Cannibal, Baseball, Hikes, Etc.

For the second week of summer we have been keeping ourselves busy.  Most evenings are filled with baseball between Daniel, Noah and Sarah.  We got Noah's baseball pictures back this week.

 I can't seem to turn this picture the right way, but here's his team.  Noah is right in front 3rd from the left smiling a big, cheesy smile :).

We only have a few more weeks of baseball left.  

In other happenings last week my nephew, Nathan, received his Eagle from the Boy Scouts.  It was nice to be there for the Court of Honor.  Afterward my brother-in-law Burke had fixed up his late father's Model T and took everyone who wanted to for rides.  Of course my kids were all over that.  Josh was the first of our family to ride.  He thought he was hot stuff sitting in the front: 

 Daniel, Matthew and I got to ride in it the next time around.  Annika my niece was sweet and helped Matthew get a ride.  She really watched out for him which was really appreciated.  Aaron, Noah and Sarah couldn't come because they had baseball that evening at the same time as the Court of Honor.

 When I got in we had to move Daniel to the back because I was the adult and he was the kid.  It was pretty neat to ride around in a car that is almost 100 years old.  As you can see behind me Matthew was really enjoying himself.

 It was nice to be able to attend the Court of Honor and see what one was like.  It was good to see since I, hopefully, will be doing a few of our own because we have so many boys :).

This summer schedule or lack thereof has thrown me for a loop.  All my days are running together!  Friday morning the kids were supposed to have piano lessons which Aaron and I totally forgot about.  It was like the morning in the movie Home Alone when we both woke up at 6:38 am and realized it was piano.  We frantically got Matthew up and ready for piano.  Aaron took him on his way to work while I got Sarah and Josh ready for their lessons.  Matthew ended up being 20 minutes late for his lesson.  Which made Josh and Sarah a few minutes late.  Good thing the person behind Sarah and Josh didn't come that day so she could spend a few extra minutes with them.  We learned our lesson this week and were on time for all three lessons thank goodness!!  This lack of having a schedule is hard on me!!  One more thing is our piano teacher has a daughter that is Matthew's age.  She went to school with Matthew in 7th grade until they moved into a new house which put them into a different Jr. High.  However, when she found out Matthew would be coming for piano lessons she got really excited to see him again.  Her mom, the piano teacher, was glad to see she was excited so she is going to have Matthew and Emma (her daughter) play a duet together.  Matthew is pretty excited.  I thought it was really nice.

Friday night we had some friends over--the Einzingers for a BBQ.  It was nice to visit.  Our kids get along pretty well since we both have kids around the same ages.  Of course our kids ate us out of house and home.  We finally had to stop Josh after eating his 5th hamburger.  Where he puts all that food I don't know since you can see every one of his ribs!  Matthew wasn't much better. We stopped him after 2 hamburgers, but then he started in with eating the hot dogs.  I really do feed these boys--I promise!!  We all had a fun night playing games and visiting while the kids played.  It was nice to get in one last visit before Erin has her baby soon.  I can't wait to see him and get some much needed baby snuggles!  I really do miss having a baby around especially when my baby is now 6 years old!!

Anyway, from our hamburgers we had an extra tomato laying around.  However, it was short lived once Noah saw it.  He LOVES tomatoes and ate the whole thing like an apple after he saw it in the kitchen.

He was in heaven.  It will be nice once our tomato plants in the garden start producing.  Noah will be able and willing to help pick them, and eat them, I am sure.

It finally has happened--Matthew has passed me by in height.  I am not short at 5'7" either.  It will be interesting how tall they all will be.

Monday I took the kids to Lagoon.  We found these hand-me-down skate shoes that gave Noah an extra inch and then some in height which meant he would be tall enough to ride Cannibal.  When we got there he was super nervous.  I sat next to him on the ride and when we were getting strapped in he was not happy.  However, after riding the ride for the first time he loved it.  In fact he wanted to ride it again right after so we did.  The second time we almost got stopped for Noah not being tall enough, but he made the height mark by the skin of his teeth--thanks to those shoes--haha!  Noah was all smiles after he rode the ride as you can see along with his platform skate shoes:

 Tuesday morning was Flag Day.  Aaron took Josh, Matthew and Daniel to put up Flags on their route for our ward.  After all the Flags were put up our street looked pretty neat:

Later Tuesday morning I took the kids on a hike.  We went on Baer Creek trail up by Kaysville.  It was supposed to be an easy hike, but it wasn't as easy as we thought it would be.  The hike goes up 4000+ feet in elevation which we felt.  We didn't hike the whole thing since it was 9.6 miles, but we did end up going 2 1/2 miles which was awesome.  It was a pretty hike and pretty close to us--15 minutes away.  It is great to live so close to the mountains!  We brought Sophie along with us, too.  We did learn the hard way that she gets car sick--Bleh!  She ended up barfing two times before we made it to the trail head which was gross!  Oh well, once we were there she was ready to get started, though.

 I let the kids bring two snacks and water.  They were pretty excited for the snack breaks.

 Part of the trail you crossed over a bridge.  The kids thought this was pretty cool, however, Sophie didn't like it.  As you can see she is trying to run off the bridge as I took the picture--crazy dog!

 The kids have found the slow motion function on my phone and had some fun.  Here's Daniel and Noah throwing rocks into the stream via slow motion:

The trail went alongside a small stream most of the way.

 Noah being the boy he is found a rock and sticks that he held on to the whole hike.  Even when he needed his hands to steady himself he refused to put down his sticks and rock.  What a funny kid!

 It was a really pretty view, though.

 Sophie was quite the trooper, though.  She stayed with us the whole time and kept running around to make sure she could see us all.

On the way back to the car Noah found a huge dandelion he wanted to blow the seeds off.  Of course we had to do it using the slow motion camera!

The hike successfully wore everyone out.  They fell asleep on the way home in the car.

 When we got home Sophie fell asleep on the couch, too:

 Wednesday we wanted to go on another hike, but when we got to the trailhead it said there were no pets allowed :(.  I couldn't leave Sophie in the car while we went so we came back home and went to the park instead.  If you were wondering, Sophie did get car sick again on the way to the trailhead.  YUCK!!  Her blanket and bed have been washed a lot lately--thank goodness for washing machines!!  Anyway, at the park the kids found this cool tree to climb while we were there:

Thursday morning a group of friends whose families have Lagoon passes got together at Lagoon.  We had lots of fun going on different rides with the kids.  Sometimes it is just funner with a bunch of people.  Unfortunately, we had to leave a bit early since Matthew would be coming home from his summer program and I had to be at home to get him.  Walking out of Lagoon I got a text from his summer program leader asking if I was going to be at his meeting today.  Oh crap!!  See what I mean about not having a schedule and forgetting things?!  I played it cool and said I was running a bit late, but I would be there.  I drove like a crazy women from Farmington to South Ogden in 20 minutes--luckily without a traffic ticket--phew!!  I had made the appointment for this meeting a month ago and had written it down on the calendar, but for some reason completely forgot about it.  DOH!!  It was a meeting with his DSPD program coordinator, his RISE Summer and afterschool program manager, the RISE behaviorist and one of his program leaders.  I was only 30 minutes late for the meeting, but luckily, we still were able to have it despite my forgetfulness!  Anyway, we set goals for Matthew to work on for the upcoming year.  Most of the goals centered around social skills and learning basic job skills.  The meeting went really well and I am so glad that most of the people that work with Matthew really enjoy him.  That is always nice to hear.  Speaking of his summer program he has been really enjoying it.  His group goes swimming twice a week at a local aquatics center.  Interestingly enough it seems like every time they go to the aquatics center different people that are not in their group say hello to Matthew.  Matthew says that he knows them from school.  That makes me glad that people will say hi to him outside of school, too.  I am glad he is having fun in his summer program.

The other night I went to check on Noah before I went to bed.  He was fast asleep in his bed, but before he fell asleep he had to line up all his cars.

When I looked at what they were lined up for I started laughing.  Noah had lined them up in front of the car wash of his toy.  I had to laugh.  That must be some awesome car wash for so many cars to get in line for--haha!  What a funny kid!

Gorilla Bars, Fathers and Sons, Dance Recital, Random Barfing, Trails Day, Sad Dog

Summer is in full swing at our house.  We haven't done too many activities yet because I am trying to get stuff together for Girl's Camp in a few weeks.  Eeeek!!  It is really coming up soon!  Hopefully I will remember everything I need to do and get everything done I need to as well. I am keeping my fingers crossed!!

Just in time for school to be out our air conditioner stopped working.  BOO!!  We called to get someone here to fix it, but they were all backed up.  We finally got someone here Tuesday morning.  He checked everything out and nothing was wrong with our unit which is good news.  The bad news is someone has been letting freon out of our system for 'personal use' if you know what I mean which has depleted the freon.  BOO!!  Luckily, they were able to refill it and now we have a cool house again.  We are going to have to look at getting our yard completely fenced to try and stop it from happening again.  I thought having a dog would prevent this, but she doesn't seem to be a very good guard dog--haha!  At least she is cute!

 Matthew has started his summer program and is having fun.  They get to go swimming twice a week and the other days they spend going to museums, playing at parks, and having fun days at the office.  He is really enjoying himself.  He is pretty funny kid, though.  Anytime he does anything he asks someone, anyone, to take his picture and send it to his mom.  I end up with lots of random picture texts from phone numbers I don't recognize, but they always show a smiling Matthew so I assume he is enjoying himself.  Here's just a few from this week alone: 

Josh finished up his last few days of school.  The Jr. High actually had a field day.  Josh was excited about it.  I should have known something was up because he came home from school Wednesday and begged to mow the yard.  I thought that was weird until he finished mowing the lawn and then asked for his lawn mowing money right away.  He wanted to bring the money to school for field day the next day.  He seemed to have enjoyed himself.  He got his face painted for BYU and got some candy.

Another exciting news--Josh got another 4.0 for this semester as well.  Wahoo!  We are going to take his report card over to Krispie Kreme soon since you can get a donut for every A grade you get.  Way to go Josh!!  Aaron also did get a chance to take Josh to do some Baptisms for the Dead last week.  It was a nice relaxing afternoon for them both.

Noah, Sarah and Daniel are all still doing baseball.  Noah is a bit of a goofy kid.  Right before I took this picture he was turned around on the base with his helmet on backward trying to be funny.  What a crazy kid!

 I think Noah is doing baseball just for the treats.  He was so excited after this game because he got a water bottle and a gorilla bar (granola bar).  He's so cute--I could be a bit biased, though--haha!  Here he was telling us about his gorilla bar:

 I took the first day of school pictures and the last day of school pictures and put them side by side so you could see how much the kids have changed during the year.  It is crazy how much they grow--especially Josh.  He has gotten so tall!

 Noah got a 'Nerds Award' from kindergarten.  It said, "Nerds Award Noah for your intelligence and hard work in all areas".  Wahoo!  Noah was just excited for the candy.

After the end of school Friday the primary had a party to celebrate reading half of the Book of Mormon this year.  They had lots of Super Power games the kids played.  All the kids also got a superman cape to wear.  Here's Daniel playing a game.  He is the one in the plaid shirt standing at the back of the line with the long shorts on.

Friday night was the fathers and sons camp out.  Aaron was a brave guy and took all 4 boys Friday night.  He didn't stay overnight, but until the program was over that night.  It looked like it was fun.  Here's a picture of some of the rowdy scouts--Josh included:

 They did quiet down when they retired an old flag.  Josh got to help out with that ceremony:

Later that night when it was time for Aaron to come home, he went to go round up all four boys.  While he was trying to track down Daniel, he left Matthew, Josh and Noah at the fire pit to wait.  That's when the real fun began.  Noah started barfing.  I guess he barfed a few times by the time Aaron found Daniel and brought him back to the fire pit.  Poor Aaron.  He had to try and clean it up the best he could since Noah had barfed in a pretty central location of the Fathers and sons camp out.  On the way home I got a play by play from Josh and Daniel while Aaron drove.  Here's how the conversation went:

 Reading about the experience it makes me not want to eat Sam's Club hot dogs anytime soon!!  GROSS!!  Oh well, Aaron did take a selfie before they left to come home.  Noah is all smiles despite him not having a shirt on since he got barf on it.  What a crazy evening!!

While Aaron had the boys Sarah and I joined up with some other girls and had a girl's night.  It was fun to visit and have adult conversations while the kids played.  It was crazy to be down to just one kid/girl, though!!  I think we all had a fun night at least I did.  I don't think Aaron's night was as fun after Noah barfed.

I was worried that Noah was really sick since he barfed Friday night, but he was just fine Saturday morning.  I guess it was just a random puking.  Weird!!  Anyway, Saturday was National Trails Day.  To celebrate (and since Noah was feeling fine) we went on a family bike ride that morning.  We were sad they didn't have any booths set up along the trail with prizes this year, but we still had fun riding.  We ended up going 10.6 miles.  The kids were all pretty good, too.  Noah is still learning to ride so he got the best seat in the house in the bike trailer.  However, he is getting so big that he doesn't fit in it very well anymore.  He will have to learn how to ride his bike without training wheels soon because he is quickly outgrowing the trailer!

 Of course we stopped along the way for water breaks.

 It is so nice to have boys big enough to help Aaron muscle the bikes around on the bike rack now.  That is a lot of bikes.  There is even one more in the back of the Suburban along with the bike trailer.  It was a bit of work to get everything ready to go for everyone so it was nice to have some extra help from Josh.

 Of course we stopped by Fiiz for a cold drink afterward.

 Monday after Family Home Evening we played a few games of Suspend.  You know it was a few good games when a few of the kids end up in tears after losing...Here's the last round between Aaron, Matthew, Noah and me.

 Poor Sophie.  She got spayed Tuesday morning.  It took a whole 5 weeks to finally get an appointment to get her in to get it done.  I dropped her off at 7:30 am and picked her back up at 11 am.  The poor thing was so loopy after I picked her up.  You could tell she did not feel good at all as you can see:

 She stayed a bit loopy for about 24 hours and then perked right back up.  We are supposed to keep her from jumping and running for the next 10 days.  I am thinking that will be impossible since we are on post op day two and she is running around like a wild dog.  You can't even tell her tummy hurts at all!  You can see she is ready to join in the action and looks tons better than she did right after the surgery:

Tuesday was Epilepsy Day at Lagoon.  We, of course, had to go and show our support.  You are supposed to wear purple to show your support.  I was able to find a purple shirt for Sarah, Daniel and me, but not one for Josh or Noah.  3 out of 5 was still good, though.  We got purple wrist bands, too.

 We could only stay a few hours because we had to be back in time for Matthew when he got home from his summer program.  We made the most of those two hours, though.  Despite her face in the picture Sarah did have fun.  Daniel is on the back side of the ride.  You can barely see his smiley face.

 Noah had fun, too.

 Tuesday afternoon Josh went and got his allergy shots.  We have finally made it to the maintenance phase of his treatment.  He only has to go in once a month for the next 3-5 years and hopefully his allergies with either disappear or dramatically decrease.  Wahoo!

Tuesday night was Sarah's dance recital.  She loves getting all done up especially the makeup part.

 Here are the girls getting ready backstage:

 Sarah did great.  She is getting old enough that she can remember the dances and perform well.  Here she is in the very middle of the picture:

 Of course she got flowers from Dad after the performance.

 Afterward she came by to give G&G T some hugs.

 The title of the recital was Dancing Through Time.  Sarah danced a Charleston Dance and to the song I Want to Be Loved By You.  After the recital all the girls got Time Turner (from Harry Potter) necklaces for a gift.  Sarah hasn't taken it off since the recital.

 Yesterday was mine and Aaron's 16th wedding anniversary.  It is crazy to think we have been together that long.  We have gone through A LOT in those 16 years (who knew Aaron could deliver babies at home--haha!!) and there is no one else I would rather have by my side.  I love our family!  I look at our freshly married selves and then look at our 7 member family and think, "How did that happen?!"  Yes I KNOW how it happened, by it just has gone by so fast!!

 There's a new Smith's Marketplace that opened up by us yesterday.  It is a big mega store that has a grocery store as well as clothes, shoes, furniture, etc.  They had big grand opening event yesterday morning.  We went to check it out.  We got a few freebies.  We were able to pick up two containers of cherry tomatoes for free.  They didn't last too long when we got home.  Noah ate both containers for lunch.  He LOVES tomatoes in any form.  I am just glad he is potty trained and can take care of the aftermath himself if you know what I mean--haha!

 We did meet up with the Einzingers to go bowling this morning.  I got some free bowling coupons from the school so we didn't have to pay anything.  Wahoo!  It was crazy, but fun.  Two adults with 8 kids weren't very good odds.  Luckily, the kids were pretty well behaved and we were the only ones bowling, too.

 Afterward we had a fun lunch together.  Hopefully, we can do more fun things this summer.