Weekend of Freedom

Our 4th of July celebrations were scattered throughout the whole weekend. Thursday morning we decided to check out the local balloon festival. We woke up the kids super early and made our way over to the festival as soon as Scott got home from work. For a while it was fun and exciting as they started blowing up the balloons. However, we weren't sure what was going on when they deflated a bunch right after blowing them up. We only saw one balloon go up into the sky before we decided it was taking too long and headed back home so Scott could get some sleep. It was a fun beginning to our weekend though.

On the 4th, we headed down to visit family in the afternoon. The kids enjoyed playing with their cousins on their inflated water slide bouncy house. We had popsicles and a nice dinner, but Scott had to work that evening so we headed home before fireworks.

Saturday we went to the Riverwoods and had some family fun. We got dinner at Bajio's and played some arcade games at the Provo Beach Resort. The kids each got to pick out a little toy with the tickets we won from our games. Claire chose a princess crown and Everett got a little flyer plane (which was broken by the time we got home).

We got home and tried to wait until it got a little darker, but not wanting the kids to be up super late, we started our little show early. We let them throw the poppers for a while first and then, after talking a little bit about safety with the sparklers, we let them each hold one. They enjoyed those until they both ended up getting small burns. :(

Their burns weren't really that bad, but band aids are always reassuring to kids. So once they got patched up they were up for more playing... only without the sparklers. They decided blowing bubbles was more fun.

After this, we got pajamas on the kids and then decided it was dark enough to try our one little fountain firework. Everett screamed a little when it started popping, but he was okay after a little reassurance. It was a fun weekend. We love our country. :)

mommy's birthday

my beautiful wife had a birthday the other day. i wish i could say that i had planned something spectacular for her, but we had a fun day despite my lack of grand plans. opposed to what i normally do, this year i started off by giving amber her big gift first - a new lens. i wish i could have bought it and wrapped it up nice and pretty for her, but there are so many lenses that amber wants that for her birthday i just told her she could pick out whatever lens she wanted (within a certain price range of course) and we'd get it for her. after much internal debate, she decided on one and we set out to get it. we found a store up in salt lake that had it in stock, so we decided to have a fun day up in salt lake. after buying her lens, we met up with my sister at the city creek mall and had some lunch. after lunch we walked around the mall (which had this fun little wicked display) and temple square.

after playing in salt lake, we headed home for dinner, then some chocolate mousse pie and a couple more presents (a flat iron and a fun ip camera so we can spy on our kids when they're supposed to be sleeping - we love it :) ). not the grandest of days, but an extremely fun one anyways. we are so thankful for this wonderful woman in our lives and all she does. we love you amber!

Swimming Lessons

Beginning of summer with a 3 year old (almost 4) meant we could finally put Claire in some swimming lessons! :) I was a little nervous about a few things, especially seeing them do the airplane ride with all 4 girls... but Claire did great, and she obviously loved it! She always had a huge smile on her face. I think she learned a lot too. Enjoy! :)

Daddy's Birthday

Birthdays are fun! Scott's birthday was last week and it was pretty low key, but Claire and Everett had so much fun helping me make a cake and wrap presents. We went out to eat later in the day and got pizza (Scott's favorite). Afterwards we came back home to open presents, and blow out some candles. Claire really understands the concept of birthdays now, it's pretty cute. She colored pictures for daddy and wanted to blow up some balloons and she was a big help in getting everything ready for him. :)

bryson reunion

oh, how i love the summer. warm weather, lots of family time, and, of course, a break from school. the joy of summer officially began with a fun bryson reunion in colorado. my eldest niece was graduating from high school, so we decided everyone should gather for the celebration. we tried something new and rented a nice big suv for the drive, which meant lots more room and we were even able to get my sister becca to ride with us. the drive went well (with the one exception of our two-hour detour when we tried a new route and ended up on a dirt road staring at a dead end) and we were at my sister's house late that evening. the kids had a blast playing with everyone as more family continued to roll in over the next couple days.

on saturday we all went to the local football stadium to see my niece's graduation. everett loved walking up and down the steps of the stadium, which meant i didn't get to see much of the event, but congratulations tori!

the next few days were full of fun family time. we even got the chance to head up to denver to see amber's sister, maelyn. it was such a blast. i loved that both claire and everett really opened up and bonded with everyone, especially grandma and grandpa. thank you hank and kim for putting us all up for the week and making this happen.

it was a great start to the summer and we hope the next few months are equally as fun. oh, and we saw this awesome complete rainbow. it was actually a double rainbow, but amber's lens wasn't quite wide enough to capture it all. still cool. :)

Living Planet Aquarium

The new Living Planet Aquarium was recently finished. It was bigger and better than the old one so we decided to check it out. :)

this is sparta!

so i was sitting at the computer, sadly pondering the fact that last year was the first year in 17 years that i did not play in an organized football league (not including the mission). but then, to my utter surprise and joy, i received an email asking if i wanted to play in the tackle league that i played in a couple years ago. i loved playing, but poor league management and the stress of organizing a team was too much for me, so i had walked away. but the league was under new management and had made many improvements including weekly highlights, stats, and a post-season, and i loved the idea of just being a member of the team and not in charge. and they wanted me to just play receiver, which was super awesome since i've never really known how to tackle properly. so i jumped at the chance and thus became a spartan for the 2014 spring season of the utfl (utah tackle football league). 

we started practice and it quickly became apparent that i would have to play some defense because there was no one else who could effectively play safety. that wasn't the worst news because i do like the coverage aspect of the position. again, i'm just not a great tackler. the real unfortunate news was that our quarterback proved to not be so great, and he loved to run at the slightest pressure, but he wasn't that great a runner either. our first game did not go so well. our qb went down with an injury on the first drive of our second game, which meant i unfortunately had to step up as qb. i didn't do horrible, but qb is not my strength. it also meant that the team wasn't going to let me play defense to reduce my chance of getting hurt, so i wasn't loving it. after a couple games we all decided my strengths were not being properly utilized, so we put our running back in as qb and i got to catch some touchdowns. our rb then also unfortunately went down with a knee injury and i was forced once again to play qb for our playoff game. all in all, it was not a good season in regard to win-loss, but it was so great playing again. i definitely didn't accomplish my goals that i set at the beginning of the year (lead the league in receiving yards), but i finished third in the league for interceptions, which isn't too bad since i only got to play defense for half the games the other guys did.

this is my highlight reel for the year. nothing spectacular, but a little bit of everything. i caught, ran, threw, intercepted, and tackled, and looked pretty cool doing it, in my humble opinion. ;) there is something special about putting the helmet and pads on. i feel like a samurai getting ready for battle or something.