Fathers Day, Moving, Summer Fun, Family, Birthdays and Other Misc Adventures, Part 1

After nearly two months of being without internet, we are finally back online and way behind.


Fathers Day was a big event in our house, I only hope that Brandan enjoyed it as much as the kids!

 

Brandan has decided his body is the kids' personal jungle gym.  I didn't sympathize much at first since I feel that he really brought much of this on himself by encouraging the boys to wrestle and rough house, but after I started paying closer attention, I realized that he does take quite a beating.  Oh well, that's the trade-off for never experiencing pregnancy. 
Here are a couple of shots of an All-Star Dad!


No couch is too small for all the boys to share.

 

Early morning wrestling workout.

 

Sport tore a hole in Brand's sock during this bout.

 

It started with Brand holding Sis and then everybody wanted a ride.

 

That's a lot of little bums.

 

The kids and I made candy lawn mowers for Fathers Day.  They got a little droopy in our hot house.

The candy mowers.

 

While I packed and cleaned in preparation for our move and Brandan holed up in the office working on his Masters class, the kids found ways to entertain themselves.  This primarily consisted of getting wet, changing clothes and then getting wet again.

The boys sunning themselves on the back deck after playing in the water.  The little boys don't have a spot on their body where the sun don't shine.

 

These are a couple of shots of our favorite spots in Upton.

These woods were only a five minute jog from our house.  There were enough trails through the trees to get good and lost.  I loved running in the "pastures" (as it's known to the locals), but I was always scared of mountain lions so every few minutes I would clap my hands and yell a little to frighten them off.  One time a few high school boys on motorbikes caught me.  

 

This road was another family favorite.  It branched off the main highway and headed off into forever as far as I can tell.  Not far off the main turn off was a big down hill every one would sled down and then we have driven out a few miles and cut down a Christmas tree and gathered wood for Brandan to carve.  I never came out on this road without seeing at least a dozen deer and some old turkey vultures that are almost scarier than mountain lions.

 

Just a quick word about Upton.  When we first moved all the way across Wyoming to the tiny little town of Upton, I felt sure that Heavenly Father was leading us there so that we could change peoples lives and do some great work.  I was completely unprepared for the fact that it would be our lives that were changed and us that learned the lessons.  But in truth, we learned more from the people of Upton about what it means to be good, kind, accepting and generous people than ever before.  That little town and those people will always hold a special place in our hearts and we are grateful to our Heavenly Father for giving us that opportunity.

Shortly after we knew we would be moving to Mountain View, Dash wrote this sentence in his Kindergarten class.  Translation - This is how long it takes until we get to my new house. 
You'll notice it looks like an involved trip, well, it sorta felt that far too.

We enrolled in swimming lessons again this year, but with one major difference...all the boys got to take a class.  The catch - I was required to help with the younger boys which means everyday for two weeks, I squeezed into my bathing suit and spent 30 minutes in some very cold pool water.

Yep, pink and purple goggles.

 

Dash has turned into a fantastic swimmer.  He is more confident in the water than I am and he can tread water for over a minute.  On the last day of swimming lessons, the teacher tossed coins into the pool and told the kids they could keep whatever they brought up, Dash made a $1.25 in nickels and dimes!

 

Colt's class was pretty casual so the kids had an opportunity to work at their own skill level.  Colt spent the entire two weeks under water.  At one point, he told one of the instructors not to try and pull him up out of the water unless she saw his hand waving around.  I only saw his hand come up once, but he kept us all pretty nervous waiting for his distress signal.

 

Sport loved swimming lessons as well, but his favorite thing was jumping off the side.

 

Sport and I chasing the ball.  I had to try and hold Sport over my head several times in order for him to shoot the ball into the basket.

 

On June 28th, we loaded into the van and U-Haul truck and made the 7 hour trip to our new home.  The kids were excited to be in the new house and especially excited to meet Grandma, Aunt Cam and the cousins in Mountain View.

We used a tarp to wrap up some of the furniture for the move.  The boys decided to try it out as a slip n' slide.

 

One morning Colt woke up early and then disappeared.  We found him 30 minutes later when we tried to sit on the couch.