Fourth of July Weekend

We lucked out and got a four day weekend over the Fourth! We spent the time up in Soda and it was a pretty awesome weekend!

Waiting for the Soda Parade

However, it did start out pretty crappy...literally crappy. I'm talking raw sewage kind of crappy. We stayed at the apartment and somehow (we are all blaming this on Josh) the sewer line got completely blocked. So we spent the first couple of days trying to clear out the line. Not even the 150 foot snake clean it out. So we eventually ended up having to call in the big time people to fix it. It would not have been so bad except I'm the only girl in our family. So while the boys are out peeing in the yard, I'm driving 1.5 miles (yes, it's exact) to my mom's house. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people who can't pee outside--I'm actually pretty good at it--but you see the Father of the Catholic church lives about 30 feet from the prime peeing spot, so I figured I'd spare him.

I love the look on Josh's face--nothing like playing plumber for the weekend.

Gavin was quite the helper by attempting to put all 99 pieces of Josh's tool set in his shirt.

My sister was up from Arizona, so we convinced my dad to take us fly fishing.

Josh and my dad spent some time shooting the target out behind the house. Can you tell by Josh's face that he's just slightly competitive!

We decided to take the whole crew out and shoot the archery range and roast hot dogs.

This cracks me up. She barely stuck it into the very tip of the antler and the spine! Good shooting Tex!

The parade was great as always. The boys had a pretty great time.

I love all these boys! And yes...my kid does have a plastic bag over his head. Mother of the Year...I am not!

Can you tell Quinten absolutely loves his cousins do death!

Gavin was a little more cautious with the whole parade thing. Josh kept on having to take him out there to get the candy.

He then got smart and just started stealing the candy out of other people's sacks.

One of the cars in the parade backfired and Gavin freaked and went running for safety. He pretty much spent the rest of the parade on Josh's lap with this goofy look on his face. He kept saying "Boom, scare me!"

Quinten was goofing around in the baby swing on our swing set and leaned too far forward and ended up dangling from it. I was laughing so hard because there was nothing he could do about it, so I hurried and grabbed my camera!

Josh's football team made it the the finals, so we are off the Great Falls this weekend for the championship game!

This made me laugh so hard. I stopped at Wendy's the other day to get the boys' a kid's meal and the toy that was in it was a funny face costume. I handed it to him and he holds it up to his face and says, "Look, I'm Grandma Wendy's Papa! He's a funny guy!" The funniest part is, he really does look just like my dad!

Bear Lake Half Marathon

On June 12, a group of us girls headed down to Bear Lake to run the Bear Lake Half Marathon. It was a ton of fun! These girls were a riot. Jesse's mom was so sweet and made us a carb load spaghetti dinner the night before.

Then we headed to our KOA cabin. Isn't it cute!

Once we got to Bear Lake (keep in mind it has only been 2 hours since our spaghetti dinner) we found a pizza place to continue our carb load!

We finally got all snuggled into bed for a good night's rest, but that didn't happen.

I honestly think I maybe managed to get about 15 minutes of sleep, so I now know I am perfectly capable of running 13.1 miles with basically no sleep. It rained all night, but luckily it let up as we began our run. It was so stinking cold though. There was one part of the run where the pavement turned into a dirt road, so we spent the whole time slipping and trying to run in the ditch. You could totally tell who ran the half marathon because they had mud up the back of their legs. We ended up with a time of 2:14:17 which was 150th overall (including the guys) and 20th out of our age group. I would say that is quite the improvement from my last half marathon which was almost a half hour slower plus this time we didn't have to stop or walk the entire time! It's just proof that a training schedule actually works! I'm so thankful for my awesome running partner. I honestly don't think I could have done that without her...I love you Jesse!

Before the race..like I said, no sleep for us!After the race!

Thanks girls for the great time! We'll have to do it again!

Viva Las Vegas

Over Memorial Weekend, Josh and I went to Las Vegas! He played in the World Series of Poker Event #3 at the Rio. It was pretty neat to see players I watch on TV all the time like Phil Hellmuth and Vanessa Rousso. I had never watched a live poker tournament and it was crazy how fast the whole thing moves. They had about 4400 people in it and Josh ended up being in I think about the top 1500.

Josh's ticket to the WSOP

This is for all you UFC fans--Randy Couture started of the tournament with the most famous words in poker, "Shuffle up and deal."

It was so hot down there that we kind of just lounged around in our hotel and didn't do too much.

We did end up going to the M&M store for the boys--nothing like paying $40 for a bag of M&Ms that would cost $8 at Costco (the things you do for your kids)!

The best part of Vegas was the Carnival Buffet at the Rio. Let's just say I got my money's worth by eating 8 plates of food (yep, that's one more than Josh had). You would think I would have been stuffed, but the sad part is, I was up eating M&Ms two hours later in our hotel room. Jesse and I have decided there is just something about Soda girls and our ability to put away the food!

We ditched Vegas for a couple of days and drove to Flagstaff, AZ to see my sister. We ended up going on a hike and eating at some really cool places.

My sister and Josh overlooking the town of Flagstaff

My brother-in-law works at Northern Arizona University and their mascot is the Lumberjacks, so they have this awesome gigantic Lumberjack on their campus, and of course, we had to go see it!

My sister was attempting to channel her inner "Lumberjack"

Our road trip back through the very long and boring Arizona desert

And can I just say that when they complete this freeway over the Hoover Dam, I will NOT be crossing it! Are you kidding me!

Missoula

Josh had a game in Missoula this past weekend, so we decided to take the boys on a little Montana adventure. My awesome sister-in-law found a hotel called the Wingate that has an indoor water park. Needless to say, that's pretty much where we camped out! The boys loved the water! Gavin loved the water slide the first day but not so much after Josh dunked him under a couple times while coming off the slide. After that he was pretty much content with just wandering around and sitting on the pool steps. Quinten has turned into quite the little fish. He would go down the slide all by himself and go completely under without a problem. I think I need to get this kid enrolled in swimming lessons.

Showing of their muscles

And it begins...Gavin has already mastered the art of girl watching

Josh played his game at the Washington-Grizzly Stadium which was pretty cool. Unfortunately it rained the whole first half and they lost 13-12, but it was still really neat. Quinten actually fell asleep for half of the game which shocked me. I guess all that swimming really takes something out of ya.

I absolutely LOVE Missoula! It is so pretty up there and I told Josh we need to make a repeat trip up there just for fun! The best part is that the kids are actually pretty darn good in the car, so it makes driving not too bad. And just a little word of advice...no matter how sick you are of making pit stops along the road, never, ever, ever try to attempt peeing into a diaper. It won't end well. Just saying.

Road Trip Pictures

Talk about mood swings!

We spent a fair amount of time doing this...

When kids have to go, they have to go, NOW!!!

I thought these were too cute. Best buds!