Happy 4th of July (a month late)

The fourth of July was so long ago that I can't even remember what we did to blog about it. I wanted to turn my photos into collages so they would look better when I posted them, but I will probably never get the time to do that so I am just going to post them as they are. I do remember the fourth of July being a lot of fun. We went to Anthem to stay with Katie and Jeremy. Anthem does their 4th celebration on the 3rd so we did all the fireworks and fun the night before the big day and then went to the Anthem water park on the fourth. Our holidays and weekends sure would be boring if we didn't have Katie and Jeremy to supply all of our fun!

Anthem has a really fun Independence Day festival complete with a weird guy on stilts, patriotic tatoos, and tons of bouncy play equipment. Gage LOVED the maze.

Gage begged and begged to ride in the "strawberry" or tomato, or whatever it is. It spins around and around and just looked like the most fun Gage had ever seen. So Kyle waited in line with him for a half hour while Gage repeated over and over "Gager's turn, Gager's turn". They finally got on and convinced Anden and Jeremy to ride with them. Immediately after it started spinning, Gage was crying to get off. And poor Jeremy gets major motion sickness so he wasn't too thrilled either. So the ride operator stopped after a couple seconds and that was the end of Gager's wild ride.

Waiting for the fireworks to start.

Brigg had an interesting time playing on the water slide.

The only time Gage will sit down to eat lunch is when he's with his buddy, Anden. Anden is a great example for Gage. I wish they lived closer so we could see them more.

The next day, we went to the Anthem water park to let the kids play. Brigg and Taylee spent the day chillin' in the shade under this umbrella while Gage went down the waterslide a thousand times.

Summer Fun

My sister, "Auntie Kiana" came to visit from Maui for a couple weeks and we have been out having fun and getting things done, so my blogging has been lacking. But here's what we've been up to this summer:

Katie and Jeremy invited us to go to Forest Lakes with them for the weekend. It was so nice and COOL!!

Kyle and Jeremy finished Jer's tree fort (with a little help from the boys).

Gage & Anden played surprisingly well with each other.

Kiana rode a quad for the first time and loved it.

Gage, Brigg, Anden & Taylee went for a little Rhino ride with the moms while the guys and Kiana rode their quads. Gage was terrified of the loud Rhino so when we first started driving I looked back and saw his head hidden under his blanky.

Then after a few minutes, he got bold and peeked his head out to see if he was still alive. :)

Brigg loved being carried around in the baby bjorn (my back didn't love it so much).

And we spent a lot of time hanging out in the cabin and relaxing with our good friends.

On the way home, we stopped at the fish hatchery so Gage and Anden could feed the fish. Gage was a little freaked out by the very agressive fish at first but soon found out how cool it was to throw stuff in the water. Then Anden taught Gage how to roll down the hill. Then Auntie entertained Gage on the rest of the ride home.

When we got home we found strawberries were 3lbs for $1 at the superstition market, so we bought 27lbs and made jam. It was a long hot day, and included one exploded jar and another messy mishap on the stove, but it was worth it when we had fresh homemade jam on our toast the next morning. Then I went back and got another 15lbs of strawberries and froze them for smoothies later on. I love the superstition market!!

We took Kiana and the boys to the Oasis water park again. Gage had so much fun playing with his Auntie in the water. I wish I had gotten some pics of them together, but water, the baby and a camera can be a dangerous combination.

Kyle has been cleaning up the yard and as soon as Gage saw daddy get out the lawnmower, he grabbed his own and was outside helping out. Gage adores his daddy and wants to do everything Kyle does all the time. He often tells me that he's going to work and then goes outside into the backyard for a while. :)