Our Summer in a Nutshell

The First Day of School

I will add Kimball's picture when I get one.
(It obviously won't be the first day of school though.)

Kimball is headed off to the high school this morning. We are hoping for a good academic year along with lots of Cross Country meets and Track meets. If you remember, right now he is 15 and doesn't have a care in the world, everything will fall into place, right!

This is Nick's first day of Junior High. I don't know who is more nervous mom or Nick. Nick gets to go to a brand new junior high and each student gets a Netbook. It should be a fun year for Nick. He refused to take a serious picture, but Nick isn't a very serious kid.

Kate is very excited this year. She got the teacher she wanted and is with two of her very best buddies, Hailee and Rylie. What more could a girl ask for.

Sophia is going all day. Yep, first grade here we come. We have heard fabulous things about her teacher, Mrs. Redd and we are excited about this year.

This is our very sad Hope that doesn't get to go to school yet. She is very unhappy that preschool doesn't start for two weeks and thinks that it might take forever. So sad :(

Murray Farmer's Market

Last Saturday after Kimball's race some of the family went down to the farmer's market in Murray. When we lived in Kearns it was a Saturday morning tradition. With the weather being so cold at the beginning of the summer it slowed down the growing season and we were kind of disappointed, but it still brought back some fun memories. We were able to get a huge watermelon, some corn on the cob, and apples. We also tasted some homemade tamales. The favorite part is playing at the Murray Park when we are done.

I really don't know how the kids ride on these crazy spinning
toys. I seriously get dizzy just watching them.

Hope and Sophia just hanging out, it was kind of a hot day.

Happy 15th Birthday Kimball

Some months around here it feels like all we do is birthdays. Well this month is one of them. Last Wednesday was Kimball's birthday, he is 15 and really wishing he was 16. All summer he has been talking about how bad it is going to stink that he is barely turning 15 this month and he has to go all year without going to a dance and driving without his parents. Oh well, life sometimes kind of stinks. But we are excited that he is growing up and we are loving life with Kimball around. This is our cute 15 year old boy at his latest race. He ran the Dart Challenge 5k at Barnes Park this last weekend. We think something is wrong with him, he can't get enough of this running stuff :)

Some things you ought to know about Kimball are:

• He is a running fool, hmmm, I think I may have already mentioned that.
• He is a good friend and brother
• He loves to go to movies
• He has a fun sense of humor
• He talks about farting nonstop (do your really blog about that, yep, especially when it is true)
• He loves Nick's hamster, Jimmer, probably as much as Nick does!
• He tries to always do his best.

We love you Kimball Roni, Happy Birthday!!!

24th of July

On the 24th of July we had a great time. Alex our niece came and stayed with us because her parents were headed on trek. The girls love it when Alex comes to play with us. We went and saw Cars 2, it was cute. Then our friends, The Grows, came up to hang out with us. My sister and her family also joined us. We ate lots of yummy food (thanks Amy for the turkey and green beans). Then we went down the street to watch the "Jackson Street of Fire". Long before we were ever around our street started a tradition of gathering everyone's fireworks and setting them off together. We each bring a treat to share and watch the fireworks on the corner. This year was a little better than in the past because of the legal aerial fireworks.

Holly enjoying the fireworks.

Hope and Brooklyn sharing a chair at the fireworks. Hope kept being afraid of the fireworks and Brooklyn kept telling her to look into her popcorn bag. So every time they let one off you would look over and Hope had her face stuffed in her popcorn bag. It was pretty funny.

Kate and Sophia watching the fireworks.



Potter and Page Family Reunions

This year the Page Family Reunion and the Potter Family Reunion ended up both being on the 4th of July weekend in Scofield, which made it very easy for us to make it to everything. Like usual we went to the cabin Friday and spent the weekend. Mark's family were all together on Saturday, it was good to see them, many of them we hadn't seen for a few years.

Paul and Misty helped keep us cool. They brought a snow cone machine with lots of flavors. They kids thought this was the best. The best part is everyone had colored teeth and lips :)

Sisterly love, Hope and Sophia

Kate is all smiles.

Of course, Kimball doesn't no how to not be goofy!

We played minute to win it games one night, thanks to Misty.
This is Liam just as his stack of 6 dice tumble.

Nick had to reconstruct a cereal box in one minute.
It turned out to be harder than it looks.

We had to get grandpa in on the fun. He had to get 3
cotton balls from the table into the bowl by putting vaseline on his nose
and getting them to stick to his nose. We pretty funny.

Kate had to blow all the balls off except the pink one.
There were lots when she started.

At the Potter reunion they had horses to ride. Nick was loving it.

Hope really wanted to ride on the horses so Mark got on with her.
He would later pay for it later, he forgot how allergic he was to horses.

Nick and his cousin Don slept outside the last night. I think that
Nick could sleep through a tornado. He was dead to
the world and it was daylight out there.

If only I had pictures to show you of our last adventure while at the cabin. Mark and Paul went on a four wheeler ride early Monday morning. Mark still thinks he is sixteen and ended up going a little to fast down the cut backs and wrecked his dad's four wheeler. He ended up in the emergency room down at Castle Valley Hospital. They did lots of x-rays and put some stitches in his upper lip. He is very blessed to have walked away with out more serious injuries.

Hogle Zoo

We decided to go to Hogle Zoo last weekend. It is something we have not done for a long time. But it was fun to do something together as a family. I must say we probably chose the hottest day this year.

Look at those cute kids!

Did I mention it was really HOT that day!

They had huge fans that would blow mists of water, Sophia
just couldn't get enough of the cool mist.

This is inside the giraffe house. Hope was really excited to see them
until she got there. Then she didn't really want to go inside.

We had fun on our little staycation, glad we did it!

Happy #4 Hopey !

It is hard to believe that our baby turned 4 last week. She is definitely the youngest child and adds a little spice to our lives. We are so glad she is ours forever. Hope really only wanted two things for her birthday. She wanted a barbie and cake. When asked what she wanted for breakfast she said cake. When asked where she wanted to go for dinner she said she just wanted cake. So we made cupcakes and she was happy as could be.

This is Hope and her Belle doll, I am guessing by the end of the month this doll may not have any hair left. Oh well, it is well loved.

Hope blew out her 4 candles and now she is officially a big girl (no more whining aloud)!

Hope didn't have a party, but did have a play date with her friend.

Some of Hope's favorite things are:
1. She loves to play dress-ups and put on make-up.
2. She loves to play Barbies and polly pockets.
3. Her favorite colors are pink and purple dark (that is how she says dark pink and dark purple).
4. She likes to play with friends all the time and gets very upset when it is time to be done.
5. Her favorite food is chicken cordon bleu.
6. Her favorite treat is skittle pies (she likes to squish them between pages of a book and then they are skittle pies).
7. She likes to go to the zoo and her favorite animal is the giraffe.
8. She likes to go to the library and get books.

First Triathlon

Kimball decided in the middle of July that he wanted to try doing a triathlon. I was skeptical that he would actually train for it so I told him that if he would train for it I would pay for it. He religiously ran, biked, and swam for three weeks. So he participtated in the Bountiful Triathlon on August 6th. It was a reverse triathlon so he ran 3 miles, biked 11 miles, and swam 350 meters. He did awesome. By the way Nick and Mark were the photographers.

This is Kimball right before the start, I think he has his competition face on!

This is him taking off on his bike.

This is him during the swim. He completed it in 1 hour 13 minutes and 30 seconds.
He was pretty proud at his first go on a triathlon, and so were we.

Kimball received a trophy for winning 3rd in his division. Go Kimball, you are awesome!

Kimball's First 10K

Yesterday Kimball ran in the Deseret News 10K. He got up bright and early (4:00 am) to be there on time. This was the first time he has ran a 10K, but he was well prepared and has ran this distance many times before just not in a race. Most of the race was down hill which made it a little tougher than he is used to. But he was listed in the newspaper as getting 18th in his division (there were 43 runners in his division). He got 411 overall out of over 1800 runners. I think that is pretty darn good, and we are so proud of him.

Kimball is standing on the right side of picture, these are some of his Davis teammates.

Kimball is to the left of the black man, he was the one who found himself in this photo.

Swim Lessons ... A Necessary Evil

Summer means swim lessons whether you like it or not! My mom did it to me and I am doing it to my sweet little munchkins. The girls took three sessions and it ended up being a lot. They were Monday through Thursday for 1/2 hour each day, except Hope she only took two sessions. But it has all been worth it, they are doing great. Their fear of water is diminishing which brings a smile to my face.

This is Kate and Sophia, they were in the same class.

We found that goggles are a key to our success! We don't leave home without them. Sophia was going off the slide by the 2nd session and the diving board by the 3rd session.

Kate is doing awesome and by the last session braved the diving board and the slide.

Hope loved it, this is her blowing her bubbles. After 4 weeks she was a little burned out though.

I Love to See the Temple...

We decided to go to the Manti Pageant this year and take our kids for the first time. We have always hesitated because it is so late and the kids would probably sleep through it anyway. But this year we braved it and we had a great time. We have a special place in our heart for the Manti Temple because we were married there 16 years ago (could it really be that long)!

We had reserved a spot at the Palisades campground and found out Mark's brother family would be in town and so we were able to get another camp spot and they joined us. For the kids having their cousins there made it much more fun. Mark's sister Belinda and two of her kids joined us just for the pageant. So we got to Palisades in the late afternoon, set up camp and then headed over to the turkey dinner at the stake center there in Manti. Then we went and saved some spots on the temple grounds. The wait seemed like forever, just look at these photos of the kids their faces tell it all.

This was the first time we had been back there since we got married. I know that sounds so crazy, but its true.

Kimball is getting sick of my picture antics. Oh well, too bad :)

Nick silly boy, wasn't ready for the picture either.

Kate is starting to get snuggled up because it was getting chilly, it actually sprinkled a few times.

Sophia was very bored before the pageant started, thank heavens for cousins who brought games.

Hope just chillin with Dad.

What cute sisters!

The pageant was great and it was cold, but we were prepared for that. We spent the night at Palisades and then got up in the morning and just hung out for a while.

Hope was more excited about sleeping in the tent than anything else we did. While we were waiting for the pageant to start she kept saying I just want to sleep in the tent right now!

The kids had a great time playing in the water and our nephew Seth caught this very cool frog.




We also rented on of these paddle boats and the kids all got to take a ride.