What we did this summer

This summer was full of some pretty fun things. Crazy things. Ordinary things. But all our things. And because I was so busy doing all of these things, I didn't get a lot of blogging done. This blog post is long. And full of pictures. Lots of pictures. And I didn't even add them all on here. But being as it's officially fall, and we have a lot more things on our doorstep, coming up to happen, I better get this all archived for future remembrance. Ready? Here we go!
JUNE
Girl's Camp
Our them was Camp TV (Totally Virtuous). I got to be in my first flash mob, which ROCKED. I made some pretty solid neighborhood friends, not only with the other leaders, but with the young women too. We danced like 70 year old women, invented an infomercial for "Bully B Gone spray", taught the girls Vroom, and how to play skittles. Oh yeah, the spirit was amazing this year. Stronger than any other year I've ever been to.
Playing cards with Mik is pretty easy when you can see them in her glasses.

Above, I kid you not, at this point in the hike some one says, "I spy with my little eye something GREEN!"

Below, our 70 year old granny dresses for our awesome dance skit:

And the beginnings of our flash mob, done to Selena Gomez's "Who says":

Our amazing girls:

Raccoon:

West's mom rescued a lost raccoon that she found while in a cemetery. We got to go check it out. I walked with all four of it's legs sticking straight out in jerky movements, it kind of reminded me of a bat in a way.

Jay-bird's half birthday:

We won't have the kids on Jay's birthday this year (the day after Christmas) so we did her party and gave her presents for her half birthday.

Jay invited some friends over and they played on the slip-n-slide:

And we taught them how to play water balloon volleyball:

She just wanted a plate of brownies for her cake

and then we set up the projector outside and used the trailer to watch "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" in the yard.

West had to cover the street lamp so we could see the movie:

July

4th of July, Independence Day

We had a neighborhood BBQ and fireworks at our house. I'm so in love with the 4th of July and it was perfect this year. I hadn't had my circus on the 4th of July for three years. FINALLY, we got to celebrate it with them.

The girls helped me make some red, white, and blue strawberries. My dad made homemade ice cream, and West pulled the BBQ out on the front porch. Everyone brought side dishes and desserts and fireworks and we had more food and fun than we knew what to do with.

We inherited a second air hockey table so we set it up outside. It was a big hit.

And it started to rain right at the very end, but not so much that we couldn't finish. Aaron was prepared for it though.

Flaming Gorge

In July we joined a group of friends at Flaming Gorge, on the Wyoming side. It's pretty bare and we've decided that if we go again we're going to stay on the Utah side. It's a lot prettier there.

We didn't have the circus that weekend, so we just took our puppy boys.

L is super mom. See? She even has a flowing cape.

Youth Conference

For Youth Conference we went up and camped at Palisades in Idaho, and rafted the river in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We also checked out the pioneer town of Chesterfield, Idaho. The theme was choices and paths. We played water games with the youth and had THE best camp cook. The mosquitoes were as big as birds, and no spray stopped them. Jeans didn't even stop them. I'm surprised I got out of the four day trip with only five bites. Everyone else had so many they couldn't even count them.

The Teton Mountains were breathtaking. The whole day was amazing. We saw moose and eagles and hawks.

And somehow I ended up jumping in to the river 6 times. It felt amazing. I was told this earned me my man card, but frankly, I'm not sure I even want a man card lol.

A reminder that my Heavenly Father loves me.

Blowing down the brick house:

Want a perm? Can you even imagine???

August

County Fair:

We joined West's mom, sister, and sister's boyfriend at the Demolish Derby, which are always fun. Then we walked around and checked things out. Guess what we found? A camel and a zebra!

"Aint nothin' in the world can make you fall in love, like a night at the county fair"

Neighborhood birthdays

This is what you get when you make friends with your neighbors. Especially when your neighbors are us.

"Hurry, hide the toilet paper!"

Lodgepole

Sunny D hangover?

We took a quick over night trip up the canyon and had THE best time as a family. We had hot dogs and s'mores and played cards. We took a short hike, and mostly just talked and laughed. I love my circus beyond anything.

This picture makes my heart smile:

BB gun shooting:

1st Day of School:

This is what you get when the kids take charge of their own first day of school pictures:

Casidee, 6th grade. Out to rule the school, and loving every minute of it.

Jayme, 5th grade.

Brynn, 4th grade:

Sean, 3rd grade:

Tayler, 3rd grade:

Cali, 1st grade:

Labor Day Weekend

Sean and Brynn's birthdays

Sean and Brynn had a joint birthday party this year. We did another outside movie, setting up two tables, one for each of them.

Happy 9th birthday to Toad man.

And happy 10th birthday to B.

Sean picked black and red for his colors, Brynn picked purple and blue.

Sean wanted a Mario cake with Mario jumping over a tube. He also wanted it to be an ice cream cake, which poses a problem since ice cream melts and fondant freezes rock solid and can't be cut. We came up with a solution and went to Baskin Robins to order an ice cream cake. We asked them to make the icing green, and the piping green and to leave it blank because we wanted it to look like the green tube on Mario. 15 minutes before the party West went to pick it up. This is what they did:

They seriously wrote "Green Pipe (Mario)" on the cake! It wasn't even green! Well... they gave it to us for 50% off (damn straight) and Sean said he was OK if Mario jumped over a birthday cake instead of a pipe. So I scraped the words off, wrote "Happy Birthday Sean", and stuck Mario in.

Brynn wanted a monkey face cake with sprinkles around the edges. She has a lot of clothes with monkey cartoons on them so I asked her to go and get the one that she wanted me to take the face from. Her BFF helped her with the sprinkles. They did a pretty awesome job.

The face Brynn picked was an angry monkey. Sometimes I don't know about her...

Instead of using the projector this time, we rolled out the giant TV that resides in our garage because we're trying to sell it. We just plugged "Rio" into a DVD player.

Whew! And that was my summer. Now I can stop freaking out about how behind I am on my blog.