Summer Fun

Hi everyone! As the summer wraps up, I thought I'd take a few minutes and let everyone know how ours has gone. It's been busy of course, full of parades, races and all sorts of outdoor fun. We had two parades here in Vernal, both of which I marched in with the marching band and color guard, while Brock and Miri rode along in style, and Ella and Chad enjoyed watching all the cars and horses. I can't say Miri was too thrilled after the first parade and I was nervous to make her do a second but for some reason she enjoyed the second one much more than the first! No cries of protest for that one!

We decided one weekend to get a little brave and take the kids for what we thought would be an easy hike. Well, we were severely mislead and it was quite steep! Lots and lots of climbing, but the kids really enjoyed it. Ella thought the Indian Petroglyphs on the mountain were really cool while Brock's favorite part was...the giant rocks.

We had my sister Brittany and her husband Mark come out for a weekend to visit and while they were here we went to an awesome car show and enjoyed some delicious steaks that Chad BBQed up for us.

And then of course, probably mine and Chad's favorite summer activity so far was our river rafting trip. The kids did not join us on this one, although we told Ella that we would consider bringing her along next year. The rapids were great and we had an absolute blast. We had a spilt second when we hit a rapid that I bounced up so high that we were both thinking I was about to end up in the water, but thankfully, I did not. It was a great trip and we will definitely be doing it again!

One of the most exciting things that has happend in our family most recently has been a major change in Chad's work schedule. He now works Monday-Friday with every weekend off. Horray! It has been just over two years since he has had a nice schedule like that and we are so grateful for it. He can now attend church regularly with us and I no longer have to struggle alone to maintain at least a little bit of order during sacrament meeting...now I'll have someone to help out during the struggle! :) The kids are happy too since this means that (for the most part) Chad gets home earlier in the evening and he gets to help tuck them in bed every night. They sure love that!

Now, I'm not sure when exactly when I will blog again as next week we officially go back to school and that marks the beginning of just over two VERY busy months for us full of marching band practices and shows. But, Ella is excited to start second grade, return to girl scouts and this year we will be adding dance classes two days a week for her to our schedule as well. She also has a week long cheerleading clinic with the high school cheerleaders and they get to show off what they will have learned during half time of a football game. She can't wait and I promise lots of pictures!

Brock continues to grow and learns new words every day. He is constantly asking me what things are so that he can try new words out and see how they sound. He loves having dance parties with his sisters and attempting to wrestle with his dad.

Miri is finding her voice in life as well. She still doesn't say too many words but recently, she has learned how to shriek like a wild animal. Where she learned that sort of behavior we cannot seem to figure out because there is no way she could have picked it up from her incredibly mellow and soft spoken older sibblings. ;) She too loves to dance and has even learned that getting a running start before jumping on dad makes it even more fun! All three of them are an absolute joy and we are constantly talking about how lucky we are to have them.

We hope that everyone has had a safe and enjoyable summer!