Avery Rides a Bike - Huckleberry Picking - Caleb at Water Scout Camp - Soccer Season Ends for Avery and Caleb

It has finally happened!! This is a momentous occasion. It may not seem like that big of a deal, but Avery has been terrified of her bike ever since Josh took the training wheels off it over a year ago. To be honest, I’m not even sure when or why he took them off. She didn’t want them off. I think Josh was just seeing all the other kids in the neighborhood zipping around on two wheels and thought it was time for Avery to ride on two wheels. But she didn’t want to! So then basically she just rode her little Hello Kitty razor scooter for the next year and a half! Whenever we would go for bike rides she would ride her scooter. She had NO desire to ever ride her bike. So there it hung in our garage. Finally, on Monday night (July 23, 2018 for the record) I decided it was time.

I told her “You are going to learn how to ride your bike tonight.” It was about 7:00 and Josh was going to take Drax for a walk. I got her bike down and Josh started to say “Come here Avery. You’re going to learn!” Avery then freaked out and sat crying on her bike saying “No! I’m scared!” Then Josh responded by also freaking out and saying, “Fine. You can go sit in your room then!” Nope. Not the right way to handle it. So, being the calm, rational, expert parent I am... I told him “You go take your dog for a walk with Gabe and Caleb and I will stay here with her.”

When they returned about half hour later, guess who was riding up and down the street on two wheels. Yup! Me. Just kidding. Well me AND Avery. She was such a pro! She only let me hold onto her back of her seat once or twice and then once I explained what she needed to do she got all like “no mom, don’t touch me! I can do it!” And she just kept at it until she’s got it! The hardest part of riding a bike is getting started and that’s what took her the longest to get (about 20 minutes of trying) but soon she got the hang of pushing one pedal forward then getting her balance and starting to pedal both feet. Once she got going she easily rode down the street the whole way! She was so proud of herself and kept saying “I can’t believe I learned how to ride a bike today.”

So now she’s a pro and she woke up this morning eager to go for a bike ride again! She loves to ride around the neighborhood and practice her turns in peoples’ driveways. She’s already almost two tall for this Hello Kitty bike so a new one will probably have to be a birthday gift next summer. But we are so happy to finally have her biking so we can go on real family bike rides!

In other quick news, Caleb went to a special Water Days Scout camp where they just had some fun games during the day. Here he is with another boy that is actually in his class - yes they are the same age. Caleb's at one end of the growth chart and Benson is at the other.

And then we went up and picked some Huckleberries on Sunday (July 22) at Kelley Canyon. It looked like a lot people were up there picking so I think the area we were in might have gotten picked over, but as we moved around a bit we did find some! I think we may go back again another day! There were a lot that were still green the bushes.

Finally, we also went up to Yellowstone and went swimming at "The Firehole." I did not expect it to be so busy but there were a LOT of people there. It would've been more fun with about 75 percent less people there. Or 100 percent. But the kids still had fun and Caleb even broke the law and "cliff jumped" off a little rocky area that was about 7 feet high. Even that high I was against, but Josh scouted the water below first and made sure there were no rocks. Some other crazy people were jumping from much higher!

And one more thing! Soccer ended for Avery and Caleb! Here are their team pictures! (Caleb's is missing Camri Call) Football will start up for Caleb next month and then Avery will probably do dance in the Fall. Gabe is trying to decide about this fall but I think he will do soccer again!

Avery's 6th Birthday - Unicorn Magic!

Yesterday was a big day. And to be honest, my house is still a mess. But I wanted to write about Avery's magical unicorn birthday before I forget.

First of all, let me just start by saying that about two weeks ago I wasn't even sure if I was going to throw her a big party this year or just go somewhere as a family and call it good. But then when I was teaching my 10-11 year olds Sunday school class, we were talking about pets and one girl mentioned her family had two white miniature ponies. This family just moved into our ward so I didn't really know much about them. But I said, "You should put unicorn horns on them and say they are unicorns!" and she said "We have done that before!" So then I said, "How would you like to help me have a unicorn birthday party for my daughter?" And that's how the idea was born... lol

So I texted her mom and we decided it would be easier for them to just have the party in their backyard. They have a big backyard and they only live just down the road from us, but that way they wouldn't have to load up the horses and figure out where to tie them up at my house, etc. So I made the invitations and started the planning about a week ago! Here is the invite I made:

Then we had to figure out how many little girls to actually invite. I really wanted to keep it smaller this year so the list started out with 6 including Avery. Then it grew a little and we ended up with 9 little girls, plus of course Gabe and Caleb, plus then we had one of the girl's older sisters (Katelyn, who lives across the street and is in Gabe's class) come and help do some face painting with Kenzie (the girl in my Sunday school class who started this whole idea. lol) So there ended up being quite a few people partying in that backyard. The family that lived there also had some of their kids coming in and out and helping and playing too. It really went pretty smoothly though! Josh even said later, "I was skeptical about having it over there but it actually went really well." (Like he should EVER doubt me.)

I went over there at about 12:30 and started setting up decorations and games. Then I went back and got Avery and the family and went back over and finished setting up. When I went back ti get the family and I was getting everything loaded up in the car, Avery all of a sudden started crying and I said, "What's the matter?" and she said, "We forgot to do my nails!!!" She had been asking me to repaint her nails for the past two days and I kept saying we would before her party. So I quickly ran upstairs and got my gold nail polish and did a quick nail redo as she was sitting in the car and we were all waiting to go. She is such a girlie girl. I mean, I wouldn't want my nails to look crappy for my big day either, so I get it.

So anyways, we got over there and finished setting everything up (the tables, the games, the bouncy house..) The girls arrived at 2:00 and it lasted until 3:30. I think it was the perfect amount of time. We started off by doing a few pictures with the "unicorns". The unicorns were really mostly interested in eating the grass the whole time so it was hard to get a decent picture with them. But here are a couple we got:

After we got a couple of group pictures, we started off with some games. I always, in my mind, think that I'm going to plan these amazing structured activities and everyone is just going to love them. But in reality, they really only like a couple of structured activities and then just want to have time to play. So we did three somewhat organized things. The first was a game where I took Josh's traffic cones and wrapped streamers around them to make them look like "unicorn horns" and the game was "lasso the unicorn horns" where they threw a cool hoop around the cones.

Next, we did a piñata. Every girl got at least two rounds of hitting it. Then we invited Gabe and Caleb to take a turn and then candy flew! The girls all ran to pick up candy and I had little bags ready for them with their names on them. Each girl also got a unicorn horn headband, a little unicorn rubber duck toy, play doh, and a couple other little things in their bag. After the piñata, we did the "pin the horn on the unicorn" game.

                                       

A few pictures of the decor and gift bags...

Once we finished those three games, we turned on the water bouncy house slide and just let them play on that and jump on the trampoline for about a half hour. This was probably the highlight. It was about 90 degrees and sunny so I think they were excited to cool off! It was kind of hard to keep Caleb off the slide, so eventually we just game up and let him slide down it too. Luckily it didn't pop! Meanwhile, we also had faceprinting going on so the girls would go back and forth and get that done too. Katelyn so was so sweet to come and volunteer to do that. Part of it may have had to do with Gabe. I'm pretty sure she has a little crush. ;)

Once they all were done with their face painting/tattoos and jumped for a while on the tramp and bouncy house thing, we gathered them up for cake and present opening. I wish I could say I remembered who gave what but it all happened so fast, I honestly have no idea. Avery's cake was a Walmart special... hence why it looks weird. I usually have this girl named Ashley do their cakes and they have always been AMAZING but she said she couldn't do it this year because she had something going on. I was so sad! So I thought, "Well I will buy a cake topper with the horn and ears and all they have to do is make a white cake with some flowers on top!" Buuut... it still turned out kind of weird looking. The girls all though it was really cool though so I guess when you're six it's easy to impress you. 

So that was the party! At about 3:45 everyone had left and we got everything cleaned up pretty quickly. We did have to make two trips to get everything (including the inflatable slide) back home. We had borrowed that from our neighbor so we just took that straight back to them. The once we got home and got a little bit cleaned up, we let Avery open her presents from us and from grandma sue and "Poppy" (aka: my dad). She got some Hatchimals, two Hatchimals games, some Magic Tracks, unicorn pajamas (which she picked out and I let her wear last night). some little princesses, and then a ton of things from girls at her party, including a unicorn toy, a Barbie, a blanket, and lots of other things. I think she is quite the spoiled girl. After dinner we went for a walk and she sat and played with one of her new unicorn toys. Then we got home and went to bed and now she is down there with Caleb still playing again. I don't think my house will be clean again for about a week. I keep trying to put things away and they keep coming out again. Oh well. 

And that marks the end of "Birthday Season" in the Rhodes home. Phew. See you again starting March 23, 2019.

Cress Creek Trail Hike, Rigby Lake, Gabe's Soccer Ends, Dad Goes to Alaska, Rexburg Rapids, Caleb and Avery start Soccer, 4th of July and Lake Fun, Another Hike, Gabe at Scout Camp

We have been BUSY!

Summer activities are in full swing! Gabe had his very last soccer tournament June 21 in Idaho Falls. He had a lot of fun this year playing on the traveling team, but it was a LOOOOONG season. They started practice in January and ended in June, so mom was ready for it to be over so we could have some of our weekends free again!

Then Josh went on his big Alaska trip the last week of June. He left on Monday, June 23rd and returned home on Tuesday, July 3. Here are just a few quick pictures I stole off his phone:

I should really have him write about his trip, but that will never happen! So to summarize... the first night they flew into Anchorage and stayed overnight in a hotel. Then the next day they got a lot of supplies at Walmart and prepared for their small airplane to take them to the wilderness part of Alaska. On Wednesday, they boarded their small red brush plane and flew for about an hour. Then they were dropped off near a lake called Lake Chelatna. Then the seven of them (Josh, Bryan, Brad, Jake, Jake's dad, Ben, and Ben's dad) all boarded into three different rafts and began floating down the river. They floated and fished all day and then stopped and camped each night. Josh said it was fun but also a lot of work and he had to do a lot of rowing because he ended up in a boat with Ben's dad and Ben's dad wasn't able to row at all due to his health. I think at the end of the week Josh was ready to some home!

While he was gone, I did some fun things with the kids. We went on a hike to Cress Creek Trail that was really beautiful. Someone went to a lot of trouble to put these educational plaques displayed all along the trail and it was really fun to learn about things as we hiked.

We also went to Rigby Lake. This lake is totally not my favorite, but it's only about 15 minutes from Rexburg and it's about all we've got around here. Unless you want to drive about an hour or more to get to a nicer lake. The kids played in the sand and the boys swam, but Avery and I didn't get in very far.

We went to Rexburg Rapids one day with some friends. My friend, Amber, was going to come but she ended up going into labor that morning at 4am! So it ended up being me and my kids plus Amber's sister, Britney, and her two kids. Her son is Gabe's age so they had a lot of fun running around together. We were there from the time they opened (noon) to about 4:00! It was hot, sunny, and fun! Avery is to the point now where she likes to go into some deeper water and not just play around the baby kid stuff. I'm not sure why she has never really liked the little slides area, but she prefers the deeper water. I still keep her lifejacket on her just to be safe but she is getting to be a pretty good swimmer.

Around the first of July, Avery and Caleb both started soccer with their rec department teams. Rec teams are always run in a really relaxed way (and by relaxed I mean you are lucky if you have a parent coach who actually shows up to games). So it's not really hard-core soccer like it was watching Gabe's game. With Avery, it's mostly like watching a herd of kids run up and down the field chasing one little ball. They are getting better though! Avery is so fast. She can always run to the ball first but actually kicking it? She doesn't like to get in the big shuffle and risk getting kicked by someone. So we are always happy if she actually makes contact with the ball during a game. Caleb is one of the better players on his (really unexperienced) team. I wish they had sone better players on his team because it seems like he and Camri (a girl in our neighborhood) do a lot of the work with little help from their team mates. I mainly signed Caleb up so he could get some running in before he starts football next month. He has a tendency to sit on the couch and watch tv a lot so I like to do anything to get him out of the house and staying active.

Finally, Josh returned home the day before the fourth of July. He got home at about 8:30pm, quickly started some laundry and showed us a few pictures then basically went to bed so he could get up early for work. He always has to work the parade in the morning, so that wasn't new, but this year he got to be the lead car in the parade! So me and Avery got to ride along in the front seat and throw candy. Gabe was riding on his soccer team's big float and Caleb rode on the iSource float with Devin and Charm's family. It worked out well because once me and Avery got to the end of the route, we hopped out of Josh's car and then got to watch the whole parade right by the roundabout by Tuscany apartments. A lot of people threw us tons of candy because we were the last people and they wanted to get rid of their candy! Gabe and Caleb's floats were near the end. So Gabe waited once he got done and then when Devin's float came we hopped in there and drove back up to our car at Smith Park with them. Josh got home from work at about 4:00 and then we lit off some fireworks at our house. I was kind of wanting to go see big fireworks somewhere, but Gabe and Caleb (and Josh) really wanted to just stay home and see some of the neighbors light theirs off. Next year I should put my foot down and make them go somewhere. I used to love the fourth of July growing up because it meant a day at the lake and then fireworks at night. But it seems like Josh has to work every year and it's kind of a bummer. I think next year we should go to Wisconsin in July.

Anyways, the good news is that even though Josh had to work on the 4th and the 5th, he took off on the 6th and we headed down to Utah. Our friends, Chris and Holly, had rented a house in a town called Huntsville, Utah. I had never heard if it or been there but it had the most beautiful lake called Pineview Reservoir and it was PERFECT for boating/tubing/water surfing. On Friday night the boys immediately wanted to do tubing, so they did some of that. Then we stayed overnight in the house (which was this red brick historical house built in 1872 called the Valley House Inn) and woke up the next morning and had breakfast and went to the lake again. First we played on the beach for a little while and then we went back out on the boat. I tried water surfing but failed. It was fun to watch Josh and Chris though!

I wish we could've spent more time there, but the rental house had other people coming to check in so we needed to leave the lake around 4:00 and go back to the house to pack everything up. Then we drove home and got back to Rexburg about 8:00. I would love to go back there someday!

That next day on Sunday afternoon we went up past Ashton and stopped and fed Josh's dad's horses (he is still in Alaska) and did this other hike that turned out to be really long and it was really hot that day. Josh's mom, Diane, came with us and I think she feeling the burn. lol I don't think we should put Josh in charge of picking out hikes for us anymore. It wouldn't have even been that bad if it wasn't so hot - or if there was a lake at the end of the hike! We will need to do the Packsaddle hike soon. (That one ends in a lake.)

Lastly, Gabe got to go to a week long Scout Camp from July 9-13. He and three other boys, all age 12, went up with their scout leader, Brother Weber, early Monday morning. Josh and Caleb went up that morning too and helped set everything up. They stayed overnight and came home on Tuesday afternoon. Caleb really wanted to go but he was too young, so this way her at least got a little taste of it. Gabe had a lot of fun doing different merit badges in woodworking, leather making, basket weaving, and more. His favorite thing there though was probably swimming in the lake. He even completed the 1 mile swim challenge, where he basically swam a mile in the lake over the course of about an hour, with his leader canoeing along beside him to make sure he didn't die. Only about 5 boys in the whole camp (ages 12-16) did this (and there were probably about 250 boys there.) So it was a big accomplishment! We were able to go up there as a family and visit him for the closing ceremony on Friday night and watch him get his award. The lake was sooo beautiful!

He is actually at a lifeguard training camp at the city pool this whole week every morning from 7am-12pm. He is quite the little swimmer.

Oh and I did have a birthday in there as well. I tend to skip over that now that I'm just getting older to the point of it not being fun anymore. We didn't do much. Josh worked all day. I got a cupcake for my birthday cake. Pretty sad. I told Josh next year I wanna be on a lake waterskiing! This year he had taken so much time off already in the past two weeks with Alaska, the Lake weekend, then scout camp, so my birthday was low on the priority list. I will plan my own party next year.

So that is the summary of the past few weeks! I wanted to write this up before Avery's birthday party on Wednesday because that will have to be it's own post! I tend to go overboard on her parties...

Oh an maybe I should make mention... I ALMOST got a job this last week at BYUI. I had started to look on the job postings a few weeks back just thinking maybe I would find something part-time for this Fall once all my kids are in school. I happened to see a job posting in student activities and thought "That would be so fun! I'll never get it in a million years because so many people will apply, but what the heck!" So much to my surprise I actually got a call for a first interview... then a second interview... and then I didn't get it. lol But I honestly had 99 percent decided I probably wouldn't take it even if they offered it to me because it was full-time (M-F 8-5) and I just don't think me or my family could handle that. I also came to find out it was mostly office work and less super fun creative activity planning like I had hoped... so that made it less desirable. So that's that! I am still hoping to maybe find something part time just during the hours my kids are in school. I still have my Etsy shop but it has slowed down a lot compared to what it was in 2015 when I was putting in 8 hours a day or more! Etsy has made a lot of changes with how they run their site and the fees they charge sellers so it's been frustrating. The good news is I have more free time right now! The bad new is... I have less money!! haha So I think if I had a part-time job that gave me a guaranteed income for spending money/savings/vacations every month that would be a good thing.

That's all for now!