July-September 2022

I went for a hike up to Horsetail Falls with Joni Stanley. I love her!

We spent a half day at Strawberry Fishing with the Lees. 

Davis and Greg

Turns out we kept the wrong kind of Rainbow Trout and almost owed a LOT of money in fines. But then we happened to go home a different way where they weren't pulling people over. It was very stressful.

Yummy patriotic dessert!

We went to the Murray 4th of July parade

The whole clan!

We had a 4th of July breakfast at Sweet Lake Biscuits.

We headed over to April and Keven Jensen's for their amazing 4th of July party. This is Andy with Truman and Sawyer.

Davis had the time of his life.

So did Violet.

It really is the best party ever!

Cute Davis and Fordy.

Ryan and Jen Sumner were in town so we got together with all the Sumners for a barbecue. The kids had so much fun together!

The kids put on a fun variety show for us too.

An evening up the canyon with the Craguns and Thomases. This is Davis and Theo exploring.

Max and Hadley are good buds.

Very distraught. If I remember correctly, I think he was mad about a s'more being taken away.

Loving roasting his marshmallow.

Violet, Avery, and Theo

Just the best picture. No pants, filthy, wet, and grumpy for who knows what reason.

The Avarells are the best neighbors. I love when my kids are playing with neighbor kids.

Lots of mountain biking for me and Cameron.

Violet and Monroe did the Singers Company Summer Camp together.

Violet loves Singers Company so much!

Max's art from 2nd grade.

I love playing games with the kids! Here Max and I are playing King Domino.

Andy's 5th grade art.

Watching Andy's soccer team play in a tournament.

Andy loves his team so much! Go Steel Titans.

I love the way Davis is looking at Andy here!

Just the cutest summer boy collecting his roly polys. He (and Violet and the Bailey kids) did it allll summer. We went through a lot of red cups.)

An afternoon at Manila Pond with friends from the ward.

I think this is from when the kids did a Cedar Hills Sports Camp.

An evening date with my girl! I tried to get her to like Mastra.

We went to see the Cinderella play up at Sundance. It was magical and so fun. 

The DeWaals hosted a water balloon fight.

Chalk art with the cul de sac.

Then the DeWaals hosted a water fight for the younger boys! Max had a blast.

Cameron's birthday dinner at Cliff Dining Pub.

For his birthday I told him he could join Millennial Choir! He was very excited.

Violet and Monroe at Monroe's birthday party.

Davis got soaking wet at a soccer game.

We took the older boys to their first real concert: Imagine Dragons!

We had so much fun!

Cameron and I had an overnight in Park City to celebrate our birthdays and anniversary.

Our first morning we hiked to Lake Blanche. It was beautiful!

That night we went to a Kristin Chenoweth/Utah Symphony concert at Deer Valley. It was so fun!

We did a cool bike ride the next morning--Flying Dog. I actually hated it and thought the clim was so hard I almost cried several times ha ha. It was very muddy and wet so we couldn't really do the down hill. And it was on my birthday. But we survived! 

Back to school night! Andy started sixth grade. His teacher is Mrs. Childs and she has a fun Harry Potter theme.

Max's new teacher is Mrs Banks for third grade. Her classroom theme is "superstars."

Ready for school to start!

Charlie and Andy doing Vertigo!

Love that these four ride together.

First day of school! Max has Mrs. Banks and Andy has Mrs. Childs.

Owen and Andy

Friends on the first day of school: Cole Read, Cade Myers, Andy, CJ Thornton. 

Max with his buddies: Cooper Asay, Graham, Max, Ollie Redd.

Max's class on the first day!

I took the younger two to the farm on the first day of school. Davis clearly loved riding a horse.

At least Violet had a good time!

Cutest little bikers! Love how Monroe and Violet ride so much.

Andy's sixth grade class

Max in school

This girl LOVES Jersey Mikes.

We got an impromptu day at Lagoon when Jason had extra tickets from his work Lagoon day. We had so much fun!

My sweet mission companion Sister Kerste came in town; we did a temple session together and had breakfast. I love her!

A DeWaal playdate

King of the pool.

We went to see the dinosaur exhibit at Thanksgiving Point.

Davis loved it!

Andy was having a moody pre-teen day and sulked, following behind us.

Big day for our cute Davis! He was so ready for preschool I signed him up for two schools. ;) "Ariel School" (at Ridgeline) and "Wendy School" (Bright Eyed Owl School with Wendy Condie)>

First day of Wendy School!

A shot from Andy's 6th grade class

These two are such sweet friends.

First day of "Ariel School" at Ridgeline!

Another shot of Andy in Mrs. Childs' class.

So excited for kindergarten!

Violet did a cute cheer camp with some neighbor girls at Skyridge! She loves the Avarells and the Richins.

Cameron had a fun weekend trip to Chicago with his dad and brother.

Cutest cheerleader!

I went on a fun overnight with my ward. This is from the morning hike.

Andy with his awesome team, the Steel Titans.

These three are such great friends. We love Jayden and Kade.

These two continue to be the sweetest friends and are always asking me to print things out for them to color.

Max lost both of his front teeth!

My favorite thing to look out the window and see.

Violet playing with her friends Josie and Quinn and some of the other neighbors up on Sutherland.

Davis is a play-doh lover!

Violet at Lauryn's birthday party

Cade Myers and Reed Wilde hung out with us one night.

Cameron's friends Bria and Nicki went on a hike with us up Little Cottonwood.

Cousin swimming

Max with buddies in class

Violet and Josie love having dance together!

Max's awesome class

Max did a karate workshop with Cooper and Graham.

Max had a fun hang out up at Ollie's house.

Violet with Josie and Quinn on on the Sept. 11 Freedom Walk at school.

Andy at the Freedom Walk

Cutest baking assistant

Grandma Jean sent money for Violet to pick out an outfit for kindergarten and this is what she picked!

Violet loves playing with Clara!

Andy loves chess and tries to teach me how to play, but I'm terrible at it.

Me and my favorite girl.

The Encore Keyboard Competition happened and the kids did so great! Violet got third place. She was quite young in the division and still did so well!

Piano cousins!

These two both got second place in their divisions. This event is Encore's most competitive event, so this was a really big, exciting day! Also, Max cracks me up.

A shot from Max's class.

Max and Fordy cuddling during a movie. So sweet!

Messick Bear Lake Trip

We spent some time in Bear Lake with the Messick family (without grandma and grandpa--they're still in Vanuatu). It was our first time doing Bear Lake as an extended family and we loved it! We had a blast. Here we are eating at our favorite Maddox Chicken in Perry on our way up.

These cute girls love to hang together. They spent lots of time finding the pretty rocks in this area. (And then Davis dumped them out.) 

Lots of time spent on this fun sports court playing Lightning! Everyone got into it and it was a blast.

Jake the lifejacket man.

We rented a boat for a day and had so much fun tubing.

Violet was so happy to be reunited with Penny.

We had a blast playing on the beach!

We did a fun little hike.

We had a "field day" with a bunch of fun little races.

Cutest partners for 3 legged racing!

Making bracelets was a hit this trip! Cute James got into it.

Penny found this necklace on the beach and it's my favorite.

Annual talent show footage! Max and I did "My Little Buttercup" from the Three Amigos.

Violet sang and danced to "I'm Finally Me" from Zombies 3. Cameron juggled. I think Andy assisted the Miles crew with their act. I don't think Davis participated this year.

Lots of intense Secret Hitler every night (Cameron's favorite).

Our Final Camping Trip (We're never going again.)

This picture may make you think we had a great time camping, but you would be wrong. Camping was an epic disaster two years in a row, so we're officially retiring from camping. Violet got very sick right as we were driving up to Redman. She was up all night crying because she felt so terrible. That made it so Davis was up all night too. (Along with me.) I think the three of us got maybe 3 hours of sleep broken up. And then it started pouring rain the next day (similar to swamp camping the year before). So cut our losses and left a day early, ha ha. I think the kids (except for Violet) still had a great time?! Maybe?

I didn't doing a great job documenting it, but Sara, Blair, and Penny joined us! Violet was so looking forward to playing with Penny. She didn't get to because she was so sick. But still fun they were there! :) 

Andy, Max, and I joined the group for a hike up to donut falls! Violet was still very sick. And Davis was so tired he could barely walk, so he didn't come. Cameron stayed back with them.

The falls!

The crew! Cold and wet. Also, Ben and Christine's RV carbon monoxide detector kept going off all night so they weren't well rested either.

A cute Davis moment was after we put him to bed in the tent, he figured out how to unzip the window above where his pack n play was and yelled to all of us by the fire, "Guys! I'm in here!"

Poor, sick Violet just sat in the car watching movies most of the time.

After a giant torrential downpour, we were very excited about the peach cobbler Rachel and Sara had prepared. Only to discovered it cooked very quickly and was a charred mass.

After the big rain storm, we really struggled to get a fire going. I wish I had a picture/video of Ben doing a special dance-looking move to try to get the fire going. He was very committed. But alas, the fire died and we had no more dry firewood.