Summer Fun

Well I figured since summer is over for us here in Utah and I better blog about what we did these last couple of months. I feel like summer has flown by and that we did nothing, but I guess we did actually have quite a few visitors.
Two of Damon's brothers and their families came and visited us and different times, so that was fun, the girls always like playing with their cousins.
 What took up most of our time this summer was driving back and forth to swim lessons. Olivia did a total of 6 weeks of lessons, and seemed to have improved quite a bit by the end and was even diving. She is a little fish and loves to be in the water.
 I also signed Sophie up for the last swim session, she loved it and it was cute to watch her float around. We will definitely be doing swim lessons again next year. Other having some family visiting, I feel like we really didn't do that much, but we did have a fun summer and are sad to say goodbye to it.

The girls with cousin's Megan and Alyssa

Olivia getting ready to dive

and she's in!!

Olivia coming up to breathe.

Sophie blowing some bubbles.

Dancing on the side of the pool

Time to jump in, I just love her cute little bum in a swim suit.

Sophie jumping away at jump on it.

Jumping with cousin Miles

The girls with another set of cousins: Julia, Miles, and Noah.

All the kids showing of their balloon animals/mermaids that they got at City Creek Mall for free too. That place is awesome!

Visiting Temple Square.

Our Great Alaskan Adventure

This last week Damon and I were able to go up to Alaska for five days and visit my best friend from growing up. It has always been Damon's dream to go to Alaska so he was giddy with excitement, I on the other hand was excited to see Melissa. We drove down to Lakeview on Wednesday and dropped the girls off with my parents where they got to stay for the week. We then headed down to Reno, were we flew out the next morning. Thursday evening we went out to dinner at a really nice restaurant(like seriously the best calamari I have ever had, yumm!) and then we walked around downtown Anchorage. This is when I also got to experience how it never gets dark there. It is the craziest thing!

Friday Melissa had to work so Matt was our tour guide. He took us to this wildlife conservation center and we saw so many cute animals. This is also where I saw bears, the only bears I saw while in Alaska, phew!!

Full grown Mux Ox

Baby Mux Ox, don't they just look so soft, I really wanted to pet one!

Bear, luckily behind a fence!

This is my favorite photo I took this trip!! Love this little guy!

More baby moose, these guys were twins!!

Two days of our trip though we were going to go camping with Melissa and her husband Matt at a cabin outside of Fairbanks. They live in Anchorage and what we thought was going to be a 4 hour drive ended up being a 7, Melissa had been misinformed on just how long the drive was. Oh well we had great conversations on the way up and it was fun to just catch up. Camping was okay, I'm not a huge camper, this was my second time actually going camping, so it was a bit outside my comfort zone. I just wish the cabin we stayed in had running water or a toilet, but I guess that isn't really camping then. I was pretty terrified of seeing a bear, so much that I made Damon walk me to the outhouse every time I needed to use it. It didn't help that Matt kept on freaking me out acting like there was a bear behind me all the time. I survived though, which was my number one goal. We saw quite a few moose, which was cool. One we saw was about 25 yards away from us, drinking some water out of a pond. Melissa and Matt took us to this amazing hot springs, the coolest one I have ever been too, it was so big. Damon also got to do some fishing while we were camping which he enjoyed, but unfortunately he did not catch anything.

Our cabin

Action shot of Damon splitting some wood

This moose was about 25 yards away from us!

Damon having fun fishing

The view from our cabin

A moose we saw in the wild, with antlers!

Me enjoying my camping experience!

 Okay this last picture I took just to show how light it was at 11pm.  No joke this is the darkest it got! I couldn't believe it!!

After we got back from camping we had one more evening in Anchorage before we left the next morning. So we went back to that yummy restaurant and ordered the same thing. I had the halibut, SO delicious and Damon had the fresh catch of the day which was salmon, the best salmon he has ever had he said. We also ordered the calamari again, because it was so yummy. It was such a wonderful vacation!!! Damon and I are so glad that we got to do this, it was the first vacation we have taken just the two of us since we had Olivia, so six years. It was much needed!! Can't wait till we can do it again!

Kindergarten Graduation

On May 22, Olivia graduated from Kindergarten. It was such a cute program, they sang songs and said there ABC's and counted. My parents came to town just for it, and my mom said it was better than high school graduations. All the kids were so fun to watch, some of them really got into the singing. Olivia was a little more reserved than others. I can't believe that she is already done with her first year of school!

Waiting for the program to start.

Getting her certificate of achievement.

Holding it up to show us.

 

Olivia with her teacher Mrs. Crockett.  We loved her, she was such a great teacher!!

Birthdays..

So I'm sure that most of you know that my girls birthdays are a day apart. Sophie turned 3 on May 6th and Olivia turned 6 on May 7th. I'm glad we never planned it that way because I would say we were crazy. It is so much work having kids birthdays that close together, and we didn't even do parties this year. Olivia had a birthday party last year and we have told her that she only gets a party every other year, Sophie is to young to care, yay! Well since we didn't do parties we just invited over the neighbors and had cake and ice cream one evening, it was great. I also didn't go crazy with gifts either, I figure my kids have enough stuff. Olivia did though get her ears pierced, she was not very brave and cried quite a bit, but I wasn't expecting anything else from her. She is very sensitive sometimes.  I got creative this year and actually made their cakes, thank you pinterest for the ideas.  Sophie had a caterpillar cake and Olivia's was an ice cream cone of 6 cupcakes for being 6.  I was really glad with how they turned out.

I can't believe that I have a 6 and 3 year old, where has the time gone.  They are growing up so fast!  I love that I have two girls who really are the sweetest things.  They definitely have their moments, but they are genuinely sweet girls.  They love being with me and sometimes I wish that I could have 2 minutes to go to the bathroom alone, but I love that they just want to be with me.  I'm sure I will miss that someday, or maybe not, lol!   Damon and I are so grateful for the wonderful girls we have been given, we feel very blessed.  Love them!!!

My girls love being sang too.  Funny girls!

Olivia blowing out her candles, Sophie not quite sure what to do.

Girls with the neighbor kids.

Me with my sweethearts on Mother's day which was just a week after their birthdays.

Cousin Time!!!!

We were SO lucky to have my older sister Emma and her family come and spend two weeks with us. It went by way to fast and I wish they were all still here. We had tons of fun hanging out and letting the kids trash my basement.

Emma and I were able to go to Women's Conference together and that was wonderful. It was my third time going and Emma's first. We want to try and go every year together. It is such a great conference with so many wonderful speakers.

Olivia and Betty played so well together, it makes me wish we lived closer to each other so they could play together more often.
Here are some pictures of the fun we had together.  

Riding on the train down to SLC.

Emma and Steve look happy, Oscar not so much.  Probably just got mad at me for talking to him, lol.

Sophie and Iris, zonked out on the train on the ride home.

Olivia sitting on a elephant trunk at the zoo.

Both Sophie and Oscar mad at me for asking to take their picture.

Damon and Sophie.

Finally Oscar will smile for me!!

Olivia and Betty!

Iris giving me her cute scrunched up smile.

This is the face Betty gave me when I told her to give me a big smile!!

Can't wait till we can see the whole Johns' clang again, hopefully  it will be sooner than a year!!!