friend)

Some previous backpackers left a nice little present for us... we kindly saved it for the next visitors :)

We were completely out of water at this point- because we had anticipating having water at our camp to filter, but the river in the canyon was completely dried up.  So on the way out, we were soooo exciting to get back to this little stream and we filtered several liters of water - it tasted amazing!  hahaha

I love having such memorable adventures with Ben!  He's the best. :)