Summer Time 2010

Wow, so sorry for the long post, but I'm playing some serious catch up! I can't even believe how fast this summer has gone by! We spent Atomic Days over in Arco with Josh's family. The boys had a great time on the slip n' slide in Grandma's backyard...

Then we all went floating down the canal... (minus Gavin who was perfectly content hanging out in the truck with Josh)We took the kiddos to the parade and of course they loved it! So this is kinda Gavin's MO at parades...sit around and look pathetic enough that eventually someone will bring you candy and then you don't have to put forth any effort of going to catch it!

We then went to the carnival. Josh and I took the boys on the tilt-a-whirl thinking that it wasn't really going to be that bad...we were wrong. Amazingly, the kids were little troopers through the whole thing, even Gavin, but by the time Josh and I got off I think we were both about ready to puke.

After three very long days of volleyball, softball, and running around, we were ready to head back home for some R & R. However, this is what we dealt with on the ride home...

Words of Advice-don't leave your dirty laundry in a plastic sack within the kids' reach or they'll rip it open and start throwing it at each other...nice!

We spent the next week over in Carey for another volleyball tournament. And then the week after that was the Snake River volleyball tournament...is anyone seeing a pattern here? I told Josh that ever since I married him my life revolves around a certain sequence of events...basketball season, football season, volleyball season, softball season, and then hunting & fishing season!

These pictures are kind of random but I thought this was too cute...

Quinten was feeding Halle his ice cream (and yes, Halle is totally sporting boy's clothes, but come on, she's so dang cute in them!)

I love, love, love these girls!!! So much fun!!!

Quinten started Preschool again! He was pretty excited to go back to see his teacher and friends!

First day of Preschool

(okay, so I actually took the picture about 6 hours later after we visited the pool with grandma and grandpa, hence the crazy looking hair)

Josh has been taking Quinten out to shoot the bow and arrows that my mom and dad bought him. Sorry for the crappy picture (it was with my phone) but he's actually been getting pretty good!

So I took Quinten to the dentist to get his teeth fixed the other day. They sedated him because he's kind of grabby at the equipment and we figured it would just be easier this way. Well once they got his mouth numb he couldn't feel his lip so he actually bit down really hard on it and this is what the end result looked like!

It was pretty funny because he was so goofy while the sedation was wearing off. He even swallowed the cotton gauze roll that they told him to bite down on! They told me he would go home and sleep for 3-8 hours. Well, he only slept for just over an hour! He was hyper and acting so funny! It was like having a little tiny 4 year old drunk in my house. He wouldn't sit still so I had to follow him around and make sure he didn't run into anything. What can I say, not even Versed can keep this kid down!

The boys loved this summer and I'm kind of sad to see it go, but I'm sooooo looking forward to fall--my favorite!!!

So farewell summer of 2010...you've been a good one!

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!