Back to school

The boys headed back to school today. And there was much rejoicing - yay! Brennan and I have enjoyed a quiet day together while Levi has mostly slept. I read the paper. I cleaned out the fridge and freezer, throwing away mysterious frozen meat dating back 2 1/2 years. I took out the trash. I got caught up on laundry. I played with Brennan. I ate chocolate. I can't wait to hear all about their first day back.

Get well soon, grandpa

My grandpa has had a rough few weeks. It started when he fell at home, and he was so weak that my mom had to call the ambulance to help him. He had a bladder infection and dehydration and had to be admitted. Now he's staying at a recovery center, and we are waiting for him to gain strength and weight so he can go back home. But all he wants to do is sleep and not eat, so he's losing weight instead. On Monday the boys made him cards and we went down to see him for family home evening. He was alert and happy to see us, but by the end of the visit he was ready to go back to bed. As we left Levi said "Bye!" and waved for the first time. It was so sweet. Get well soon, grandpa. We love you!

Day at the beach

We enjoyed a beautiful day at the beach last Saturday. Dave had to be there in the evening for a multi-stake youth activity, so we went there early with him.

I think we've finally gotten all the sand out of Levi's crevices. He spent the whole time eating sand and old coals.


Spencer had fun skimboarding.





It was in the 70's with very little wind. A perfect day at the beach!

Then all the youth showed up for the cardboard boat race. Ours sank before it got past the waves and earned the baptism award. Then we had hamburgers and hot dogs, and I took the boys home while Dave stayed to help out with the dance. What a fun activity!

Meet Rex

I am not a pet person. I used to love animals when I was little - cats, hamsters, fish. I thought they were so cute, and I was always trying to talk my mom into letting me keep stray cats. And then I had kids and decided they were way cuter. Plus they more than fill my need to nurture, and I don't want more work. Now my kids are the ones begging for pets, but we're limited in our options because of Spencer's allergies - dogs, cats, and basically anything with fur. Once we watched our friends' hamster while they were on vacation, and Spencer had red itchy eyes for a week. It's actually provided me with a great excuse not to have to own anything more than fish. And whenever one of our fish die, I'm secretly happy inside that I get to put the fishtank and supplies back into storage. Well Spencer has been working really hard to get a reptile for the past year or so. He asked for a snake for his birthday, and we just laughed. So he decided to save up for one. When he was up to $80, he asked me to take him to the pet store. He's so dang persistent, and he wore me out. There weren't many snakes to choose from at Petco, but this cute little bearded dragon caught our eye. While all the reptiles were sleeping in the back corners, this little guy was all excited, watching us intently as we walked by and running back and forth. So Spencer bought him and named him Rex.

He eats veggies, crickets and millworms. That's way better than mice.

Spencer has had so much fun with him. Rex loves being held, and he'll just hang out on Spencer's shoulder.

So far he's been a great pet. No noise, no smell (that I've noticed), and very entertaining. When he's bigger we can even get a leash and take him on walks. Now if we can just keep him alive.

Wedding, Part II

Last weekend was Ben and Barbara's wedding, or at least the one they invited all their friends to. Brennan was the ring bearer, and he was so incredibly excited to do this. Anna was going to be the flower girl, but she moved to Hawaii. So Sabrina filled in, and they both did a great job.

Barbara looked so beautiful! She designed her dress, and her theater friend made it. She looked classy and elegant, and I especially liked her 50's style hair & veil. Since her name is Barbara Ann and she has so much style, she danced down the aisle to the song, "Barbara Ann." I just love her!


Brennan loved twirling Sabrina the way Ben twirled Barbara.



Their wedding was the perfect combination of tradition/non-traditional with their own style written everywhere. Instead of a wedding cake, they had a tower of pies. It was fun to have so many options.


What a great party! And those actor friends of theirs are sure a fun group. There was lots of dancing (by people who actually know how to dance), energy and cheering throughout. And the setting was amazing. It's where Dave & I were going to get married, but it rained that day and we had to move it to the church. But Ben and Barbara couldn't have asked for a better day - it was sunny and beautiful. Wedding Part III will be a temple sealing in March.

Tidepooling

Some of my family came for part II of Ben's wedding, and we had fun hanging out with them all week. One day we went on a walk along the bluffs.

But we all stopped to watch a rattlesnake. This created a lot of excitement, as you can imagine.

I love this hike because there are so many beautiful views along the way.

No one fell, so that was good.

When we reached a beach access, everyone ran down to explore.

It was super low tide, and there was a huge area of tidepools, teaming with life.

This was definitely the highlight of the day. It was even cooler than the rattlesnake.

Sea anenomes, crabs, sea stars, sea urchins - it was awesome.

It was hard to pull ourselves away. But people were starving at this point, so we had to hurry home for dinner.

Primary water party

A couple of Saturdays ago we had our annual water party for the kids at church, and since I'm working in primary again, I was there to take lots of pictures. We had a great turnout (which was good because several families were out of town), and the weather was warm and sunny.

The highlight was this huge water slide that my friend owns and bravely donated for the event. It was a lot of fun.

My sister Emily & her family arrived from Utah the night before, so her kids came too.

We had 4 stations, and I was in charge of one of them. We played "Dribble, Dribble Drench," which is duck, duck, goose with a water sponge.

And a relay game of filling up buckets using ziplock bags with holes.


They also had to pop balloons in a baby pool.


When I told them about it, they all said, "That's easy!" Turns out it was almost impossible, and many resorted to biting them or throwing them onto the grass instead.


At another station they made and played with water balloon yo-yo's. Amazingly, we still have a couple intact at our house.

There was another station of games and relays. Here they had to put on wet sweatpants. This took awhile.



Afterwards they ate Otter pops.

And of course ended with the traditional water fight. I managed to stay relatively dry with my camera in hand.

Weekend at the lake

A couple weekends ago we stayed with our friends at their family's lake house. We went last year, and the boys were so excited to go there again. Spencer and Tyler liked going tubing really fast with Hallie and Dallon.

Then Dallin and Brennan went on it very slow with Dave. In fact Brennan even fell asleep in the 5 mph section. Our friends said that was a first to have someone sleep on the tube.

After dinner we watched a beautiful sunset from their back patio. Then we put all the kids to bed and stayed up way too late playing games.

Levi did great on the boat. He even went swimming with me out in the lake. He's our first baby to actually like going in the water.

We ate a picnic out on the boat, then we went to the marina for ice cream.

We had such a fun day. Then we came home and collapsed from exhaustion.