First day of school!

This summer FLEW by! We were so busy and out of town quite a bit that the first day really snuck up on me. But here they are. As cute and excited as ever! Brynley is in 1st grade this year and Caleb's in 3rd grade. Yep. Two in all day school. Whatever will I do with myself?!

Caleb's Harry Potter Party

Last Saturday Caleb had a Harry Potter birthday Party. I had so much fun planning it!

When the boys got there they sat under the Sorting Hat and I choose a house badge out from a big bowl at random. They were assigned to houses and then got their wands which were bamboo sticks from my in law's house in Seattle. They were perfect wands!

We first had a divination class where I typed up Harry Potter style fortunes and put them in balloons. They had to pop the balloons by sitting on them and then read everyone their fortune. They all laughed at the silly fortunes.

Next was a Transfiguration class which was a magic show by my nephew Collin. He did a great job and the boys thought it was so cool!

Potions class was next. We started with "leech juice" (green kool aid) and they could choose from scorpion stingers (sprinkles), hippogriff eggs (big black jelly beans), dried skin flakes (oats), unicorn droppings (marshmallows), and many other yucky things to add to their potion. The final step was adding a fizzinator tablet (Airborne tablet). They watched their concoction fizz and I dared them to drink it! Most of them took a few sips and didn't want to finish it. But a few brave souls drank the whole potion!

We ate pizza and cake at the 3 Broomsticks and then the owls came and brought presents. We had Quidditch practice (freeze tag on brooms) until parents came. As each boy left he got a goody bag from Honeydukes Sweet Shoppe.

We had so much fun at our party and Caleb was on a high all day long!

I can't believe Caleb is turning 8 and will be baptized in a few short weeks. It doesn't seem that long ago that he was born. Caleb is such a responsible boy. He is a lot of fun to be with and is getting really funny. He loves reading and read the first Harry Potter book this summer and is working on Book 2. He is a great swimmer and has a collection of ribbons from swim team meets this summer. Caleb is very friendly and has a lot of friends. Kids seem to like him and so do we. :)

Happy birthday Caleb!

Brynley's water party

For Brynley's 6th birthday she wanted a water party. I was happy to throw it because water parties are the easiest birthday parties in the world! We played some water games in the back yard, had cupcakes, a pinata, opened presents, ran in the sprinklers and before I knew it, it was over!




Brynley is turning 6 and starting first grade this year! I can't believe it. She has turned into such a nice little girl. She used to be a little mean. :) She loves playing with Aubrey and Aubrey loves her too. She loves playing "mom and dad", playing with the chickens, going swimming and watching Harry Potter. She loves rainbows and LOVED that she got to ride a horse on her birthday! She is really nice and fun if she's in a good mood. But if she's not in a good mood... Watch out!

We love you Brynley! Happy Birthday!

To Grandmother's House We Go!

We had the most eventful trip Seattle this year!

It started on a Saturday morning when we drove up to Jeremy and Angie's for Abby's baptism. Caleb and Abby are really close in age so it was fun to watch her get baptized.

We stayed at their house that night and then left for Washington on Sunday morning. Sunday we drove part way and stayed in a hotel and then drove to Ensign Ranch on Monday morning.

We stayed in a Cabin at Ensign Ranch Monday night. They have so much to do there! The kids played for hours on the big slip n slide. Then we had a cook out and went on a hay ride, just our family! It was fun to take a hay ride when you weren't snuggled up against a bunch of strangers!



After a whole bunch of smore's we retired for the night in the cabin. The cabin was great! It was basically just a place to sleep since it didn't have bathrooms or anything so it was pretty much like camping. That's my favorite type of camping. :-) And the kids went to the bathroom about every 10 minutes because they thought the (clean) outhouses were so cool.

The next morning we took the kids on parent-led horse back rides. This was Brynley's birthday and she thought it was so awesome to go horse back riding on her birthday!


We also went canoeing that morning and then headed to Grandma and Grandpa's house near Seattle.

On Wednesday we took a (very expensive) ferry ride over to a Children's Museum. They have totally hiked up those ferry prices in the last few years, holy moly! The kids liked the museum and they had something for all of my kids to enjoy.

On Thursday we went to the Museum of Flight. This was awesome! We got to walk through a Concord and Air Force One from when Kennedy was President. They also had areas of the museum that showed things from WWI and WWII. It was cool.


Friday we took the raft to a lake and relaxed with it. It was so fun. We love the raft. Mary and Stan actually gave it to us and we are excited to use it here in Utah. Caleb jumped into the lake and swam around for a long time. Brynley wanted to go in to so I said, "Sure, hop in" and she slid right in like a wet fish. It was cute. She only stayed in for about 30 seconds before she was done though.


That night we went to Red Robin to celebrate Caleb and Brynley's birthday. When the waiters brought out ice cream for B and C's birthday Aubrey stands up and yells, "I want one! I want one!" Poor girl!

Saturday we packed up all day and then headed to the zoo for a couple hours before going to a Tacoma Ranier's game (minor league). The kids had a lot of fun and Caleb got way into the game. I would ask him questions and he'd "shh" me saying "I'm watching the game!"


We left after the game and drove part way home and the rest of the way Sunday. We had such a great trip! Thank you Stan and Mary for taking us to do all those fun things! Lots of memories were made!

Fourth of July

We braved the Provo Freedom Parade this year. Not sure we'll do it again. It took FOREVER to find parking and it was cloudy so that was good. If it was sunny I don't know if it would have been worth it...

For the fourth of July we met my cousin Jessie, her family, Katie, Aunt Deb and Uncle Wayne and my parents up Provo Canyon for a picnic. It was fun to catch up!



That night we went to the Nye's for our third annual firework show.

Aloha ~ Last two days

Friday was the “left over” day that we were saving for anything we didn’t get to or wanted to do again.

In the morning we hiked Diamond Head. We did it really quick and it was a lot of fun.



We wanted to head back to our favorite beach, Kailua Beach. We LOVED it there. We actually went there again on Saturday so that makes three times in one week! The sand is so soft, waves are on the bigger side and it was smooth and shallow for a long time. There were trees for shade on the edge of the beach. That beach kept us both happy! Brandon got to boogey board and sit in the shade. I got to lay out, play in the waves and then move to the shade when I was too hot. We loved it!

That night after dinner we went to Ala Moana mall. It is a HUGE open air mall with tons of nice stores. There’s a Lululemon (my favorite store and there isn’t one in Utah) and I tried on just about everything in the store. Then we headed straight for a Mochi place and got some Mochi ice cream and for real mochi with beans. It was actually super good!

Saturday we checked out of our hotel and headed up to Hale’iwa again to exchange a shirt for Brynley and then off to Kailua Beach again. We left that night and had a horrible night’s “sleep” on the plane all night. By Sunday morning we were back in Utah and exhausted! We had such a wonderful trip and came home to a clean house and happy kids! Thank you Mom, Dad, Jeremy and Angie for making our trip possible!

Aloha ~ Day 6 Hawaii Trip

Today was so much fun! We got up bright and early and headed up to Hale’iwa to go stand up paddle boarding. We paddled up the river past a bunch of houses. We even saw a few turtles. They were huge! It wasn’t really that hard in the river. In the little bay were there was a little tide it was a teeny bit harder to keep your balance but still not super hard. He did give us the huge “unsinkable” boards though. ;-)


Then we went to this beach with ginormous turtles. They were so big! We saw one out swimming in the ocean and these big guys on the shore.


After lunch we headed to Sunset Beach. It was super windy but we had so much fun boogey boarding and playing in the waves.

We stopped at a fruit stand and got some fun fruits (dragon fruit and star fruit) and tried some banana, coconut, rice thing. Then we stopped at a shack selling shrimp of the shrimp farms. Oh, it was so yummy! We also went into the macadamia nut farm store. They had samples of every kind of flavor macadamia nut you can imagine.

Tonight we went to dinner at this yummy Hawaiian bbq place called Kenny’s. It is just in the food court of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel but it is so good! It’s the third time we’ve been there in 6 nights, lol. Then we walked to the Hilton Hawaiian Village to watch the how the rich people vacation. ;-). After relaxing there for a bit we walked back to the hotel along the beach. Now we are tired and ready for bed.