August Little Things

We kicked off August with Junior Lifeguards.

This time, the little brothers joined the daycamp lineup.

The camp is a vigorous mix of ocean safety and swimming skills. The rotations switch each day and they find out immediately when they arrive each morning if the dreaded "swim-run-swim" is on the schedule.

On one of the days the older boys were at camp, Crew and Finn went to a Dr. Suess camp put on by some neighbor girls. They made "Cat in the Hat" kabobs.

We had a street ice cream social one summer evening. I love that we do these gatherings.

I don't think the kids mind either.

Finn had his fair share of battling with asthma and fevers, per usual. 

Nash decided the cliff on the beach would be a good place for rock climbing.

When he fell a few minutes later and scraped up his wrist, he second guessed that idea. The lifeguard wrapped him all up in bandages.

Nash drew quite the crowd with the lifeguard intervention. Our friends that were at the beach with us captured the excitement.

Nash wasn't down for long, it was too beautiful of a day to waste.

Maybe I'm biased, but the Laguna Beach coves have to be some the prettiest places in the world.

We ended our summer series of weekly ward beach day with one last trip to Riviera Beach.

All of the four and five year old boys played follow the leader with Blake and his friend.

This went on for hours and was quite entertaining for both the participants and the observers.

We cranked out the last of our summer bucket list items before school started. We made it over to a club pool we've been wanting to try out with inflatable water slides.

One of Blake's friends set up an inflatable slide in his front yard for a day and that was also a hit.

I love finding notes like this on the piano.

Crew wrapped up his weekly summer soccer camp.

He also thought it would be funny to wear every hat we own.

One night, Nash and I ended up on a date, shopping for school supplies. We couldn't resist getting Finn a monster lunch box with zip up teeth.

Then it was off to school. Blake and his best friend Talon ended up in the same class which they were pumped about.

Crew met up with lots of his friends from church on the first day of kindergarten.

Finn was over the moon excited to start his first year of preschool. 

With all four boys overlapping at school for a few hours, two days a week, I took advantage. My alone time mostly consisted of errands and work, but occasionally, I fit in a workout or brunch on the beach to celebrate a birthday.

We had a full summer with lots of togetherness and memories made, but I have to say, it felt amazing after more than a decade of having little ones at home to be the kind of person who could say "yes" to brunch on a Tuesday morning.

Snow Cones and Raining Lava

Before leaving Vegas, Crew and Finn were happy to try out our friends' new snow cone machine.

We sent them in the backyard with their flavored ice to prevent a sticky mess in the house. The funniest conversations took place between the two of them, as well as new, morbid lyrics to the tune of "It's  Raining Tacos."

Utah According to My Phone

We packed in a lot during our week in Utah. We spent time with family and friends on the lake, we went on hikes and walks, we enjoyed an outdoor concert, and we soaked up down time around the cabin.

I have just a few more things captured by my phone that I don't want to forget.

When we started our road trip there, we picked up Blake and Nash from their Jr. Lifeguard camp at the beach with our fully packed vehicle and immediately hit the road, sandy swimsuits and all. We had planned to only drive half way to Park City since we got a late start, but when the boys kept dozing off, we decided to just keep going. We didn't arrive until around 2am, but sometimes it's nicer to not have to deal with a hotel. 

We always love to see the "roller coaster landmark" near Vegas.

And of course, stunning sunsets from the road.

We met up with good friends from our old neighborhood for dinner one evening, and then paid a surprise visit to another one of our favorite families. Those now grown-up kids used to entertain my wiggly boys every Sunday at church.

We took a break from the lake one day to bring our boys to BYU. They had never really been on a college campus, and it was fun to show them our old stomping grounds.

We showed them the library where Troy used to study for hours and I worked on family history when we were first married. They weren't all that interested in our old study corners, but they were fascinated by the moveable shelves.

We took them through the engineering and business buildings, and ended at the music building. We found some practice pianos for Blake and Nash to play.

We had lots of good discussions on how hard it is to get accepted into a good school. The boys asked question after question and we were happy to get the wheels turning about college.

Another day, we hit up the local small town bowling alley that hasn't changed a bit since the 1960s. The boys were pretty excited when they spotted a ball with my name on it.

The drive home is always dreaded, but we broke up our drive with a few days in Vegas.

July Little Things

We kicked off July by getting serious about swim lessons.

I enrolled all the boys in lessons at the same time, but since Blake was already practicing with the swim team and didn't need lessons, he took a diving course so he would have something to do too.

He absolutely loved it. So much that he ended up switching from swimming to diving six months later.

On the last day of lessons, Nash and Crew were invited to jump off the high dive, which they did with no fear.

We made lots of trips to the beach.

Tuesday is ward beach day and we never miss it. The boys love to hit the waves surrounded by friends.

I took Blake and Nash on a bike trail I heard about that leads from our house to the ocean. We only got turned around once and were pleasantly surprised to find out that the entire trip was only 9 miles and could be done in around an hour.

We did stop along the way, of course, for some scenic views and for Nash to relax.

When we made it to the beach, Troy and the other boys joined us so we could load up our bikes. No way were we going to bike entirely uphill back home.

Before we turned around, we made sure to put in a few beach hours.

The sight of an exhausted, sand-covered napper never gets old.

We were sad to miss out on the annual Nash family reunion in Michigan, so we drowned our sorrows in a 500 piece Mackinac Island puzzle.

It is well known that Amazon Prime Day is Troy's favorite holiday. He either takes the day off work or works from home so he can make sure to snag all the best deals. We get a kick out of all the boxes arriving on our front porch two days later.

More beach time...

...and pool time.

We went to a Pioneer Day carnival where Crew won a goldfish. It lasted for several weeks in our backyard fountain, which I call a win.

The balloon swords, however, only lasted minutes.

Blake and Nash learned how to make pom pom balls and adorned their bunk bed with their creations.

This snapshot captures Nash perfectly; sweatpants, no shirt, favorite hat, relaxing in his own corner and getting all of his comic drawing ideas out on paper.

Crew picked out a ladybug for his cute preschool friend, Ava. He knew she loved ladybugs and he saved it for weeks until it was her birthday. 

When the big day finally arrived, we wrapped it up and delivered it to the birthday girl.

We went to another carnival thrown by our orthodontist. The kids walked away with balloon animals, face paint, raffle prizes and bellies full of tacos and sno cones.

I've talked about it before, but I can never get over the golden light that streams across our cul-de-sac every night, illuminating every leaf and flower and casting long shadows.

My laundry room drying hooks overflowing with boys' swimsuits was a pretty good representation of how we spent July.