Excited!

I finally bought a bike and trailer! I have been wanting one forever, and finally did it this summer!  We've had lots of fun riding around together.  The only bummer is the boys keep getting flat tires from the weed thorns in the streets.  

Swimming at Grandma's and Grandpa's

A highlight of any summer is swimming at the Gibson's.  We are so lucky to be able to go to their pool just about anytime we want, so we try to take advantage of it!  Lauren took to the water like a fish, as all of her brothers seem to have done.  She loved the water, and would kick her legs with happiness as she played in the water.  She absolutely loved it!!  All the boys loved it as well, of course!  They all took swim lessons during the summer with Karli and McKenna.  Dylan is a natural swimmer and a lot of fun to watch.  Jayden, Ethan, and Austin all improved a lot in their swimming as well, and are also good swimmers.  We love to swim!

Dylan, Jayden, and Ethan found a new fun way to play in the waterfall.

A little road trip to Vernal...

We decided to take a little road trip to go see the newly reopened Dinosaur National Monument.  What great fun we had!  Lots of movies, snacks, and I spy as we drove!

 

They built a huge building around this excavated wall that contains so hundreds (thousands?) of fossils.  Apparently a huge flood must have happened and made the bones all pile up like a log jam.  Now at this location there are so many fossils, even with so many that have been removed since it was found a long time ago.

Look how tall my boys are getting!

To get to the quarry site, they shuttle you from the Visitor's Center.  You can walk the two miles back and see a few other fossils as you go.  They recommend you have plenty of sunscreen and water to take with you.  Boy, were they right!  I think it was around 11 when we walked back, and it was so hot!  Any little bit of shade we could find was nice to rest for a second.

 
These stairs lead off  of the main path to show you where you can see a bone just sitting in the side of this rock wall.

A little shade!! Austin's face shows how hot he is.

Austin was so excited that he got to buy this!

Before heading home we stopped at the museum they have in Vernal.

Goodbye Dear Friend

R2D2 has been a part of our family for... years.  Devon started working on him when we lived in New York - probably in 2005.  He has had fun acquiring parts, and slowing building his own, life sized R2D2.  He even got it making sounds like R2D2.  Alas, R2D2 had to go to fund a new hobby of Devon's: cycling.  It was a trade of one expensive hobby to another.

Block Party!

The annual block party was a lot of fun!  There was the usual: good food, cotton candy, loud music, and bounce houses.  The new stuff was having the firemen come with their truck and have a water fight with the kids.  All my kids were too chicken to join in the fun, though.  We were lucky to have Rachel and David join us, since they were staying at our house that night.  We were a little bummed about there being no races this year, but I think part of it comes from Jayden getting hurt last year.  I still think he got a concussion after he crashed into someone when they stopped their bike abruptly at the finish line.  It was fine not having it, but I think there was a little disappointment on my kids part.  Also, because of the seriously dry summer and high fire conditions, our street wasn't allowed to have any fireworks at all.  The north end of our street was allowed to, so while the rest of us stayed at the middle of the street, they lit cake fireworks up into the sky from the north end of our street.  It was fun to watch, but different from years past when we had "The Street of Fire."   I think the bounce houses and the cotton candy were the highlights for the kids, what do you think?