All the kids were out riding bikes one morning so I made them hold still a minute to capture the moment. We will be recreating this photo in 10 years.
This is how my garage looks during most of the day. I can't tell you how many times Justin comes home and can't pull into garage. He doesn't like that.
Sarah and Erica finished their swimming lessons. Sarah's class is fun to watch. They do a lot of laps across the pool practicing different strokes. She can do the backstroke and the frontstroke.
Sarah loves swimming. I think she'll stick with it for awhile, maybe join a swim team.
James asked mulitple times every day if it was his turn. Next summer, bud.
Erica's class was in the afternoon. It was great to leave the rest of the kids at home with Sarah while I took Erica and sat all by myself for 30 minutes. She and her friend were inseparable.
This is how they'd greet each other every day.
And if they got separated, they called and reached for each other. I can't wait for them to get married so these photos can be in their slideshow.
Erica loves swimming but she's always the first of my kids to call it quits. She get so cold!
She learned the skills quickly this year. Her teachers would often use her to demonstrate to the rest of the class.
I love the last day jumps off the diving board.
Her teacher sends them home with an underwater photo. Hers cracks me up.
Sometime during this week a fire broke out on the mountains above Springville and we had a great view from our street.
This reminded me of the terrible fires last summer and I don't want a repeat of that!
Erica is a super pro on her bike. She mastered the balance bike when she was 3 and learned to pedal on her friend's small bike. Papa Corey bought her this bike with training wheels and she didn't want us to take them off because it was taller. Then one day while we were playing outside she asked me if I knew how to take off training wheels. "Yup," I nonchalantly replied. "Do you think you could take my training wheels off?" She had to learn how to push off and how to lean to the side when she stopped but after a day, she had it down. Is there a word for feeling happy that your child is mastering a new skill but at the same time sad that they are growing up? Maybe in German. German has a word for everything.
Doughnuts at the park was on all the kids' summer to-do lists. It was on all their lists, actually. After the final day of swimming lessons we picked up a box at Cowboy Doughnuts and headed to Centennial Park near SFJS. For the record, Cowboy Doughnuts are not as good as Daylight.
Dyes love doughnuts.
James continues his obsession with cars. I find parking lots like this all around my house.
So apparently Sarah can fishtail braid. I had no idea until I saw this photo on my phone of Erica's hair. I cannot do this.
Pioneer celebration in Mapleton. Whoohoo! Jaana came down for the festivities which is the only thing that can make the day better.
Pancake breakfast at the park
Next time we're only buying 4 breakfasts for the 6 of us instead of 5. We could probably get away with 3. The portions are large.
And then we met my sister and her family at the school to watch the parade.
Cute cousins.
We were so surprised to see Bro. and Sis. Mack in this lineup of classic cars. Bro. Mack is Sarah's primary teacher and Sis Mack is our primary president. "You're the only people we know!" she yelled.
Then we headed back to the park for bouncy house fun.
Onto the fishing game!
Never gets old for Sarah.
And then the duckpond.
Henry spent all his tickets on the bouncy houses and he got really wet.
That evening we went to Culver's for dinner then gathered at the Sports Park to wait for the fireworks. It was hot! Luckily my sisters had shade tents set up.
We were there in time to see the skydivers.
When the sun set we pulled out the glow sticks. "These are my supa-powers!"
James liked the fireworks. I think. He held pretty still while Justin covered his ears. He didn't cry but didn't get all that excited either.
These 3 boys were super goofy the entire time.
The next day was National Ice Cream day. We made waffle cones and took them to Justin's parents' house for dessert.
This is my new favorite way to roll waffle cones. It doubled as a spoon.
James is getting into superheroes which I'm not thrilled about but I think it's pretty funny that he poses them like this and gets mad if anyone touches it.
For 5 days our AC wasn't working. It was the longest week of my life. I pray your AC never goes out on the hottest week of the year.
I tried to invent my own cooling system. It didn't work as well as I hoped but at least I was cool while standing in front of the fan handling ice.
That week was also Justin's mom's family reunion. We spent the day in American Fork canyon. It was a nice break from our sauna house and it was fun to see family, some of which I hadn't seen since our wedding.
These are James's favorite family members, Justin's aunt and cousin. He still asks about his "uncle Karl." James sat quietly with him for an hour. He's never done that before. Or since.
When your house is miserably hot, you don't care so much about going outside where it is also miserably hot. We found a new park in Provo. My kids love a new park.
Playing police line up.
I want my backyard to look like this.
Aaaand have a view like this.
These are sycamore trees. I love them.
There was also a cute bridge over a nasty stagnant pond.
When your house is 85 degrees, you do the only logical thing--go to Macey's for ice cream cones for dinner.
Or a doughnut. I wasn't fussy about what they chose.
While we were there a torrential rain storm moved in. I haven't seen rain like that for a really long time. We tried waiting it out for a half hour or so by exploring the toy/automotive/school supplies/ household goods aisle. This is a car James wanted so I told him I'd take a picture of it for his Christmas list.
And Erica wants a family of stuffed owls.
The rain still hadn't let up so we decided to just make a run for it. We put the littles in the cart and ran fast to the car. We were all soaked in 20 seconds. It was great. And the roads were flooded. Summer storms are the best. Then the blessed AC repairman came at 7:45 and we were nice and cool by 9 pm. Nothing compares to the beautiful sound of air conditioning pumping through one's vents.
The week from Hades was also the time we planned for Sarah to sell homemade cookies. She had been wanting to do this for weeks and delivered fliers. And then the AC went out. We had no choice but to forge ahead. She baked 138 cookies in our house with no AC. I don't recommend that. She made lots of money and learned a lot about entrepreneurship so it was still a good experience.
These are her fliers. She also made a spreadsheet to keep track of the orders and delivery dates.
Erica made this.
Henry made this.
We saw that they had upgraded the playground at the park where the fireworks were held so we went back a couple of days ago when it wasn't crawling with a hundred kids. James climbed through the web like "spida-man."
"I could take a nap," says Henry.
And this thing is hilarious. I wanted a turn but the kids weren't strong enough to turn me.
And that's that. July is the January of the summer. Long, unpleasant weather, kids don't know what to do with themselves. Hello August, my old friend!
