Girls Camp

 This year I was asked to go to girls camp with our ward to help with food and cooking and whatever else they needed help with.  It was Sadie's second year at girls camp (her first year would have been in 2020...but they didn't go because of Covid.)  I had never been to this camp before and growing up we had ovens and fridges and stuff at our girls camp.  So I was a bit worried about having to cook on camp stoves and in dutch ovens.  But everything turned out ok.  

It was so fun to get to know the girls in our ward.  I'm hoping that I get to go back again someday and help now that I have been there and done it once.  I think I could do things differently next time and do better with the food.  :)  

My favorite things were the glow stick dance party, the lip sync contest, and testimony night.  These girls are amazing and will do amazing things.  

Here we are at the amphitheater.

One girl from another ward found this bee and carried it around in a cup of grass and plants.  Then she would hold it in her hand!

Here's Sadie, Jaedyn, Aubrey and Liza.

Glow dance party!

Paddle boarding.  Sadie and Aubrey and I took a canoe out also and I felt like I was going to tip the whole time.

Tristyn did everyone's hair.  She did Sadie's so cute!

This was before we left.  I think we got a picture when we got back...4 days without a shower.  I'm sure we all look great.  I don't have a copy of that one!

Rob's birthday and grandparents

I think this might be on Father's day.  My best friend with our amazing kids.  I love this picture.  :)

My dad happened to be in town on Father's day.  He was planning on making dinner for his Dad on Father's day.  I invited ourselves over because I had some gifts that my mom had sent up for him for Father's day.  We also brought the kid's instruments so they could play a couple songs for their great grandparents.  

The dad's and kids.  Plus Grandma.  :)

Three generation picture.  Zac is being eaten by the couch.

On the way home from Syracuse Finley called out "look at me!"  I looked back and saw this.  :)

My dad opening his presents.  They were bike themed.  

My dad offered to watch the kids so we could go out on Rob's birthday.  We ended up at a few restaurants that were about to close.  Then we wandered around and ended up at a place we always go.  Ha ha.  But we didn't really mind because it was fun to just drive around together.  

I made him a vanilla cake with strawberry frosting with fresh strawberries from the Food Nanny cookbook.  It was yummy.  He turned the big 4-1

Zac and I found Rob's next hat.  It says Budweiser on it.  ha ha

My dad and I hung out in the pool.  The kids got out because they were too cold.  We talked about the talk I had to give the next Sunday about fathers.  He gave me some good stories to use.  

 

End of the School year!

Here are some pictures from field day and last day of school festivities including a party that Zac had for a bunch of 6th graders.  I got to volunteer and be there all day.  It's so fun helping at the school and being able to see my kids with their peers.  

Here's Zac with a few friends from his class. 

After school the kids swam in the pool that we set up in the backyard.  

Emery had her last basketball game of the season.  She did great!

Zac invited about 30 people to come over and have a end of 6th grade party.  About 20 people ended up coming.  It was very tiring but we played lots of games, ate snow cones and pizza and I think the kids had a good time.  This picture is from a game we played where I froze some of Rob's shirts and the different teams came up with ways to thaw the shirt.  First team to put it on won.  This was the winning team.  It ended up taking a lot longer than I thought.  They worked on those shirts for about 30 minutes!

Here's Emery with a few of her friends from school. 

 

 Hanging out at Zac's party.  

 

Group shot after the party.  Lots of people had already left.  

 

Zac's 12th birthday

 Playing catch up here...

Zac turned 12 this year.  He had a pretty chill birthday.  We got him a basketball hoop so he could practice basketball at home.  It has been well used.  Rob and I decided to put it together the day of his birthday to surprise him when he got home from school.  Well, it took us a lot longer to put together than we thought so Zac saw it before it was all the way ready. Sadie had run down to the canal to stall him but we still didn't finish.  ha ha. But it was a good surprise.  

Zac with the new hoops.

We showed up at Zac's classroom to bring in the treats to share with his class.  We made him this cool poster to wear the rest of the day.  :) His teacher loved it!

Happy 12th birthday!  He is almost as tall as me now.  He is the best brother, loves to play games of any kind and has lots of friends. 

Volleyball for Sadie and Emery

Emery and Sadie tried out volleyball a month or so ago.  They loved it.  We spent hours and hours out in our front yard practicing serving and bumping the ball around.  They improved so much.  Sadie wanted to learn how to overhand serve the ball over the net and Emery's goal was to be able to serve the ball underhand over the net from the back line.  Since it's rec volleyball the girls can pretty much serve from anywhere on the court.  

Sadie got her overhand serve about halfway through the season and Emery got her underhand serve over the net a handful of times on her last game!  I was so proud because they both put a lot of effort into learning a new skill and it paid off!  

Here's Emery's team.  

Sadie's team.  :)

 

Neighborhood color run

This year we put on a neighborhood color run.  I got a bunch of chalk and invited the neighborhood, and that was that.  It turned out really fun!  

The kids ran around the block which is half a mile about.  Here they are before they started running! Zac was worried he would get allergies from the chalk being thrown at him so he wore a mask.  

Zac and his friend looking cool. 

Finley also had a great time.  She ran all the way around the block.  I was proud of her for making it that far.

When the kids got back from the run, they got some chalk to throw at each other.  Rob was in the thick of it.  :)

Sadie and Riley.  

This was after the chalk throw.  

The visibility was not great when all the chalk was in the air.  haha

Chalky girl hair. 

Me and Rob after everyone was gone.  I got hit right in the ear and had an earful of bright yellow chalk.  ha ha

Here's the chalk throw.  

I'm hoping we can make this an annual thing!

 

Happy Retirement Dad

 My dad retired after almost 40 years of working at the same company.  He worked for APS right after he graduated with his masters and never left.  He must have like it.  So we decided we would all meet up in AZ to surprise him and congratulate him on his retirement.  Evan and I flew in to Phoenix and Scott picked us up.  We headed over to a favorite restaurant of ours, Jordan's and waited for my mom to show up with the man of the hour.  They walked in and when he saw us he was very surprised.  Mission Accomplished!  

We ate and chatted and he read some limericks we wrote for him.  It was a fun time.  The next day we got up and went on a hike in the morning, rode go karts and then went indoor skydiving.  It was a busy but very fun day.  The next day we were heading home in the evening and were pretty tired from the day before so we did a lot of hanging around the house and we ventured out for a quick shopping trip.  We got dropped off at the airport and then came home.

It was a lot of fun just being with my brothers and parents.  It's been a while since we've all hung out together.  Now I remember how much fun they are.  Anyway, thanks dad for all the work you did to keep our family well funded.  Also, shout out to my mom who did many other things that didn't bring money into the home, but kept order in the home and kept our home organized, kept us fed and shuttled us around to lots of activities.  We love you guys!

Once again, these pictures are out of chronological order, and I don't want to spend the time dragging them all into the right order.  

This was our indoor skydiving activity. My mom and dad were naturals and the instructor was very complimentary.  He was also trying to get them to buy something...but really, they were really good!

Here's the whole group.

We played lots of games...new and old.  This was the classic phase 10.

Group picture.

The original crew.  

Cousin Cade (this is what Finley always calls him) took a liking to Uncle Isaac.  Here they are holding hands walking to my grandma's house.  I guess Cade usually was pretty scared of Isaac, but he turned that around while we were there.  He was one of his favorite people!

The man, the myth, the legend...

Just my bros chowing down on Lucky Charms for a snack.

Go Kart racing.  The first race I came in dead last.  I had the slowest lap time.  I was too worried about letting people pass me when they were behind me.  I didn't want the workers to have to hold up a sign telling me to move over.  So I was constantly taking really wide turns but the person behind me never passed me.  Turns out it was Christie the whole time and she didn't want to pass me.  Ha ha!  So the next race my goal was to not let anyone pass me.  I really took off and I think two or three people passed me.  One of them was Isaac.  My lap time was 4 whole seconds faster.  It was fun!

We played a new game where you had to choose someone to vote out and you do that by pointing your foam gun at them on the count of three.  My dad kept doing it so aggressively that his glasses would fly off.  :)

This was Scott explaining the new game.

 

Indoor skydiving...we all had a line on our foreheads from the tight helmets.  

Go kart racing.  They look so cool.  

This was at the top of the mountain.  My face was really red.  I could hardly keep up with those guys.  The end of the hike was really steep. 

Sweaty selfie.  

At the beginning of the hike!  Not hot and sweaty yet.  Funny story, I had my phone in my backpack and somehow a show started playing while I was hiking because it was just moving around in there and hitting things.  I kept hearing people talking.  I couldn't figure out where it was coming from.  When we ended the hike and I got my phone out, I realized the show "Naked and Afraid" had been playing for an episode or two.  Ha ha!

Of course we went scorpion hunting to kill all the scorpions in my parents yard.  We found 5 or 6 of them.  That glowing thing in the picture is what they look like when you shine black light on them.

Me and Isaac hanging around.

Pretty palm trees and blue skies.

Evan took us disc golfing.  I started out playing, but I was literally so bad you never knew which way the frisbee would go.  It was funny.  So eventually I started to just throw it over hand like you would a softball.  Then I just decided to watch the pros play.  ha ha.  It was enjoyable.  And maybe I need to make it a goal in life to learn how to throw a frisbee.

Here's dad reading his limericks.  They included reference to the muffin man and "how 'bout both?"  both of which are family inside jokes.

Here we all are at Jordan's.  

I had this shirt made because when we were younger, the waiters would pop their head around the corner and ask "more chips?"  and my dad would just nod his head and give him 2 thumbs up.  Another family joke.

Here's me and Evan in Scott's car on our way to Jordan's.  

The whole trip was a blast.  I'm so grateful for both of my parents for teaching me all that they taught me and raising me the way they did. Thanks for all the work you have put into making my life great.