Sunday, July 27, 2014

In Summer....

We have been having an awesome summer! Here's some of the fun things we've been up to (from Zac's phone):

I believe that is an ear of corn.
A big boa snake the girls petted at the 4th of July Freedom Festival.
Getting ready for our 4th of July 1 Mile Run.  The girls did awesome! Rachel and Dad finished at about 12:50 and Anne and I at about 13:00.  They ran the entire thing and loved running "super fast"!

4th of July Parade (It's pretty awesome and not so awesome that the parade goes right by our house.  Cool we don't have to walk far, but people camp out overnight the night before and it's loud alllll night long).
This was one of the girls' favorite floats, all the Disney Princesses!
And Elsa came to say hi.
Zac and I thought this was cool.
The girls absolutely loved all the fire trucks, motorcycles, marching bands, and dancers.
Sarah enjoyed waving hi to everybody that waved to her.
Super cute 4th of July outfits from Aunt Dawn, thank you! Funny photo shoot.




Getting ready for the Stadium of Fire fireworks and Carrie Underwood show that night.

Anne and Uncle Gordon were buddies.
All of us at the show :)


More Freedom Festival fun.

Some new dress up goodies from the fair.


While Mom hosted a baby shower.....
Fishing is one of the girls' favorite activities this summer.  This was the first time with their very own new fishing poles.  We went to the reservoir in Spanish Fork.


Zac's summer work party at a lake in Highland. We had a yummy bbq, canoeing, wading, and fishing.
The girls love holding the worms and playing with them.



Our annual ward campout.
Hiking the next morning up to Stuart Falls.  It was a beautiful hike and the girls were amazing little hikers.  Round trip it was about a 4 mile hike and the older two hiked the entire thing.
Sarah got to ride in style and slept the entire way up to the falls.
The kids got a little dirty....
At the falls.

We brought Shizzie on her first hike.  She did amazing as well.  Her feet got a little hot on the way back and I think she was a little sore, but after a day of resting she was back to her hyper self again.
She was very happy to get to the water and cool off.

On Pioneer Day (July 24th) we woke up early and ran the Temple to Temple 5k run.  We thought it would be fun to run it as a family this year and we planned to walk most of it with the girls.  But Anne ended up running the entire thing! In 38 minutes! And Rachel ran the entire first two miles and then on and off ran the last mile and finished in about 43 minutes! Sarah got to ride in style again and just chilled in the stroller.
I am so proud of my little runners.  I kept asking Anne "Are you doing ok? Do you want to keep running or walk?" And she would say "I'm doing great! I can run forever!"  I see distance running in her future :)
A Rachel selfie.
Provo puts on a pretty cool Pioneer Day festival a couple blocks away.  The girls dressed up in their cowgirls outfits and we had a blast.  Here we're doing a Native American circle dance.

Ok, here's the pics from my phone.

Back at the Spanish Fork reservoir playing at the beach before Daddy came to go fishing with us.
The water was a tad cold.



Sarah is so proud of herself that she can trapse around in the big play dress up shoes just like her big sisters.
"Just because" roses from Zac. I got it good :)
Sarah has such good big sisters.


Rachel's favorite past time...drawing.  She and Anne both love making cards for everyone to "make them happy".  Rachel is starting to write words and sound things out herself.
Anne and Rachel always pick out their own clothes now and I get a chuckle out of some of their fashion choices.  I put the skirt on Sarah so she'd fit it :)
I took Anne to the eye doctor cause she was rubbing her eyes and fidgeting a lot when we would do reading together.  Sure enough she needed reading glasses just like her Mama.  She picked out these cute frames all by herself (there were even purple ones there, but she really liked these).  They are so her.  What a smart little cutie.
The girls' favorite show these days is Sheriff Callie on the Disney Junior channel.  Hence all the cowgirls stuff.  Sarah joins right in the run and loves riding her horse.
A fun and hard bike ride up to Slate Canyon one day. I was so proud that I actually made it to the top of a crazy hill I had to take a picture.
Another of the girls' favorite activies, playing with their barbies from Aunt Jennifer, thank you! They have so much fun dressing them and acting out all sorts of scenes and stories.
Zac's work party at the lake.

Apricot canning: jams, halves, and syrup.
The ward campout.  Dinner was a chili cook-off.  Zac and I trade off years being able to cook the chili and this was my year.  I won most original chili.  (It was a bbq chicken chili)
Someone brought a couple gigantic balls for the kids and adults to play with.
I love this picture.  Such her daddy's girl.  (Her hair does that all by itself, with no encouragement, she's related to her cousins ;)


I brought some beads and gimp for the kids to play with while sitting around the fire.  The girls made some pretty necklaces and I showed some of the older girls how to braid.

During the Stuart Falls hike we were so hot and hungry that we motivated all of us to keep going by saying we could get snow cones when we finished.  So on our way home we got these montrous snow cones.  About 3 seconds after I took this picture Anne accidently dumped hers all over her lap, the car seat, the seat underneath, and the floor.  Needless to say we stopped, got out and finished our snow cones outside while I cleaned the car.

Oh Anne :)
My running buddies.  I've started to run a little bit again.  Mostly because the girls ask to go out and go running.  We go at their pace and usually stop at a park and play at some point.  It's fun.
We had an indexing FHE at our house where we invited our friends and neighbors to come over and eat and learn to index names for family history work.  It was great! We got to hang out with a bunch of our friends and neighbors and I got to teach a couple people how to index! The Church was having worldwide challenge to see if we could index more that 50,000 names in a 24 period.  We ended up getting that and then some with about 61,000.  Yay!


I turned around during the bbq and Anne was doing this with the last of the melted ice cream. Stinker :)
Ever since we watched the Lego movie (which the girls really did not like, Zac and I thought it was funny) we have all been a little obsessed with legos.  The girls asked me if I could build them a carriage for their little cinderella doll.  So....we did!

The Pioneer Day Temple to Temple run.
There ended up being about 8-10,000 runners. 
Anne after the race. Way to go Anne!
Great job Rachel!!
On our way to the Pioneer Day festival.  Aren't they just the cutest cowgirls ever? These cool vintage cowgirl shirts passed down from my older siblings made these girls' day.
Ropin' some cattle...
Washin' some clothes...
Shootin' some ducks...
Ridin' some ponies...


Eatin' some corndogs... (by the way, best corndogs ever!)


Playing at the park, killing some time before it got dark so we could do some fireworks.



Some little home fireworks with our next door neighbors, the Gardners.
Outside water fun.  Do you see what Anne is scheming?

I just wish I had taken a picture about .5 second later to see Zac's reaction. I was too busy laughing.  He shot right up and everyone was laughing and Anne was swimming in the wading pool.  It was great :)

Hot, sleepy, baby.

Tug-a-war at the festival
At the ward campout we had a talent show and the girls wanted to perform their Frozen scene that they act out.  Rachel was being a stinker all that day about it and wouldn't practice it right.  Nobody could really hear them, but they still had fun doing it, that's what matters right?
Rachel caught a fish!
Anne caught a fish!
Ye-haw!
Rachel's moves.