Week of July 4th

 Me and my girl before church...

 The week of the 4th was mostly spent with The Carlsons!  Russ and Emily made their way from California to Utah and spent a few days with us!  Here's all the kids eating their lunch, I actually got all of them looking at the camera!

 Grammy has been asking for some new pictures of her grandkids reading a book to put in her library.  Early one morning we took them up the street from my house and snapped some quick pics while they were still happy.  I think we got some pretty cute ones!

 The night before the 4th Uncle Russ bought a few fireworks.  The kids were in heaven playing with sparklers...

We headed to the Lewiston Parade in the morning...

 Cute lil' Vi

Jack, Carter and Hailey watching the parade and collecting Loot...

The rest of the day was spent just chillaxin' and BBQing, trying to stay cool!

Trip to Uncle Don & Aunt Paula's

 Bryan has an Aunt and Uncle in Bishop California.  We haven't been out to visit since Carter was a baby, so we thought we would head out there for a few days.  Bryan has always talked very highly about his Uncle Don, and now that I've met him a few times I know why.  Don and Paula have a beautiful backyard with a pond and it's a very relaxing place to hang out.  This above sign is in the pond.  The first morning we were there, Hailey came in the house quite distraught.  I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that Carter had told her she had to take all her clothes off and jump in the pond.  I went outside to reprimand Carter, and found out that he was telling her what the "No Skinny Dippin'" sign meant, and she was thinking he was telling her to do it!

This trip ended up being quite the family reunion.  Bryan's Dad rode with us, Bryan's Mom met us out there, and then the day after we got there, his brother and family came to stay.  

Carter and Hailey practicing their gambling skills :)

 The arm that you had to pull on the slot machine was pretty hard to pull.  I thought it was pretty funny to watch Hailey use those little muscles of hers to get it rollin'

 Uncle Don took Bry and the kids looking for frogs and they brought them back to his little pond.  The frogs unfortunately didn't want to stay in the pond and kept jumping out, but they had so much fun with them!

 Hailey doing crafts with Papa...

 Uncle Don has a few "pet" fish in his pond and it's always fun to feed them...

One day we went to check out the "Laws Museum" there.  I was really glad we went.  It was really cool!  It was basically set up as a little town from the late 1800's.  There was everything from a store, a working mine, a train, schoolhouse, homes, bar, mechanic shop, and several other buildings.

 There were all sorts of critters running around.  Bryan is trying to catch a lizard...those little suckers were too quick though!

 Serving alcohol to minors, probably not the best idea boys...

 The cute little schoolhouse...

 Bryan and Russ' favorite room...

 The kids enjoying an afternoon feeding fish...

 Playing games with Grammy...

 I loved all the beautiful flowers and plants in their yard...

 Violet reminds me of Hailey when she was younger.  She had to carry all her bags and toys at the same time, she couldn't leave any behind!

 A pretty sunflower in their garden...

 The grill masters cookin' up some yummy ribs, artichokes and squash...

 Violet and Hailey playing in the stream...

 The sweet neighbors offered to let us come over and swim in their pool!  We took them up on it.  Carter had finished swimming lessons the previous week and was excited to put his newly learned skills to use!

 Uncle Don kindly coaxing Hailey to eat her breakfast...

 Jack and Maggie

All the dogs and kids like to hang in this spot under the kitchen island

The whole clan...

Don, Paula, their sweet dog Newby, Papa, Maggie, Myself, Hailey, Bryan, Carter, Emily, Violet, Jack, Russ, and Grammy

Thanks Don and Paula for letting us crash your place, we can't wait to come back!

First Week of Summer...

 We went up Providence Canyon Sunday afternoon and played around a bit on the bikes.  This was Carters first "off road" experience and he did really well!  So far he had only puttered around the neighborhood and our yard.

 Checkin' out the beautiful waterfall...

 Carter learned about knife safety in scouts and carved this piece of soap.  If you can't read it, it says "I love you Mom".  He stuck it in the shower to surprise me which I thought was so sweet!

 The kids participated in a Bible Camp all week.  This is the fun ladies doing a little skit...

 Carter wasn't sure he wanted to do it, but after the first day, I picked him up and he immediately asked if he could come back the next day.  Most days he would come home and tell me what person they had talked about in the Bible, and what activities they did to learn about that person.  I was really glad that he enjoyed it so much!

Thursday they got to make tie dyed shirts and then wear them on Friday.

 They don't look too thrilled in this picture, it was hot and they were ready to go home, they did have fun though!

 Saturday was the annual Providence Days.  The kids did the bike parade this year.  Here's them with their spiffy bikes...

 There were only 8 kids in all, which is strange, usually there's lots more!

They only rode from one end of the park to the other, so it wasn't too far.  They thought it was fun to ride in the middle of the street with policeman blocking traffic for them!

 After the bike parade they played games...

 Grandma and Grandpa came up for lunch before the bike parade and braved the heat with us at the park...

 They did a "chicken run" which the kids wanted to participate in.  Little did I know that if they caught the chicken, they got to take it home.  Guess who caught a chicken.....Yep, Carter ran faster than I've ever seen him run!!!!  So, to add to our seven chickens, meet our new addition "Providence".  We were not thrilled about this by any means, because Providence is smaller than our other chickens and we knew that would be a problem!  They are not letting her eat, so we have had to set up a different area for her, yay!! Hopefully they will get used to each other and all get along!

 This was right when we brought Providence home.  KFC walked out, stood right in front of her, and stared her down.  It was actually pretty hilarious!

Poor Providence has had a rough start in life.  First she gets chased by like 30 kids, then is taken to a strange place with bigger chickens that pick on her, not to mention a 5 year old girl constantly trying to pet and hold her!

Hailey, Malynn, Hayden, Carter and Easton
(after our ride)
This last Sunday after church we went up to Beaver to do some more dirt biking.  Our friends, The Ewers, had a dirt bike that they let me borrow so that I could learn how to ride.  All this time I thought I was happy on a four wheeler.  I was really nervous to try the dirt bike, but it went really well and I loved it!  Now our four wheeler is for sale, so I can buy my own dirt bike!

Bring On Summer!

 Hailey had a cute little preschool graduation where her class sang some of the songs they learned during the year.  I can't believe she is starting kindergarten in the Fall!  I think she is ready and she is very excited!

 Hailey with her cute preschool teacher, Miss Jill.  Hailey loved going to preschool and she will miss her teacher and all of her little friends!

 I asked Carter what he would like to do to celebrate his last day of school.  He said he wanted to ride his dirt bike to school, and "clean the sink" at Angies.  So that's what we did!

 On his way to his last day of 3rd grade...

We had him take a chain and lock, and he just parked it with the other bikes.  Bryan kind of followed far behind to make sure that he got it put away properly.  There was quite a crowd of little kids around him as he came into the school parking lot.

Later in the day we went to "Clean the sink" at Angie's.  We went with just our little family a week prior to this, and couldn't eat all of it, so we brought reinforcements this time!  The Tueller's were able to help us out!

Now we're full swing into summer, and havin' lots of fun!