Baseball, Man-pris, Backpacking, Father's Day, Manti Pageant, Swimming, Day Camp, Air Show, Date

Things have been staying busy so far this summer.  Daniel is still doing baseball and actually got a home run in his last game.  Wahoo! Their team is doing fantastic and remains undefeated.  We are hoping they make it to the playoffs again this year.  Aaron continues to be an assistant coach and helps coach the runners when they get to 3rd base.  Here's Aaron coaching 3rd base and Daniel waiting to run home base during this last game:

We also got Daniel's baseball pictures back.  Here's my cute boy and his team with his cute coach in the gray shirt:

Matthew did another week of travel camp with Camp Kostopulos.  This past week he was able to visit Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef.  He has surprised me with how much he enjoys the travel camps.  Our family isn't much of a camping family so when I sent Matthew on these travel camps where they sleep in sleeping bags and a tent I was wondering how it would work out.  He has surprised me with how much he loves it.  He is already thinking about what travel camps he wants to go on next summer.  When I picked him up Friday from Camp K he had earned the cartography award which is fitting since he won the Human GPS award the previous travel camp.  When I dropped him off at the beginning of the week he made sure he had his atlas book with him so he could help give the staff directions to where they were going.  I am sure the staff really appreciated that--haha!

Anyway, Friday after I had picked up Matthew I took the kids bowling.  Usually Matthew is gone during the day so it was nice to have him with us this time.  It is interesting to watch him bowl.  He runs up to the lane and chucks the ball down the lane.  It is really loud, but seems to work for him.  He had one of the higher bowling scores out of our group.  Here he is running to chuck his bowling ball:

Josh and Daniel had their first backpacking camp out two Fridays ago.  We only had one frame back pack so we were scrambling to find one for Josh to use since the framed back pack we had was only for someone 5'6" which obviously wouldn't fit Josh.  Thankfully, Aaron has access to Outdoor Recreation up on base where he was able to rent a large framed back pack for Josh to use just for the weekend.  It was only $10 to rent for the weekend, too, which was really nice.  It was nice not needing to buy another framed backpack to only be used once.  They packed their packs and they were big.  Here's Daniel sporting his framed backpack stuffed with a sleeping bag, pad, clothes, toiletries and snacks:

Josh and his rented back pack:

I am really glad their leaders take pictures of the boys so we can see what they get to do on their trips.  Here's all the boys and leaders that went:

My cute boys:

Josh had to grab a pair of pants last minute and we didn't realize he had grabbed the wrong pants until he put them on up at camp.  He then realized they were Matthew's pants and about 4 inches too short.  Josh sported his 'man-pris' or man capris while he was at camp.  Good thing anything goes while you are camping so I don't think anyone really cared--at least I hope they didn't.

They must have had a good time because when they got home Josh fell on the couch and slept all afternoon.  Sophie loved it because she had a snuggle buddy all afternoon, too:

While Josh and Daniel were on their camp out the rest of us had the opportunity to go to Roy Aquatics Center to swim.  Our orthodontist has a patient appreciation day where he rents out the Roy Aquatics center after-hours and invites all the patients and their families.  The kids had been asking to go swimming so this came at a great time.  There was only the 5 of us (Aaron, me, Matthew, Sarah and Noah).  It was interesting because this was the first time we had taken the kids swimming where no one needed our help.  Noah was tall enough and could swim well enough on his own that we didn't need to be right with him the whole time.  It was good and bad.  Good that Aaron and I could people watch instead of helping kids, but sad that my kids are growing up....

Last Sunday was Father's Day.  The kids woke up Aaron with breakfast in bed.  They had made him biscuits and gravy, sausage, toast, scrambled eggs and bacon.

They made enough food for not only Aaron, but for everyone to eat.  It was a breakfast party on our bed.  We then got ready to go to church.  Aaron and I got to substitute teach a class in primary.  During singing/sharing time the chorister played a game.  They asked a child to come up and pick a song.  They also had a stick on mustache that the child got to choose who wore the mustache.  The chorister, their teacher or the child themselves could wear the mustache.  Well I was the lucky winner that got chosen to wear the mustache.  I didn't know that Aaron had taken a picture of me wearing the mustache until later.  He said I looked pretty nice with my handlebar mustache--haha!

All the men in our ward received a fancy cookie from a local bakery to celebrate Father's Day.  Aaron's cookie was a mint chocolate cookie.  Aaron let me have a small bite and it was pretty good.  After church we headed over to my brother's house for a family get together with my sister and her family, my brother and his family and my parents.  The cousins had fun playing together while the adults talked.  It was a pretty good Father's Day.  I am grateful for my awesome husband and my own father for setting such a great example of how to be a great dad!

Tuesday morning Sarah and I got up bright and early to head down to the U of U.  Sarah got selected to take part in a study of the adolescent brain and it's development.  They will be following Sarah for the next ten years mapping her brain and it's development through MRIs and questionnaires.  She had her first all day visit Tuesday. They split us up when we got there.  I answered multiple questionnaires about Sarah and our family life in addition to our health histories.  Sarah answered multiple questionnaires and had an MRI of her brain done.  We were there over lunch so they even provided a lunch for us, too.  It was interesting.  They follow up every 6 months with questions over the phone on one contact and a MRI on the next contact 6 months later.  It will be interesting to see how she changes as she gets bigger.  This is a nationwide study with over 10,000 participants.  They are wanting to see how the brain changes through adolescents.

Tuesday afternoon Aaron and I decided to take the kids to the Manti Pageant.  Even though it was the middle of a workweek, we decided to go anyway.  Matthew was at Camp K so it was just the 6 of us instead.  Here we are before the show started:

The temple is always beautiful:

The actors mingled around the audience before the show started.  We even got to speak with the actor that played Mormon.  He was a funny guy and showed us his scroll prop that even had writing on it.

Noah asked Aaron if they could take a selfie and how can you refuse such a cute face?

Reality hit me hard on the way home, though.  The pageant got over after 11 pm which meant we still had at least a 2 and a half hour drive to get home barring no bathroom breaks...Since I had been up since 5 am the day before I was tired on the drive home.  To keep myself awake I sang (or I should say I performed--haha!) to the radio while everyone else tried to sleep on the way home.  I felt bad for Aaron who had to go to work the next morning and for Noah who got to go to his first scout day camp at Camp Kiesel.  They met at 6 am at the leader's house which meant Noah and Aaron didn't get too much sleep, but they were functioning.  As for me I was a little less than functioning, but at least I had a good performance on the way home--my poor family had to tolerate me singing for 2 and a half hours if they didn't sleep, though.

Anyway, from the day camp pictures the Cub Scout leaders took it looks like Noah had a fun day:

 It was cool in the morning so he kept his sweatshirt on over his scout shirt until that afternoon.

I hate the stupid trading post they have up there, but even though I despise it you still have to send them with something to spend anyway.  I sent Noah with $5 thinking he would get something cool he can't get at home.  Instead he came home with 4 cans of soda.  Sigh--I guess he still came home with something that he can't get at home...but it still wasn't what I had thought.  Oh well the real fun came when he shook them up and then opened them inside the kitchen.  Can I say how much I despise the trading post again--haha!  Looking on the bright side at least he didn't come home with a pocket knife which is a good thing!!

However, when he got home he crashed on the couch and quickly fell asleep.

He was in such a deep sleep he even started drooling which made quite a big wet spot underneath him.  Here's a drip of drool getting ready to drop:

Aaron came home from work that afternoon and crashed as well.  He wouldn't let me post a picture of him sleeping with drool, though.  It was a fun trip and we were glad we still went even if it was the middle of the week.  Carpe Diem, right?!

Josh finished up his cooking class last week.  He got to learn how to make cupcakes with beet frosting in his class.  His hands got stained red from working with the beets.  He thought it looked like blood so he took a picture.  Here's my beet murderer caught red handed--haha:

Daniel finished his summer prep class for 7th grade this week, too.  He had fun doing experiments and playing with the other kids.  However, there is no rest for the weary since Sarah's Dance Camp class started this week.  I like to let the kids do some things during the summer to make it no as monotonous.  However, when you have 5 kids to keep track of it gets a bit tricky and busy, but I think it is worth it.

Thursday afternoon a realtor in our ward reserved Roy Aquatics Center for all his friends, family and clients.  This time Josh and Daniel were with us and Matthew was gone to Camp K so there was only the 6 of us.  In addition to swimming they also had a dance off contest.  Anyone who wanted to participate could dance.  The reward for the winners was some cash so Josh and Daniel were all over that.  Let me just say that Josh really gets into dancing.  He is so tall and lanky and such a crazy dancer that he gets noticed for sure.  Here's Josh dancing when the music started:

Here's Daniel dancing in the front row with the red swim trunks on:

Josh really got into dancing which paid off for him seeing as he got picked for one of the cash prizes.  They had about 20 winners.  If you got picked you got to reach inside a leather satchel and pick a bill up.  They had one $100 bill, a few $50 dollar bills, some $20 bills, etc.  Josh picked out a $20 bill and was pretty excited about that.  Here he is picking out his cash prize:

Saturday there was an all day air show at the Air Force Base.  I really wanted to go, but I didn't want to get on base since they were planning on having a ton of people there.  Instead we went to a little patch of grass outside of the base and watched part of the show.

We saw some pretty cool tricks by the pilots.  Here's one we saw where he did some loop de loops:

Another plane flew right over us which was cool to see:

We saw some cool things, but as time went on the kids appeared to not be interested in the air show at all.  They were being putzes and making it hard to be there between fighting, tattling, whining, wrestling and running around so I gave up and we ended up coming home.  We live pretty close to the base so I was still able to watch some of the tricks from my backyard without the kids making it less than enjoyable.  The Thunderbirds were fun to watch:

They made a heart among other tricks:

It was fun to watch even if I had to watch from my own backyard and miss out on the up close seats.  It is pretty impressive what the pilots can do!

Saturday evening some friends of ours gave us tickets to a show at the Desert Star Playhouse that they weren't able to use.  Aaron and I were excited to have an impromptu date night to the dinner theater.  It was a fun night that was pretty hilarious.  We saw the live show "Law and Disorder CS: I DID WHAT?".  Here's our date selfie:

Sunday Aaron tried his hand at smoking a brisket.  It turned out pretty good.  Here's what it looked like after it was done:

The kids ate it up like it was going out of style.  Here's what it looked like before dinner:

Here's what was left after dinner:

Needless to say our kids eat A LOT!!

Yesterday morning Josh hosted a pancake run.  After the cross country workout that morning some kids came over to our house for a pancake breakfast.  Their workout ended an hour early so I was scrambling to make the pancakes quick enough.  I think it all worked out...I was just glad it was someone else's turn this morning and that I wasn't hosting the pancake run again this morning.  That is what is going on with us.  Hopefully everyone else is having a great summer so far, too.

National Trails Day, Free Food, Travel Camp, Danchello, Dance Recital, Anniversary, 1/2 Marathon, Hiking

June 2 was National Trails Day.  The Utah Governor wanted all the mayors from Ogden down to Salt Lake to pass a baton down along the old rail line trail from Rainbow Gardens up in Ogden down into Salt Lake to celebrate National Trails Day.  The trail pieces were split up in about two mile increments to make it easier.  The Mayor of our city was supposed to pass the baton, but wasn't able to participate in the trail riding that day so he asked the youth council to take his place.  Unfortunately, a lot of the youth council were out of town so they just asked Josh if any of his family could ride with him.  Aaron only had short notice so he was only able to get three bigger bikes in working condition.  That meant Josh, Daniel and Sarah got to ride.  Noah really wanted to ride, but I didn't know if he could handle the distance and neither Aaron or I could ride along with them since they were using the only adult bikes we had.  Anyway, it all worked out.  Here are Daniel and Josh riding along the trail representing our city and passing the baton on this particular 2 mile section of trail:

 Sarah wasn't too far behind them on the trail:

 After the bike ride we headed over to the grocery store as a family.  The grocery store was having an anniversary party where they had some good deals and throughout the store they offered free root beer floats, birthday cake, and cheap deli hot dogs.  How could we pass that up?!  Haha!  Anyway, every 15 minutes they would have a drawing for free groceries.  They had 20 numbers taped on the ground throughout the store.  When they announced they were getting ready to do the drawing you found a number and stood on it.  My kids were all for that.  As soon as they announced they were getting ready to do the drawing the kids all scattered to find a number to stand on.  Well when you have 7 out of the 20 numbers covered your odds of winning are pretty good!  Josh's number got chosen and he/we won a bag of free groceries containing a bag of tortilla chips, brownie mix, loaf of bread, a 2 liter bottle of soda, and some other various items.  Wahoo!  Here's Josh getting the bag of groceries:

 I was pretty excited since my kids are eating me out of house and home since summer began!!

 Monday morning summer was in full swing.  Matthew had his first week of travel camp for Camp Kostopulos.  Camp K is a camp in Salt Lake up Emmigration Canyon for special needs kids and adults.  It has been an amazing experience for Matthew to attend for the last 3-4 years.  I am grateful that things like this are available!  Anyway, Matthew was pretty excited.  He was going to be traveling down to St. George, Zion National Park, and Snow Canyon.  He made sure he was all packed and made doubly sure he had his road atlas with him so he could help navigate the driver down there.  While I was checking him in bright and early he kept running around to all the staff members telling them he was the Human GPS and if they needed help with traffic directions to let him know.  A few of the staff were returning again from last year and immediately recognized him not by his name, but by his Human GPS announcements.  They came over and said, "Hi!" to him, but Matthew didn't have time to socialize because he needed to know which way they were driving down to St. George.  After the last check in station was completed it was time to say goodbye Matthew gave me a quick squeeze and grabbed his atlas to talk about which road they were going to be driving on to get to St. George.

 I'm sure this staff member got an earful--haha!  Thankfully, the staff member was really good natured about it, though.  Matthew and his atlas--haha!

After dropping Matthew off I came back home and picked up the other kids and we went bowling with some free coupons I had gotten from the school.  I let the kids fill in their own names for bowling.  Daniel was the first to find out that the backspace button didn't work.  So he had typed out D-A-N, but then accidentally typed a C and finished it by spelling H-E-L-L-O to be funny.  The joke was on him since he couldn't back space to fix it.  The whole game we laughed every time it was Danchello's turn--haha!

By the way let me just add bowling is not my kids' forte.  These scores are even with the bumpers on except for Josh.  I don't foresee a future in bowling for them--hahahaha!  Here's Noah taking his turn:

 You know you are a mom of boys when you go to bed only to find a hidden Whoopie Cushion in your sheets hoping that you will lay down and 'set it off' when you get in bed.

 Noah came in my room the next morning to see if his prank worked.  What a funny kid!

 The kids were missing Matthew while he was gone.  Matthew is in charge of walking Sophie every day so while he was gone at camp the other kids had to take turns walking her.  This time it was Josh's turn:

 We did spend a day at Lagoon.  Daniel and his cousin Miles were having a sleep over at G&G T's house and Matthew was gone to camp so I was down to only three kids at home.  It was pretty weird. Anyway, we had fun together at Lagoon.  Here is Sarah and Josh riding the Terror Ride:

 We did the bumper cars, too.  Sarah and Noah have a hard time driving them so they always like to be the passengers.  Josh wasn't too happy about it since he could barely fit his long legs in the care let along another passenger.  Oh well it worked out.

Last week was Sarah's dance recital.  I love getting her all dolled up if I haven't mentioned it a time or two lately--haha!  Here's my beautiful girl as we are getting ready to leave for the recital:

She is on one of the three performance teams which meant she was in four dances.  Here's some still shots showing where she was in the dance:

 There was a team dance with all three performance teams, but I didn't get a picture of that dance.

Afterward she was happy to come and see us:

 She loved the flowers Aaron gave her:

 Since she is in one of the performance teams she gets a head shot in the program.

I forgot to mention Matthew's Learning Center Yearbook that he got from his teacher at the end of the year.  It was a hard bound book of pictures, quotes, and other activities from each student.  I thought it was really nice of his teacher to put together such a book.  Here's the cover of the mini yearbook:

Each student got their own page to design.  Here's the pictures of Matthew throughout the year they included:

The other page of Matthew's was devoted to the Youtube video "Man on a Buffalo".  I have heard so much about this video.  It is the second thing Matthew asks anybody he meets.  After asking if they need driving directions the second questions is if they have seen this video of a man riding a buffalo.  I guess his teacher heard a lot about the video since she included it in the mini yearbook--haha!

Josh had the opportunity to do baptisms for the dead at the temple last week.  Here's the bunch that went together:

Last week was Aaron and my wedding anniversary.  18 years have gone by pretty fast!  Here's a few throwback pictures to when we were young and child free.

It was so long ago as you can see by how young we look--haha!

We decided on no presents for each other.  However, Aaron surprised me with tickets to one of my favorite plays "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" put on by a local theater.  It was a fun night.  Since it was a local theater we even got to see people we know in the production and the audience.

We got home late, but didn't get to sleep for very long.  We had to get up at 2:25 am to take Josh down to Salt Lake for him to catch his 4 am bus to the beginning of the Drop 13 half marathon race.  The Drop 13 race starts at the base of Solitude ski resort (7700 ft elevation) and slowly drops 3000 feet in elevation over 13.1 miles.  Anyway, if getting up that early for your kid doesn't mean love I don't know what does!!  I slowly dragged myself out of bed when I heard Josh and Aaron stirring.  Luckily, I thought ahead and slept with my day clothes on just to skip a step that morning--haha!  After a caffeine soda stop at the gas station we drove down to the bus stop for the race in Salt Lake.  Josh checked in and got ready to get on the bus.  Here is a very awake and excited kid (unlike his parents):

The race didn't start until 6 am so Aaron and I had about 3 hours to kill until Josh finished.  They didn't allow any traffic in or out of the canyon due to the race which meant we couldn't cheer Josh on along any of the trail.  Instead we found a dark corner of the parking lot and tried to get a nap in until we were going to meet Josh at the end.  Let me just say trying to sleep in the car is not comfortable.  It reminded me of a family vacation when I was a little girl.  My family drove through the night to get to California.  We stopped at a rest area to get a few hours of sleep in the car and let's just say it was a really tight fit.  We had two adults and 4 children trying to get comfy in a SMALL Cavalier Station Wagon.  I straddled the gear shift while my parents tried to sleep on either side of me.  My other siblings tried to sleep in the back, but there wasn't much room back there, either.  After a few hours of trying to sleep (TRYING is the key work here) we gave up and drove on into California.  Trying to sleep in the car waiting for Josh reminded me of that 'fun' memory.  Anyway, Aaron and I didn't get much sleep either because cars were just not meant to sleep in.  Thankfully, we were able to track Josh on our phone so when he started getting closer to the finish line we walked over to meet him.  He crossed the finish line, but looked TIRED as you can see:

However, he recovered pretty quickly afterward.  He made sure he got some of the food they were passing out including a Fat Boy ice cream sandwich.  He made pretty great time.  He got a personal record and placed 2nd in his age group of 15-19 year olds.  He got on the podium to get his medal, but was still taller than the kid that won first--haha!

He ended up getting three medals: one for finishing the race, one for setting his personal PR (1 hour 44 minutes), and one for finishing in second place for his age group.

That's a lot of bling!  His cross country team was volunteering at this race so he got cheered on by his teammates through the race.  His coach was even at the end of the race handing out medals so he got to see Josh finish.  Wahoo Josh!

Yesterday I took the kids hiking in the morning.  Matthew had started his summer program so he wasn't with us.  Daniel had started his summer fun class for 5th and 6th grade kids that morning so he wasn't with us either.  It was just Josh, Sarah, Noah and me.  We went on the Holbrook Canyon trail in Bountiful and it was pretty awesome.  There were many bridges to cross along the trail which was pretty cool.  Noah thought he was pretty awesome when he found his own walking stick, too:

Sophie didn't like the bridges, but we got her to cross them anyway.

The trail followed along a creek and there were tons of butterflies.  If you stood still they would come and land by you.  I had one land on my foot, but flew away before I could take a picture.  I did get a picture of this black one that was right by my shoe:

I had Sarah try to make a wish by blowing on a weed, but she cheated just a tad--haha!

The trail was right behind the Bountiful temple which was a cool thing to see as well.

Summer is in full swing and doesn't appear to be slowing down.  Daniel is still playing baseball along with Aaron who is assistant coaching again.  Josh has started up running with the cross country team again.  I also signed Josh up for a cooking class.  It is held twice a week for three hours each time.  He is loving it.  The first class was all about different types of knife cuts (julienne, chop, mince, slice, etc.) and he was able to practice it and make stir fry.  The next class was all about how to make different pasta sauces.  He is really loving the eating what you cook part of the class.

We are enjoying summer so far despite it being pretty crazy!