Flags and Summer Goals

 One Sunday, while Rob was at church, (we got to go for two weeks or so before they had us stay home again.) I decided to have the kids make summer goal posters.  They worked hard on them.

I love how they turned out.  I like to try to make mine perfect, but I like the imperfections way more than my "perfect" one.  

When we were done and Rob got home from church stuff, we walked over to the park to check out the flags.  They put them up every year and we love to go walk through them.  

 Something about seeing so many American flags makes me smile.  I love it.  It helps me to remember the sacrifices people have made so I can have the freedoms that I do.  

 Here is Emery already working on her summer goal.  She made these delicious cupcakes.  

And here is Sadie learning how to make something out of wood.  

Our life during a global pandemic

 Here are some of the things we have been up to during the global Coronavirus pandemic:

We went to church after doing church at home for a few months.  We wore face masks, and we were only able to go twice before our stake went back to home church again.  It was nice to be able to worship with others again.

 And our face masks doubled as toys during the meeting.  We were sitting very well spaced out so the kids took their masks off.  

 Riley is just so cute with two braids.  She loves them too, she just doesn't like having to sit still while I do it.  

 Sadie loves when Finley lets her take care of her.  Here I'm pretty sure Finley was on the verge of falling asleep.  

 We've been harvesting peas from the garden.  We got SO MANY this year.  The kids loved to just open them up and eat them right after we picked them.  

 Zac and his friend Braden made these "S'more" type things for dessert one night.

 My house usually looks like this by 9 am every morning.  ha ha

 These girls find crafty things to do all the time!

 Zac likes to lay in our pool fully clothed.  Usually when it's been filled the day before so the water is nice and warm.  Silly kid. Also, here's Rob eating some swiss chard on our walk that we grew in our garden.  He once saw a video of his friend take a bite of Swiss chard when he was on the top of a mountain, so I guess it makes you manly.  ha ha

 We got snow cones!  

 Finley and daddy coloring chalk.  

 My kids always love to play with our umbrellas.  Most of the time I don't let them because they are pretty much guaranteed to be broken the next time I find them, but they just haven so much fun with them.  

 Emery made these cupcakes.  She cut out the middle and put strawberries and whipped cream in them and then put more on top.  They were yummy.

 We found this cool dragonfly on our hose thingy.  

 Emery and Riley also like to take care of Finley when she will let them.  And I'm not sure what is all over Finley's face, but this is a common occurrence after meals.  Looks like spaghetti sauce.  

The kids really have adjusted well to being home most of their days.  We've ventured out a few times on hikes and to parks, but mostly we've just been home.  They have really become closer lately and it's really neat to see.  They are also really learning how to push each other's buttons....but kids will be kids.  :)

Canal and a project

 Went on a bike ride to the canal one day to take a break from school work.  I love the little canal path that is so close to our house.  There are a lot of fun trees to climb.  One day Zac and his friend rode over to the canal to play and then Zac came running inside.  "Braden is stuck in the tree!"  Ha ha.  I guess he had climbed too high and couldn't get down.  Ha ha ha!  So Rob had to go down there in the middle of a work meeting and guide Braden down.  When Rob got there, there was a lady from the senior housing right near there looking up in the tree.  She said to Rob "I think we will need to call the fire department!"  Ha ha.  Fortunately, it didn't come to that.  Rob was able to talk him through it.  He did stand underneath him in case he fell out so he could break his fall.  Fun adventures.

This is the perfect climbing tree.

These kids got muddy.

One of the kids wanted to take a panoramic picture.  

Here's the project we started

We dug all the plants and dirt out from in front of our bay window and we are going to pour cement so we can have a little porch area.  I'm excited.  

I wish I could sleep like this in the middle of the day.  She often just sneaks off and I find her like this in her bed.  Then I pay for it later because she doesn't go to bed until late.  But she looks so relaxed.  

Last day of "school"

 This year because of Covid-19, the end of the school year seemed really anticlimactic.  The kids didn't get to say goodbye to all of their teachers or friends, we had already been at home all the time, and we couldn't really go out and do anything big because most places were still closed.  So I decided to fork out some money to rent a bounce house!!  I've totally never done this before and I wish I could have invited the whole neighborhood to come share it with us, but we couldn't do that either. Thank you Coronavirus. 

I planned it out that we picked it up early on Friday morning.  We didn't tell the kids where we were going, just that we had an errand to run.  Then when we got back we had to run over to the kid's school to pick up their stuff that they had left at school a few months earlier.  Rob's job was to set the whole thing up in the 10 minutes it took us to go to the school and pick up the kid's stuff.  Ha ha.  Since that was definitely not enough time, I wandered around on the way home.  I drove around the park a couple times, we drove past some friends houses etc.  After a while, the kids got restless and were groaning about feeling car sick and wanting to go home.  So I texted Rob that we were on our way home so he had like 3 minutes to finish up.  :)

We pulled up and the kids couldn't see into the backyard, so they went inside and then discovered the bounce house.  They were very surprised and grateful.  They ran and got swimming suits on and spent the rest of the day outside.  We invited just a few friends over in shifts so that we could share the fun.  It was a VERY fun day and the perfect way to kick off the summer!

We got the bounce house plus the double slide with water.  So much fun.

 The slide was the best part.

 And of course...popsicles!

 Emery really enjoyed hers.

 Riley and Charlotte chilling in the pool.

 So happy the Hatch family could come hang out for a bit.

In the evening, the wind really picked up and we had to take the bounce house down.  And it rained a bit.  I don't think this picture was taken that same day, but it was soon after.  I love the beauty of nature.  

We have the best view right from our yard!

This was definitely a school year to remember and its looking like this next year will be too!  

Churros from Disneyland

 Because of Covid-19, a lot of places have been sharing fun things for free. Disneyland has shared their churro recipe and a handful of others.  We decided to try the churro recipe one day.  I once had delicious churros with my friend in New York and they came with caramel, chocolate and raspberry dipping sauces.  We melted some chocolate chips to dip our churros in.  It was delicious....not as good as Ney York, but it was a yummy afternoon snack.  WE ate them out in the front yard on a blanket.

 Just look how handsome Zac is!  Even with chocolate on his face.

 They were pretty messy, but totally worth getting messy for!

 Finley was the funnest one to watch eat these. She got chocolate EVERYWHERE!

 Before we dug in.

 So yummy.  I think I want to try these again with more dipping sauces!