The Invasion from St. George

So the last few days have been utterly crazy busy with fun visitors from St. George. Last Thursday my brother, Ed, and his family came in town from St. George. We hooked up and went to the zoo in the morning, then swimming at my mom's in the afternoon, and later on had a family get-together dinner. It was such a long day but so much fun.
My sister, Steph, joined us at the zoo with her girls. They headed home afterwards because it was my sister's anniversary and she and her husband had a hot date planned. We had a great time at the zoo and got to see the usual animals along with an awesome bird show. That morning, Skylar wasn't really excited about going to the zoo because we really have been going a lot lately but quickly changed her mind and afterwards said, " Mom, I guess there's always something new to see at the zoo." Having a different group there also adds to it. I can't believe how big of a group we ended up with when you just put half of the siblings together with their kids-there was 11 (and 1/2!) kids. We had to keep counting to keep track. Crazy, but fun.
That afternoon was officially our first swimming of the summer (besides our backyard). It was an absolutely perfect day for swimming and the pool felt awesome. Skylar was swimming great since she had her little floaty things on her arms, Nick totally had fun having Grandpa help him, and Kade just wanted to jump from the side of the pool the entire time. He definitely was not too happy being stuck in his tube. The kid has no fear and doesn't even mind going under the water!
Later on Ben, my brothers, Al, and Jerry's family came and we had dinner and celebrated Ed & Al's 40th birthday. Crazy that they are that old!! Of course, they still act like teenagers, so that's good!? We had some good grub and then the kids put on an "awesome" talent show. After that, we headed outside where Jerry led the kids in a game of not getting wet in the sprinklers. I was proud of my kids because they made it to the top 3 finalists! Perfect for a nice dry ride home!!
My niece, Cassidy, came home with us that night so that Skylar and she could have their traditional sleepover. This was the first time at our house and the first time for two nights. Cass just slept in Sky & Nick's room because Nick was not about to be left out. Both nights they were a little too excited to get right to sleep but eventually they did and they had a lot of fun. Ely, Cassidy's brother who is Nick's age, and Nick have already started planning how they can get in on these sleepovers next year. They've decided that 5 is a good age for them. We'll see how they really feel about that next year. We don't see them too often so I'm glad they got to spend some extra time together.
Ben had a camp out on Friday night with the Scouts-he is now working with the 11 year old scouts in the Spanish Ward in our stake. The kids and I just played at the park all night. On Saturday, our ward had a big summer party. Ben arrived home in the middle of it and was able to help the kids on the giant waterslide on the hill. They had so much fun, except for poor Nicky, who fell back on his head after his first run and decided he was done for the day. Needless to say, by Sunday we were exhausted and after church, everyone but Skylar took a 2-3 hour nap. So long, but so needed!
Today my friend, Lisa, was in town, who is also from St. George. We went out to lunch with her mom and sister and then headed to Thanksgiving Point to the dinosaur museum. We had so much fun! That place is so cool because it's so hands-on. I honestly think Lisa had as much fun playing as any of her kids! It was fun to get to spend time with them. Lisa and I always have so much fun together. I love it when she comes in town!

The pitter patter of lots of little feet!

Okay, so last year after Soffee had her babies we were gonna get her spayed but decided to let her have a go one more time since it was so much fun having kittens. So, yesterday, she delivered another whopping litter of six kittens!! I wish I would've gotten a picture of her while she was pregnant because she was huge and looked like she felt so uncomfortable! I really felt for her as I'm starting to feel the same way myself!! She obviously has a new boyfriend this time around because we ended up with 3 black and white ones, 2 orange striped ones, and 1 calico. Skylar and I actually got to watch one being delivered which was pretty cool. Soffee was a trooper through the whole thing and she's such a good little mommy!! The kids were so excited last night they could hardly sleep!!!

Summer fun!

We've been enjoying our summer so far, even though it went from freezing to blazing overnight. Here's some stuff we've been up to:

In the anticipation that I would be great with child this summer we decided to forego getting our Seven Peaks season pass at the end of last summer and get a Spiderman pool instead. I'm glad we did because I really don't have the energy this year to tromp the three kids to the pool by myself. They are loving having the cool pool in our own backyard so it's all good.
We also got a slip 'n slide which hasn't been as popular since the water is pretty cold. Skylar and my niece, Katie, had a fun time in it the other day while Nick & Kade opted for the nice warm mud & grass water that they had created. Nice.

We hit our first Owlz game of the season last week. Ben's work actually had their work party there so they had a big BBQ and we sat in the stands which we usually don't do. It was fun but sooo hot!!
We got our chance to go camping in the canyon and enjoyed almost every minute of it. We tried to go to Timpanogos but it was full so headed up to Hope Campground and snagged the last spot! It was a tiny spot but somehow we managed to fit our tent there. Since we had to squeeze our tent in, it was next to some rocks. Ben decided to try and move the smaller ones so that one of our kids wouldn't konk their head on it from inside the tent. In the process, he smashed his hand between two of the rocks! At first it looked so bad I thought it was an immediate trip to the ER but after some first aid we deemed he was okay to last through the night. He lost a big chunk of skin (I will spare you the pics) which the kids thought was awesome but at least he didn't break any fingers! Other than that, (oh and our fellow campers screaming baby at 3 am) we had a great night! We're pretty sure that this was the last camping trip that we'll make in our teeny tiny Echo since we have to make the move to the mini-van thing (yuck!) with the baby on her way. Packing our Echo to absolute maximum capacity has almost been half the fun of going camping! Ha ha!

Is summer finally here?!?

It has been such a cold spring! Even this last week it was rainy and stormy. But this weekend it finally seemed like summer was here! We had promised we'd take the kids camping this weekend but decided it was probably still too cold to go up the canyon so we had a backyard camp out instead! We grilled some hamburgers, set up the tent, and even made some s'mores on the grill. We still had a lot of fun and it was a good thing that we didn't trek up to the mountains because we were freezing at about 2 am and were able to just go inside and grab more blankets. Skylar actually headed inside at 6 am because she was still too cold. I'm not so sure I'll be up for the whole camping thing as my belly gets bigger and more uncomfortable but I'm still hoping we make it up the mountains at least one time this summer since I love camping!!!
On Saturday it was Orem City's Summerfest. We headed out for the parade and lucked out on finding an awesome spot in the shade. The Tongs joined us and we had a great time! Spencer's mom was in the parade as well as a lot of people from our ward so the kids were excited to see people they knew. Our kids also love the Summerfest parade because it's all about the candy-way too much candy!! After sufficiently filling up on enough taffy to last them two years we tromped home to baths and then headed back out for the amazing fireworks show later on. We had a great night!
On Sunday we went to my brother's ward to hear my nephew, Mark, speak about his mission to Roseville, California that he just returned home from this last week. He has seriously turned into such an awesome man with a great testimony of the gospel while serving his mission. He gave such a great talk and also played an amazing musical number that he had arranged himself. Afterwards we went to my brother's house for a yummy lunch and some chatting. Mark and my cousin, Doug's, son, Curtis played some duets for us. They are such great piano players. Curtis just got home from his mission a few months back and is now engaged to get married. I can't believe how grown up these guys are. I used to change their diapers and it doesn't seem like long ago!! Later on we headed home and just had a relaxing day-Ben's idea of a great father's day. Ben also got to open some cool presents from the kids and me. We had a really nice day!!

Happy Father's Day!!!

Father's Day Comments


Happy Father's Day to my hubby Ben!!! You are the best dad in the world!!! Thank you for all awesome things you do for our family to make us happy!! You are amazing!! Our kids love you soooo much!!! I love you sooooo much!!!!

Also, Happy Father's Day to all those other wonderful fathers in my life-especially you, Dad! You're such an awesome dad and I'm so lucky to have you!!!

Zoo Night!

Last night we went to the Member's Only night at the zoo. Ben had church meetings and Spencer is in Guatemala surfing (Lucky!!) so Adrianne and I tromped the kids there ourselves. It was so crowded!! There was a lot of exciting stuff going on since it was member's night. They had activities for the kids- including getting exclusive white alligator eye tattoos that the kids were so excited about! There were also jugglers entertaining the gigantic line for the brand new carousel that was debuting this week. We finally got on and everyone had an exciting (all be it VERY short) ride. We ended up staying at the zoo way past the kids' bedtime, and apparently many of the animals too since all of the big apes were snoozing when we saw them-the orangutan even had a blanket on, which was funny to see. We had such a fun night!