What's Up?

Does anyone feel like the last few months kind of haven’t happened and also will never end? It’s been weird - almost like a time loop. It almost feels like yesterday the world kind of stopped and yet here we are in July having a different kind of summer which doesn't really feel like summer because we've all been home since March. . .see time loop. So here's our loop of activities for July.

Biking. We finally found me a decent mountain bike and I did a little dirt trail by our house with the kids. And Steve has taken Ellie to the Brim trail and the older three kids to the Mt Green trail.

Left: Marcus practicing with his new "upgraded training wheel bike". Right: Andrew & Steve on the dirt trail by our house.

Steve and Ellie on the Brim Trail

Swimming. Andrew loves the little pool we put up and he goes out in it almost daily to swim his little laps and cool off. It's nice for him to have some time by himself out there and I love sitting on the patio and watching him swim. We also spent another afternoon swimming at Grandma Sue's pool which was so wonderful (even if I didn't get any pictures of it)!

Books and cooking. We continue to read a lot together and individually and once a week we read books and cook something fun.

This week  everyone made their own cookies with whatever yummy treats they wanted: M&Ms, butterscotch, caramel chips, etc.

This week Marcus and I made the cake while the kids were mountain biking and then they helped frost it when they got back.

Boy craziness. Which is always loud and includes sword fighting, taking apart things (tablet pictured below), and lots of ice cream treats this month (we bought the girls an Italian ice custard from Soda Crazy where one of my YW works now and they thought that was great, but I didn't get a picture).

Last week we had a fun FHE where we did some experiments and talked about experimenting on the word Alma 32:27

Today we had another science afternoon.

We told the boys they could stay up tonight to watch the fireworks -- that's a new activity outside of our loops so I hope it goes well and everyone sleeps well afterwords. Happy Pioneer Day! "This Pioneer Day I join Utahns across the state in honoring the extraordinary men and women who helped make Utah a great place to live, work and raise a family. May we not only remember these remarkable pioneers, but also reflect on what we can do to follow in their footsteps. We can come together to do the hard work and to make the shared sacrifices required to prevail over this pandemic" Governor Gary Herbert

Bring on the Heat

We've been enjoying some relatively mild temps but it has started to get up in the 90s so we setup our really old inflatable pool from Tucson. The boys love playing in it and Lila gets in with them once in a while, Ellie not so much. They've also enjoyed the sprinkler we've put on our trampoline to keep cool.

Lila had her final dance competition for the year and tryouts for next year (we had been debating and praying about whether or not to try out again and finally we decided if she didn't have something else pressing for her time that she should do it again -- she loves dance and the competitions but it does take a lot of time so she was a little hesitant).

                       they say a little prayer together as a team before their first performance

Andrew got a new mountain bike and Marcus loves that it's blue and every time we go biking he says, "so when I'm 6 I get the blue bike. I'm 4 so 5, 6, two more years." Our bike rack finally came and we've used it a few times -- it's been fun to get out with everyone.

Teaching the boys a few new chores. Marcus wipes down all the kitchen chairs and bar stools on Monday and then the next day he wipes down the bathtub and he loves to have chores like the big kids.

One day we were organizing food storage in the cold room and we found a bunch of decorations I had bought for the theater room on clearance year's ago so we spent the day working in the basement (it's cooler down there any way) and Steve started installing the rack in the equipment room a guy he works with gave him their old one a few weeks ago and he was pretty stoked about and is getting the room cleaned up.

Our friend Grandma Sue let us come swimming one afternoon and the kids swam for hours and even did flips off of the diving board. It was a nice change of pace for us.

After we watched Percy Jackson on Disney+ with the girls one evening they decided to have a read-a-thon because Lila was sucked into the story (it was a goal I'd made with Lila a long time ago that we would watch the 1st movie when she finished the book and some how it got lost in the shuffle) I'm glad it re-motivated her to read the rest of the series and now she's in the middle of book 3 and we tease her that we've lost her to the world of demigods.

Our neighbors are having a pool installed and the boys love to climb the play structure and watch the cement trucks (all the boys -- Steve climbed up to take a peak after taking this picture but I didn't make it out to snap a picture of that in time).

We had a low key 4th of July which was kind of nice. The last few years we've been known to juggle all-star softball and dancing in the parade on the 4th. This year we slept in which was welcomed because Marcus woke up the night before and came down in tears because he was worried about "bad guys". The loud bangs from the fireworks had startled him so I took him outside to show him the fireworks so he knew why there were loud noises. After breakfast we went outside to play ladderball which happened to be red, white and blue. Marcus was hilarious his first turn and was spinning the balls like nunchuck and then trying to release it.

We were out there as the jets did their fly over which was super cool.

During the afternoon we played ping-pong and air hockey and made cherry chip froyo (frozen yogurt). It was delicious and has been requested again.

Sunday we played Clue as a family and even had Mimi & Grandpa play via video call with us. It was fun. We played 3 rounds. Mimi & Grandpa one the first round and then Andrew won the next two (that kid loves that game and manages to win quite a bit). Marcus went around saying, "My brother is a winner." 😂

Then to finish off the weekend I spent several hours in the girls rooms going through clothes. Lila came upstairs the other day and her sweats were 4inches too short and then I looked at Ellie and her feet were hanging off her flip-flops so she's now outgrown the shoe hand-me downs from Mimi and Aunt Nessa (sad day). So we spent one of her one-on-one days shopping online for shoes and she's pretty excited and then Nessa had given us some clothes that fit Ellie so well right now so she's stocked and has been dressing up the last couple of days wearing a skirt from Nessa with a new shirt or shoes I bought her which is great. Her room still needs a lot of her attention -- I've given her until Thursday to clean and organize then I come in to help like I did at Christmas. Lila on the other hand has done a great job keeping things clean and organized and just had a little tidying up to do. Here's Ellie with some great pants from Aunt Nessa on the left and some new shoes on the right with a cute dress.

Ellie has also started her last year of Weber State Prep and because of COVID this year it's virtual so she does online school during the mornings. It's nice that we don't have to carpool/drive her to Weber every day but she's a little bummed because it's her last year. She's making the best of it and we got her a real live phone line so she can stay in touch with her Prep friends during the coursework and well all her friends so that's big news too. So there you have it a few things we've been up to lately as we try to stay cool.