What have we been doing the past few months?

Even though time flies, the past few months felt like years to me. Ryan spent about a month and half up in the Salt Lake area while the kids and I stayed in St. George. I can honestly say I am a HORRIBLE single mother! I have a new found respect for all single mothers out there! How on earth do you do it???? It's not like I was alone either, my parents were in St. George and Uncle Chris, but I'm so glad we are a family again. We finally moved up to Bountiful the 1st of Oct. We were waiting for the house we moved in to be cleaned out. We love our new place - even though it is OLD and needs a lot of Love (and flooring, and counter tops, and new paint, and lots of other things) we love it. The yard is just as amazing and needs just as much love. But it has an apple tree, 2 peach trees (hopefully they live), an apricot tree that is half alive, raspberries - which hopefully will get better, strawberries, and grapes - both green and concord! I know right! It's our own secret garden. We have been so busy both inside and out and I am exhausted every night. The kind of exhausted that your bed looks so good and you could almost cry to get in it. We are still not completely unpacked but oh well it will get done some day, and if it doesn't - I think we'll survive. We are a little sad we couldn't stay in St. George, but Bountiful is second best and so close we could be there in a couple hours. Also I take comfort in the fact that the kids can walk to school (it's only 2 1/2 blocks away) instead of having to drive 3 round trips like I was in St. George. And honestly could we have that many fruit trees in St. George? (ok probably) but I like to think not. If anyone wants to visit us we would love it - or if you need a bomb shelter we have one!

Crawdad Canyon

We had a great adventure with our old vecinos, the Felsteds, from St. George. The kids loved it, and even though it was super hot in St. George it was perfect weather in Veyo.

Every time Violette sees this picture she says gross! I must agree with her, they are ugly. The kids had so much fun catching them.

Beware of the claw...

Is there anything more fun than a river and crawdads?

She was demonstrating "how to eat them". Just like that!

Lexi must have shown Penelepe some of her rock climbing skills.

I loved both of these pictures so I had to do both of them, sorry they are basically the same.

It was amazing how fast they turned bright red.

Jeff showed us the proper way to experience a Crawdad boil. I will admit that I've never been much of a seafood lover. But I managed to open my crawdad get the yellow mustard strip thingy off and all the hard shells and claws and all the gross stuff and chew as fast as I could to get it down. The actual "meat" part wasn't that bad but getting to it was horrible. Penelepe liked them, but Oliver and Simon missed out due to the Wii. We tossed quite a few back in the river, thinking we had plenty - next time we'll keep em all. Thanks Felsteds we loved it! We miss you already!

HOt Summer hike

We hiked behind Grandma DeEtte's and Grandpa Rich's house this summer. It was a good little hike.

Us girls had to take a break while the boys climbed higher. They did really good for how steep some parts were.

Snow Canyon is in the background - I love the black lava rock.

Penelepe's first day of school

Kindergarten started a week later - and Penelepe was upset about it. She was bored without her brother.

Since it was a special day we let her wear her hair down.

School.....already?!

I feel like we were cheated out of our summer! The kids got out of school the day we moved from NY, June 17th, and yesterday Aug. 15th was the first day of school. Less than 2 months!! Oliver was excited to go back and Penelepe was mad she couldn't go yesterday, kindergarten starts a week later. I guess as long as the kids don't mind I shouldn't either, but I do.

4th of July

I am behind on my blogging. The few months have been a little crazy around here.

CR might have been the favorite Uncle over the weekend. The kids lined up to be thrown.

Penelepe would get so high! She started pushing off with her feet when CR threw her, plus it helps when you only weigh about 20 pounds.

Little teenager!

Luke made me laugh every time he got in. I thought he was drowning, but that's just the way he swims.

Piper was probably the best diver of all the kids.

Jake kills me!

And of course we had to have a pinata for the shared birthday/baptism party.

Lexi was in charge of the rope.

How many pieces of gum is that?

Thanks Jesse for all the great photos! In my dream world of all our family would live with in a couple of blocks!

The BIG Day

8 is so great! Cousins Mia and Oliver were baptized on the same day. It was so fun to have so much family around. The next few post will have lots of pictures - so our siblings Rozannah, Tavi, and Scott and families can feel like they were there. We missed them!!

The three Bainter boys were also blessed on the same day. When Violette first saw the twins she said, "Baby Sister". After a few days Violette could tell you who was who, most of the time.

Apollo with his long hair.

Momma Lee with Jesse.

Rebekah with Taos or is that Jesse? Really I'm not sure on either of those pictures.

Grandpa Dwain and MJ. Somehow Grandma Linda managed to hide from the camera.

Oliver asked Chris to baptise him - thanks Chris!

The kids table - yup Lexi still has to eat at the kids table.

(Don't worry Rozannah - this is just the beginning of the pictures.)