Father's Day Photo Shoot

For Father's Day this year I decided to fill up a 3 photo frame for Kerry to have at work.  I'm ashamed to admit that he still didn't have any current pictures of the kids at his workplace, and had mentioned multiple times that he really needed pictures of our family there.  So while he was gone at camp school during the last week of May, our super talented neighbor Kevin Schley took some gorgeous photos of the kids for me.  Here's the sequence of the photos for the frame:

And here's one of them all together:

We gave it to Kerry a week early since we'd be out of town on Father's Day, and he loved it!  The kids were excited to see themselves in the pictures and were so into keeping it a secret till the gift was given.

Yeb turns 4!

Yeb's birthday falls right after scout camp, and since Granna and Grandad don't usually get to be at our kids little birthday parties, we decided to have it the Sunday after camp.  Yeb still isn't old enough to keep track of the days on the calendar, so there wasn't any confusion about it being celebrated a few days early.  He requested tacos, salad, and strawberries for dinner, and had chosen cake and frosting that we brought with us to Blanding.

Poor kid.  I really need to step up my cake game as my kids get older.  Presentation just doesn't matter when they're really little, but they're getting big enough to get excited about something a little more visually appealing.

After dinner, cake and ice cream, Yeb opened presents, which he had been talking about all day.  He got a really cool wooden whistle from Great Grandma, a slingshot from Drea and Keiryn, an outside digging machine from Granna and Grandad, a bouncing ball with a handle from Kerry, me and the kids, and goggles and a Lightning McQueen car from Grandma and Grandpa.

After presents we made pirate hats out of newspaper and the kids went outside to swordfight.  So far we just do family birthday parties where things can be really low key, and it seemed like it was just the right mix of excitement and chill that everyone needed.

That's a pretty scary pirate crew right there:

Camp 2014

We all survived scout camp again this year!  The kids and I went down and stayed with Granna and Grandad in Blanding while Kerry camped up on the mountain, and then we just went and visited during the day a few times.  I was the trading post manager this year, which meant I trained the girls and helped get things running, and then helped with taking it all down the next Saturday.  The rest of the time I didn't really need to be there, so it worked out with the kid situation.  I was pretty worried about staying for almost two weeks at Kerry's parents' house.  It was the longest the kids have ever been away from home, and I really didn't want the kids to drive grandparents nuts.  I think it worked out pretty well, though.  I tried to go somewhere with the kids each day to get us all out of the house, and who knew that Blanding was such a fun place?  We went to story hour at the library that turned out to be pretty fun, went swimming with friends at the awesome outdoor pool, went to the park, got ice cream at the Patio Drive In, and of course had lots of playtime in Granna and Grandad's yard.  The kids had a blast, and loved having Granna and Grandad around.  Pretty sure everyone's sanity was still intact by the end, too.  I think we'll shoot for the same setup for next year.

Meanwhile, camp went well for Kerry.  This was his first year completely on his own as camp director, and even though there were plenty of headaches leading up to camp, it seemed like things went really smoothly once he got there.  I got to go up after the kids were in bed on Wednesday and Friday nights, so I got to be there for the staff party and the closing campfire, which are always really fun.  It was good to see my parents up there, too.  I didn't get to spend much time with them at camp this year since they were busy in their areas and I usually had all the kids in tow, which is really just a ticking time bomb waiting to go off, so I avoided detours that weren't completely necessary while there.  But they seemed to have a good year, and my mom got the chance to teach down in the nature area.

Due to the ticking time bomb scenario, this is sadly the only picture I got at camp this year.  BUT I kept all the kids alive and mostly happy instead.  Maybe next year I'll be able to do both.

Summer Playtime

One of the benefits to having a smaller house is the motivation for the kiddos to play outside whenever the weather allows.  Last summer was the summer of riding bikes in the park, because that was seriously the only time during the day that all of them would simultaneously be ok, and gave me a hopeful glimpse of what our family could be like once we got past that crazy adjustment period.  This summer the kids are able to play together pretty well, so staying in our yard is more what we've been doing so far.  I like that I can be outside working in the yard and the kids can have fun out there at the same time.  Here are a few pics of our outside playtimes:


Kerry set up some sawhorses as goal posts on the school lawn for a soccer game.

Showing off their awesome facepaint and summer do's.

I heard yelling outside, and came out to find Yeb stuck in the swings he tied up. 

A Usable Backyard

We hung in there with our nonfunctional backyard for the past 5 summers that we've lived here, but are excited that we finally have a usable space.  We started with 5 or 6 huge trash trees when we moved in, and even though we took those out within a year of living here, it's taken since then to finally kill the stumps, have the stumps dug out, dig out a buried cinderblock wall that ran the length of our yard, and finally level it this spring and seed some grass.

This is what it looked like 5 years ago when we started taking trees down.  I really felt like I was approaching the haunted forest every time I came home.

 We have more plans for it in the future, but for now I'm just thrilled that I kept the grass alive and got a fairly large garden going.  We attempted to put raspberries in, but unfortunately all 18 of the starts we got from Tom and Nancy died (sorry!).  Maybe they'll forgive us enough to let us get more starts next year.  :)

Here it is after the first mowing: