JULY Highlights

We had a great July! We started the month down in St. George and we just kept having fun from there! We celebrated Rick's birthday on July 9th (his birthday is on the 10th) with a family dinner at our house. My grandma and sister Anne came and it was nice to catch up and visit with them. 

Our neighbors had back to back week long vacations in July. Shannon hired the boys to water her flowers, get her mail and feed Nico's fish while they were gone. They were really good at remembering their jobs for the first week. When the Paynes came home after the first week the boys got paid $2 each. They LOVED pay day. The second week required a few more reminders from me and I have to admit that the flowers did not get watered everyday. Upon seeing Shannon for the first time since returning from her second week long vacation Brady said, "Hello Shannon. Welcome back. Did you enjoy your dream vacation to Hawaii?" Sike! The first words out of his mouth were, "Do you have more dollars for us?" Bah. Kids can be so embarrassing.

Camden loved Nico's fish. He would point to the bowl and yell at it multiple times a day. 

 One random Tuesday we had nothing to do. I was looking through our mail and noticed that American Fork was having a free swim day at the rec center. With no plans and a hot afternoon to fill, I decided to not think and just go! So we did. After Camden got up from his nap I got everyone in their suits and we headed out. This was my first time taking all three kids swimming by myself this year. I went in with low expectations and it went much better than I thought it would!

Ryan ditched the floaties and was swimming like a fish (so long as he could touch the bottom) by the time we left. Brady had to get out and go to the bathroom about 5 times during the two hours we were at the pool. So, that was fun.

Adobe has one day each summer when they invite their employees to bring family to work. Ryan went last summer and loved it. It was called Kid's Day last year and you had to be atleast 5 years old so Brady had to stay home with me. They changed it this year to Adobe Field Trip and made it so your could bring anybody. Brady was thrilled to get to go with Zach and Ryan this time! They had fun and came home super tired. Camden and I met them for lunch at Chik-Fil-A and then Ry and Brady just came home with us after lunch.

Brady learned to ride a bike like a pro in July! Kristen found a bike just his size up in Midway for $5 so she picked it up for him. I've dubbed this summer our "Bike Summer". The boys spend just about all day everyday out riding their bikes all around the neighborhood. There's a whole gang of little boys who ride their bikes together. It's adorable and they love it! (For the record, this is the only time I will support my boys being in a bike gang.)

We were lucky enough to have Angela and her kids spend the night at our house in July. Angela and I grew up in the same ward and then we were college roommates at BYU. When we moved to Las Vegas after Zach graduated Angela and Mike were living there too. It was so fun to reconnect in Las Vegas and be "mom friends" with our first baby boys. Colton was Ryan's very first friend. The Roses moved from Las Vegas right before we left to come back to BYU for Zach's MBA. Long story short, the Roses have found themselves back in Las Vegas (which is much closer than Michigan where they used to live!) Angela's family had a reunion in Park City so Angela and her two boys came up early and spent one night with us before heading to her family reunion. It had been three years since we last were together and the boys didn't skip a beat. By the end of their visit Ryan was asking me when we were moving back to Las Vegas to live near Colton!

It was so fun to see Angela again. It's funny how time goes by and suddenly you realize you have friendships that are over ten years old! It will be eleven years ago this coming fall that Angela and I were roommates our freshman year at BYU. That is crazy to me.

Zach decided to buy a new (to us) car. He had been driving our 2004 Matrix that we bought when I was pregnant with Ryan. He found a pretty sweet deal on a 2009 Matrix with a manual transmission and the rest is history. I had to laugh because our driveway looks exactly the same. If you didn't know we bought a car you would never guess it. We traded out one grey Toyota Matrix for another. We are literally the most boring people I know- but we love that car!

In Utah they celebrate the 24th of July. It's called Pioneer Day which is cute and all, but I still have a bone to pick that we don't celebrate Columbus Day here. Not getting Columbus Day off was one of the shocks of coming to school in Utah. That and no snow days. Get it together Utah! Anyway, back to fake holiday Pioneer Day. Zach didn't get off of work because Adobe is a legitimate business but we did celebrate with some neighbors down the street after he got home. We had some fireworks left over from the 4th of July last year. They were embarrassingly small compared to the ones our neighbors had. I was just glad Zach had the good sense to set ours off first. The kids loved it. Pioneers were remembered. The end.

My Grandma had a birthday on July 26th. We had her over for dinner the Sunday after her birthday and threw her a little party. She was a good sport and pretended to be surprised. She turned 79 this year. She's simply the best. I adore watching my boys interact with her. I am so glad they get to have her as a grandma too.

That brings us to August. Someone thought it would be a good idea to have the kids go back to school mid way through the month. Wrong! I am really not ready for our Summer break to be over. I have thoroughly enjoyed the time we've spent at home together and am not ready to say goodbye to Ryan every morning and send him off ALL DAY to first grade. I'm trying to make the most of our last week of summer at home. We leave for California on Friday to accompany Zach to a conference for work. Beaches, no house cleaning for a week and Disneyland? Yes, please! (More later) And then the next week is the first week of school. Cue my annual back to school depression. You'd think I'd be over it by now, but no. 12 more years coming right up! and that doesn't even begin to account for the years Brady and Camden have left. Excuse me while I go crawl into bed and cry.