Sizzlin' Summer

It has been a HOT summer this year! We have been keeping cool by making brinner to avoid using the oven. Here is proof that Marcus actually helped:

 He also took a series of selfies on my phone:

One thing I want to remember about Marcus right now is that he is always making sound effects. He is always fighting a bad guy or is being a Transformer. You should see his moves and hear the noises he makes! It makes me smile. He is such a boy. Today I told him he's quite the violent sound machine. He's not a violent person, he just thinks he's a super hero and is always in that mode. He does ninja moves all around the house and he truly has some pretty sweet moves! He says he is practicing his skills. I love it.

The kids and I rode our bikes on the path to Smith's and got donuts. I was so proud of Layla for using her gears on her mountain bike to make it up the hills! The bike is a little big and old for her, but she is handling it very well! She's really getting the hang of the hand brakes and gears!

We also got Rainbows (snow cones with soft serve ice cream mixed in) from Pace's.

 Played at the school playground:

 Layla has thoroughly enjoyed her science kit:

We have made cookies several times:

The kids went to a summer camp twice at a neighbor's house. Two sisters, ages 11 and 9 put it on. They did a great job!

 We got ice cream at Baskin Robbins on International Ice Cream Day. I was amused when Marcus chose vanilla. He said about half way through eating eat that he should have got a different flavor, hahaha!

 Layla had a lemonade stand with the most ghetto sign ever. She had been begging me all summer to do this. We finally made a batch of sugar cookies that she could sell with the lemonade to draw more customers. I didn't want to go to the store to buy a posterboard to make a sign, so we used a giant piece of cardboard we had in the garage. She didn't mind at all that it was lame, lol. She sold all of her cookies and almost all of the lemonade! It was definitely successful thanks to our sweet neighbors whom I texted and asked to come over. ;) I love my sweet Layla!

We have also been keeping cool with our passes to Classic skating (the one here is significantly better than the one I went to as a kid!), Classic waterslide park (also much better!), splash pads, Cherry Hill, and swimming lessons. Our friends, Anna and Amelia Lifferth, got Classic passes as well, so Lara and I take turns taking all four kids each week. It has been great! Though now that the novelty has worn off, I think Marcus is over it and we may need to skip next week.

Classic Skating!

We have been pretty good about having a routine this summer. The kids know they need to do "all their stuff" before they can watch shows or play on the computer. Their "stuff" is to get dressed, brush teeth, wash faces, do their hair, make their beds, practice piano for Layla, Marcus practices writing his name and his sight words. Those  things we're good at. The other things they're supposed to do but I don't always follow through on is reading from their children's Book of Mormon reader (though Marcus has been requesting this lately, which makes my heart so happy!), do a chore around the house, and play outside (it's so hot and the bugs are so bad). Those things are hit or miss, but overall I feel like we're doing a good job.

Sometimes Layla helps Marcus get dressed and read his sight words. Melts my momma heart.

On Mondays we babysit Vivian. On Tuesdays we go to Classic skating with friends. On Wednesdays we babysit Ella. On Thursdays we babysit Viv again and usually go to the library. On Fridays Layla has piano lessons and we have Family Movie Night. The weeks sure fly by when we're so busy!We have been hiking a lot on Saturdays. The kids really enjoy it, even if we don't always make it to the end point. They hike 2 to 3 miles each time. I think that's impressive for their little legs! I feel like I'm in my element when I'm in the mountains and I'm glad my kids can experience that too.

We sure love little Viv! Once I asked Layla to bring her laundry basket to my room and next thing I know, she's pushing Viv in the basket! Now they look forward to laundry/watch Viv day so they can push her around in their laundry baskets, ha! Last week when we watched Viv, she was sitting on the floor playing with toys and Marcus was sitting near her. I looked over and noticed that Marcus was putting his face right in hers, and every time she turned her head to look at something besides him, he turned so that he was right in front of her face again. He told her, in a loud whisper, "I'm everywhere!" and I died laughing (and then told him to stop bugging her of course). And recently Marcus and Layla were arguing over something. They both wanted different things. I asked them how they were going to solve the problem, and Marcus made a fist and said, with a huge goofy grin on his face, "The hard way!" I don't know where Marcus came from, but he sure is hilarious!


July is full of lots of fun holidays and fireworks. On the 4th we took the kids to Classic waterslides and had a fun day, then we had friends over that night (the Craguns, Bryners, and Chris and Amber). We bbqed and lit off our own fireworks. It's funny because no matter how cool we think our fireworks are going to be, our neighbors, the Leasures, always have better ones. They seriously have the coolest fireworks (and the coolest Christmas lights on their house at Christmas time)! We need to just go watch their fireworks from now on, hahaha! We had a fun time with our friends! The 24th was a Monday. We babysat Viv and Mitch worked. Pretty lame. We invited the Whitesides over last minute for some fireworks that night. We ended up getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. Bummer!



Layla and I went to the West Jordan Stampede rodeo with my parents and grandma. Mitch and Marcus stayed behind since it didn't start until 8:30 and we didn't want to keep Marcus up that late. We had a blast!

I love rodeos and I think it's partly because my dad used to ride bucking broncs in the rodeo and even rode a dozen bulls! This is a pic of him when he was younger:

Layla and Mitch went to the daddy/daughter campout with the ward. They had a blast! I was so impressed with the bishopric for planning such a fun campout! They had activity stations where the dads painted the girls fingernails, they made bracelets, went on a scavenger hunt, played volleyball, ate a yummy dinner, homemade scones that Mitch and Layla both raved about, and watched Beauty and the Beast on a big screen outside. They slept in a tent and came home the next morning after a yummy breakfast. Poor Marcus had to miss the Father and Sons campout this year because he was sick, but he's already excited for next year! We seriously have the best ward, filled with amazing people, and I'm so grateful for them! Layla is still talking about how much fun she had and that makes me happy. She is at a fun age right now. Recently I was talking to her about all of her many talents, and she said, "I feel like one of my talents is correcting people." Hahahahaha! I told her it was a habit, not a talent! Man, I love her, even her exact/logical mind. :)

I cut open this watermelon and found a heart!

We went boating with my fam and are planning to go again next month. I definitely wish we could do that more during the summer. My parents are gone almost every weekend boating and/or camping with friends, so it's hard to have our schedules line up. I'm glad my parents are living it up though!

They like to play computer games together.

She often puts her arm around him.

The kids did go camping at Cherry Hill with my parents last weekend. I spent the day with them at the waterpark, but only the kids slept over in the trailer. They were looking forward to it ALL summer and were counting down the days until Cherry Hill. It was so fun to see them so excited! The water park was great, and they definitely wore themselves out. They were overtired, probably a little dehydrated and had a rough time falling asleep that night. Layla had a bad headache and I had to take them some medicine at 9 pm that night (luckily it's only 10 minutes from our house!). They did eventually fall asleep and I think the fun outweighed the grumpiness so it was a successful trip! I truly enjoyed hanging out with my parents for the day! They are such fun grandparents! In fact, the song "Your mamma don't dance and your daddy don't rock n roll" was on the radio recently and Marcus said, "But Grandpa Miles rock and rolls!" That he does and Mammey Miles is awesome sauce.


I love summertime because I'm not rushing kids out the door to school and we can pick up and do whatever we want, whenever we want (except when we're watching Viv who still naps twice a day). I am not ready to go back to school schedules and homework!

Had to document that one week at church we were twinsies! My mom made Layla and I these matching skirts and headbands, and my grandma gave Mitch and Marcus matching ties. It made me happy to have us all matchy matchy!

Sometimes Marcus will yell, "Cuddle time!" or "Snuggle time!" and we all snuggle up together. It's one of my favorite things in the world. Of course, this makes our lives seem all rosy and happy, and it mostly is, but we definitely have our moments of grumpy, annoying, sick, irritated, hitting, yelling selves. But the good far outweighs the bad!

This is what breakfast time often looks like: Layla reads a book or magazine, I read the Book of Mormon, and Marcus plays with Transformers.

I also love when I find them cuddled up reading together.

We still have our trip to Bear Lake with the Craguns next month that I am really looking forward too. Still have 3.5 weeks left of summer, so we'll have to soak it up!

HAWAII!

Mitch and I spent a week on the big island of Hawaii for our 10 year anniversary. To say that it was incredible would be an understatement. It was hands down one of the best trips of my life! We've been lucky enough to travel a lot, and Hawaii was one of my favorite places I've been to!

The best part was not having a schedule! No plans, no kids to feed, no bed times, no early-morning alarms. We could do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. All married couple needs time together like that every once in a while! It was rejuvenating to spend time with Mitch in such a beautiful place!

We stayed in an incredible Hilton resort (for free with Mitch's reward points! We spent $200 on parking and booking fees, and that was it for the hotel! Amazing!) and the view from our room was dreamy! The hotel was so huge. It was literally one mile from the lobby to our room. You could ride a tram or a boat around the hotel! They had several swimming pools with waterfalls, a waterslide, fake rock caves, etc. Beautiful! Several restaurants, and you could even swim with dolphins at the resort. They had their own private bay with a waterfall where we saw several sea turtles!

The view from our hotel room.

Sea turtles while kayaking in the bay

at our hotel.

The best activity we did was swimming with wild Kona spinner dolphins in the ocean. Ahhh, this has been on my bucket list for years, and it was even better than I had imagined it to be. We snorkeled with a pod of 11 dolphins and got to swim with them and watch them jump out of the water just 5 to 20 feet in front of us. It was amazing! We thought we had the entire thing on our go pro, only to find out later that all of the videos were deleted. But it wouldn't have done it justice anyways, so whatever. It truly was an experience of a lifetime. We also snorkeled in Cook Bay and enjoyed 8 hours total on the ocean. Growing up, I always wanted to be a stay at home mom, and I am so happy that my dreams have all come true, but my second choice would have been studying sharks and dolphins because they fascinate me and I would love to be on the ocean every day.

We also did a zipline course! It took us 4 hours to complete the whole thing. We zipped over waterfalls and huge ravines. We had a great view of the volcanoes and the ocean. It was beautiful and so fun!

We spent time in the volcano national park hiking through an active caldera and checking out the views. We biked 4 miles to see the spot where the lava meets the ocean. They wouldn't let you get closer than about a mile away which bummed us out. We got there at sunset and it was beautiful! The pictures don't do it justice. At all. It was incredible to hear the sound of the lava and waves, and the bright orange color it produced! Something I'll never forget!

Walked through a lava tube!

We checked out green and black sand beaches. The black sand beaches were my favorite. So beautiful! The green sand beach was an adventure. You can either walk 3 miles on a dusty road, or pay someone to drive you out there. You can't drive yourself unless you have a 4-wheel drive vehicle because it is a rocky, hilly terrain. We chose to have someone drive us, and ended up with a 16 year old kid driving us in a pick up truck. Actually, he wouldn't tell us how old he was, but he didn't look a day over 16. He was an excellent driver however, and would open the truck door, put the truck in 4 low, lean out, and spot his truck while maneuvering up and down the hills and rocks. I was nervous, but he also reminded me so much of my youngest brother and you could tell he knew what he was doing, that I was oddly at ease. Also, we were going super slow, so I figured even if we tipped over we'd be okay. We then hiked down to the green sand beach. It was one of the coolest/most picturesque beaches I've ever seen! And it wasn't crowded because it's so hard to get to. The waves comin in were big, but there were 2 people swimming, so we figured we'd swim too. After all, we'd probably never be at that beach again, so we should take the opportunity even if the waves seemed a little big, right? We jumped in and were having a blast until the waves got bigger, and bigger and pretty soon I realized we were the only ones in the water. As I turned to head in, a huge wave knocked me over and I ended up covered in sand and worried that I had damaged my left eardrum. :/ It hurt so bad and I was mad at myself that I got in when it was so dangerous! We hiked back up and got a ride back with the same kid and laughed that we survived and at least had a good story to tell.

The rest of the trip was spent swimming, eating, sleeping, walking, driving, eating, and swimming some more. It was wonderful and I loved every minute of it! We were lucky that both of our parents took our kids and they had so much fun with their grandparents while we were gone!