More Summer Pictures

Bear Lake fun. The water was warm this year since a long portion of the water was so shallow. The fun though is digging in the sand. They spent hours doing this.

Justin was trying hard to fit in with all the girls.


Beautiful view from the townhome.

Ashley's second party at Bear Lake on her actual birthday. We fabric painted little stuffed bears, ate sugar cookies, made wood treasure chests that were a pain, but fun, and water colored butterflies. She had a great time. So did all of the cousins.

Justin, while not into crafts, loved coloring this bear. Then he threw it off the balcony.

Crafting Heaven

I love that she loves these projects.

The whole crowd.

Cul-de-sac of Fire at my parents house.


It was very exciting. Then we walked down to the neighbors house and watched their much more impressive firework show.

We went for a family hike with the Heaths, Conleys, and my parents. These kids are excellent hikers.

Mia wore her beautiful, but impractical sandals (something she did not get from me!) and so she spent the hike on my back. I love having her close. She is a great conversationalist.


The group. I love seeing cousins.

Cousin Elsa holding Mia. Elsa is one sweet 8 year old.

Birthday party #1 at Grandma and Grandpa Heath's house. She got Ivy! I am one nice mom. She was thrilled.

Yummy Cookies. I made peanut butter cookies with hershey kisses, cake batter cookies, and a carrot cake. There were a lot of people.


The girl cousins. Some of them, anyway.


All dressed up for Church.

Justin on the new patio. We love our new patio. It is huge. I still need to buy a patio set, but for now camping chairs are working just fine. We also put in an electric fence for Friday. It makes me like the dog a little better now that he can't run away and harass the neighbors. He spent a week refusing to go outside the house, but he's slowly figuring it out.

I love this view of Katelyn. She is so so strong. And she has such a cute behind :-) She is an incredible gymnast.




We did a 4th of July breakfast with my parents ward. There was an awesome pancake breakfast, face painting, and a bounce house. Lots of fun! We love spending time in Utah!

Miscellaneous Pictures

Mia likes to bathe her fairies in the bath. She especially loves mermaids. She would trade her voice to be a mermaid like Arial.


Silly string war for the last day of school! Lots of fun, as usual. This has become tradition.

Katelyn loves American Girl Dolls. She spent the first few weeks of summer playing with them. She changes their clothes, brushes their hair, and sends them bungee jumping off of the loft. It makes me want to take her bungee jumping with me.

Justin loves holding babies. This is baby Luke Harvey who we got to babysit one evening. This has prompted many discussions on when I'm going to get another baby.

Pictures of Ashley from Roman Day. She was, in my humble opinion, the cutest Roman Girl there. She and Hans designed this white sheet toga. Along with the jewelry and hair, she was the star!

Justin fell off his bike while we were riding to the dirt to launch his rocket. This was on a Sunday Evening. The rest of the evening he spent at Hans' office on laughing gas while Hans gave him 5 stitches. Hans should have been a plastic surgeon.

Justin at his Soccer party. We have such a great team. They are all cute, nice boys with really great parents. We enjoyed an evening at Pizza Time.
This was by far Justin's favorite part of the whole season. It's been a fun few seasons with Hans as the coach and I just signed him up again for Fall Soccer. Hooray!
Justin was 1 of 3 blonde headed boys on the team. So handsome.

Update

We have had a great summer. We have spent every morning at the pool. Ashley has swim team for an hour and then we stay for an hour or two and swim and play with friends. I'm so grateful to have a swimming pool in our neighborhood! The kids are great swimmers. Ashley is officially faster then I am at swimming laps. Katelyn is queen of tricks. She can do a front and back flip off the diving board as well as a front and back dive. Justin is...nervous. He swims all over the place so long as his yellow arm floaties are securely in place. Mia is a fish. She can swim half the length of the pool on her own and did a dive off the diving board. She is fearless, which causes me quite a bit of fear.

We have done a lot of other fun things as well. We've hiked the incline as a family, toured Manitou springs with the Mabeys who came to visit, gone on many bike rides and walks, visited parks, driven to Denver for the American Girl doll store, done free play classes at gymnastics, slept on the trampoline, and many more I am sure. Hans and I were able to enjoy the Maroon 5 concert in Denver at Red Rocks, which was beautiful. Hans bought a truck. We went to Bear Lake after a weekend visit with Hans in Salt Lake City. Hans and I hiked Mt. Olympus, which was quite the hike. We had a blast in Bear Lake with my sisters Mindy and Melanie and their families. We were excited to get to go this year since we missed out last year. It's one of my favorite summer experiences. We ride bikes, run, swim in the pool, and enjoy the beach by the Lake. It inspired me to collect on a promise I suggest Hans make to me before we got married, which was that he would buy me a boat someday. We are one truck closer to making it happen.

Hans and I are training for an Olympic triathlon, which is quite time consuming. We are bike riding, running, and attempting swimming. Neither of us is a swimmer. We flounder. It's been fun to wake up early and run a few miles together before the kids wake up. Hans has been golfing more then usual, although not often. I have hiked the incline a few times with friends and taught a lot of yoga at Lifetime.

The kids are cute. Some things I want to get down so I don't forget...

Justin's new parting phrase to me when I leave - or Hans when he leaves - "Bye Mom, don't die!" He's still suffering from anxiety over my surgery, but on the whole he is doing so much better.

Mia praying loudly at night (when she thinks no one is listening). She asks, pleads, and begs that Jesus turn her into a Mermaid. This has prompted conversations about Jesus not being magic, but that His magic works through the Priesthood and that He likes her as a girl. She is still asking.

Mia wearing only ballet leotards, princess Halloween dresses, or her tutu swimsuit. She wears it all with fairy wings. Everywhere. With her three sizes too big princess shoes.

Ashley saving up enough money to buy really expensive things at the American Girl Doll store and making the Eagles transitional team at Gymnastics. Go Ash.

Ashley's birthday party with Sierra and Kaylee to get pedicures, make flip flops, eat pizzas, and watch a movie.

And Katelyn designing this incredible slide/amusement park down the stairs. And her cute cute giggles to go along with it.

I also need to figure out pictures on blogger. It's not working for me. More to come hopefully.

Summer

Cute Katelyn. Her front teeth are growing in. I miss my toothless girl.

She's cute. And so full of personality. She brings a lot of laughter and joy to our home.

My beautiful Ashley. This is her "I don't really want a picture taken of me" smile.

Ashley starts piano competitions this fall. I'm excited to hear her perform and to have that opportunity.

It was super hot one day so we jumped on the trampoline with ice cubes. They followed the heaviest person on the tramp, which happened to be me. It was very exciting and we all enjoyed it!

More to come if blogger gets its act together.