Emery's Cast

 I'm so behind...Emery already got her cast off, but I am just posting the pictures of it when it was brand new.  The lady who put it on was having trouble and went through 3 rolls of the tape because it kept drying out on her.  And right next to her thumb it was really rough, but Emery didn't really complain.  She lasted the 4 weeks.  :)

 Of course, I got to sign it first.  :)

 Her cast didn't slow her down at all.  I love this picture of her and Riley on the swing.  

 Here it is the day she got it off.  Had to take a picture of all the signatures.  \

She got a pretty cool tan line from that cast of hers.  Now she is as good as new.  And no other kids broke their arms that day!!!

Snow cones!

 We love getting snow cones.  I can't remember why we went to get these...(i'm sure the kids had to earn them somehow) but they were so yummy!  We ended up getting one for free which was awesome. 

 We love snow cones!

 I'm sure all this artificial dye isn't very good for us, but it sure does stain the tongue.  

Fun little outing...I think it's just about time to go get another one!

And here is the noise that Finley always makes.  It sounds like chewbacca.  I love it.

Draper suspension bridge hike

 We heard of a hike that was close by that was great for kids called the Draper Suspension bridge hike...I don't think that is the technical name but it works.  :) We decided to take the kids one Saturday morning.  We live so close to the mountains with all these great hikes.  We need to spend more time in nature!

At the beginning.  

Riley and I held up the rear.  :)

This was a cool ant hill the kids found.  We watched the ants go in and out for a while. 

Finley was loving being in the front pack.  It had been a while since she got to ride in there.

Sadie and Emery love having their pictures taken on large rocks.  They tell me to take a picture.

Zac somehow managed to get his face dirty.  And Emery was a happy little hiker.  It was really nice that the kids all carried their own backpack with their own water!

We made it to the bridge!  Emery and Riley were pretty scared.  It was really high!  And Rob started trying to swing the bridge while we were walking.  I put an end to that really quick!

It was hard to convince Riley to get another picture with me...She was pretty freaked out.

And Finley was so excited that we made it to the bridge that she fell asleep.

By the end, some of the younger kids were complaining that they were too tired to make it to the end, but then when we made it they all of a sudden got a burst of energy to play on the rock wall.  Ha ha.  

Overall it was a great little hike and all the kids were able to walk the whole way!  We will definitely do this one again. 

Flag day

I love that every year the park near us sets up these flags.  We always go and I make the kids figure out how many flags there are...its our math for the summer.  Ha ha.  When we went this year to see the flags (we went a few times) there was a nice breeze blowing the flags.  It is such a sight to see all those flags waving in the wind.  I love it!

We had a picnic in the shade before we ran through the flags.

And Sadie was Finley's playground.  Ha ha.  Such a good big sister.

Zac is always the one you have to watch while taking pictures!

5 kids and 900 something flags...

We invited our friends to come see them this year.  We planned ahead and dressed our kids in patriotic clothing.  :) It made for some really cute pictures!

We love the Hatch family!

My little (big) family minus Rob.

Finley-8 months

Sadie-10 years

Emery-6 years

Zac-8 years

Riley-3 years

And Sadie loves playing with Clara!  She chased after her on the playground so us adults didn't have to.  :)

5k with Laurel

 So after I had started exercising (after my hospital stay) I told my friend Laurel that we should do a 5k together because I had been looking at all my medals from my previous races that I've run and it motivated me to want to do another one.  So Laurel found this 5k that was in Salt Lake and was benefiting brain tumor/brain cancer research!  Perfect! So we signed up and went!

I had to stop and walk a few times to catch my breath, but I finished!  And it was so great to run with Laurel.  Seriously.  It makes the running part go by faster if you are chatting that whole time.  Although I was mostly just listening because I was so out of breath.  ha ha.  

Then at the end they started calling off the raffle tickets.  Laurel and I were sure we were going to win something so we stuck around.  They started handing out the medals of the people who got first in their age group.  Then they said they were handing out awards for survivors who ran the race.  Then I heard them call my name for the female survivor who got first.  ha ha.  I couldn't believe it.  I had walked part of it!  I must have been the only female survivor.  :)

But I got this cool trophy.  So it was kinda fun.  Ha ha. 

Hopefully we can do this one again next year!!

Good bye Zac's Cast

After 4 weeks of wearing this cast...Zac finally got to get it off!!!  He was so excited to be able to straighten his arm again!

They let him wear ear protection  while they were sawing the thing off.  

The kids all got suckers and then we went to visit dad at work since we were right there...

Zac still couldn't really straighten his arm (he can almost all the way now.) 

That night the kids were going to try sleeping on the trampoline.  So I let them stay up later than usual because it is light until 9:30 here.  They were outside playing on the swingset and I heard Emery start screaming.  I ran out there and she was on the ground saying her arm hurt.  

She was screaming and crying for over and hour.  But it wasn't swollen.  My first thought was that her arm was broken but we decided to wait to bring her in because it was late at night...and because she is sometimes really dramatic.  Also I thought there was no way she broke her arm the day Zac got his cast off.  So we waited till the next day after her piano lesson and after a movie that we were going to see.

 The kids didn't last on the tramp.  There was lots of fighting and coming in and going out and finally around 12:30 when Zac came in crying because Emery had his light stick we thought "That's IT!!!"  So we made them all come in and sleep inside.  Maybe we will try again in like 5 years.  :)

The next day we brought Emery in to the Dr. and sure enough it was broken.  Both the bones in her wrist were broken.  Poor girl.