What to do in 100 Degree Weather

Let the water fun begin is what I said...

...and begin it did on Friday at one of our neighbors' pools in her parents backyard. Then off to river rafting the Weber River on Saturday with friends finished off with another pool party Saturday evening. I'm sad to say I'm a little watered out and am now recovering in front of the AC instead.

I don't know if you could truly consider the Weber River a white water rafting experience, but there were a few fun rapids along the way and we successfully managed to dump two people out of the raft! We went with our dear friends the Griggs and had a fabulous time relaxing down the river, even bumping into a few trees on the side and getting stuck on a few rocks - but this is the nature of rafting down a river.





Speaking of rafting, I will always remember the best anniversary trip John and I had a few years ago (thanks to our friends who watched our kids so we could truly enjoy ourselves) up in Jackson Hole where we rafted the Snake River. Now that is some serious white water rafting as evidence shows below...

We are on the right side in the middle - see the one screaming with fright? Yup - me. Then there is the cool, calm and collect John. You can tell he had done that before :)

On a complete side note. I am now having to chase down this gal who is crawling everywhere...


and just because I can't get enough of showing off her pure cuteness, here is yet another picture-


I forgot she could crawl the other day when I set her up in the kitchen while I was attempting to vacuum up all the lovely remnants in the family room her sisters keep leaving for her to put in her mouth when a surprised Megan attempted to crawl down the 3 stairs into the family room and ker-plop- thankfully landing on her butt.

Here's to following her around for the next several weeks as I child-proof everything once again, pick up the floors every two seconds, and keep closing a certain door down to the basement so Megan can't kerplop down that long set of stairs.

Back in Business

After a brief hiatus, I am now back in the newspaper writing business - this time as a correspondent for the Standard Examiner in Ogden. I have my first assignment with my fingers just itching to get started on another news story - after I finish telling all of you my good news of course.

I cannot contain my excitement and how much I have dearly missed finding newsworthy stories to write about, meeting fascinating people, sitting down to a fresh slate and diving into the story, and most especially, turning in the completed story and seeing it in print.

Staycation

Last week my brother came down and spent the week with my mom joining up with us for the weekend, so we played and played.

We spent two days enjoying Pineview Reservoir.

Then we spent a day up in Logan, which included their fireworks show.

We even went hiking up Ensign Peak.


We also got to enjoy some time with Rimington Clan for fireworks.



The current Rimington Babies



Now we are all recovering from a fun filled week and 4th of July weekend - not to mention 4 nights straight of bedtimes too late to even reveal in this posting. Megan is in heaven now that she is back to sleeping in her crib for naps instead of on the go.

Is it just me, or is this summer flying by?
We are having so much fun it seems to be disappearing faster than I want.

The Duck Whisperer

We met a friendly, domesticated duck at the park yesterday
that followed Kimberly everywhere.

On another note, I tried french braiding Kimberly's hair years ago and finally gave up because here hair was so thick, it never looked quite right. Well, after some encouragement from my mother-in-law, I attempted it with Alicia's hair. It turned out a lot better than I thought it would because her hair is really fine and easier to work with.

And last but not least, you know you need to dust when
your kids start writing their names in the dust.

In all fairness to my cleaning abilities, this is after John finished sanding in our bedroom.

What Goes Up, Must Come Down

We had friends over the other day and enjoyed several activities with them - including John's famous water bottle rockets. We have been doing them for years and have even had people borrow the rocket launcher because they are so much fun. That is until this particular day. John and the girls spent a good while making their rockets with fins and all. Then John added the new design for this year...golf balls to make the rockets go higher. Well, they certainly made the rockets go higher. Take a look...

All was going really well at first and we were having a great time, as usual. Not as much fun was the one rogue rocket that went really high, then fell really hard onto our neighbor's car, inflicting a nasty dent. A call to the dent fixing people was in order for us.

Not to be deterred, we still had a good time afterwards making "dirt", a dessert classic at our house and then enjoying some smores at our new fire pit.

For some strange reason, my blog isn't letting me format the pictures the way I want, so you get them in one big jumble above. You're probably wondering about the picture with Kimberly and the bird. She found a cute little baby bird that keeps falling out of it's nest. Before we put it back in it's rightful home, Kimberly fed it some worms. It grossed me out, but it was sure cute to see the bird clicking it's little beak open and shut begging for more worms.

Summer Fun

Summer is officially here - the girls are out of school, and what I was once dreading, I am now enjoying. I am amazed at how well it is going so far.

Here is what we have done to have fun:

I bought 2 packages of balloons with a pump - total cost $8.
Total hours of fun - 4 hours and then some. I will definitely go back to buy more packages before the summer is out.

This has been my best idea so far...a puzzle table in the dining room. Whenever the girls get bored, or even many times when they're not, they wander over and spend some time working on whatever puzzle is out on the table. I think the girls are currently working on their 7th puzzle.

I've decided to do a fun treat a week. Last week it was these beauties. They looked a little more professional in the magazine, but they still tasted good! Chocolate covered peanut butter balls. Yum.

Beach, Beach, and more Beach

Got the enjoy the beach on the Oregon Coast this weekend. 'nuff said. (you should all know by now that the beach is one of my absolutely most favorite places to be)