Fourth of July and other Summer Fun

Summer is in full swing and we are trying to break up the days with some fun activities. Whenever the kids are home, they are playing with neighbor friends. We seem to always have kids in our backyard. Porter, Noah, Carter, and Kohl come over here a lot and play with Gabe and Caleb. They can usually be found on the trampoline or playing legos or pokeman at the table in the backyard. Sometimes they turn on the sprinklers or invade Avery's little inflatable pool.

Avery also has lots of little friends in the neighborhood, Harper, Kendalin, Evan, Jadey and Salem to name a few. She also goes to a Dance class at Fuzion on Tuesdays and a gymnastics class on Thursdays. We also tried her in soccer, but she had more fun running than actually kicking the ball it seemed! The boys are also in soccer now so they have games every Tuesday and Thursday night. I think soccer might end up being Gabe's sport for a long time. He is really pretty good at it. Caleb is good too, but we are still thinking football may be more his game with his build. ;)

So other than the normal daily hanging out around the neighborhood and those activities I just mentioned, some of the highlights of this past month have been: Josh building a new dog kennel and then making room on the back patio to also build me some nice storage benches, Father's Day, Gabe's lawn mowing business, Cub Scout day Camp, the boys' rattlesnake encounter on the  R Mountain hike, Avery's nearly broken nose mishap, the 4th of July festivities, and our cabin weekend in Island Park! (Phew! That's a lot to write about!)

Josh had the idea to build a dog kennel for Piper that had about 1/4 of it enclosed so that in the winter she can go into her little inside home and be warmer. I was just in favor of the idea because it meant it would be moved from the prominent spot right out the back sliding door, to around the side of the house instead. So then I said, "Oh good! Now you can build some outdoor seating with storage in them so we have a nice back patio instead!" ;) So he was quite busy building all of these things. Here are some pictures of the finished products. He's pretty handy. I think I'll keep him around. ;)

For Father's Day here are some of the cute things the kids made for Josh. It's hard to see since she used yellow crayon, but I thought her picture of dad looked exactly like this character from the movie "Robots".

Gabe got asked by one of our teenage neighbor boys if he would be willing to mow a couple yards while they went to Europe for a couple weeks. Gabe happily said yes and even picked up two more yards in the process. He feels like he is rolling in the dough now.

Because I am the Cubmaster of Pack 513 (obviously they were desperate…) I got to attend day camp with all of these little 8-10 year old boys. They got to shoot BB Guns, do an obstacle course, and more.

Josh took the boys on a hike at our nearby "R Mountain" so that the boys could pass off one of their hiking requirements for Cub Scouts. They got  a little bit more than they bargained for. As Gabe hopped over a large group of rocks, they said they heard rattling. They looked back and saw a huge rattlesnake hiding in between the rocks that gave had just jumped over. Yikes! Glad that didn't have a different ending!! Josh tried to take a picture, but it's pretty hard to spot it hiding. He said it was a big one though!

Then there was Avery's nearly broken nose… (aren't we good at keeping our kids safe?!) We had just finished a pack night at church and Avery and a few other kids were running around on the stage. Next thing we know, "THUD!" and Avery is laying face down on the floor. She had fallen right off and onto her face. Blood was coming out of her nose and her mouth. Luckily her teeth were all intact. We got the bleeding to stop and then called our doctor when we got home. He said to bring her in first thing in the morning. At first when he looked at her he said, "I think it's most likely broken, but let's take some X-Rays." So then we did that and MIRACULOUSLY it wasn't broken! I was so happy because he had talked about having to rebreak it and set it if it was! :( Here is a picture my friend made and sent to me because she thought Avery reminded her of the sloths from the movie "Zootopia" haha Luckily it is all healed now and she is back to her cute self. ;)

On the fourth of July we ended up hosting a BBQ here. When you have a backyard with a tramp, a middle pool, a playhouse, and new benches to sit on, you somehow get nominated for these thing! ;) It was a lot of fun, even though Josh had to go to work at six. We were able to watch our neighbors light off fireworks here in the street and the kids had a really fun night. Glad we have good friends to share these things with! Josh was able to go to the morning parade in Ashton and then to a lunch BBQ at his sister's house with all of his family, so at least he got to have some fun!

The final big event was a fun trip we took to a cabin in Island Park the weekend AFTER the fourth of july (so July 9 and 10th.) We went with our neighbors and friends Barb/Ryan, Brittaini/Jay, and Sam/Danny and all of our kids! It was a big 4 bedroom cabin at Pond's Lodge, right on the river. It was so much fun! We went kayaking, the boys floated in tubes, we had a hot tub at the cabin that all the kids LOVED, and we stayed up late playing games once the kids went to bed. We also went out to each at Angler's Lodge one night while Josh's niece, Alex, and her friend came up to babysit. It was a great weekend! Josh even got a birthday cake for me and brought it along as an early celebration (since he had to work on my actual birthday on the 11th. :(

Phew! Talk about the longest post ever! And now here are some more random pictures of us just having fun on a daily basis!! ;) (Note: Avery is the one not paying any attention at soccer with her butt in the air, doing summersaults… maybe gymnastics is more her thing.. lol)

Aunt Janell's husky puppies:

Caleb officially weighs more than Gabe now:

At the Drive-In movie seeing "Finding Dory":

In front of the iSource "Love wall":

We were trying to do the "Dirty Dancing" lift… we need practice….

Josh went fishing with his buddies:

Family Pictures!

Here are the best family pictures of this Spring! (Don't mind the rain!)

Caleb's 8th Birthday!

This year for Caleb's birthday, he wanted to go to Squealer's Fun Park in Rigby. It's a place that has go-carts, mini golf, batting cages, bumper boats, rock climbing walls, etc. However, because it was so early in the season, only the go-carts and mini-golf was open on the day we went, which was the Saturday before his birthday (June 4). (Pretty lame if you ask me… I mean they're had all spring to get ready!)

So our whole family went there and also Noah (our neighbor who is Gabe and Caleb's best friend) and also Cash Dial (Devin and Charm's son and Caleb's "twin" - they share the exact same birthday.) They boys all had fun there for about an hour and a half and then we all came back to our house. It was SUPER hot that day, so we turned on the sprinklers and they jumped on the tramp in their swimsuits in the backyard and then we got pizza and ice cream cake. His cake had Darth Vader on it this year (his choice!) His presents included legos, hot wheels, and rollerblades. then with his money he got from relatives, he bought a motorized scooter! He also bought some more star wars legos.

He is planning to get baptized in Wisconsin when we visit so that won't be happening for a while! His official 8 year old stats are that he is 92 pounds and 54 inches tall (just barely tall enough to drive the go-carts alone!)

On Monday (his actual birthday) we went to Cash's house for a little hot dog roast and party so we also celebrated them both again on that day!

This last week we also got out family pictures taken (attempt number 2)! It was almost a second disaster though because we drove all the way up there to Cave Falls and the photographer had said "Just keep driving until you see my black Jetta!" Well there was no cell service and we drove and we drove and we drove… About to yellowstone park! My friend, Barb, was there with her family and they were lost and confused as well. FINALLY, we miraculously found the photographers (they had taken a detour to use a bathroom and basically showed up almost an hour late!!!) and by that time it was raining and cold, so I was pretty impressed that we even got some decent photos out of the whole thing! If you look closely you can see the rain in our pictures!

That's all for now! Summer is officially underway and I am officially losing my mind trying to take care of three kids and an Etsy shop!! Avery is doing dance, gymnastics and soccer and the boys start soccer soon. They are also both officially in Cub Scouts now! Josh is building his little dog kennel every spare chance he gets (which isn't a lot) but we are trying not to go crazy!