Well hear I am, once again, months behind on keeping the kids documented, despite my determination to stay on top of it! I am determined to get caught up again, especially with Halloween upon us, and then I know I'll blink and Christmas will be here! So, Summer catch up! Pierce and Madi were excited to be out of school and Pierce said goodbye to Elementary school. Crazy. I always dread summer and feel like a terrible mother for dreading it, but I've realized the first 2 weeks are rough as Pierce and Madi adjust to being home and spending so much time together, then they do great! Until the last two weeks. Then I'm beyond ready to have them out of the house and away from each other. But all those weeks in between were actually pretty darn good. Here are some of our June Highlights...
The kids were so excited for Park City this year. Now that they are a little older they were really looking forward to it and remembering the fun they had
last time. We also
bribed motivated them to have good behavior the month leading up to the trip with "BYU Bucks", a brilliant idea if I may say so. We had never been to the BYU Bookstore before and we figured if we could leave early enough in the day we could stop in Provo and take our little Cougar fans to campus and to pick something out at the bookstore. Worked great! Ryan made cute little BYU bucks and I gave them to the kids for doing their chores with good attitudes, being kind and helpful, etc. They were so excited to go spend their BYU bucks!
Pierce got a cool new hat, Madi picked out a BYU Hello Kitty (of course), we got a BYU shirt for Jens and I thoroughly enjoyed a bag of chocolate covered cinnamon bears that were kept hidden from the kids.
My Cougar Fans in front of the Y!
We also stopped at the BYU creamery for an ice cream cone, which did not disappoint, as you can see.
Also like our last Park City trip, Ryan was in class all day and the kids and I hung out at the hotel all day. It was much more enjoyable this time! Jens slept great and was so much fun. We had Madi and Jens sleep on the pull out couch together and Jens loved it, Pierce slept in the loft room upstairs. Everyone sleeping = everyone having fun. I am so grateful Jens has become easier to travel with, for a while there I was pretty convinced we were never going anywhere again. Well at least until he is 5, but thankfully he's turned into a great traveler now! The kids had a grand time, hot tubbing on the deck, swimming, and hanging out at the hotel playing games and watching movies was fun for them! We also had Aunt Kate, Bennett and Macy join us for a day and come with us to the Alpine Slide. Ryan ditched classes for a couple of hours so we could have a little family time and do the slide again. Tay was also up in Park City for soccer games and we were able to go watch her team play.
Ryan with Bennett and Pierce coming down the slide!
Jens did pretty good for his first time! He was a little hesitant but I just kept telling him we were going fast "like Rocket" and that made it all good.
Pierce had been begging to go on the "big" zip line this year, he was tall enough and so excited so Ryan took him, he loved it!
Everyone had fun on the Alpine Coaster!
My cute All American swimmers!
Our last night there was the UOA Conference family pic nic. The kids enjoyed hot dogs and hamburgers and cookies and best of all free unlimited rides on the carousel at the Zermot!
Madi was in Heaven, she went again and again.
I love this picture, this is so her, gazing lovingly at her Pig she's riding. Don't think she really realizes it's acutely a wild boar. It was her favorite. She had fallen and scraped her knee and had been in hysterics. Thankfully a nice man came to the rescue with a bandage, that and a dozen carousel rides and she was happy again.
Almost thinks he's too big, glad not quite yet.
Jens enjoyed the carousel as long as it was from mom and dad's lap on the bench. He wanted nothing to do with sitting on an animal.
Madi with the kind Carousel operator.
The nice carousel man told Madi that this bear was also named "Matty", (not matter that it's a different name, it sounds the same!) She was pretty excited about that!
The kids were sad to leave the hotel, they had such a fun time! One of the funniest things was how much Jens loved being at the hotel, he was fascinated by the parking garbage and dubbed it the "spooky garage". Since this trip he has talked frequently of the "hotel with the spooky garage", he can't wait to go back and definitely has a thing for hotels now. Just recently we were driving in the car and he was looking out the window and said "Mom, I don't see any hotels". He is so funny, he keeps us laughing for sure.
We left Park City Sunday morning and were able to drive to Salt Lake to attend J.D. and Amanda's ward to see them bless their new baby, Amelia. (aka Millie) We were glad that we were able to be there to support them and to see our cousins for a little bit.
