July 20-26- Rosie in AZ

Yay for Rosie visiting! We had alot of fun while she was here! We went to the Mesa temple visitors centre Monday night and watched 'Only a Stonecutter,' A story about a man who cam to Salt Lake from England pulling hand carts, and then spent 20 plus years walking from Alpine Ut to the Salt Lake Temple every week. An amazing story. 

On Tuesday we went to Feed My Starving Children and packed food for a couple of hours. Our table did 19 boxes but the missionary table next to ours did something like 38 boxes!  

Tuesday night was Jonah's city dive meet. We missed his first dive but caught his last 2. He did GREAT and took 4th place, moving up from 6th at the Qualifier last week. So glad Paul and Jane could be there! We came home and had a dance/pool party!

 These cute kids played 007 one night until late. 

 Rosie and Ethan and Eli went to Sunsplash one day and I got to take these 3 to Costco for lunch and then we went to Winco to do some much needed grocery shopping. They were so cute waiting for me at the front of the store. 

 We had the sister missionaries over for dinner Thursday. Sister Brinkerhoff from Tennessee and Sister Boudoun from The Phillipines. 

We had some friends over Friday after I took Rosie and the 3 boys to the airport! They flew up to Idaho Falls to spend a week with Grandma and Grandpa Tanner.

And then some more neighbourhood kids showed up on bikes! 

Saturday we set up a covering/ carport thing for the boat. Curtis worked on it all day in the heat. I don't know how he did it. I was so tired from doing cross fit that morning that I didn't help very much I'm afraid. Then we took a swim and headed out to Matta's with the girls. 

Sunday a huge tower was built in nursery.

 Oh, and these pictures of Rosie, Janie and Sadie turned out really cute!

July 13-19 - Hot love in the Summer Time!

Another week of swim team violin and piano lessons, Eli did yo-yo camp at the Arnett's, and Rosie flew in Friday night so spend a week with us! And Eli took some awesome selfless!! Haha! 

Are those buns not so delicious?

Jonah and Noah at the dive qualifier.

Jonah came in at #6 which we were so excited about! He gets to go to the city meet next week!

I think this was Tuesday night at Cold Stone, watching something funny on FB.

A water main under the street left all of Jasmine under water Thursday. Jonah was stranded on the golf cart over on Jacaranda and tried to come home, but got water splashed underneath. Jo tried to wipe it up and one of the batteries got damaged. That kid and the golf cart!

The kids got their back to school packets and teachers assigned for the new school year! school starts Aug 12.

I got my hair cut and coloured. I do own the whole twilight series. Don't judge.

We went out for dinner at Golden Corral Thursday night. We haven't eaten at a buffet since Minnesota, so the kids were super excited. They saw all the food and Jonah goes: I'm going to remember this day my whole life. HAHA!! After a bunch of trips to the buffet, and 12 cotton candies nobody was feeling very good! 

Rosie flew in Friday night! We are so excited she is here for a week! We played Settlers with Kenyon and had lots of peanut m&m's!

July 6-12- More Summer fun in AZ

 Monday night we got Chik-fil-a and Wendy's and went over to Riverview Park. We were all pretty crabby in the car on the way there. A baked potato fell out of somebody's hands and I lost my patience. But we ended up having fun at the park even with that and the heat. I was so grateful to turn on the a/c in the car!

Lots of swim and dive team this week. I am so proud of Ethan and Eli for getting up so early each day to swim at Stapley. Eli had a hard time going Tuesday, I really had to do some convincing, and by that I mean bribing… and school clothes happened to come up!  After he came home Tuesday he said: "Thanks mom, for making me go." I had to scrape up my jaw off the ground! Ethan qualified to swim in the relay swim meet this week. He swam hard and Jonah and I had a fun time at the swim meet watching him. Jonah is becoming a great swimmer and diver.

Janie at her Dive Meet

 Jonah and I at Ethan's Swim meet. That face.

Friday night we did a 1 night away at Lake Roosevelt. We camped Friday night and then planned to be boating all day Saturday. It was a fun little get away.

 Eli and Janie getting ready for bed.

Janie, Sadie, Curtis and I slept in the boat, and the 3 boys slept on cots that we brought. It was actually pretty nice, there was a breeze and probably 80's that night. I woke up one time to a big bug zooming down at me, and a few times my hips digging into the floor of the boat, but for camping it was great.

We also brought little Cougar along! 

 Spur of the moment we turned at a sign that said 'cave dwellings.' Last time we came to Roosevelt we wanted to stop but didn't have time. It was 1/2 mile hike from our car up the hill to these 700 year old settlements.

Beautiful and so interesting.

 The Salado people would use the pigments from the rocks to colour pottery and barter with other groups for other resources.

This was a little bowl hollowed out that they would mix the pigments in. 

I love how light plays off of stone. One of my favourite things to photograph. 

On the way down with Eli still up there.

Time for fun on the water! Ethan tried wake boarding and got up the first time! He did really week. Jonah gave it a few great tires. The water was pretty choppy so Janie and I didn't try this time.

 Sadie and her buddy,

Sadie and her pretzels.

 Check out that sunburned face! We all got alot of sun and were hurting a little bit today. We had a great day on the lake and got home around 7:30 pm. I had to back the trailer down the most giant ramp you have ever seen, but with many mighty prayers I got that down there. That is so stressful.

The Chipmans invited us over to celebrate Laura's birthday, Mikane and Caleb were giving ethan some much needed love!