8 ↓ 5 Lake Extravaganza

July 22-24 we went to Grand lake with the Southward’s & Christiansen’s.  Altogether, we had 8 kids under 5, so it was pretty crazy, but we had lots of fun.  A few of my favorite memories are: 3 Moms on a tube, wake surfing, Cranium, Eli and Sam in girls shoes the whole time, and nursing with a view.

The first night the kids stayed up way too late.

Lots of tubing!

The boat was pretty full.

yummy watermelon!

We never finished bag game, but it looked like Heather & I were going to battle to the death.

Youth Activities etc.

We put on a ward youth conference July 9-10.  The theme was M.U.D.  (M ormons U niting to D o good).  We did two service projects on Friday along with games and a fireside.  The girls all stayed at our house, which was fun, and then Saturday we played in the Mud at the Toland’s and had a testimony meeting.  Everything went well and I really enjoyed getting to know the girls better.

 

We also had a youth ski activity at the Toland’s the following week.  Eli played in the sand, “skied,” and drove a 4-wheeler.  He had a blast and didn’t want to leave.  Bro. Toland taught me to slalom ski, so that was fun.  Cori slept in the shade under a tree most of the time.  I think the youth had fun too : )

We went to the library for summer reading program.  There was a guy making balloon creatures and Eli requested a frog hat .  It was pretty cute and Eli thought he was big stuff.

4th of July Weekend

Well, let’s start at the beginning.  Friday night we went over to Cleveland and spent the night with the Southward/Gustin clan.  All the girls went to watch Eclipse while the guys watched the kids.  It was fun and I think I’m team Jacob now.  Then Saturday morning we drove to Henryetta for the rest of the weekend.  Aunt Mary had a fish fry on Saturday with lots of yummy food.  We were supposed to go to the lake in the evening, but it rained so we went bowling and played games instead.  The whole fam was at Mom & Dad’s plus David & Joey had girls with them (Gracie & Bethany).  I placed third in bag game, which was pretty fun.  Nick won and Joey got 2nd, but Kira was the most graceful.  Sunday we went to church and the farm.  Then Monday we all went to Gentry Creek.  It was lots of fun.  My brothers even convinced Derek and I to get on the tube.  Apparently we were having too much fun to take many pictures.

Derek’s Birthday etc.

The pancakes say Happy 30th in case you can’t read it.  Derek is a great Husband and Dad and we love him.  We didn’t do much on his birthday cause it was in the middle of the week, but we saved up our fun for the 4th of July weekend.

   

Eli got a smiley face.  He liked it, but he kept wanting more chocolate chip eyes.

Cori is growing up fast.  She can sit in her Bumbo chair now, she sleeps through the night pretty much always, and she laughs a lot, which we love.

Summer is Here

Memorial Day weekend we went to Gentry Creek (at Lake Eufaula) with my family and it was lots of fun. There were too many of us to fit on Dad’s boat all at one time, so we took our inflatable kayak. My brothers ended up standing on the thing and trying to knock each other off. Eli played in the water a lot, but in this pic he is taking a break for a snack. Cori loved looking up at the trees.

One night for FHE we played church and Eli had to help the animals be reverent. There was a little animal family and the pink hippo was Bishop.

On June 12th, my Dad, three brothers and I ran in the DHS state games 5k. It was lots of fun. There was a loop, so Eli handed us cups of water when we went by. He loved that. Doug had the best time out of our clan. I hadn’t trained a ton, but I finished in 29 min 40 sec and felt great, so I was pretty happy. After the run we all went to Frontier City.

Eli wanted to drive the classic cars, so we decided that the four of us would go. When we got close to the front of the line, the kid running the ride said Cori wouldn’t be able to ride without shoes. I was like are you kidding me, but I left the line and went down by my brothers cause I didn’t have any shoes for her with me (none of them fit). Well, my brothers decided that they could fasten her some shoes. Joey zipped our camera bag on one foot (it actually stayed on), and gave her one of his shoes for the other foot. I was laughing so hard I was in tears, but they insisted that I go get back in line, so I did. The kid just looked at us and said, “Whatever.” I guess the best way to handle ridiculous is with more ridiculous.

Of course, with summer comes "rice cream" (I’m not going to lie, we eat ice cream year round). Eli comes by his love of "rice cream" honestly.