Priorities

Summer has changed my usual routine.  The kids have been home and we’ve been doing summer things: trips, camps, swimming, beach, playing with friends, and just spending time together… so needless to say, I’ve been away from my computer. And I’ve been away from my blog.

Here are some pictures from my phone to show you a little of what we’ve been up to:

biking and geocaching

swim team and playing in the pool

Camps

and beach days.

And my oldest has been in Europe on a band tour, and is back now.

I can’t believe it’s August!  Orientations, Registrations and Band Camp are almost here. 

I will miss all the fun, but I’m looking forward to getting back to my sewing and regular exercise, and more of a routine!

Happy 20th To Us!

I’ve been back from my vacation for almost a week now, and I’m just getting around to posting about it.  For some reason it’s an overwhelming task.  We had such a great time in Canada…flew into Calgary and spent the following 4 nights: at Lake Louise, Banff, Kamloops and Vancouver. 

My husband was the amazing organizer of our vacation.  The five of us went to the airport Monday morning, flew out within 30 minutes of each other…the boys going to Salt Lake City, and the rest of us on a flight to Canada going through Phoenix.  We dropped Miss K off with some good friends who met us at the Phoenix airport and we were off to Canada alone to celebrate our 20th anniversary!

At the end of our trip we took separate flights out of Vancouver within 30 minutes of each other to retrieve our kids.  The next day Miss K and I arrived first to the San Diego airport and the boys arrived 15 minutes later.  We were reunited and drove home together!

Not only did he schedule all the flights, but also all our hotels and activities for the week.  We had a busy, fun filled week admiring the beautiful scenery all around us in Canada.  Hiking and geocaching were our main activities. 

Here are some pictures from our trip.  We had many animal sightings.  We enjoyed all the beautiful scenery!  And geocaching made our long drives fun and exciting!

If you ever get a chance to go to the Canadian Rockies, do it!  It’s so beautiful!

It's a Party!!!

Our boys are on a Scout High Adventure this week.  So it was the perfect week for friends from Arizona to come for a visit!  Miss K has been in heaven having one of her best friends here all week.  We've been swimming, to the beach, ice skating, etc. etc. all while Miss K is attending a half day theater arts camp every day.  The big show is tonight!

Every night is a party...but last night it was official...there was even a poster on the wall to prove it!

These girls are so dang cute and we're so happy they get to spend some time together!

Ahhhh...a day at the beach!

We're Back!

We had a great time on our trip to visit family! Here are some things we did:

We kept K busy with her school work:



We walked to school everyday and played with all the cousins and aunts and uncles!



K and her cousin got to show each other their cousin quilts. They had a block swap a while back and here's what they have so far. They even got to "show and tell" their quilts at a block of the month meeting we went to for Trisha. They received a lot of praise for their quilts.



The sisters got to hang out! (this one's for you Ann!)



We got some knitting done...here's my sock...

We got some sewing done!



These are my blocks layed out on the floor, but not sewn together. It is a bit smaller than I want it to be, so I'll probably do some white sashing and a couple borders...stay tuned! The pattern I'm using is called "Sunny Days" from the book Rolling Along - Easy Quilts from 2 1/2" Strips by Nancy J. Martin. And the jelly roll is "Blossom" by Urban Chiks - moda.

We did some shopping.

I got a yo-yo maker for K to use for her cousin quilt (which is pretty cool), some new yarn for some "sockies" I'm going to make, and some more fabric in the form of a charm pack for my quilt. The sockies pattern I'm going to use is by Laura Grutzeck in this book:



I'll get started on those when I finally finish the sock I'm working on now.



We got to go to some soccer games in the rain, we ate yummy food, got to reminisce, we went swimming at an awesome indoor swimming pool with a water slide and a lazy river, we got to experience some entertaining piano practicing by one talented little girl, went to Activity Day girls, built Legos with the ultimate Lego fans...and so much more, the fun never ended!

We cried when we had to leave...well maybe I just cried... Thanks everyone for making our visit so awesome!

And K took some awesome pictures out of the airplane window on the way home.





We're grateful and happy to be back home with the boys.

Park City

We stopped in Park City for a couple days before heading home. The main reason was for J and B to go mountain biking for the day for J's birthday. They had a great time, and that gave the rest of us some time to shop on Main Street for some birthday gifts. The kids also had fun swimming in the unheated jaccuzzi at the hotel/condo.

The day we left we went miniature golfing, the kids went through the maze and the younger 2 went on the bungee trampoline jump. Lots of fun!

Pictures from the condo:

To my surprise, as I was making sure we had all of our belongings to leave for the airport I realized that this little table in the kid's room was actually...

a sewing table with a machine inside!

It looked like it was in bad shape, and we were just checking out. So I didn't have much time to investigate further. It looked like it was electric, as I saw a cord and a foot pedal inside. Too bad I didn't find it earlier in the visit. It would have been fun to see if it worked. (Kind of doubt it though.)

Our flight home went well. It's always nice to be home. Here's a picture of my treadle sewing machine that I have in my dining room. Don'tcha just love it? I do.

Vacation Pictures

Here are some pictures from our vacation...

Who knew moths could be this big!

A geocaching find... this mason jar was covered by some dirt and leaves at the base of this tree by a river.

Here we are following the GPS to a geocaching site, but unfortunately no luck for us here...

Some sites as we drove around Idaho Falls to our next cache site...

A "nano cache" we found. Wow was it small!

Here it is opened, only room for a very small log wound up inside.

Following are pictures from our day in West Yellowstone...

On our way out of the park we came upon a lot of Bison who liked to walk across the road and stop traffic.

What a great way to finish off our summer. Now we're home and getting ready for school to start in a little over a week!