Color Run

My friend and I decided to put on a little neighborhood fun run because her family usually does a fun run for Autism but it was cancelled because of Covid this year.  So we put on a little neighborhood color run.  I found the colored chalk at the craft store and the kids were totally on board.  

Here's the before picture.  All clean.  Our block is exactly one half mile so the kids just ran around the block once.  

Then when they were done, we had a color fight.  It was so much fun that I hope we can do it again next year with more people!

Zac kept coming up to me and showing me how messy he was.  It was so funny.

The colors were so pretty.  

I feel like he looks like the kid from the sandlot that gets covered in dust from the vaccuum cleaner that explodes.  

Finley and Rob got in on the action a little bit too!

When it was all over...we went straight in for showers!

THis picture doesn't show it well, but Sadie was so covered!

Chalk in the ear.

I can't wait until the next time we do this!

The aftermath...our driveway and road were so pretty.

Then Zac showed us this cool thing you can do with a spoon and a nylon sock and a hose.  Pretty neat!

 It was a great way to start a Saturday.  

Videos from Arizona

 Here are some videos from our AZ trip.  Enjoy!

Arizona trip - part 3

We made it to Heber after a 3 hour drive.  My mom had mentioned something about my aunt and uncle's new house and said it was pretty big.  Big enough to play nine-square inside.  Then the kids started to refer to it as a mansion.  I told them to bring their expectations lower in case we showed up and it wasn't as big as they thought it would be.  I told them to imagine it being a one bedroom house with no bathroom.  Ha ha.  But when we arrived, I think it was better than they were thinking it was going to be when they were imagining a mansion.  It was really impressive.  

There was a wrap around porch that was really nice.  We spent quite a bit of time relaxing on that porch.

There was a fun loft area above where the industrial sized kitchen was.  (There was a hotel ice machine in there!  That was probably my favorite part! Endless ice!)  There was a pool table where we played a lot of this new game we learned from my uncle.  There was an air hockey table, a basketball game and a tv and bean bag chair.  So fun.

Grandpa found a nice comfy spot on the couch and settled in.  Zzzzz

Emery discovered this cool fort that was on their property.  It was probably built by one of my cousins kids.  

Off in the corner there was this arcade game that had tons of games on it.  The kids had a blast with it.

Uncle Isaac joined in the fun.  

And set up the hammock for us all to enjoy.

The kids spent a lot of time out here on these swings.  I liked to lay on them while they were still or else I would start feeling sick really fast.

Finley loved this swing and always wanted us to push her higher!!

Here is grandma teaching the kids about how Ponderosa Pine trees smell like vanilla.  It's true, they do.

We found this large beetle on a walk to the nearby park.

Finley was sometimes a good "hiker".  She would cry for us to hold her a lot.  

The park was mostly empty.  We played tag, and did obstacle courses and just hung out.  

Isaac had to leave after only one night.  Boo.

Pretty wild Daisy flowers along the path.

Goofy picture.

My uncle made this cool train that he can attach to his ATV and give the kids rides.  They loved it mostly.  Riley was pretty worried about a tiny spider she found in hers.  I don't think she really enjoyed the ride, but the next time she rode up front in the ATV with us and she loved it.

We forced the kids to lay down and watch a movie because they were so tired.  We watched Nanny McFee.  

The second night, Scott drove up with a couple of Christi's kids and stayed the night.  We made s'mores and stayed up way too late.  

We enjoyed breakfast the next morning followed by 9 sqaure and then we headed back to Utah.  

We also went on another train ride.

Sadly, our time in AZ had to come to an end.  The kids wanted to stay another day, but we dragged them away and headed back home to Utah.  Not before we took a few group pictures though!
 

Thank you so much to my Aunt Becky and Uncle Doug for sharing their amazing place with us.  It was so fun.  We were commenting when we got home that we think this was the best vacation we've ever had.  The kids were all so well behaved and traveled so well in the car.  We were so impressed and just had an amazing time.  Thanks to my parents for making it so fun.  

Since we left AZ a day earlier than planned, we were going to miss out on the fun movie night we had planned at grandma's house.  She sent us home with the movie she had bought and we watched it the next night as a family.  Trolls World Tour with lots of treats.  We all really enjoyed it!

Arizona - Part 2

One of the days, we went out and colored chalk on grandma and grandpa's driveway.  The sprinkler was turned on to keep us all cool, and then it was a game to draw in the water and not let the drawing get washed away.  All the kids were soaked by the end.  

When it's really hot, you might as well get soaked while coloring to keep you cool when the occasional breeze comes by.  

Zac started drawing people or monsters out of only one shape.  This was his triangle guy.  

Grandma and grandpa watched from the shade of the garage.  

After lunch we headed over to Scott and Christi's house to swim with them.  We stopped at the dollar store to pick up some goggles for the kids.  

Finley fell asleep really quickly in the car.

The girls tried on their goggles to make sure they fit on the way to the pool.

The pool was really nice and empty.  There were just a few people there, so we mostly had it to ourselves.  The very shallow baby pool was pretty much like a hot tub.  Not super refreshing, but the bigger pool was a bit cooler.  

Emery hanging out in the tube.

There was also an actual hot tub there.  The kids would jump in and get hot and then go jump in the regular pool to make it feel colder.  I couldn't get all the way into the hot tub.  It was really hot!

When we were done swimming, we headed back to Scott's house and hung around a while.  The kids played some video games.  Scott grilled burgers and hot dogs to perfection and we all enjoyed a delicious dinner poolside.  

Finley really loved her cousin Cade.  He tolerated her.  ha ha!!

The next day, my mom had a huge surprise up her sleeve.  Rob took the kids to the store to help the kids buy food for our mystery dinner that night and when they got back...

This was in the backyard!  We had it up all day and it was such a blast!  Not many injuries either...except that there was either a rock or a sprinkler head underneath that people kept landing on.  

Finley had a nice little set up in the shade.  She never actually went down the slide.  It was too tall and scary for her.  

She hung out a lot in the shade.  

Grandpa and grandma joined in on the fun too!

Zac and Gunner outlasted everyone on the slide.  We even pulled out the water weenies and had water fights.  Such a fun day.  

After the water fun, we had to get busy to make our mystery meal.  We each got 2 dollars and a quarter and got to buy whatever we wanted at the store for dinner.  We ended up with a good spread of food!  

There was Ramen, frozen burritos, bruschetta, tater tots, donuts, gatorade, corn on the cob, refried beans and pudding.  

Yum

Cade loved Sadie and she loved him.  

After the dinner, grandpa set up a mystery box for all the kids.  It was really fun.  The kids all enjoyed it a lot.  The air conditioning in our van was blasting hot air on us the whole time so that made it a little bit less enjoyable, but we still ended up making it to the end and got to enjoy the yummy treats!

This was the girls team.  Riley and the boys were on another team.  They beat us by a little bit, but only because we were being blasted with hot air and couldn't think straight!  :)

We had one last visit with grandma before we headed up to Heber for a couple days.  We were going to come back to Glendale one more night after that, but we changed plans last minute and decided to head straight back to Utah after Heber to save us a three hour car ride.  

 Riley fell asleep on the way to Heber and Zac was a nice brother and let her sleep on his shoulder.