Summer Is Flying By

Summer is flying by, and Iam not getting enough pictures. It is actually turning out to be a great Summer. Days get long, but the kids are actually playing really well together this Summer. Dallin wanted me to send this picture of his lego invention to the Lego magazine. I need to figure out how to do this.

Jayden and Ray playing Superheroes. This is the first time Jayden has really played with a friend. He had a pretty good time.

Elise loves pictures. She also loves the slip and slide. She is a funny girl.

We had our first family visitors to our house. We had my Aunt Synthia and uncle Kary come to our house. It was fun to see them. We also got to see my cousin Daniel and his wife Heidi and their kids. It's been a busy Summer.

Elise and Dallin did swimming lessons this Summer. They loved them. Elise amazed me because she isn't very daring. But, she floated right on her back and stuck her face in the water. She really liked her teacher and thought her teacher was very pretty.

Dallin has always loved swimming. He did really good this time and was a good diver. I guess we just need to work on his floating.

Elise took level 1 with her friend Kelsie . They had tons of fun together.

Elise passed level 1 and gets to go to level 2. What a great little swimmer!

Summer Reading Program

I thought this was a really good idea. I am doing a really simplified version of this girls idea. She had the idea of putting Summer cut outs all over the wall and having the kids pick one off the wall when they read a book. They get a certain amount of points behind each shape. I did this with regular shapes. We went to the library and got tons of books that are Dallin's level, and books that Elise likes. Elise is working on her hooked on phonics. Each time the kids read a book they pick a shape off the wall and stick it on their bedroom door. When they get a certain number of points they can redeem them for something. It has worked great and for the kids to have fun reading and be working towards a goal. Oh, and Dallin has to read books at his level, not baby books. When they get 500 points they get an ice cream cone from Baskin Robbins, when they get 1000 points they get $5 or ice cream from their favorite place called Yogurt Beach. I liked this idea for the Summer so I just wanted to share. Here is the link http://chickenbabies.blogspot.com/2011/06/summer-reading-charts-2011.html

Camping at Sardine

Justin has been talking about Sand Pond since we got married. He had great memories of camping here when he was a little boy. Finally, we decided that we needed to go campling as a family and see this famous place. It ended up being just as Justin described it.

It only took us an hour and a half to get to our destination. We arrived at our campsite at 7:30 p.m., it was a little late . The ranger came to tell us that there have been bears at our campsite and we needed to be careful with the kids, make sure we didn't brush their teeth or have any candy anywhere near our tent. That was a little scary. It was so cute, because we said a lot of prayers that night that we would be protected from the bears. Right before we went to bed I asked Elise if she was scared of bears, she said, "no, I already prayed that the bears wouldn't hurt us and Jesus will protect me." Kids have such great faith. I just love the things they say. We woke up in the morning alive. Justin said he did see a bear pass by our tent, but it just walked away. What a relief. I really loved the spot that we camped at, I just wish that we didn't have to worry about bears.


This is a little stream that the kids caught had such a great time playing in. There were tons of Minows(baby fish), the kids were catching them by the handfuls and saving them in water bottles. It was so amazing to see so many fish.

Jayden loved the water. It was a little chilly, but it felt so good, because it was so hot up there in the mountains.

We rented a boat and went out on the lake. This was so fun and such a beautiful ride. The kids were a little scared, but ended up having a great time.

This is one of those places that is so pretty that you never want to forget. What a great time we had.