Wow, it's been a long time since updating, even for me! Here are the pics from June 26-July 4 and then I will upload my latest adventures in the next day or so. On the 26th we went to a Relief Society recipe swap/kids' water activity. Christian loves spraying water, but always cries when someone dares to spray him. He also loves standing in kiddie pools.

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Faith was much too busy running around, swinging on the swing set, doing slip-n-slide and playing with the other kids to pose for a picture.

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Faith dressed her buddy up in a Halloween costume I got last November when they went 90% off. Isn't he the cutest ninja? I love the karate kicks Faith taught him--he even yells "hiiiiya!"

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They put a little table inside the castle tent so they could be tall standing out of the top. A little dangerous, yes, but don't judge; it's hard to find things to do to occupy all the play time in the summer!

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Here is how cute the front of our house looked for July,

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and here is the sod that our neighbor gave us because he had it leftover from his yard.

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On July 1st, we met up with my mom & dad, Sarah & her family and Joy & her family at this little water park in South Ogden.

The kids had a lot of fun and kept cool doing it. I, on the other hand, melted dead away in the heat. After drying off,

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dad treated us to ice cream at Arctic Circle.

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July 3rd, my birthday (35! ouch!) Lana took me, Tammy and Tina out to lunch at Union Grill.

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For the 4th of July, we met up with Tony's family in Willard for the festivities.

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The kids looked adorable in their patriotic outfits!

Their favorite activity was the free pony rides. The whole 20 min. we stood in line, Christian kept pointing to them and saying "neigh!"

Faith was a great horseback rider. She did have a bit of a death grip on the saddle horn, but we can work on that later :D

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For Tony, it's all about the bingo, while the kids enjoyed the games in the booths.

The kids each got their faces painted and I was extremely grateful that their only choices were small stenciled hearts or stars.

The park where it was held was right next to the fire department, so we took the kids over to check out the fire trucks.

After discovering that there were no cherries to be had at the fruit stands in Perry (VERY upsetting!!! Apparently they all froze this spring), we went on over to Tony's parents for a barbeque and water games for the kids.

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Christian loves to pretend to squirt everybody with the hose attatchment. Almost as much as actually squirting them (which he does at home on a regular basis).

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Both kids loved hanging out in the kiddie pool!

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Tammy had gotten a great big box of fireworks at Sam's Club and we got quite a show. The kids loved taking turns choosing which one would be next! It was a great Independence Day celebration.

My brother showed this to me and I think it's hilarious!

I'm finally getting around to posting our "bouncy-bounce" pictures! On Wed., June 11th Tammy took Faith & Zach to the movie "Kung Fu Panda", then to Zach's baseball game and later met up with Tony, Christian & me for dinner at Arctic Circle. On Thursday she took us to Kangaroo Zoo in North Salt Lake. It was a blast! They have a bunch of animal themed inflatable slides & obstacle courses and also a glow-in-the-dark mini golf which we didn't try this time.

I loved that some inflatables were just for the little kids, although most of the day Christian was going on the bigger slides, as well.

He LOVED this "batting cage" inflatable with the ball that would just float in the air.

We had pizza and Icee's for lunch and Faith rushed through her food to get back to playing.

Christian was scared of this kangaroo guy, but did manage to give him a quick high-five.

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After the mascot went back through the "employees only" door, Christian started screaming for the "roo". When we told him that he left, he started crying "SEE" and pointing to the door--that little smarty knew he didn't leave throught the exit and wanted to go in that room and see him!

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Christian also had a lot of fun with the kids' table and stools.

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We let the kids stay for 5 & 1/2 hours and still had to drag them out kicking and screaming! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU TAMMY for an awesome week of activities!!!!

I've posted before a little about my brother, Eric. Now I've decided that we should all gang up on him and find some women we can set him up with! He's a pharmacist at the Clinton Albertson's and makes the big money (I'm talking six figures); owns a huge, beautiful home in Syracuse and is a great guy. He's 28 years old, 5 foot 6, with auburn hair and brown eyes. He doesn't smoke or drink and would be interested in women who don't. He stays in shape by lifting weights, swimming and doing kick boxing on a punching bag. He loves movies, especially action and sci-fi, and enjoys comedy (like "The Colbert Report" & Conan O'Brian) and mixed martial arts or cage fighting on T.V. . If you know anyone who would be interested, please send an email to the blog (the address is at the top of this post!). Include a picture and return email or phone number and I will forward them on to Eric. We'll get him married off!

On June 3rd the kids and I headed up to the condo in Park City. Our favorite thing to do there is swim, and even though it was not very hot (low 70's I believe) the heated pool felt awesome.




After swimming, we did some shopping at the outlet stores and then my dad treated us to dinner at Ruby Tuesdays.
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The next day we had breakfast and then shopped some more. Here are the kids with baby Lily, she's growing up so fast!
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Christian took this picture (hence the weird angle) and I thought it

actually turned out pretty well! All of his other pictures were close ups of the floor or couch or something, but this one showed the cute decorating style of the condo--mountain lodge.

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Unfortunately, when Christian woke up from his nap that evening, he was so congested that he could hardly breathe and I drove him straight to Wee Care in Layton. They didn't know if it was a sinus infection, a new cold that he caught over the top of the one he'd had for a week and a half, or just some weird ending to his original cold. Anyway, they gave him an antibiotic and he's now doing much better.

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Tammy took this week off to do some fun outings with the kids and she had Zach and Faith sleep over Sunday night. Monday morning Christian and I met them at IHOP and then we went to the Dinosaur Park. Here they're checking out some bunnies they have in a hutch there.

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The kids had fun matching their own feet to the dinosaur foot prints.

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It was Faith & Zach's idea to act like they're scared that the dinosaur might eat them :D

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Christian loved to watch the fish in the stream from the bridge,

and he was a little nervous about these dinos that move and make sounds.

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We had a great time and the weather was beautiful.

Christian got so pooped at the end that he fell asleep in the swing!! Before coming home, we stopped by my old workplace, the animal shelter. It had been almost six years since I'd seen it and nearly eight since I'd worked there. It felt strange being there as a "customer"!

On Tuesday we all went, with the addition of Lana, to the Hogle Zoo. We ate a delicious lunch of Chic-fil-A nuggets and fruit cups that Tammy brought and then went to see the bird show. Christian LOVES birds and was in complete awe the entire time.

As we left to see the animal exhibits, Faith remarked that her favorite thing at the bird show was Buttercup, a Cockatoo that she had seen the previous year there. I said that my favorite thing was the guy who narrarated the show (see pic -->) and I asked her if she would marry him someday. She said, "Nooooooo!" so I said that maybe I would. "Noooooo, you're already married!" she told me. Then I told her that maybe Tammy should marry him. "No, Tammy's too old for him." Faith replied. Tammy said that if you ever need an ego boost, don't look to the kids for it! ;) (Tam, I think he is the perfect age for you, you should totally ask him out during our next zoo trip!)

Here's the white alligator. Notice how Christian can't look away from it even for a picture.

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Sorry about this pic, I definately should have forced a flash. When we were there watching the elephants, some keepers brought out carrots and some kibble and had them do tricks for their snack. It was so fun to see!

At every single exhibit Christian would cry and cause a scene when we went to leave. We kept telling him, "there are more animals to see at the next one!!!"

Lana remarked that she had never seen such a young kid be so enthralled with animals. Ususally after you see a couple they get tired of it, but not Christian. Zach was such a helper to push him around in the stroller, and when grandma had him, Faith got a ride as well!

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What a sweet sister, helping her brother get a drink at the lion water fountain!

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Christian especially loved the giraffes and was so tired at that point that he had a total meltdown when we left them.

It was another beautiful day, about 72 degrees with a breeze, and the clouds waited to move in until we were just about to leave. Tammy let each of the kids get a souvenir and I got one last pic at the waterfall in front before heading home.
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