Our Summer So Far

Our summer so far has been mostly nice.  The kids and I really needed a break from school and we were happy to have it.  Although, the thought of summer fun was marred by the fact that I put them to work when they're home from school.  They have jobs to do.  But even with all that work they manage to find time to have fun.

 Brigham was sick on the last day of school, how sad is that?

He and Jonathan managed to have fun anyway.

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I had the brilliant idea of getting a green screen for the boys to have some fun with over the summer.

 The boys could hardly stand it waiting for it to come in the mail, but it finally did.

Here's a test shot.  We've already done a couple of things, now I'm helping Jonathan with his project.  It's going to be big.

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One day, before church...

I let Brigham try on my new sunglasses.  So cool!

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My summer was almost ruined when I got called in for jury duty.  On Monday I went in for jury selection.  I think being on a jury would be interesting, for a day or two.  This trial was scheduled to last for 11 days.  Not fun.

 While I waited for them to decide I walked around the courthouse.  Pretty cool.  Turns out I was selected for the jury.  I was not happy.  I guess I just have an honest face, I can't blame them for choosing me.  I went in the next day for the first day of trial.  It was interesting for the most part.  My mom helped a lot and that helped me not feel so overwhelmed by it.

I went in for the second day and took this picture.  I'm glad I did because I found out pretty quick that they settled the case.  I'm so glad, and it was so obvious that it shouldn't have gone to trial in the first place so we all win.  However, it was a little bit of a letdown considering all the energy I put into trying to make it work.  Plus, I had invested myself in this case and trying to figure out who was wrong and who was right.  I needed closure.  The judge tried to help answer any questions, but he doesn't know the particulars either.  Oh well, I was able to go home before the kids even got out of bed.  So it worked out.  Whew!

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I made it to the temple just before the 4th of July, finally.  When I came out the sky and the clouds looks so amazing and beautiful.  I had to take a picture even though it doesn't do it justice.

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We hung out with Jaaromy's family for the 4th of July.  It was a fun visit.  We also celebrated July birthdays with USA cupcakes.

Here's my father-in-law with the USA rings that were on the cupcakes on his ears.  Happy Independence Day!

So, that's our Summer so far.  Let's see how the rest of it goes.

Whitney's Wedding

My niece got married at the end of May.  She was the first grandchild in our family.  I baby-sat her four days a week her first summer of life.  Now she's married.  I probably wouldn't even post about it except that she married a Polynesian and I had never been to a Polynesian wedding reception before and it wasn't too long into it before I realized that it must be documented for our own family yearbook.

There was so much food.  Some of it that was different than what I was used to.  I didn't eat all of it but I at least tried most of it.  There was a lot of dancing by Zach's family while we ate and it was so fun to watch.

At the end, Whitney and Zach did a dance together, it was so cute.

 People threw money at them.  I wish I'd known that was a thing, I would have brought some cash.

 Then it was time for everyone to dance.  Jonathan loved it.

 So did Brigham.  As I mentioned, I didn't think to document it until towards the end and I only had my phone so all the pictures are blurry.  But that's how you know they were moving a lot!

 Just before we left, Jonathan wanted to show off a few more moves.

 It was a blast.

Before we left I grabbed a Selfie with Sarah who was on her mission.

I'm so excited for them to be together and it was so fun to celebrate with them.

Memorial Day

As I've mentioned in the past, Memorial Day is my favorite holiday.  It's just nice and easy going.  Full of remembering and being with family.  We started Memorial Day on Sunday by visiting Jaaromy's grandparents.

My boys are getting big.  They will be bigger than me before too long.

I decided to try a cool angle with my camera this year.

 While taking a picture of the flowers I thought it would be cool to have the name in the background.

 I think it's kind of cool.

After that we wandered around the cemetery for a bit.  Brigham was doing it anyway.

 He likes to follow the lines.

We like to walk by the mausoleum.

I like to take pictures of other peoples' flowers and decorations.  I hope that's not weird.

Monday we went to Provo with my family to the Provo Cemetery.

 On the way we drove past the Provo City Center Temple.

 It's coming right along.

 Jared's sunglasses were so shiny, I just had to take advantage.

 We started on the West side of the cemetery.  We have a lot of older family graves on that side.  It's so fun to see them now that I'm more familiar with their names.  Then we made our way to the East side where Grandma Nash and Grandpa Harding are.

 I did my fun camera angle again.

 I think I like it.

 Bodie was doing something super cute but he moved before I could take his picture.  I don't even remember what it was.

 Group shot!  I brought my tripod so we could all be in the picture.

 Then we just kind of hang out and visit.

 Jonathan found a tree to rest under.

 I helped Brigham blow on the pinwheel we brought.

Holly can get her cousins to do anything for her, apparently.

After the cemetery we went to the park for lunch.  No pictures there, I was busy eating.  But it was nice and cool in the shade of those huge old trees.  It was good to have my parents with us this year, especially since they brought the chicken.  Good times.

The Chu Chu Race

I have no idea where this idea came from but one day Jonathan started talking about a Chu Chu race and how he wanted to have one.  He made invitations and invited everyone to come.  We were at my in-law's for Sunday dinner and so he invited all the cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.  I wasn't exactly sure what he had planned and I didn't know what to tell people when they wanted more information.  I didn't want anyone to have to go to any trouble to come if they wanted to.  He also invited my parents to come watch.  He originally wanted to have it Monday afternoon but I convinced him to do it that night.  I told him that it would be a great FHE activity.  Plus, Jaaromy wouldn't even be home from work until just before dinner.  Luckily, he agreed.

I quickly found a FHE lesson on Endurance to go with our activity.  No one in our extended family was able to come.  I thought that was just as well, but I hoped Jonathan wouldn't be too disappointed.  I told him that he could either reschedule or do it without any spectators.  He decided to go ahead with it.

 He printed out all the Chu Chus.  Enough for four of us.

 He was ready to go..

 ...and determined to win.

 Someone had to document it so I stayed behind to film while the boys raced.

 And they're off!

 All except for Nathaniel, it was just a little too weird for him.  So I took his Chu Chu and raced a little with the boys.

 On their way back.  Brigham was trying to plug his ears and run at the same time and of course that caused him some trouble and he tripped and scraped his knee pretty bad.

 Jonathan won!  We had a few more races after that and I think Jonathan won all of them.  I was so torn between staying behind with Brigham and actually racing to give Jonathan some real competition.  I did a little of both, but never enough to actually pull ahead of him.

You can't really see it but he even made an award for the winner!

I had no idea what we were in for, but it ended up being quite the activity.  I love Jonathan's spontaneous energy.

Nathaniel even made a comic about the whole thing.  You might have to click on it to read it.  I love how happy Jonathan is, that's pretty much true to life.

And that was our Chu Chu race.  Kids are funny.

Random Spring

Here are some random moments from this past Spring.  This ought to cover a lot of ground really fast :)

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My nephew, Jeff, has cancer for the third time.  My sister gave our whole family these bracelets to wear to support him.

Jaaromy has one too, but someone had to take the picture.

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Nathaniel had his Spring Concert with the Granite Jr. Youth Symphony.  I'm always so impressed with how good they sound.

It was a good concert and my parents were even able to come at the last minute.

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I posted this on Instagram but just in case...

This is Brigham's favorite place on Sunday afternoons.

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I made this nifty menu board at Craft Day.

I'm posting about it because it always surprises me that it's so helpful.  It helps me know what to do for dinner, and it lets the kids know what to expect which is always a good thing.  They hate it when I don't stick to it, even if it's something that isn't their favorite.

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I've been teaching Brigham how to play the piano.

Most of the songs have a duet part that the teacher can play, but this one had a third part that could be played in the technic book.  So I had Jonathan on that third part and Nathaniel on the teacher's part.  We practiced everyday for quite a while.  Here's the video.  They did so great.



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Lately, one of Brigham's favorite books to read is Monkeys on the Bed.  Of course, he had to act it out while reading.

 He'd jump on the bed, then jump off.

He did that for all the monkeys.  He is my little monkey.

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Jaaromy gave me flowers for our anniversary.  Then he surprised me by taking me out to dinner and even gave me a pretty necklace.  (We did not stick to the menu board that day.)

It was a really nice evening.

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One of our favorite things to do is go to the Orem Library every three weeks.  They recently added this little puppet theater.

With some dinosaur puppets, I helped Brigham perform "How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight."  That was one of his favorite books at the time.

So that was our life in the first part of Spring.