More Summer

We've been keeping a pretty low profile for most of July.   Scott and I have been trying to sort out house things little by little.   The sale of our California house fell through due to our buyers being unable to sell their house.  The market in California has cooled as summer rolls on and we were getting worried about selling.  Luckily we were able to get our house back on the market and get renewed interest in it and a new buyer, with no contingencies this time.  We will close on that sale soon, so things are moving along.  And we will also close soon on the purchase of our new (to us) house in Utah.  The house we're buying is in Davis County, north of Salt Lake.  More on that in the near future.  So things have been a little weird and stressful but it should all get resolved soon.  Here is Grant making pretzel designs.  This one is a school he tells us.

Not sure what Emma was making

The kids had swim lessons and made good progress.  We've also been swimming for fun a lot at the indoor pool.  That's Grant down there waving at me.

We got free slurpees at 7-11 on 7/11.  There were big lines.  Utah is crazy for free slurpees apparently. A lot of the slurpee flavors were too liquidy to really be called a slurpee.  The machine couldn't keep up with the demand.  But it was free.

The kids got to be a part of the scout raingutter regatta.  My dad is/was the Webelos leader so they went with him one night while Scott and I did house stuff.  John's boat (that he made - pictured above) won all his races!  Way to go John!!

Anna has been cooking a lot and trying new things.  We found an easy sugar cookie recipe we all liked.  Get the recipe HERE.

They were good!

My parents had their mission farewell at church just before entering the MTC.  Here we are with my parents and my brother, Dave.  They gave nice talks then headed to the MTC the next day.  They got to live at home while at the MTC since they live in Utah County.

We went to McDonald's one day for lunch.  I liked this McDonald's because you can order at a kiosk (less talking to humans) and there was a nice play place.  It did get pretty busy.

Another day when Scott had the day off we went to a trampoline place

The kids had fun swinging on this trapeze

And falling in the big foamy pit

Grant, who is 7, lost 3 teeth in the space of a week.  It's getting pretty lonely there in his mouth.

Had some Harry Potter fun at Target while shopping for school supplies

Trying on different backpacks

I was able to register the kids for school in our new district so hooray for that.  John will be starting kindergarten and he is really excited.  Elementary school is K-6th grade here so Matthew, Anna, Grant and John will all be in elementary school.  Emma is beside herself with sadness.  She wants to go to school too.

School will be here soon!

My mom let Emma wear some of her clip on earrings

Emma loved it!

Emma (and Skye) helping me make brownies

My parents spent about 10 days (I think?) in the MTC and were then on their way!  They are off to serve a mission in Bloomington, Indiana seminaries and institutes.  We all miss them!  More summer fun to come.

Limbo

We are in Utah and things are weird.  We've been trying to get our house in California sold.  We put it on the market the weekend we left town and got four good offers right away.  We were happy to have so much interest and are now under contract to sell our house.  We have also been looking for houses here in Utah and found one we liked.  We are now under contract to buy a house in Kaysville, Utah.  I've been researching places to live in Utah for months and months and narrowed it down to Kaysville or Farmington.  From all my research those seemed like the best options (based on many factors) but I don't actually have a lot of first hand experience with that area.  I'd been to Bountiful a lot during college years and Lagoon when I was a kid.  But not really to Kaysville. So we're hoping things go well with the sale and that we like the area.  Fingers crossed.

Here are some pictures of our adventures since we've been in Utah.

Anna arranged many little plays for the kids to do.  Here is Emma dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood.  The final play of the season, The Gingerbread Kid, was cancelled due to director/actor conflicts.  Maybe we'll get to see it later on.

Grant got the staples out of his head as soon as we got to Utah

His cut is healing well

It's been hot hot HOT!!  We got a big wading pool and the kids have had lots of fun playing in it.

My sister, Ruth, and her family came to visit from Washington and we had a lot of fun with them.  Here is Grant getting squirted by Anna and Magnus, our nephew.

Eating out at Freddy's!!

Emma post boo boo.  Ice packs and bandaids fix most problems.

We've been going to swimming lessons a lot.  Here is John waiting for his class to start.

All the kids are improving!!

Here we are in American Fork Canyon with some cousins

L to R:  Magnus, Matthew, Emma, Gideon, John, Grant and Anna

On Fridays I have Anna cook something (as part of summer learning).  Here she is with a big sheet of Rice Krispy Treats.

Matthew and Anna had fun burning paper with a magnifying glass one afternoon.

I was surprised how well the paper burned

They were safe with their burning

I've been working on a quilt for Emma.  It was supposed to be her baby quilt but she is three now.  So I'm a bit behind.  Here is one square.

Here are all the squares ready to be sewn together.  I have since sewn them together and started on a border.  Still more to do but I think the hard part is over.  The pieced part turned out much smaller than I was expecting.  So I might go with a big border.

Grilling outside one evening.  The kids enjoying s'mores.

We also made tie dye shirts one afternoon.  This is our second year doing it.  They turned out great!!

Me and my sister Ruth before they had to head back to Washington.

Cousins!!

Cousins with Grandma and Grandpa

We're doing our home reading program again this year.  The kids are really motivated.

Here we are getting frozen yogurt for one of their reading rewards.  Read about our reading program HERE.

We bought Matthew a new bike once we got to Utah since his old bike was stolen back in Gilroy.  We  went over to the church one evening to ride bikes and scooters.  The church parking lot by my parents is slightly downhill so the kids had fun riding or coasting down.

We (mostly Scott) made chocolate covered strawberries for my mom's birthday.  The kids helped get rid of the extra melted chocolate at the end.

After swim lessons many days the kids do some screen time in the afternoon.  Emma is pretty tired in the afternoon.

A big 4th of July trifle my Aunt Jeannie made for us - or for my mom's birthday maybe.

It was very tasty!

More playing in the little pool.  It's been very hot in Utah!!

4th of July in Utah is pretty crazy.  Most places we've lived fireworks are banned or mostly banned.  But going to Utah is like going back in time a few generations and fireworks are still legal.

The kids had a lot of fun setting them off.

I just missed getting a good pic of this sparkler going off

Grant finally lost one of his top front teeth.  He does now find it harder to make some s and th sounds.

That is strawberry all over his face, not blood.

Things are a little stressful and we're trying hard to get along.  The older kinds are a bit more familiar with moving but Emma was small when we moved and is having trouble understanding where all her toys are.  She knows we are going to a new house and we tell her that her things will come in boxes.  She even gets to have a new bed.  Before she left she was still in a crib.  We just didn't want to buy new beds just before moving.  So as of now we have about one more month until we can move into our house.  We hope it all works out.