Oh wow! I am behind in my posts! I'm going to try to do some catching up this week and then will try to stay on top of it.
Angelo loves to cook and he often makes tamales at home, so while he was here, we made some tamales together and I picked up a couple of good tricks from him during his tamale making.
Chick Fil A gives out free entrees and kids meals on July 11th if you dress up like a cow, so we did :).
Elisabeth, Abby and Maddie registered for a Harry Potter day camp through the library a couple of months ago and the big day finally came! I joined them at the very end for Hogsmeade where they were serving butterbeer(basically cream soda with a dab of whipped cream on the top and a little caramel syrup).
Scott paused his basement work for a week so that he could install ceiling fans in three of our warmest bedrooms. It has made a big difference. Thanks honey!
Amanda, Maren and I got together with Samantha Hastings who was in our old ward and moved out a few years ago. I loved catching up and I always enjoy visiting with these ladies.
Smore faced Nora! I love having a fire pit.
Nora often has bad dreams (I think we need to make sure she's not watching everything the big kids are watching, like Pokemon and Avatar) and will end up in our bedroom on the floor, or in bed with Annabelle or Elisabeth, like in this picture here.
We found out our local AMC, which has reclining chairs, shows movies for $4.50 if you go before noon, so I took the big kids to see Wonder Woman one Saturday morning, which was a great movie! (I sat in between the two girls because we knew before hand there was going to be a scene when a guy was going to be finishing up with bathing and even though he was covered, he was barely covered so when the part happened, I closed my eyes and put my hands over the girls eyes so they knew when to close them).
The last month of summer is a lot of 'time away from home' for Elisabeth. First off was her week long piano camp at USU in Logan. She was grateful to room with Sara Arkell, a good friend of ours since their babyhood :). Then it was girls camp, then visiting family in WA and after that she has a week at Oakcrest which is like another church girls camp but with more activities and only girls going into the 8th grade.
She really enjoyed her time up at USU.
Charles started taking guitar lessons at the beginning of summer (stopped piano lessons), and he is really enjoying it. He knows how to tune the guitar on his own, and this week he and I put on a new string after one broke. He has also learned how to play multiple songs from the Church Primary song book which is so fun! I love when he sings along! When the school year starts and orchestra begins at school, he'll have to join band or orchestra so we'll see what he decides to do.
Annabelle is in another sewing class over the summer. It's 4 weeks long and it's in our neighborhood so she can walk which is an amazing help for mom! She loves it and is getting to do it with a couple of friends which is nice.
I went with Charles to SLC for a scout activity where we learned about coins and we made our own coin out of a washer and a penny. Good old boy scouts!
We finally allowed Charles to start tackle football this year; he'd been begging for years. As we were in line waiting to get equipment I asked again, "are you sure you want to do this? It's not to late. We can go home right now." He wasn't having that. He loves his 2 hour practices multiple times a week and his games (even though they have yet to win) so my attitude has changed and I'm happy he's found something he enjoys so much, and where he gets a lot of great conditioning! He walks into my car red faced and sweaty after each practice.
Since we exercise daily, I'm trying to take the kids on hikes a little more often to switch things up. This is a new one called Rocky Mouth and it's not too far away, only about a 20 minute drive, and the hike is short but beautiful.
Scott has been working hard on the basement and here are some pictures with updates:
mostly he's been working on electrical and some plumbing. Lights installed under the stairs for the playroom, and the window cut which will look into the gym.
theater lights in with dimmers
canned lights in gym installed. Things are coming along!
Nora got some gum stuck in her hair; coconut oil (or peanut butter) take it out nicely.
We were lucky enough this summer to have several good friends visit whom we hadn't seen in years! First up was the Christensen family. Scott was college roommates with Eric for two years at BYU and he and Katie got engaged about the same time as Scott and I so we got to know each other through that connection. After marriage(14 years ago), we all continued school at BYU and got together a couple of times for game nights. They moved to Idaho several years ago and we stayed with them one night on the way to WA and then we hadn't seen each other since. It was fun to catch up and see how all our combined 11 kids have grown!
April was my roommate at BYU during my sophomore year. She is a sweetheart and a dear who works hard and gets things done! She lives in Utah, and we've gotten together multiple times over the past 14 years, but it has been several years since our last time meeting up. It was so good to catch up, to meet her youngest child and see her older kiddos.
Scott and I celebrated our 14 year anniversary with sealings at the temple (love this tradition), Indian food for dinner and then we played some outdoor pickle ball at a park near our house. It was a wonderful evening. I sure love this guy!
July 26 I finished reading the New Testament( I started it in January)! I've made it a goal (started last year)to go through all the books in the scriptures again and now I'm through the Old and New Testament, the Book of Mormon and I'm about half way through the Doctrine and Covenants. I love the scriptures, all of them, and know they are the word of God and am so grateful to have His words in my life daily!
I taught Charles how to make my favorite dessert: raw key lime pie. I'm hoping he'll make it again in the future as a surprise for mom! Love this son of ours.
I took this picture of our wall where we keep track of the children's height. Charles and Elisabeth have grown a lot in 2017! I didn't have a mark for Charles early in 2017 which is a bummer so I don't know exactly how much he's grown, but Elisabeth shows she's grown 2 inches this year! She's been anxiously anticipating some growth for quite some time! She's not quite up to Charles height, don't know that she ever will be, but she's growing!
The day we took off for Washington, we made sure to make time for a visit with our neighbors when we were living in Colorado. It was so good to catch up with Desi and Mike and the entire Rogers family. We sure love them and have missed our close assosiation as Desi and I got together very frequently during the 2 years we were in CO.
The 4 oldest kids all remembered eachother and warmed up to each other very quickly, as if no time had passed at all. Nora and their Ivy were both 2-3 years old when we moved back so they didn't remember but they still got along nicely. Thanks for stopping in Rogers!
