Wow – its been a summer! I can’t believe its been a whole summer since I blogged a darn thing! I’ve dealt with a few frustrations… Micah decided to load all the pictures on his computer because he uses the cameras so much more often. Well that sounded great, but he’s almost always on that computer and I’m still learning how to use it, so I didn’t have access to any of the pictures. I started writing a blog post about Easter and the Mommy makeover and I just kept adding to it – end of school, Father’s day, etc – and I never had a chance to get the pictures in. Soooo…finally we have the picture situation worked out and I can start updating again.
Anyway, We have had a great summer! We started by getting Jackson into swim team. He LOVED it, of course! Give that boy a little competition and he’s happy! I really appreciate how he doesn’t get worked up about winning or losing – he just loves competing. Its always nice to be the winner though ;o) I think this quality will serve him well through life. I always felt way too much pressure in sports or any competition.He really enjoyed having practice with several friends and cousins on his team.

Lacey and Chelle got to do a little dance class where they had an awesome time! They were so cute and so happy coming out of there.

We did some swim lessons, swimming in our pool, a visit to the lake with Papa-dad,  a little school work every day, a “stubz’ sicle stand” once a week and a few other fun crafts and activities I found online that would keep our time filled and productive. I had a lot planned for us for just a short month because we were taking the month of July for a long vacation.

The Thursday before we were to leave on our trip, Micah went to a conference. He came back Saturday morning about 10:00 and we left Saturday by 1:00 PM. There was so much to get ready to go! We cleaned out a lot of things that you just don’t usually think of: refrigerator, cabinets, drawers, every ounce of garbage/ garbage cans, and anything else I could think of that may get stinky in a hot closed up house! Poor Autumn decided to cut her first couple of teeth right before we left. She seemed to handle it well though. After all the preparation, we finally got off! Our first stop we went through Provo to stay the night. It was fun to be back there – it always feels like home. That Sunday we went to church in Highland to visit friends of ours that had just moved there a few weeks before. It was so fun to see the Smiths! Then we drove to Heber to a cabin to have the Stubblefield Family Reunion. We all had a great time and I love watching my kids get to know their cousins better. The kids didn’t want to leave! The boys could go exploring in the woods, the girls could play games and swing on the porch swing, and adults could hang out and chat. It was fun to play games in the evenings with several of the in laws and older nieces and nephews. We had a fun skit night, rocket building and launching, Wii dance, a bouncy water slide and a lot of other fun activities.

July 5th was the last day of the reunion. I had called my room mate from college Hannah to see if we could meet up with her family. It ended up that she was having a family reunion about 2 miles from where ours was, and she was able to come over to the cabin we were staying at just for a few minutes as we were getting ready to leave. It was so fun to see her and a little crazy that our kids are getting so big! It feels like yesterday that we were room mates at DT our first semester out of high school and playing and hanging out with the other girls on the floor. After that we went to Salt Lake. It started raining, but we went to a park where Micah wanted to see a youtube guy named Weezy waiter and his band. We picked up some lunch and went to this park in SLC. It was raining pretty good, so the kids and I waited in the car for a lot of the time. There were some of the most precious duck families there and we couldn’t get enough of them. Next we went to the City Creek mall to visit with some of Micah’s friends. It was nice to walk through the mall and get some ice cream and visit with Micah’s friends from high school that he hadn’t seen since before we were married. Our next destination was Yuba City. I can’t remember how many nights and where we stayed at places from SLC to Yuba City, but I know we had at least one night in a hotel. We stopped off to visit this park we thought would be really fun for the kids – petting zoo, little rides, etc, but none of that was there anymore. There were some nature paths and a little museum where we were the only people, but it gave us a much needed driving break.

The kids did amazingly well on all the driving, and we tried to find some parks at regular intervals so we could all be happy and get some playing time. Alright – that’s it for part one! I’ll have to break this trip into parts over the next few days or so and make sure I cover all of it!

In other news, we went and looked at puppies the other day (we go to the puppy store at San Tan every once in a while) and we’ve all fallen in love with this darling little one! He was precious and sweet tempered – if only he didn’t cost so much!!! We held him and played with him. I’ve been tempted to go back every day since we looked at him.  After we played with him for a few minutes we gave him back to the sales guy and he handed him right to a couple that was waiting to see him and Lacey yelled, “they’re going to steal our puppy!” Ha – I wonder if they did! I think Rachelle’s been dreaming about it, because she’s said to me in the mornings, “that was so fun to pet that cute puppy” and “can we go get that puppy?”