Jeremy Ranch

In August we spent a couple days up at Jeremy Ranch with my family... Laron had to work those days, so me & the kids played with my parents during the day & he just met us there every night.

 We had a good time eating good food & going swimming of course!  The kids loved hanging out with Grandma & Papa, and I loved having some built-in-babysitters!

 After Papa was done swimming, he went in to go shower, but came out a few minutes later lathered up with soap bubbles all over his hair & beard!  The kids thought he looked pretty CRAZY!  (He's growing his beard out right now so he can be in some Bible movies that the church was making over the summer.)

Then the kids found a goose in the parking lot that was begging to be fed!  We were told by the receptionist that his favorite food lately was Fritoes, but he accepted our bread okay too.  And Bailey LOVED following him around!  Pretty cute!

 The kids LOVED just climbing around on the rocks & playing in the water (racing sticks!).  And luckily Chris & Jeff were more than happy to explore WITH them.  :)

 And of course, hanging out on the bunk bed is always fun too!

 I made a comment while we were there to Kimberly that Mommy needed to do her hair because BOYS don't know how to do hair... My Dad obviously took that as a challenge, and next thing I knew, he was sitting at the kitchen table, putting Bailey's hair into pigtails!  And I'll have to admit, he DID do a pretty good job... For a BOY!

 One really fun place we went with my family while we were there was to the "Olympic State Park" in Park City.  I've never been there before, so it was really cool to see!  The coolest thing was watching Skiers practice their jumping skills into a big pool of water.  They even had little kids practicing on smaller jumps, so that was pretty fun to watch too.  Kinda cool to be in the same place the Olympics were held only a few years ago... Wow!

 After posing in a bobsled & sightseeing a little more,the kids had fun climbing on a fun rope-playground we found.

By this time the kids were ready for lunch & naps, so my Mom took the kids back to the condo & me, my Dad & my brothers went to have a little fun in Park City.  Jeff & I both rode the "Alpine Coaster" & Robert and Chris went down the zip-line (which ended up having like an hour long wait!).  Thanks Mom & Dad... I haven't done anything like this for quite a while!

 And of course, it wouldn't be a true trip to Jeremy Ranch without seeing a few MOOSE!  A mother with her 2 calves hung around for a while, so that was fun for the kids to see!  Yeah for vacations!

I Love Bailey's PIGTAILS!

Don't you just LOVE these pigtails?!  And her cute toothy grin?  She's grown up SO much over the summer... We just love the spunk she's brought to our family lately!

Bailey's Tummy Issues

Feeling really frustrated right now...  Just went in to go get Bailey up from her nap & she was sitting in a pile of watery poop.  Just like almost every day.   At this point we can pretty much guarantee that if she poops, it will be all over EVERY-thing.  Like my white dress a couple Sundays ago at church!  I don't want to put anything cute on her, because she'll just poop on it.  I don't want to put new sheets on her bed, because I'll just be taking them back off to wash them a couple hours later.  We're pretty sure it's a milk issue, so right now we've got just about every kind of milk imaginable in the fridge, trying to figure her out.  Rice milk, Almond milk, Soy milk, Goat milk, 1% milk.  Any suggestions?!

And despite all this, she is happy anyway... AMAZING!  I wish I was as resilient!

A Fun FHE

The other day we had a really fun Family Home Evening... One of those last-minute "Let's run through the sprinklers!" ideas that husbands are good at coming up with, that end up being really fun.  It was a little chilly that evening, but it was fun actually holding the kids' hands & running through the sprinklers WITH them.  One of those precious moments that just isn't the same from the sidelines.

Aunt Diana's Wedding

On July 27th, Laron's youngest sister Diana got married in the Logan Temple to her sweetheart, Chase Bigham.  It was such a perfect wedding day... Morning wedding, radiant bride, gorgeous dress, slightly overcast, fabulous luncheon, surrounded by family.  And it was the first time that ALL of Laron's siblings were together in the temple, so that was kinda special too.  Don't Diana & Chase make such a cute couple?!

The kids loved seeing Aunt Diana (or "Nana" as they call her) all dressed up in her pretty wedding dress, but Kimberly just couldn't understand why Diana couldn't hold her the whole time & play with her.  That's the only bad thing about weddings... You have to share the bride with everyone else!  All-in-all, the kids did pretty good for a full day of fun.  We were a little worried because Bailey ended up waking up sick the night before, but she did really great despite not feeling well & going extra long between naps.

 Congrats again Diana & Chase!

We're SO excited for you guys to start your new life together!

Snowbird

Every summer my Grandpa Erickson is kind enough to invite up our family to his condo at Snowbird.  And lucky for us, Laron happened to have the week off of work, so we decided to make a vacation out of it!  Unfortunately though, our week had a few OTHER plans, so we had to come & go a few times to feel like we'd vacationed enough...

My parents only came up the first day we were there, but we had a fun time going hiking up to Secret Lake with them anyway.  But being over the July 24th weekend, we were surprised how many OTHER people were hiking the trail as well!  We've been hiking there many other times before, but never has it been that packed... I guess the Secret is out.  I took SO many amazing shots, that I just had to post them all...

Once we reached the lake & started pulling out snacks, the kids had a fun time feeding this little chipmunk.  He definitely picked a good spot to go begging for food!  So cute!

That night we left early to go spend the night back at home before making an early trip up to Logan for Laron's sister Diana to go through the temple for the first time... It was worth a slight delay of our vacation though to see her in the temple!  That night we headed BACK to Snowbird, but this time with Laron's brother McKay & his family sharing our condo with us.  It was a tight fit with 4 adults & 4 kids all in the same room, but it made it all the more exciting to have extra company!

The moms & kids enjoyed some fun time at the park together, while the dads played tennis a lot.  Then of course, after building up a sweat playing & hiking around, we all had to go swimming.

There is something about beautiful mountains in the background while you're swimming with your family that makes the experience even more enjoyable!

It didn't take long for Bailey to fall asleep, so she missed out on most of the fun, but Kimberly re-discovered that she LOVES jumping into the water into Daddy's arms!  Or being thrown up into the air... Anything with an extreme THRILL attached to it!  Skyler on the other hand was totally content to hold onto the side most of the time... We're still working on him!

After one more night at Snowbird, then we headed back home only to wake up early the next morning, this time to go to Diana's Wedding!  And then two days later was Laron's youngest brother Preston's Mission Farewell.  He's going to Lansing, Michigan next week, so we're excited for him!  So even though our week was full of WAY too many BIG events, we were sure glad to have a mini-vacation amongst it all.  Skyler's already counting down to NEXT year's Snowbird trip!

Clinton 5K

Well, I ran my first 5K this summer! Something I never thought would be an accomplishment of mine... But I started exercising with some friends in the morning that were going to run one, so they talked me into it.  Most of the other ladies were much faster than me, so I mainly ran with my friend Rachelle Lawerence.  At about the halfway point, when I was starting to wonder if I even wanted to finish this race, I noticed Laron & the kids parked off to the side of the road, waiting to cheer me on!  What a sight of encouragement that was!  After running over & giving them a quick hug & kiss & smiling at their sleepy little faces all bundled up to come see their Mommy, I ran back into the race with a little ore bounce to my step.  It was still a really challenging last half of the race, but it was very encouraging to have a friend to run beside me & a family waiting for me at the end.  What an amazing feeling to finish a goal like that!  We made it in 34 minutes, 40 seconds, which felt pretty darn good to me!  I felt like I was going to throw-up afterwards, but I did it!

Skyler asked me afterwards if I won 1st place & I had to explain to him that sometimes just FINISHING something means that you won. Skyler noticed at the race that there were several little kids running in it too, so he's been talking about running the next one with me ever since. So this morning, after going running with my running buddies, I woke Skyler up & we went on our own little run. He was SO excited, but he's definitely more of a sprinter than a long-distance racer for now... But way to go buddy. I'm impressed that you even wanted to try!