Swim

To say Ben and Max were not thrilled that I signed them up for one session of swim lessons is an understatement. Ben especially. But after the first day he loved it. I knew he would.

The one I was worried about was Evan. I shouldn't have been. Evan loves it. Like L-O-V-E. The only problem is:
1. Evan already thinks he can swim
2. Evan does not want a fat swim teacher. I know, it sounds so bad. But he's quite firm on that point. The good news is he only had a fat teacher for one day. That sounds so horrible, but he was really upset. I'm not sure why. This past session he had one of Jared Ammon's friends as his teacher and she was (is) awesome. And skinny.

Max quickly made friends in his class and had a blast. I probably could've put him in one class up, but I just wanted him to sharpen up his swim skills. He did awesome.
It worries me that Ben doesn't have very much self confidence. I was so thankful for his swim teacher who was constantly telling Ben what a great job he was doing. Ben was so stressed about diving. When he told his teacher that he wasn't very good - his teacher said, "I saw you dive and you were awesome!" It made Ben's day.



I was so proud of the boys. They did a great job and had blast.

When life gives you lemons....

Yesterday, our a/c stopped working efficiently. And by that I mean that when I came home for lunch it was 88 degrees in the house. Poor Evan was sweating and watching Spongebob. He didn't even notice he was hot.

I sent the boys down to my mom's and called numerous a/c repair companies. The earliest I could get one to come out was this morning. Then I started googling hotels. We spent much of last week at my parent's timeshare in Scottsdale so I thought getting a hotel room would be fun. Ian had other ideas. When I texted him about staying at a hotel, he texted me back about camping in the basement.

Huh?

Our basement a/c was (is) working fine so the basement was a comfortable 75 degrees. I still wanted to go to a hotel - it was 95 degrees upstairs when I got home from work.

Since the boys were still at my mom's - I went over there. After many games of 5 Crowns and breaking down all of the dances on SYTYCD, we finally went home.

Ian had set up a tent in the basement and put the boys mattresses inside. He set up some chairs and a small tv too. The only thing we were missing was a campfire.

He definitely made us lemonade.

:)

Farewell FHE

A few weeks ago we had our last FHE with Jared and Tricia's family. Jared wasn't there - he was already in Texas.

Each kid had an opportunity to share his/her talents and James played the piano. He's awesome.
Although you can't really see them, Joe and Dallin played the guitar and sang a medley of Panic at the Disco and Fun. I am really diggin' both those bands right now. They did an excellent job.

We had play time outside for a while. It wasn't very hot and the kids always have so much fun playing together.



When we finally came back in, Michael and Paul got into a wrestling match. It was intense. Not.
I made Kahea's famous blueberry pie. It is soooo good.

The whole time Darrel was avoiding getting his picture taken. I finally got one! I love my brother Darrel.

And I love his little girl Ruby. We are best friends.

I know it's been a week since I last posted. I just haven't felt like it. It probably would've been longer but my mom made me feel guilty. I've been writing - just not on this blog. It's really cathartic for me to write how I am feeling but I've realized that maybe this blog isn't the place for it. So, my posts might be fewer and farther in between.

Ben has a party

Ben always has an end of the school year party. I started doing it because I felt bad that he never really gets a birthday party (his birthday is around Christmas) and now he wants to do it every year.
It's always low-key and fun. The kids swam, ate pizza and played football and baseball.

Evan came armed and dangerous.

Noodle fight!

Kahea came and brought 4 of her boys. Jonah is so good with Evan.

Max's friend Case also came.

Ben's friend Max got some serious air.


It looks chaotic but it really wasn't. Everyone got a long and had a great time.

Doesn't Evan look like a little angel?



Football!

Baseball! Kahea and I played baseball with some of the boys. I don't think we embarrassed ourselves too much.




Josh's best friend Kevin came over to watch.

Joe came down and serenaded the boys on his guitar.


These two fought some imaginary bad guys.
Ben's friend Max plays the guitar really well. I'm trying to talk him into giving Ben lessons.

I was so happy it turned out well. The boys all had so much fun.

Day 3

Ian woke up early and took Xander and Michael fishing at Sheepscrossing. The rest of us lazed around. Played cards:

Played in cars:

Worked (ok, only one of us worked):
Explored:
Found more sticks:
Evan worked up an appetite and ended up eating all of the left over steak from the night before. I've never seen him eat so much red meat. It was entertaining to say the least.


Darrel, Trina and I and the kids made the trek to Greens Peak. It was a cold, windy day. We hiked half way up and then hiked half way down. It makes me sad when I think about what I will see the next time we hike up there. I can't believe I didn't take any pictures! I think I was too busy chasing Evan around.

Finally around 4 the boys returned from fishing. They caught quite a few fish and brought some home to fry up. Michael's were giving each other a goodbye kiss:

I took more pictures while the boys cleaned and cooked the fish.

I love these two :)And these three.
We left a little after 5. We expected to hit a lot of traffic but hit none. I think we made it home in record time. We hope to go up again soon.