Seattle!!!

Our big trip this summer was to Seattle to visit the Ball family.  Sadly, we were the last ones in the family to make the trek, and we've been missing out.  Because Mel is the hostess with the mostess, and because Seattle is so awesome, this ended up being one of our favorite vacations ever.  The kids only liked Hawaii better, but this was a close second.  I think it was the perfect amount of fun and relaxation, with the added bonus of being able to spend time with family.  And I have to put this on here just to give Jake a hard time, but he was NOT excited about this trip.  I don't know why, but I basically had to force him to go.  And now he's still talking about what a great trip it was.  All time favorite trip for him I think.  I hate to say I told you so, but, well, I did tell him...

Anyway, I'm going to have to do this in two posts because there's way to much to throw in one.  First of all, we used points to fly and get a rental.  Not driving for hours was amazing.  We're spoiled by all the points Jake gets for the business.  We didn't get to the Ball's until like 10:30, but they were nice and stayed awake for us.  The boys immediately showed us the backyard.  Such a great backyard.  Doing the rope swing for the first time in the dark is extra exciting.

Thursday wasn't super warm (which felt so stinking good) so we went into Seattle.  Loved Seattle, hated the traffic.  I could never do that every day.  Anyway, we went straight to Pikes Market.  So awesome, and so so many people.  We got there at lunch time, turns out that's a busy time to go.  But we still loved it.  We ate delicious donuts, fish, pastries, fruit, and the girls got some necklaces.  We also stopped by the famous gum wall.  Cool and nasty all at the same time.  I always thought it was a little spot on a wall, but no.  It's like a whole alley filled with nasty gum.  Mel and Ethan were brave and added to the gum wall.  I couldn't bring myself to do it.  Then we headed to a water taxi that took us across the bay.  Loved it.  It dropped us off right at a delicious Hawaiian food place where we had amazing tacos and shaved ice.  Once we got back to the car we went to the base of the space needle and an awesome park.  So much better than Utah parks, especially Midway parks.  Then I practiced my aggressive driving skills to get us back to Mel's.

On Friday we headed to Mount Rainier National Park.  I'm so glad we went there!  It was amazingly beautiful.  Although I may never be forgiven for forgetting our good camera.  But I did remember all of the lunches, water bottles, jackets, etc....  We started out at the Grove of the Patriarchs.  It was full of tall redwood trees.  My kids loved climbing on them and it reminded me that I've got to figure out how to get my family to the redwoods.  We ended the day with a beautiful hike.  The girls and I made it three miles, the boys did a six mile loop that took them across glaciers and up into the clouds around Rainier.  They loved it and are already planning a summit trip.

Enjoy a major overload of pictures from only the first two days of our trip:)

How Sage sits on the airport shuttle

Rope swing!

Standing on the big rock, which is labeled just in case you can't tell

Beautiful Seattle!  (Sage was freezing cold all day)

Delicious Hawaiian food

Awesome park!

Space needle!

Hot tub fun!

Tree slide!

Cool bridge

Can you see everyone?

Love these trees!

Doesn't get better than this

The girls and I were slowly making our way.  In our defense it was straight up the mountain

On top of the world!

What you do while waiting for the boys

Coolest snow cave thing ever

I'm sure this wasn't dangerous

Festival Days!

Oh how I love Farmington Festival Days.  Not sure why, because really its nothing super awesome.  But every year I love it and every year I put it on the calendar so we don't miss it.  This year was especially awesome because Mel came with her kids for the week.  The girls and I also stayed at April and Toby's Thursday and Friday night.  That made the weekend extra fun.  My girls are still talking about how fun it was to spend more than a couple of hours with cousins.  Because of where we live we usually miss out on extended family time.  It was really fun to be able to spend some good, quality time with everyone!

The week started for us when the older cousins came for a sleepover.  We broke the theater in and watched 'A Quiet Place'.  Loved it.  My girls were so happy that I wouldn't let them watch it (not really, but I was happy when they didn't wake me up in the middle of the night because they were scared).  Anyway, Sage proudly told me she stayed up until 12:30am.  She was so excited to hang with the older kids.  Thursday we went to Crown Burger (delicious) and went to the pool.  That night we had the opportunity to meet Linz's favorite companion Sister Nepal (that's not her real name, but I can't ever remember it).  She and her husband were so great and it was fun to chat with them and hear more about Linz.  I know Linz was jumping for joy that we got to meet each other.  It was a great night!

Friday the kids went to Lagoon.  And died in the heat.  Saturday a bunch of us did the 5k.  I love doing that race, even though I'll never actually race it again.  The girls did great and placed in their age groups.  We followed the race up with Dad's famous breakfast casserole and then headed to the parade.  That parade is also the best parade ever.  This year we had a festival days miracle and it was cloudy and not hot.  Perfect!  The kids got so much candy that by the end there was tons of candy on the ground that they didn't even bother to pick up.  We got our second wind when Kathy fed us popsicles, bless her heart.  Then we headed up Farmington Canyon to go bum sliding.  My kids were so excited because they've heard all about this but never been able to go before.  It was amazing and no one even got hurt (another festival days miracle).  Anyway, obviously an epic weekend.  We loved every second of it!

A quick note that while we were experiencing festival days, Zack was experiencing his first trek.  He turned 14 while he was on trek.  I told him it was a birthday he would never forget.  Our stake got to go to Muddy Creek Wyoming.  Zack says he had a great time.  His family was amazing and I don't think he even felt bad he missed festival days. I'm so glad he got to go on trek because I've never been.  It was a great weekend for everyone (except maybe Jake who was working his brains out).

Ready for the parade

Sister Nepal!

We celebrated Zack's birthday with the cousins

Ready to be scared!

Zack ready for trek

All of the cousins except for Zack!

Zack had a giant root beer float for his birthday.  This is what he looks like when you sing to him

Winners!

Everyone who ran

Delicious!

Zack's cute family got balloons for him on the handcart

Bum sliding!

I sent him a box of sour patch kids to open on his birthday

Catch Up

Before I move on to write about more recent events, I need to write about some of the not so big things that have been happening this summer.  I can't believe we have just over a month left of summer!  Once we made it through June, the summer is flying by!  This year we just happened to have nothing planned in June.  I mean nothing.  There were times it felt like an eternal month.  But July began in St George and it's not slowing down.  Note to self: Make sure to schedule something fun in June so as not to experience Eternal June ever again.

Really, summer has been going well.  We got right into a good routine, and that's definitely helped the summer along.  The kids know that if they tell me they're bored I'll give them chores, so it pretty much hasn't happened.  Hallelujah!  And don't feel too bad for them, I've given them plenty of resources of things to do.  Which is why I lose my mind if they tell me they're bored.  I'm such a good mom.

Anyway, I made it a goal that we would go on some kind of hike every week this summer, and I think so far we've accomplished that!  We missed last week, but we ran a 5k instead so I vote that counts.  We went to a Bees game that was a lot of fun.  We sat in the shade the whole time so we didn't completely roast.  At the end we got to sit on the grass and watch fireworks and they were the best fireworks we've ever seen.  We were so close to them that pieces of cardboard were falling on us.  We might need to make that a tradition:)

We stayed in Midway for the 4th because we love it here!  We went for a hike in the morning and then the kids played on the water slide our neighbors got all day long.  I looked around, realized I was alone, and headed to the theater to watch a movie.  I think I've started a new 4th of July tradition;)  Anyway, we barbecued with friends that night, ate scones from another neighbor, let off our own fireworks, and watched the fireworks on Memorial Hill right from our front yard.  I love the 4th in Midway!

And before we move on to pictures, let me just note that yes, I know there are an abundance of pictures of Sage.  We don't love her any more than we love the other kids, but that girls is constantly begging us to take her picture.  And posing.  You should thank me that there aren't more pictures of her, because if she had it her way that's all we would have.

A Sunday hike-a-walk that was exceedingly hot

Sage recovering from the extreme heat

Another pretty hike not far from our house!

The view from one of Jake's jobs.  I love our beautiful valley!

Our 4th of July hike

Watching the Memorial Hill fireworks

The traditional burning of Memorial Hill due to fireworks

Bees game!

Sage dancing before the fireworks

St George In The Summer!

I've never in my life been in St George in the summer months.  I love St George, but I've always avoided going there in the summer.  Until now.  Jake's extended family planned a get-together there, so we left the 80 degrees at our house for the 100 degrees of St George.  Despite the heat, we had a great time.  We had great fun visiting with family again, and the kids enjoyed getting to know their cousins better!

We packed a lot into two quick days.  The girls swam for hours and hours, and would have swam more if we had time.  They loved it.  Jake, Zack and I went on a mountain bike ride early Saturday morning to beat the heat.  Jake's cousin and uncle came with us and it was a really fun ride.  Beautiful scenery and not even too hot!  It was a more technical ride than I like, but not too bad.  I even managed to hurl myself off a two-foot drop off without killing myself.  I'm so hard core.  We also went on a night hike, which was an adventure.  I haven't done that for a long time.  We went up to Snow Canyon and ended up hiking like 5 miles, even though we had only planned on hiking like 2.  Why is it that everything I do with Jake ends up being longer and harder than what he says it will be??

We went to Zions and hiked a couple of miles into the narrows.  I haven't hiked in there for years and it was really fun.  So beautiful, and fun to hike in the water when it's so hot outside.  We had to turn around before everyone so we could head home, but we had great fun.  We definitely need to do it again when we can hike further! 

See, we packed a lot in for the weekend!  Phew!!

We went to the Black Bear Diner for dinner.  Sage loved her sugar (dinner)

Zack attempting to eat his HUGE hamburger.  He was in heaven.

Zack loves it when I hug him

Beautiful!

Mountain biking dudes

The Narrows!

So pretty!