Every heart beats true, for the red, white and blue

Happy 4th of July!!! This is one of my favorite holidays all year! This year was particularly interesting. We have a neighbor Eric Frauendorfer that is a pyro-maniac. (no really, a REAL pyro-maniac, I'm not kidding.) He invited the neighborhood to a "firework party" at the end of the street. Stephanie happened to call me that evening so I invited her family too. When we arrived at the Frauendorfer's their ENTIRE property was roped off and set with HUGE fireworks. At dusk, the show began . . . I cannot use words to describe the spectacle. I've never seen so many fireworks in my life, and I've never been so close to them before either. To tell you the truth, it scared the crap out of me! The show lasted almost two hours of sky filling fireworks with fountain after fountain on the ground. I have been to Stadium of Fire and all that stuff, this blew them out of the water. It was incredible. Our street was packed with cars with strangers coming to see what was going on. I just wish I could describe it!!!     

Then, later we went to the Farmington Parade. (I know, I know, it is not actually on the 4th, it is always on some random day, like the 9th this year, but I'm lumping it all together and calling it the 4th. ) The Farmington Parade is so great because the whole route is in shade. It was a great parade. 

My sweeties at the parade! (this is the only picture I've ever gotten all three of them to look at the camera at once!)

Every year we always swim in Grandma Place's pool on the 4th and do fireworks and glow-sticks at night on her driveway. This is one of my favorite things ever!!

Loren loves to jump into the pool head-first, but he always complains that it gives him a headache. He came up with the brilliant idea to wear this old motorcycling helmet. (No really, he thought it was a good idea) He wore it all day. That's so Loren.

Ashley my little 4th of July firework in her patriotic swimsuit! 

Loren (Stephanie's husband) and Ashley have a great relationship. Ever since she was a baby he had held and cuddled her every time we are together. I loved snapping this photo because it catches their relationship. He is really cute with kids and is especially cute with girls now that he has one of his own (Kali). 

This is Hailey and Ben, and Bron and Jett having a "chicken fight" in the pool.  (Bron is Stephanie's son that is Hailey's age and Jett is Kim, my sister's, oldest that just got home from his mission).

I love the summer and all the fun things we get to do with family!

Sum-Sum-Summer Time

As I've mentioned before, we are having one very fun summer! I adhere to the saying "families that play together, stay together." Here are some more of the fun things we have done this summer:

My sister, Stephanie, lives in Bountiful and has a group of about six really good girlfriends that she does everything with. Once in a while I join them for some fun. This day, we went to Pine View to play on the beach and in the lake. Here are the kids playing in the sand.  

 

 Ashley is such a "wash and wear" baby. She is almost always happy and LOVED being in the sand. I drag her everywhere on all my outings and she just happily goes along. Below, she is with Kali (Stephanie's daughter) and my Aubery.

 Ashley loved having the waves come up to her!

We also went to Liberty Park with some cousins on the Powell side. Ben's cousin, Monique lives in St. Louis and sent her daughter, Mckayla, to Salt Lake to be with some cousins. The kids had a great time playing together in the park and on the splash pad.

 Above: Mckayla, Rachel and Whitney (Ben's cousin Troy's kids) and Aubrey

Even Ben's Grandma Powell came! She is an amazing woman!!!! She is the grandma I never had. I can only hope to someday be as elegant, loving and spiritual as she is in my "older years." I am thrilled that the girls get to spend time with their great-grandmother. I think it instills a sense of self. I'm so happy that they can see the wonderful line of strong women that they come from.

Dirty Girl

Call me crazy, call me whatever you want, but if I hear of a race entitled "Dirty Girl," I'm in! My neighbor and good friend, Lisa Barkdull found this "race" that is four miles of mud with obstacle courses weaving around Wheeler Farm. The proceeds benefit the Huntsman Gynelogoical Cancer Institute. It is for women only and it was a BLAST!

Now, grant it, I just had a baby and I was on bedrest most of the pregnancy, so let's just say the past year hasn't been too good for my bathroom scale. I've seen better days. However, I am TRYING and that is what counts! Part of my "get fit" goal was to start running and racing again. So what a better way to start than with some neighborhood pals at the Dirty Girl?

We needed a team name and costume so after some shopping and some really bad ideas, we came up with a "good" idea. Team Sponge Boob. Really, this was inspired by the Sponge Bob tanks we found at Khols. Next year we are going to be Team Sponge Boob Mom Pants. But for this year, Sponge Boob works. Here is a picture of our team and decorated team car. I'll post more "dirty" pictures when I get them.

Lisa being a real pal and shoving me into mud after my army crawl.
Crossing the finish line. It was cover in bubbles (like dish soap bubbles, that's what is on our legs).

Team Sponge Boob:
Amber Caughlin, Lisa Barkdull, Andrea Holbrook, Camille Sipe, Kristy Powell, Carrie Ainsworth, Shantel Fulton

Field Trip!

I know I should be cleaning my house, weeding my garden (heck, planting a garden) doing geneolgoy or something amazing but the poem keeps entering my mind: 

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,for children grow up, 

as I’ve learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.

I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

So instead of doing my household duties, I want to savor my time with my sweet girls. Every week we go on at least one field trip. Sometimes we go with cousins or friends, but mostly we just go together. I would much rather be spending time with my girls than scrubbing toilets (or even blogging, which is why I rarely do).  I want to savor these years while they still think mom is cool and hanging out with family is fun! Here are some of our adventures.

Feeding ducks at a fun park in Kaysville with Stephanie's kids.

 At Liberty Park with Alisa Cox Van Langeveld. Alisa and I have been friends since we were in 6th grade. We went to elementary, Jr. High, highschool and College together. She has known me for a long, long time. We have been together through thick and thin. Here is her daughter Vera and my Ashley together.

We also spend a lot of time at my mom's pool in Bountiful. Here is Ashley getting ready to swim!

 We also went to the Farmington Pond. It is a little walk up the Lagoon Trail to Farmington Canyon and Pond. I run this route every week. It is my favorite thing to do.

This year for Christmas, the Powell's gave us Lagoon Season Passes! We spend at least one or two days at Lagoon a week. I even got adventerous and took all three girls to Lagoon a Beach! I love Lagoon we have tons of fun there and live so close!

We are half way through the summer and still have many fun things planned. Parades, Bear Lake again, Lake Powell again, Cherry Hill and whatever else we can fit in!!!

Bear Lake June 2011

In June we went up to my parent's condo in Bear Lake. I have gone there pretty much every my entire life and I still love it! We went up with Heather and her kids and Stephanie and her kids. It was too cold to get in the water so we just hung out on the playground and played games. The boys went motorcycling in the mountain and Stephanie's oldest son, Matt, broke his arm. You can check out that story on Stephanie's blog.

Here are some pictures from our trip. 

I can't believe how big my girls are getting!!!

 This year they had this cool climb-the-coconut-tree thing. Both my girls did it and Bron too!

 Here are my three angels at the beach! Words can't express how much I love my girls!!!

Lake Powell June 2011

The end of May/first of June we went an our annual spring Lake Powell trip with the Powell's. Hilary and Quin we expecting a baby soon, so they couldn't come. With the free space we were able to invite our neighbor and friends, the Mattinson family. Craig Mattinson is a good friend of Ben's and his dirt biking buddy. It was great because they brought their three kids, Wes (10), Aaron (14) and Abby (15). The kids got along really well together and I loved it because I had extra hands to help me with Ashley. It was VERY windy and so we didn't get much time on the water. I didn't take many pictures this trip but here are a few.

 Aubrey and Wes.

We hiked up to Rainbow Bridge and I packed along Ashley. We had a good time!

Discipline and Giraffes!!!

In an effort to have behaved children, Ben and I started a discipline chart for the girls. Each day they could earn up to 5 points. They needed to clean their rooms, make their beds, do chores and homework and be obedient. Then they got 5 points. Depending on these things points went down. When they earned 150 points they got a reward. Hailey chose a new bike for her reward because her Cinderella one was
"too baby-ish" Aubrey chose to go to the zoo and have a "VIP" experience feeding the giraffes. She was the only one that day on the VIP tour and got to feed them all, all by herself! It was really amazing. They are HUGE! She fed three giraffes and fed each one for about 15 minuets. It was a great experience!!

Petting a giraffe.

 Look at this guys tongue!