Foam Day and BBQ

Last year our little town started a new tradition of Foam Day.  Basically they fill a field with foam with fire hoses and then let everyone loose to play in the foam.  It was crazy and crowded.  Jack braved the foam.

Bella saw the foam and said no way-I think it was also the big crowd.  Sophie and Nate waded into the little kids area for a while.

They had another area set up in which you could rinse off, the water was apparently freezing.  I will see if the kids want to go next year, I couldn't tell how much they enjoyed it, well besides Bella, who didn't.

Later that evening we went to a BBQ in which I made this cake:

It is supposed to look like a flag, which it sort of does when you cut it.  I had seen it all over the blogosphere and wanted to try it out.  The ice cream was homemade by our BBQ hosts and was really good.  I am not usually a strawberry girl, but I really liked it.  We also had some fun on some 2 x 4's with ropes on them, four people are on a team and have to cooperate to walk on the boards.  There is some video here which shows the team I was on winning!  And yes, yelling right, left incessantly is necessary. But I admit, we have more practice than the other team.  It was a fun day and we capped it off with some fireworks, which is always nice on my birthday.

Family Talent Show

At our recent family reunion, we had a talent show.  It was fun to see what everyone prepared and see the kids perform.  Above are just a few snapshots of how it all went. Bella played the piano despite being terrified.  She memorized the easy version of Can You Feel the Love Tonight.  Grandma Miskin told a story.  Jessica sang a song then Sophie played the Harmonica or Hanananka as she called it.  Terry made a pinata which the kids later got to break open.  I  spent a lot of time being crazy while they were doing that because all the pinatas I have seen at parties before don't go well.  Someone always gets hit, I mean, it's the basis for America's Funniest Home videos.  But this one went down just fine, probably because of my extreme bossiness.  Louis did a rap, he is going on a mission this fall to Columbia and we are all very excited for him.  The Christensen Kids plus Jack sand If the Savior Stood Beside Me.  I had no idea Jack was singing with them all until we were there-still not sure how that came about.  Alice played a song on the piano.  Roger filmed the whole thing and will someday distribute copies to the family.  Marshall played some original music.  And the Flake family sang On Top of the World.  Nate and I sang, but I don't have any pictures of that.  nd Manasseh was the MC for the whole thing and told some jokes. 

NaNaNaNaNa-they say it's your birthday!

I love my birthday, it means I survived another year!  I made Nate take this picture in Disneyland.  I am very excited to be 33-maybe someday we will eat at Club 33.  Have a great day everyone and eat cake!

Cousins!

For two weeks in July, we hosted our Texas cousins!  The kids had so much fun and everyone was really worn out by the end.  We spent a day at BYU dropping off Morgan to EFY.  Then the rest of us walked around while Jessica and I showed the kids our old stomping grounds.  It always feels like we were just there, but it has been ten years since I graduated, and there are new buildings and things are different.  We played around in a few of the buildings that have interactive displays.  They ran around the tree of life for a while.

  L to R: Finn (9), Jack (10), Cade (6), Sophie (2), Brandon (13), Makenzie (10), Kellen (4), Liam (3), Isabella (7)  We had already dropped of Morgan (15) at EFY, we were quite a sight with our large crew.

Then we had ice cream at the Cougareat.  It was a hot day, and by the time we were finished everyone was really tired.  Cause don't they all look thrilled to be waiting for their ice cream.

Hostas

Jack is going to be in fifth grade this fall-I can hardly believe he is already that old.  I remember fifth grade really well.  His teacher is planning on teaching them about inheritance and some genetics this year.  So a few weeks a go we went and helped pollinate hostas with his teacher to make some cross breeds and then later in the year the kids will grow out their seeds to see what happens.  Jack and a friend we there and at first you could tell they weren't all that excited about school in the summer, but after going over what they were going to do and why, they really got into it.  There were a lot of varieties of hostas with dozens of different traits, they picked traits they liked, then pollinated the two different plants.  It was a really fun morning.   The whole project made me excited for this school year.  I love that his teacher took time out of his summer to start a project with his students. 

Baseball Season

We have just finished up Isabella's second baseball season.  Last year she did t-ball, and this year she played coach pitch.  She had a great time!  After watching Jack play, she is pretty particular about what positions she plays.  She tried to go from catcher, to pitcher, to first base, to short stop.  It's pretty funny that she has caught on to which positions get the most play, especially since she doesn't seem to really want to go after the ball.  We had fun watching her this year, though we melted during a few games. 

I have shockingly few pictures of Jack's baseball season.  A lot of his games were after 8, so I stayed home and put the girls to bed, and since Nate coached, we couldn't switch off going to games.  He played catcher and pitcher and second base this year, in the picture, he is catching.  His season had a lot of rain and cooler weather.  And I broke my camera at his last game.  I pulled it out of my pocket to stick in my purse and all sorts of dirt blew into the lens, it then made an awful noise and the shutter popped off.  I was very sad and had a hard time picking out something new.  Finally I settled on a Panasonic Lumix, which I like so far. 

Jack's team had a good year, at this age they get to play on the same team two years in a row, so some of the kids had played together before.  Nate coached for both years and that worked out really well for our schedule.  Jack has a lot of fun and is looking forward to next year. 

Vacation 2010

Nate's brother Roger got married this past weekend in San Diego.  We decided to incorporate our vacation with the wedding.  Things were a bit tight as Jack had a baseball game on Wednesday and another the following Monday.  Thus, we decided to fly.  We have never flown as a family because we actually really like road trips, but there just wasn't enough time to drive.  Bella hasn't flown since 2004, so she was pretty excited.  She ended up being okay with the flying, but thought it was way too loud. 

We went straight from the airport to the San Diego Zoo.  The weather was beautiful and the kids had a great time.  Jack was very interested in the reptiles and Sophie loved the polar bears.  Bella would not commit to a favorite animal, but she bought a stuffed lioness, so we will call the lions her favorite.  We were pretty tired when the zoo closed, but our hotel was in Anaheim, so we hopped in our rental car, which just barely fit us all, and drove up.

Earlier in the year we participated in the Give a Day, Get a Day program that Disney had going on so we had vouchers for some free tickets.  Despite her slightly worried face, Sophie had a lot of fun.  She was a little nervous, but after each ride, she would want to go again.  We spent the morning going on rides she could ride.  Then she fell asleep in the afternoon and we did a lot of parent swapping.

We decided to eat at places we hadn't eaten before and ride on a few things we hadn't before.  Bella really wanted to go on the Canoes, so we did.  It ended up being pretty funny.  The girl behind me hit my paddle no matter what I did.  Bella managed to get all of us wet from her seat in the front.  Sophie was really mad at her, which made it more amusing.  While Bella and Nate were on Splash Mountain, Jack, Sophie and I went on the Pooh Bear ride.  At the end of the ride you can meet Winnie to Pooh and some of his friends.  Sophie ran and hugged him and was very excited.  But when we went up to see Tigger, she didn't want anything to do with him.  

 Bella drove the car on Autopia for the first time, she is a pretty crazy driver, and Jack drove a car all by himself.  I think he has passed all height requirements and can ride, drive, and do everything.  He was pretty excited.

Bella still really loves the FantasyLand rides, especially the Alice in Wonderland ones.  Sophie didn't mind the spinning tea cups at all, she was pretty much on board with everything.  She even went on the Matterhorn and clapped at the end.

 By around 9 o'clock Sophie crashed.  We did a few more ride swaps, then the kids and Nate watched Fantasmic while I found some t-shirts.  When I sat down I about fell asleep myself.  We ended up staying at the park until midnight, so it was a sixteen hour day of fun.  Bella fell asleep in the few blocks back to our hotel, and we all crashed and slept really soundly.

Saturday, we drove back down to San Diego to the wedding.  We got to the San Diego Temple to find the wedding party had arrived in a stretch Hummer.  The kids thought that was pretty cool and loved sitting in it for a while.  The temple is undergoing some cosmetic renovations, so most of the pictures are off to the side.  The ceremony was really great.  We are so happy to have Cassie as an official aunt now.  She automatically get 18 nieces and nephews in one fell swoop.  Also, she is the most recent daughter-in-law since me, almost thirteen years ago.  We drove up to the reception in Temecula, where apparently I didn't take any pictures.  That night we stayed in Lake Elsinore.  After so many late nights we were pretty tired and slept really hard that night.  Sophie had fallen asleep at the reception and woke early as ever, so we all got up, got ready and headed over to Dana Point.  Nate's two older sisters, mother, and younger brother were at at the same place as we were, so we went to the beach together.

My mother-in-law hadn't been to the ocean in 42 years!  It was so fun to be with so many of the family and hang out together.  The time went by too quickly and we didn't get to visit enough.  We spent about an hour at the beach then headed out to the airport.  Our flight was a bit delayed and the kids were going nuts in the airport waiting.   Finally when we boarded and got all situated everyone calmed down.  As the plane began to taxi Sophie pointed out the window to show Nate something and fell asleep mid-point.

She was so tired she slept until we landed in Salt Lake and plane was pulling into the gate.  We had a hard time convincing her that she flew anywhere at all.  She thought she had just sat on the runway then got back off.  I don't think she was really convinced until we found our van in the parking lot.  We came home to a relatively clean house (yay!) and lots of laundry (boo!).  I love vacation, the anticipation, the going.  The coming home is always my least favorite part.  I need another trip to look forward to.  I am glad we will be seeing everyone again soon at the reunion next month!