In June, big sister had the opportunity to go to EFY with her cousins. She had a really fun time. I love that she got to know so many new friends, and increased her testimony. I especially love that they encouraged everyone to dance. Nobody gets left out. Her counselor took photographic evidence of Big sister dancing. With a Boy. And not thoroughly hating the experience! Right now, I'm really ok that her general reaction of someone asks her if there's a boy at school she likes is "Have you meet 14 year old boys? No. There isn't one I like." Totally fine. But I'm glad that she got to have a fun time in a no-pressure environment learning that boys aren't ALL bad. She's excited to go again next year!
With the white truck breaking down on us, and then struggling to get our trailer up Daniel's Sumitt once it was fixed, we decided it was time to look into getting a diesel. After lots of research and several test drives, we finally found this beauty:
It is perfect for our family, and hauls the trailer so easily. We have to clarify - this is Wife's truck. Seriously, I love driving it. We still haven't gotten rid of the old white truck. Sentimental value, for one. It's only costing us $10 a month more to have all 3 vehicles on our insurance for another. And big sister is convinced that she gets to drive the white truck when she gets her permit/license. Since the van was giving us troubles from time to time, it's been nice to have spare. So the White Knight and the Black Stallion both stay for now.
After picking up big sister and cousins from EFY, we had to take the boys shopping since some of them were staying with us for a couple weeks. I survived a trip to Old Navy with 5 boys.
While our cousins Trip and Cullen were in town, we tried to do lots of fun stuff. Some friends brought their kayaks up to the nearby reservoir and we enjoyed swimming and kayaking.
Burying kids in the sand is pretty fun too...
Little brother turned 7 and got a sandbox for his birthday. The highlight, I think, was not so much the sandbox itself but the fact that he and little sister got to help Daddy put it together.
Trip ran out of hands when bringing in pizza and rootbeer and opening the door, so he had to improvise holding his phone...
This year, the 4th of July parade in our town was going along a different route because the normal route was under construction. It went past right in front of Husband's grandmother's house, so we got awesome seats! The kids had fun picking up taffy and watching the fun floats go by.
While the cousins were still here, Some friends invited us to join them at the lake for a day. Everyone had fun tubing and swimming. We went home tired but happy, and maybe a little bit sunburned...
Little brother turned 7! As always, we celebrated his birthday with a big party on the 4th of July. Thanks to my sweet friend for making this awesome cake. Little brother requested a Captain America cake. It seemed fitting!
Little brother's favorite part of the day was helping Daddy set off the fireworks.
Cute little girl was thrilled to find somebody's cake unattended...
Every year, the youth in our ward do a huge slip-n-slide at one of the local parks with a big hill. Since our cousins were still here, I brought them along. Big sister had zero desire to participate, but the boys had a fun time.
There's no photographic evidence of me going down, but I think the picture of my afterwards with soaking wet clothes speaks for itself...
We made our annual pilgrimage to Lagoon. Where I really didn't take very many pictures because we were having fun just being together. Big sister brought along a friend, who really is basically just an extra daughter for us. She was a good sport and went on some kiddie rides with the younger kids whenever they asked.
Big brother got to go to Scout Day Camp. Mommy got to go with him. These kinds of things are hard, it was a lot of sitting in a group listening to instructions. It was so busy and noisy and crowded, and big brother was not having a great time. He was thrilled when it was finally lunch time. After lunch, though, we got to go to the shooting range and he loved shooting the BB guns. He opted not to go back the 2nd day, but I think overall he managed to have good time.
On the 24th of July, we headed over to the Ballpark for a Bees baseball game. We're really there mostly for the fireworks. We got there a bit earlier this year and got everyone burgers and fries and drinks before heading to our seats. We got snacks for everyone a couple other times, and the kids had a good time. It was a pretty fun game to watch. The fireworks were fantastic! Little sister and big brother brought their noise cancelling headphones and enjoyed the fireworks much better that way.
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