4th of July Celebration

Okay. So really we had our celebration the evening of the 3rd. We went swimming at Lala's and then watched fireworks in Fountain Hills.  Since this was the ONE family outing that we got to have with Daddy this summer, there are lots of swimming photos.  Brychan has been begging to go swimming with Daddy to show of his new swimming skills and the boys were so excited that Daddy got to play with us!

Just in the last month, Brychan has decided that his arm floaties will, in fact, keep him afloat.  It has taken several summers of trying to convince him and some "tough love" tactics to get him to believe us.  Now that he trusts his floaties, he loves swimming so much more!

Even Jessa had fun swimming this time!  Usually she just tolerates the pool for a few minutes before deciding to just nap through the entire excursion.

And, all my loves, enjoying their play time together!

David is creeping closer to getting his life back.  It's still going to be a long 4 weeks to get there, but we are still happily counting down.  We have a big family outing planned for his very first available Saturday.  He has been studying 7 days a week (including the 4th of July) for awhile now, and is taking his first huge test as we speak (his next one is on July 27).  After that, he's out of town for his final week of training before he gets to start on his own.   We can't wait!!!

Last Day of School 2013

I was just cleaning out my email, and came across these photos.  I cannot believe I forgot about them!  So, even though it's been almost 2 months since the last day of school, here are the photos from Brychan's last day of Preschool.

They had an ice cream sundae party; this is while we were waiting to begin.  Bella is our really good friend (she's also in our ward and we carpooled with her every day).

 Enjoying his ice cream!

 I think Kehlton had just as much fun pouring his own water as he did anything else.

Kehlton and Brychan with Mrs. Mellisa.  I know I've said it before, but we LOVE her.  Although we are so sad for Brychan to be leaving her, we are just as excited that Kehlton will have her in August!

Cloudburst Before The Light

I know it's been a long time since I've updated this blog.  And I have a TON of photos to put up today.  The last couple of months have been extremely difficult around here; and we are just now getting to the point where we can see some light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel.  Just a quick recap:

4 deaths in the last 4 weeks.  One we were waiting for and expecting, one shouldn't have really been a surprise but was, and the other two were completely shocking and unexpected.  Those two were definitely tragic and unsettling.

Two trips to the ER within one 30 day period.  One for David and his newfound kiwi allergy.  One for me after waking up honestly thinking I was going to die.  We still don't know what's wrong with me; we're guessing at this point that it has to do something with my gall bladder.  But it was the longest, scariest and most painful night of my life.  I do not wish to repeat it.  EVER.  I am SO grateful to amazing friends that we can call at 1:00 in the morning to come over and stay with the kids.  I seriously have the best girlfriends anyone could ask for!  That night in the ER kicked off our 6th anniversary.  After being sick all day, we scrapped our dinner plans and just went to a movie (which I slept through).  Got home to news of one of the aforementioned deaths.  Needless to say, it was not the anniversary I was hoping for.

Finding out, for certain, that Kehlton has a pretty significant speech delay/disability.  I've known for awhile that that was the case, but watching him be tested a couple of times and actually hearing the results was still hard.  I have a meeting to create his IEP tomorrow, and he will start in a special needs preschool in August (he will actually be in the same preschool class that Brychan has been a peer model in for the last 2 years).

Work, work and more work.  Or maybe it would be more appropriate to say "total lack of work".  Let me tell ya: Real Estate is NOT for the faint of heart! :)

I know there's more, but those are the big things.  I don't know how many times I called or texted my mother in tears; just tired of nothing but bad news. BUT.  Our cloud storm finally seems to be moving on and we can finally see some sun poking through!  David started his new job with Edward Jones on June 3, Brychan is officially in a kindergarten program, everybody is healthy and happy and we got to spend a week having fun in cooler weather with lots of family.

And, here is just the start of all of our fun photos from our recent trip to Utah!

 All the cousins had a blast playing all week, even though this photo might lead you to believe something different.  :)  Ellie, Zach and Kehlton really enjoyed playing dress up!

 My boys with Ellie, Jacob and Zach.

 Kehlton and Colin in one of their hide-outs.  My boys LOVED playing in the trees and rocks while we were there (obviously that's not something we get to do very often around here).

 They were also infatuated with all the rain.  Which is good, cause we definitely saw a lot of it!!  It was SO cold for the first few days.  For us, it was dead of winter weather.  It was kind of nice, though!

Temple Square

 We spent another day of our trip walking around Temple Square.  This was a first for the boys, and unfortunately, we didn't get to see everything we wanted.  If you're going to spend a day walking around Temple Square, you want to do it with my husband.  His insight and stories make it SO much more entertaining!  Plus, when we got to the Conference Center, we got our own private tour of the rooftop.

However, our first stop was the Church History Museum.  We got to lay in ship bunkbeds,

 Practice pulling handcarts,

 Go deep sea fishing

 Build an ancient palace

 Gather eggs from all the clucking chickens

 And practice speaking from the pulpit

(where Brychan recited a couple of the Articles of Faith for everyone in the room)

 We then walked across to Temple Square, where we counted all the fountains, and sat inside the Tabernacle for awhile.  Brychan was very interested in the tabernacle and was sad that the upper section was closed off while we were there.  He loved the lights behind the organ; that day the colors kept changing between blue and green (his favorites!).

 We also went to the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building to check out the view 

(and to ride the elevators, of course).

We stopped by the Church Office Building (which was a first for me; I had never been there) and we for another elevator ride to the observation deck to look over the city.  It was a fun morning spent.  The kids loved it and David got to visit with a couple of security buddies, which made it fun for him too.  Our walking tour really made me miss living in Utah!

Hoover Dam

I cannot even tell you how many times I have driven over the Hoover Dam, and have never stopped to check it out.  On our way home, we finally made the stop.  It was well over 100 degrees and extremely windy, so it was a rather quick trip.

This little girl got lots and lots and lots of comments about her cuteness from all the strangers we passed along the way.  Seriously.  Can you blame them?

Natural History Museum

We spent one of our days in Salt Lake at the Natural History Museum.  All the kids had a blast, but Brychan was in HEAVEN.  It was so fun watching him; this was more exciting for him than Christmas ever has been.

Playing in the water

 My little skunk

Watching the paleontologists at work.  On our way into the museum, Brychan's biggest concern was whether or not he would get to see a real paleontologist.  He was pretty excited to watch not just 1, but 4 paleontologists working!

 Brychan, Colin, Ellie and Kehlton sitting in a dino foot print.  

As hard as we tried, this is the best photo we could get of all 4 of them!

 Ellie and Kehlton playing 

Brychan and I looking at the bones under the floor.  

It was a pretty cool display, but Brychan was super nervous about walking on the see-through, glass floors!

 And, one of the many, many dinosaurs we saw throughout the day.

Digging for fossils.

 Watching a series of videos depicting varying hypothesis on how the dinosaurs of Utah became extinct.  We stood there and watched those videos several times.  I'm sure Brychan can now tell you exactly all the different possibilities that explain what happened to the dinosaurs there.

 He is just like his Daddy at museums.  Likes to read every last board and soak up all the information.  This may be my favorite photo of the entire day.

 Don't ask.  I have no clue.

All I know is that he insisted I take his photo. Just.Like.That.

Thunderbird Mountain

Since David is no longer really allowed to run, hike or anything of that "fun" sort (thanks to horrible knees and bad ankle), we've been talking about how I need to step it up and make sure to take the boys out to do those sort of things.  

Saturday morning turned out to be a perfect opportunity to take my two little men for a hike.

Usually when we go to Thunderbird Mountain, we just do a very simple loop.  However, this time the boys decided they wanted to go to the top of the mountain.  So, that's what we did!  The boys did SO good!  I didn't hear one single complaint, no requests for rest breaks, they did a very good job of following the "trail manners" we had talked about and they made sure they drank lots and lots of water.  We even made it without any scraped hands, elbows or knees!  We did, however, come home with a few new rocks to add to our yard (I would really appreciate it if the designers of little boys clothes would make their pockets about half of their current size.  My little boys can squeeze way too much into those pockets of theirs!!).

When we were done and headed to the car, a lady stopped and asked if Kehlton had hiked the entire mountain.  When I told her that he had, she was quite impressed.  I am so proud of both of them; they were such good little troopers.

(Fyi...our new temple is just to our right a short distance.  Had the kind man who was taking our picture taken another step backwards, you would have seen it in the photo)

Unfortunately, I think we probably only have a few weekends of decent hiking weather left before it gets too hot.  We'll have to make the most of it while we can!