Photo Shoot

We had an amazing photographer come up to our family reunion to take pictures.  We decided to have some pictures taken of our little family.  You can tell we aren't all as photogenic as we'd like to be.  And I didn't have a hair dryer so my hair looks awful.  Oh well!  We got some cute pics despite Sophie's bad mood and Abby's difficulty with smiling naturally on camera.  I'm pretty sure Alice wins for cutest picture ever.

Reunion fun!

We had a big family reunion for my mom's side of the family a few weeks ago.  Almost everyone was able to make it.  It was a blast - I really enjoyed seeing so many aunts/uncles/cousins.  It's fun to see everyone's cute kids, I get a lot of pleasure seeing my kids play with their extended family.  We ate lots of raspberry shakes, played lots of games at night, and pretty much just enjoyed everyone's company.  It was really nice being in a big house together - especially for those of us that would like to stay up after our kids are in bed.  Hotel rooms just don't foster that very well.

I didn't really get any genius pictures, but here's a few anyway:

4th of July

We were at Bear Lake for the 4th of July holiday this year.  My parents were gracious enough to let us use a few days of their time share before they came up to use it at our family reunion.  The place was really nice - if only the beds were more comfortable I'd probably want to live there.  We went to church on the 3rd at the local LDS chapel and there were probably 800 people there for sacrament meeting!  I guess they had one or two other sacrament meetings that day with similar numbers.

We heard about a 4th of July chuckwagon breakfast in Paris, ID and decided to try that out.  I've never seen a longer food line!  We turned around and drove the 25 minutes back to Garden City where we just about 8 minutes too late for breakfast.  (Can't you keep serving breakfast for a few minutes past 10:00???)  So breakfast was corn dogs and a raspberry shake.  We drove back up to Paris for the parade and the kids got lots of candy and plastic necklaces.  They were pretty satisfied.  Then I think we got another shake.

We sat on the balcony of the condo and watched fireworks over the lake, in the distance, and up on the adjacent hill.  It was pretty great and the girls didn't seem to miss our usual family fireworks too much.  It was a fun Independence day - getting to be in a new place and experience different things.  I think adventure is good for me sometimes!

Swimmy swimmy swim

I love seeing my kids swimming and enjoying it!  Abby and Sophie finished up their swimming lessons and both passed on to the next level up.  Abby is working on the different strokes - it's kind of painful to watch.  Sophie mostly gets to play and have the teacher float her in the water so far.  The next level should be more intensive for her.  I really need to get in the pool and work with Abby so she can have the different movements *click* for her.  (The rhythm is tricky to get, but once you do it's MUCH easier!)  Here's some pics of them.  I didn't get anything fabulous because I was trying to be inconspicuous and also not lose Alice in the process.

 

I had to sneak an Alice shot in.

 

One day Abby will care how her hair looks in pictures - that day is NOT any time soon.  :)

 

She may not know how to swim - but she feels VERY comfortable in the water now

So happy for Summertime!

I'm SO glad it's finally warm!  Summer around here is pretty fun - and really beautiful right now.  Here's my little buddy at swimming lessons with me.  (I'll get pictures of Sophie and Abby swimming on another day.)

Last day of 1st Grade

Abby finished 1st grade today.  The school day lasted a whole hour and a half!  She's been home for about an hour and already she said she misses the kids from school.  I hope that isn't foreshadowing for how this summer goes.  Abby will need to get used to our humdrum lifestyle here at home.  At least Sophie won't be sad that she has nobody to play with for most of the day.

Abby had an excellent teacher this year, hopefully next year's teacher will be just as good - if not better.

End of Soccer!!

Okay, so soccer really ended about a month ago - but I just pulled the pictures off the camera.  Lazy!!  The weather was pretty miserable this year for soccer, so we didn't have a very enjoyable time at the games.  I think there were about two games with decent weather.  Maybe two.  Anyway, here are a few pictures to help us remember the season.

Abby kicked the ball!!

Abby looks pretty hard core since her wrist is wrapped - but that was from a tragic falling all the way down the stairs accident rather than a soccer injury.

Go White Lightning!

Papa and Gigi helped provide distractions for Sophie and Alice during some games.

Alice loves the attention of the "big" kids.  Thanks Brock!