Swim Lessons

I decided this year to only put Avynlea and Rylee in Swim lessons. Kenedy has been done for a couple of years and I feel that Ryker is good enough in the water that he can be done as well. The pool that we go to is in the backyard of the swim teachers house, Shannon Tuft. She is amazing and we love her and love coming to her for lessons. Plus her pool and backyard are awesome! She also lives down the road from Costco and Target and Hobby Lobby and a bunch of other stores. This year, not wanting to hang out in the heat for an hour watching my kids swim and being jealous of not being in the pool as well, I would drop them off and go hang out at a store instead. On the first day I got back for the last five minutes and when my girls saw me they excitedly called out that they practiced diving. Shannon said they could each dive one more time to show off their skills for their Moms. I was so happy watching them dive and seeing how much they have improved at this technique. All the swimming we have done this summer has really helped them improve. Swimming is the best!

My girls really wanted me to watch them swim and so I promised them I would stay and watch on their last day. That worked for them and on the last day I pulled up a chair in the shade and watched. I might have closed my eyes for a couple of minutes because I was pretty tired and sitting in the heat makes me even more tired but it was not for long and I saw all of the important stuff.

I watched them jump in and swim to the other side

I watched them float on their backs 

I also watched them backstroke to the other end of the pool

Another year of swim lessons is complete and these girls are becoming awesome little swimmers!

More Summer Fun!

I am having the kids pick out pictures of Temples to put up in their rooms. Avynlea loves the Salt Lake Temple and we found one of those in Boise but to my surprise they did not have a lot of variety for Temple pictures. Rylee really likes the San Diego Temple and I told her when we were in California we would try to get one for her. In the meantime I found this beautiful picture of the Temple online.

Kefford decided to take the kids swimming at Mikells community pool. They love swimming and I am so glad we have had so many opportunities to be in the pool this summer.

Rylee wanted to make a cake and I talked her into making little cakes with the baby cakes iron we have. She had such a ball making them and frosting them. Such a little cutie pie!

Avynlea's hamster has a weird large tumor on her bottom and so we took her to the pet store to see what we should do about it. The only thing we were told is that we could either have it euthanized for a fee or have it looked at for a larger fee. We decided not to go that route and we brought her back home to just wait it out for her to die.

Boy Scout and BYS

Ryker got to go to scout camp last week. He left Monday morning at 5:30 and got back Saturday morning. He struggled a bit, being away from home, with home sickness and some anxiety but did have some good experiences and was able to get 6 merit badges passed off! He is such a cute boy scout!

Later that morning Kenedy left with her bestie Lauryn Warner to go to the Boise Youth Spectacular. She went last year to BYS and had a blast and this year she had Lauryn to go with and they had a ton of fun. It is awesome for my kids that they get these awesome Faith building experiences.

With the older two gone, Avynlea and Rylee had fun with each other playing barbies.

Deena, Lauryns Mom, took the girls to drop them off at BYS and she sent me this picture of the girls meeting up with their group. Kenedy and Lauryn were in group 8.

Such beautiful girls!

Aunt Tami was at BYS the first two days and she sent me a couple of pictures she took with Kenedy.

I had to make a couple of skirts for Avynlea and Rylee for Ashleighs wedding and I took a picture of them in their skirts to send to Stephanie so she could see how I did them.

Anybody see the creeper in Rylee's picture?

Another year of celebrating this beautiful Lady! My friend Judy Kinzel turned another year older and we went to Fiesta Guadalajara to celebrate. I love her and am so glad to call her my friend!

I took the girls to swim at the Carocas and Rylee had a grand time holding one of their chickens. I have to admit they are really pretty chickens and I bet they would taste delicious

Another picture from Tami

Katie Haueter was Kenedy's BYS counselor and is from Ontario so a lot of Kefford's family knows her. Taylor follows her on instagram and sent me this screenshot she took when she saw the picture of my girl at BYS

I picked up the girls on Wednesday and as each kid were being picked up the rest of the group would give a big group hug. I missed Kenedy's hug because I was not prepared for it but I did get one of Lauryns group hug, you can see her cute smile peeking out the middle.

I have been wanting to put this quote up in my girls room for a long time and now that I am redoing rooms and decorating I finally did it. It turned out really cute and I love it!

On Friday I discovered that if we wanted to use the Roaring Springs passes the girls had earned for reading that we had to do it that day. We had no other time to use them. Avynlea was concerned about Ryker being left out but Ryker is not a huge fan of the water park and I knew he would be ok with it. I went in the lazy river with my girls and then I was done. The day was too cold of a day for me to be in the water and so I read and napped while they went off and played. I seriously was freezing. We packed snacks and left them in the car so that periodically we could go out and eat since food is not allowed to be brought into the park, dumb rule. Kenedy had a friend come to hang out with her and she stayed for another couple of hours after Avy, Rylee and I left. On our way out I took a couple of pictures of us three. 

17 years!

On July 11th Kefford and I celebrated 17 years of marriage. It is always unbelievable to me to look back and see how fast time flies by. It truly is a case of "long days, short years". We decided to do a little get away for our anniversary and Kefford booked a room at a hotel in Boise. Whitney and her family came and stayed the night with our kids which was really nice of them. They got pizza and took them swimming over at Mikells community pool. My kids had a lot of fun being with their cousins.

After checking into the Hotel Kefford and I left to go get some dinner. Along the way we passed the wiener mobile and Mr. Peanuts mobile. Stopping to take a picture was a no brainer.

When we got back we explored our nice hotel for a bit before heading back up to our room. 

As we were checking in, the front desk asked us what brought us to their hotel and Kefford told them it was our anniversary. Later that night, when we got back, we found a card along with a bottle of champagne and some chocolates. They were gifting us this for our anniversary. We thought that was so awesome and cool but of course we do not drink alcohol. Kefford called up the front desk to thank them and then in a tactful and polite manner let them know we do not drink alcohol. Within 5 minutes they were knocking on our door to replace the bottle with some sparkling apple cider. What great hotel service!

The next morning we had a delicious continental breakfast at the Hotel and then we left to go do sealings at the Temple. 

Doing the dealings was really awesome and fun. I loved being there on our anniversary performing the sealings for others. It was a really great morning at the Temple!

After the Temple we went to downtown Boise to walk around the Farmers Market. It was fun exploring and seeing what all of the vendors had to offer. It was a little bit overcast and not too hot and not too cold, it was the perfect day for wandering. We bought some hot doughnuts to share and those were delicious. Kefford then bought me some fresh squeezed lemonade which was perfect. After the market we hurried to the movie theater to watch "Jurassic World". The day before we got talked into doing a movie survey and the result was five dollars off movie tickets for each of us. Score! The movie was so good, both of us loved it and would definitely watch it again. We also agreed that it was just a bit too intense for our kids to watch. 

I had a fun anniversary celebrating 17 years of marriage to this man I love. 

Summer Randoms

Sunday morning we all knelt down to say a prayer before we left for church and I noticed that my kids were all unintentionally matching in a black, gray and white theme. When we arrived at church I made them stand together so I could get a picture of this. They are so stinking cute, I love my kids so much!

While at the Peterson party Erin and I were sitting in some really comfy Adirondack chairs. I found out they belonged to Alan and Tami when as they were leaving he tried to dump me from the chair so that he could take his chairs home. When I felt the chair tipping forward I had no idea what was going on, all he had to do was ask;). I mentioned how much I loved the chairs and they said they got them for 12 or 13 dollars at WalMart when they were on sale. I talked Kefford into going and checking them out with me and we found these cute coral ones at Lowes for $13. They were the only ones at that price and I really liked the color so we bought two.

I have Ryker run with me in the mornings when he is home and when I go, I like the company and he is really good at it. I am discovering that I am not a runner and do not enjoy it very much. I will keep at it when I need to in order to participate in running events with my family but other then that it is not for me. Ryker is a runner. I am amazed at how he can keep on going when I am wanting to die. I took this picture of him as we got near the end of our run, I told him he could go ahead and he just took off. He definitely will be doing track next year!

The cheerleaders had the opportunity to volunteer at the Boise Open to earn money for their cheer accounts. I signed Kenedy up for one of the slots and Avynlea took this picture of Kenedy and Ashley after I had picked them up after their shift. Kenedy said it was fun and she got to drive the golf cart around taking people where they needed to go. I was glad she earned another $50 for her cheer account.

Happy 4th of July!

On July 3rd we went to Nyssa for the Barlow family reunion. It happens every year around this time and we used to do it in honor of Grandpa Max's birthday. Since he is passed it is still, sort of, in honor of him but mostly a chance to get together. This year not a whole lot of people could make it but it was still fun to visit with those who were there. 

Since the Peterson get together was the next day we decided to stay the night and since Bob and Alisons house was filled to the brim with siblings and their families staying the night we called up Jeremy who was in Florida with his family to see if we could use their empty house to sleep in. They were gracious enough to say yes and so Kefford and I left our kids at Alisons to have a sleepover with their cousins while we went for the peace and quiet of Jeremys house ;). 

They have two cats and I laughed when I saw what the cats have been doing to entertain themselves while the family was away.

I bought Avy and Rylee some cute 4th of July shirts from Target and one day while at JoAnns I found some really cute material to make skirts for my girls. Avy's was perfect to wear on the 4th and matched her shirt perfectly.

Rylee wore hers with a pair of pants with stars all over them that I had cut off to make shorts. They were Rylee's favorite pants to wear but had to stop when they got too holy. Turing them into shorts was the perfect no brainer!

At the Peterson Party Ryker found some cousins to play his Magic game with. It is nice to have family to play with.

Water balloons were flying everywhere for a while so I made sure to stay out of the action. I let Tami borrow my phone for pictures since hers was not cooperating.

Since Grandma and Grandpa Peterson have both passed on the siblings had to do a lot of cleaning and going through their things. Alison had taken a bunch of Grandmas costume Jewelry and put them in baggies for the great-granddaughters to pick from. She did it by order of age with Kenedy going first and then went down from there. Everyone got something they were happy with and I love that they have something to keep to remind them of their Great-Grandma Marge. The rest of us were encouraged to look around and pick anything that we would like to have. That was very difficult going through their things, it felt personal and invasive, and even though I know this is what they would have wanted it still felt wrong. We did find a couple of things to take home and I am glad to have somethings of Keffords Grandparents to remember them by.

We had a delicious dinner and then we hung out and visited while waiting for the fireworks to start.

Charlotte and Kenedy

The kids got to play with sparklers and Aunt Juli had made little gift bags with necklaces and bubbles and different fun and festive things for the kids to wear.

Erin was still in town visiting so she got to come with us to celebrate the 4th. It was a lot of fun having her here and I hope she comes again next year!

I wanted a group picture of my kids before it got too dark. It was harder then you think it would be to round them all up together and have them stay while we waited for the missing ones. I got a picture of the girls while we waited for Ryker to mosey on over. By this time the kids were shooting off the Roman Candles and that was hard to compete with. Roman Candles or a picture for Mom? I know what I would be choosing if I were them.

Finally got them to cooperate and they are a really cute group, in my opinion of course ;)

As everyone started gathering and sitting to watch the fireworks it was fun to see them gravitate to sitting with their cousins and Aunts. I love the close relationships my kids have with their extended families and I will always encourage it!

Swimming, Birthdays and Temple

My good friend Cathy Caroca has a swimming pool in her backyard. She told me I could use it any time I wanted I just had to give her a heads up so she could put her dogs away. We have already used her generous offer a couple of times and on Wednesday we went again and I invited our friend Lana Hope and her kids to come too. It was Erin's birthday and so we decided it was a pool party for her :).  Cathy gets a little too hot in the sun and so she visited a little but stayed inside. She did come out to take pictures with my phone which was fun and always appreciated.

Lana, Aubree Hope, Francis Caroca, Gabi Caroca, Natalie Hope, Erin Lutes, Elizabeth, Rylee, Isabelle Robertson, Emily Robertson, Ben Robertson, Ryker, Avynlea and Kenedy

Cathy, Lana and Elizabeth

After swimming we had tacos for dinner and then we had cake for Erin's birthday. I was so happy that she was here for her birthday. I miss being able to be with family on special occasions. 

I bought some chalk markers and was really excited with using them and seeing how cute they make my chalkboard "Art".I bought this tank for Erin for her birthday and had it sent to her. Since she was coming up I had her bring the unopened package with her so she could open it here.

Mom also had her gift for Erin sent to my house so she could open it on her birthday. It was a Lighthouse Alex and Ani bracelet which she loved!

Thursday morning we went to the Meridian Temple site. We watched the video in the visitors center and it was cool to see how much they added since the last time we visited which was the beginning of April. I love this quote and was happy to get a picture of it.

They were busy putting up the outside panels on the Temple and this small section could not go up because it was the wrong color. They told us that it weighed 400 pounds. That is a lot of weight for something not so big. 

Rylee. Erin. Avynlea. Ryker, Kenedy, Ben, Isabelle, Elizabeth and Emily