So summer finally arrived in full here in Rexburg. Less than a month ago we were still having weird snow flurries, but now we are in the 80s everyday. It is hot, but fun. We are definitely missing our old apartment with the air conditioning. Right now in our apartment it is 84 degrees, that is with the windows open and the fans running 24-7. Oh well though, we'll survive. We have been enjoying the summer sunshine and having lots of fun. There is a program that provides free lunch for kids at a couple of the local parks 5 days a week. So almost every day we either walk or ride the bike to the park for the lunch and to play for a while. At Porter Park there is the splash park that some of you played at with us last summer. The kids love it. There are a lot of different size fountains and a few water slides. Ayana finally got brave and now goes down the water slides on here own. Ayana is still in toddler lab at the University and she enjoys all the different activities they have there. The teachers are very creative and there is always something new to try. Her favorites are playing at the sensory table (usually has water or rice in it), playing outside, and the role play area (mini grocery stores, etc.). Today while Ayana was at class we brought Asher's little push toy that helps him walk and he LOVED having long hallways to walk down instead of crashing into the walls all the time like at home. Our other summer activity is the library reading programs. We go to story time every week and Ayana loves to get stickers in her program book for being read to every day and get her prizes like passes for the carousel at the park, etc. I am in a reading program too and have been able to earn some fun certificates like free ice cream and a swimming pass. We are excited for when Trever is done with school in another month so he can join in more of the fun with us. Other than that we just hang out at home and try not to melt. Last Saturday we went with some friends to some local caves and had fun walking through them. Asher got a little bothered by the dark toward the end, but Ayana loved using a flashlight and did really well walking on the uneven ground and scrambling over the rocks. Anyway, here are some pictures of our latest adventures. Love you all!

Ayana and Asher with their friends at the caves


Splash park fun







Ayana enjoying the country girl lifestyle at a local stores anniversary celebration

It has definitely been a quiet rainy Sunday. Dad and I are both sitting here looking at pictures on the blog. We loved seeing Jonathan's entry. It sounds like you had a great trip. Cassie and Nate are getting settled in their apartment and we are now anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Olsen's. I wish everyone could be here. When I talked to Keilee a while back she said she wanted to come visit Grandpa and Grandma at our big log house where she could see all her cousins. Unfortunately that won't happen again but hopefully in another 2 or 3 years we will be able to figure out a place for everyone to get together again.
Dad is back from his fishing trip. He had a really good time but not quite as many fish as he had hoped. They definitely put in a lot of time fishing. Their "lodge" left much to be desired but it was a place to sleep and get in away from the rain and mosquitos.
The weather has been pretty rainy this past week but even with the rain my garden looks pretty pathetic. The friendly neighborhood rabbit has so all in all it hasn't had much chance to grow.
I have been doing some woodworking projects with the kids at the center and that has been really fun (usually). The only power tool that they use is a small drill but a couple of the kids can be a little scary even with that. When grandkids come to visit it will be fun to do some of the projects with them.
I have scheduled a few days visiting Amber in August and we are hoping to see Nathan's family in October. I feel like grandkids are growing up so fast and I am missing out on seeing them so I am trying to get to see everyone at least once a year. More often is always better.
I hope you are all doing well. I Love You All!
Mom

Jonathan's Adventures

I had tons of fun at Disneyland. One of my favorite rides at California Adventure was the swings. I was a little scared and nervous when I first saw it but it was fun after all. We spun really fast on the teacups.And Midway Mania, the toy story ride, was sooooo fun. It was also in 3-D. I liked the Indiana Jones ride but I did not want to do it again. On the Dumbo ride, I was spinning around and going down and up and it made me bounce of my seat. It was pretty fun! We saw lots of characters at Disneyland. My favorite ones were Goofy and Mickey and Pluto. We went to the Turtle Talk show. We talked to Crush from Finding Nemo movie. I got to ask him questions. My question waswhat is your favorite color? He asked me what my favorite color was and I said silver. He made me guess and his favorite color was green but then he said purple. Katelyn was making noise so Crush called her a crying baby dolphin and said she was hungry for a Churro. My favorite ride in Disneyland was a rocket ship ride in Tomorrowland.

The Olsen cousins came to play with me yesterday and it was super fun. I wish all my cousins could come and play. I love you.

Jonathan

Our Adventures at Disneyland

We are back and I am finally recovered enough to get blogging about our adventures. We spent 5 days at Disneyland (we were only planning for 3 but they were running a deal that gave you 5 for the price of 3 so we had to use the free days). We came home exhausted, with sore feet, and sweaty but we had a great time. The boys say that they will blog about their adventures and favorite things so I will help them do their stories soon. As a family, we had a lot of fun. Since we had so many days we were able to do everything we wanted, multiple times. We found out that Katelyn hates pitch darkness but loves fireworks. She loved the rides and things for the most part. She got stressed when it would get pitch black but was fine otherwise on everything. She loved the giant swinging ferris wheel, but it made me want to hurl within seconds. Note: I went on the crazy upside down rollercoaster and felt OK, and all the other roller coaster type things with Ryan and felt OK, but that was horrible. Her smiles were priceless when she would get excited about the rides or the characters. She loves Tinkerbell and was screaming when she flew across the sky during the fireworks, but got all shy when we actually got to see Tinkerbell in person (she was all for hugging Eeyore and Stitch though). Here are a few of the pictures from Katelyn's adventures.



As for Ryan and I, we just had a great time with the kids. Katelyn was mostly in awe, Robert was our adventurer and Jonathan was actually brave enough to try almost everything. We were really proud of how good they were and had a lot of fun going on the different rides with them and experienceing all those things with them. We also got to take a night, on my birthday, to be by ourselves for a bit. Ryan's parents were along for this trip so they took the kids and went back tot the hotel for the evening (they also helped by watching Katelyn during other days when we went on bigger rides with the boys). Ryan and I ate at the Blue Bayou which is the resteraunt in the Pirates of teh Caribbean ride. It was fun and tasted good. Then we wandered and went on rides and just relaxed. My overall opinion of the trip is that it was wonderful fun and I am glad we did it while the kids are this age (I would not do it for five days again though).

Like I said, the boys will write soon and send their favorite pictures. Love you all.

Happy Father's Day to a wonderful father! I appreciate all you do and have done for me and for my family. By the way, I got Mom's flight info today, when are you coming? Ayana always wants to buy a fishing pole at walmart and everytime I tell here that Grandpa will be happy to teach her to fish when the opportunity comes up. We love you! Amber, Trever, Ayana and Asher

Just a very quick post to say:

Happy Birthday Megan!

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Happy Flag Day Everyone!

Amber

Still alive and well...

Life has been so busy these past couple months, I keep waiting for it to slow down and then I will post. Finally tonight, four of the kids are in bed and Mark and Courtney are visiting a widow in the ward that Courtney is "adopting" to visit for the summer.

So what have we been up to? Good question...

Courtney- placed 2nd in both the long jump and 400 meter at school, so qualified for the district track meet and made the finals in long jump. She finished up the 4th grade with straight A's for the entire year. She had two fun field trips ( and I got to go on both!) one to the Getty Center and one to visit a mission and the Channel Islands visitors center at the beach. This week she bridged to junior girl scouts and a new troop.

Aubrey- finished up the 1st grade with straight A's for the whole year. She is just a fun girl that always makes us laugh and smile. Her current passion is "Diary of a Wimpy kid". She had a fun field trip to the local zoo, which the boys and I tagged along. She also bridged in girl scouts, becoming a brownie and will stay with the troop that I am leading.

Elijah- tells us every day how excited he is to start kindergarten. He is reading really well. During scripture study the other night, he sounded out beloved on his own, we were pretty impressed! He gave the scripture in primary a couple of weeks ago and it was the 4th article of faith, which he worked very hard to memorize and say all on his own. The whole morning before church he practiced over and over again to Caleb- very cute. His favorite accomplishment of late is making it all the way across the monkey bars on his own.

Christian- He and I have been working hard to organize his preschool group for next year. He loves sunbeams and is getting better at sitting still and listening! His big accomplishment is learning to go underwater at the pool- he loves to dunk at the end of ring around the roses.

Caleb is completely on the move. He is not yet walking but it won't be long. He stands up with anything he can get his hands on and has started to experiment with letting go. He says mama and baba a lot. He still likes to wake up at 4 am, but he is so cute and fun, it is hard for Mark and I not to love that time with him.

As a family, we have kept busy on the weekends with trips to the temple, the beach, the zoo and parks. We were very spoiled through most of May with beautiful weather. This weekend it jumped up into the high 90's and we are very excited for the next 3 weeks to go by quickly so we can get out of the heat to Alaska for a couple of weeks. Yesterday we went and did the "Walk for kids" to support the local Ronald Mcdonald house at the hospital where Caleb and I were last year. The kids made it on the 5K hike and we had a fun day supporting a good cause.

I have been horrible about taking pictures lately...will try to have some next post! Hope all is well.