4th of July

Sorry I am a little late on this post, but after this I will finally be caught up! Yeah! This year for the 4th we did something different and went to Manti with my parents for lots of 4 wheeling. My parents brought their trailer and a tent and we set up camp and Temple Hill RV. We had a pretty view of the temple and a route that took us to the mountain for all the ATV trails. We had a great time!

The first 3 pictures are of the kids at the park for the local festivities. So cute:)

Cros was absolutely obsessed with the 4-wheelers he would walk around and say "ride" and he would sneak out every chance he got to do this.

Our view of the temple and the fireworks.

Papa and Cros enjoying the show.

We walked around the temple grounds one day. The kids loved it. The Manti temple is so pretty!

One of our many attempts to take decent family pictures. Ava was not feeling well though and had a hard time being happy at all. We'll have to try again, we'll get one someday. Right???

Brooklyn wanted someone to roll down the hill with her. I finally gave in but didn't make it too far. It hurt:(

Then my dad gave it a try.

Cros was a total "Mama's boy" until this trip. That's all over now. It's all about his dad.

Da. Papa and the grandkids

Park City

We had our first Mike Lyman family reunion in June. We rented out two condos for a week on Park City and had the best time!

Sunday was Father's day. All us girls made a Father's Day dinner; steaks, potatoes, salad, and brownies and icecream for dessert. Yum! After that we had a little program that included a slide show for grandpa and a "Daddy Daughter" game.
We played games EVERY night when the kids went to bed. Somehow Ava got out of it this night and was our official timer. She would not take her eyes off the timer and when the sand would run out she would jump up and down, say "time", and laugh. This night we played an intense game of Charades. Other games we played were, Rook, Catch Phrase(or Catch a Phrase), Scrabble, Skip Bo, Cities and Nights, Tiger Woods(boys and X box) all of which were very intense, of course.


We had a talent show one night where every family was supposed to participate. We put together a gymnastics/dance routine to Hannah Montana music. Yeah!
The Gibbon's did a magic show. Very tricky stuff.

Here we have Sunny and Cher. That was nice of them to come, especially Sunny:)

Chris presented a very funny poem about our experience in Salt Lake the saturday before.

The Williams' fam did a Bake Sale skit. It was so cute.

Some of the older girls sang some songs. One of them they made up about Smooth and Silky and Smelly hair . Very creative girls!

We spent one day at the Olympic Park. It was cool to see where the olympics took place and we also got to see some potential future olympians practice.

8 girls and only ONE boy all week

Crosby never let grandpa out of his sight.

There is a jumper in this picture.

About half way through the week Nicole disappeared...we found her zonked out on the floor to the side of the couch. Poor girl!

I love this picture of Cros and Hayden. Cros loves her and just always wanted to be giving her a hug. It was nice of Hayden to endure him.

Well that's all the pictures I have from the week but much more went on.

The condos we stayed had a clubhouse where we could go swimming. We spent a lot of time there at the pools. The first day we went Brooklyn wouldn't even put her head all the way under the water and by the end she was swimming all over under water. Thank you Granny Jo for helping her. Ava was content to just go around on her floaties and play in the super warm kiddie pool. Cros liked swimming but found the floaties so restricting. So I spent most of my time saving his life over and over again.

During the week an "Elite" Moose Club was formed and members were added periodically as "moose sightings" occured. Members included; Colin, Mike, Denim, Sandi, Myken. Others tried to joined but continuously failed including; Joni, Shelly, Chris, Kelly, Scott, Brian. Too bad:(

We found an amazing park with everything we needed. A playground for the kids, a big field for all of us to play(ladder ball, soccer, frisbee, bocce, etc.), and tennis courts.

Back to Blogging

After 3 straight weeks of playing it's time to get back to normal life! Here is some of what we've been up to. We spent a week at my parents house. It was nice to be up there and spend some time with them.

The kids love to take bubble baths in Da's bath so this is a common thing, but I just love this picture of them.

We had Mallory's baby shower one of the weekends. It was a lot of fun. Some of my mom's friends(the besties) put it all together. We had yummy crepes with lots of fruit, whipped cream, pudding, etc. Mmm! Mal got a lot of good gifts too. Hopefully she's feeling ready she had about 4 weeks to go!

Cros was never far from Da.
Heidi gave Mallory this wrap. We were all impressed with how this worked. I wish I would have had one of these, especially for church.


This blanket was so pretty. I think she decorated her nursery with these colors.

Cros is obsessed with my mom's cats. In this pic he is actually calm but most of the time he chased them around and jumped on top of them and would say "Ah." They got smart quick and would run away whenever they heard him coming.

We also went to Raging Waters. The ONE nice day of the week. The kids had a lot of fun. They spent most of their time here at the lily pads. Sorry the pictures are a little blurry. These are taken on my phone.

Saturday

Saturday morning we wake up and make a plan. The plan went something like this. Get ready, pack up and drive to Kanarraville Falls. Meet Chris(Denim's brother) and Luke(Chris's friend) and do a nice easy hike. Play in the water, eat snacks, maybe build a fire. Find a good spot to meet up with Wes and Trina(friends) later for smores.

So this is how the day really went... We get to Kanarravile and the hike starts out with a long hill. About 10 steps into it Ava starts, "I can't walk", "It's too hard, too far", "My legs are tired", "Mom!". Somehow we persevered and made it about half an hour. Then the hike got a little too difficult for kids and I'm sure Luke was fed up because he had been carrying Ava on his shoulders for the last 10 minutes. So we told Chris and Luke to go ahead and we would meet them back at the spot we thought would be good for snacks and a fire later with Wes and Trina. 2 minutes into snack time we realize we are being attacked by tiny black bugs. Attacked!! They were all over us, all in our hair, clothes, ears. Ava kept saying, "we need to go home right now!" So instead we have snack time on the trail, in the sun, standing up. We decide that place won't work for smores and to just play in the stream until Chris and Luke get back.

1. Brooklyn walks into the stream with flip flops and loses them to the stream

2. Ava walks in and gets worried she will lose her shoes=starts crying

3. Crosby walks in and face plants=starts crying

4. Denim and I want to cry or something

Luckily Chris and Luke showed up and kids lives were spared.

After that great experience we went home to rest and decided on a new spot for smores. We get the fire going and then the wind starts to blow in dark clouds and we are freezing.

1. Crosby tries to choke on his food=crying

2. Ava gets upset that we won't push her on the swing anymore=crying

3. Brooklyn falls off a cement wall and rams her head into a pole=crying

Then all of the sudden the clouds and wind go away. It's warm! We play volleyball, football, and ladder ball, eat smores. We load up and start to go home and Brooklyn says, "Well that was fun!"

Ava and I were always about 5 minutes behind but we did make some friends. Here is our lizard friend that walk some of the trail with us.

Just a few of Ava'a bug bites.

Trina and Kambree

Good Times!