Damage done by 4 women in Park City

Observe the damage done by 4 women on a back to school shopping trip in Park City. And I have to say, this picture does not do it justice. The trunk was deep, and filled to the brim with bags.

We had so much fun! Jason stayed home with the kids, and I went with 3 friends to shop till we dropped. Two of them were pregnant, and I was impressed with their stamina. We left at 8am, shopped, had lunch, shopped some more, had ice cream for dinner, then came home. SO MUCH FUN!

Make sure you notice the new highlights in Anne's hair.


Tiffany enjoying her ice cream dinner.

Kim, our personal chauffer.

When we went to gas up the car to go home, none of us had cash to pay Kim for our share. So I suggested we each put in our share with our cards, and that is what we did. So funny.

It was fun girls, thank you. I want to do it again next year!

Too Cute

Corrine likes to try on shoes. She does this often with the shoes by the door at our house. We have a hair stylist who has a little doll for kids to play with, and the little doll has little shoes. Corrine tried to put them on.

Heart melted.

A fun night

Last night we had a really nice night with friends. Some friends of ours were home on vacation, so we all got together to chat and eat and let the kids play.

Ava and Russell, holding hands and being cute!

Michaela had a fun time with the younger kids.

Rolling down the big hill was a hit.

We all circled around, moving a few times as the sun moved and hit our eyes. This group of friends have been together since high school, and could talk all night long, if we weren't getting so old and the kids wouldn't get tired!

Corrine loved her little chair.


Brian will get Zach back for this, I am sure.

I made a dutch oven chocolate cherry cake.

Micheala rolling down the hill.

We brought a couple of grills and shared dinner, which was yummy. The weather was perfect, and we really enjoyed ourselves.

We did this last year, and hopefully it will become a yearly tradition. Such fun! Thanks Nichelle for organizing our motely crew, we are looking forward to a game night!

Princess Camp

Last week Ava got to go to Princess Camp. A local dance academy hosts it, and for one week, Ava got to go for two hours a day to craft, dance, sing, and play with princesses!

On the last day, they had a princess spa day, and got to get their fingernails painted and be pampered. Then families got to come and see them dance and get crowned a "real" princess. Ava was a grump and wouldn't dance. This girl in the picture below was Ava's special friend. She was with her all the time, and was sad when she had to leave her!

Ava had so much fun. She loves princesses and dress up, so this was a perfect match for her. Everyday she was so excited to go!

Payden is a leeeeetle flexible.

Things said in your friend's camper at one in the morning.

We were playing a yatzee like game, into the wee hours. I kept smashing my face into their screen to check to make sure no weirdos were entering the tent where the baby and Ava were, or the older girls who were in their own tents.

The yatzee like game was scored like yatzee, with the score card divided into two parts, top and bottom. I almost won, and was declared the almost winner because, according to my best friend:

"Look how full her bottom is!"

Okay.

A Crazy Fourth

On the 4th of July, we went to the parade, the farmers market, then home to rest for a while until we went to a BBQ at a friends house. We had a lot of fun and good food! We always enjoy getting together with our friends, and there is enough children there that all have something to keep them occupied. We were quite outnumbered; 12 kids to 6 adults!

All the kids had fun playing outside, and when the weather turned bad, watching movies.

The adults did what we do best; talking up a storm. Literally; while we talked we watched an awesome storm brewing. We took pictures and discussed what those unusual cloud formations could mean; we soon found out.

We stood under these for a while, talking about how odd it was that it was so calm; no wind whatsoever.

Then the clouds started to swirl in circles, there was more lightening and thunder, the wind picked up and we went inside just in time.



The rain came first, coming down in torrents. The kids watched the lightening from the window.

Then the rain turned to hail, in large amounts. I was concerned about our car; but it didn't get damaged. Our friends, the Harkers, had a beautiful garden. Sadly, it was ruined by the hail.

Only minutes before, we were enjoying ourselves here!

A handful of hail. It was ice hard, and pretty big.

Look at all that hail!

The men shoveled, swept, and anything else they could to keep the water away from the house; it was quickly forming rivers and lakes.

We got about an inch and a half in under an hour. We were graced with a wonderful double rainbow afterwards.

After our fun at the Harkers, (and we did have fun; lots of it! Even with the storm!) we came home to do our own fireworks. Here are the kiddos with sparklers.



Ava had a hard time with these last year; burnt her fingers in a couple of places. We thought she would never touch one again, but she didn't even remember!

Jason and I took turns setting off the fireworks.

We never get very big ones, and we try to stay away from the really noisy ones. We just love doing this as a family!

We had a very good fourth of July. I was so excited to come home and see that my tomato plants were ok! My lettuce was ruined, but I think that will grow back. We were SO GLAD we weren't in a tent somewhere, as had been the plan! I was also very touched by the speech during the fireworks(the one on the radio that plays music to accompany the fireworks). I hope I am not the only one who heard that! Let me know if you did, what you thought of it. A great fourth!