"America the Beautiful"

Boy did we have a great and very busy summer, currently we are back home resting and being bored! Here is a very long list of the most exciting things we did and then following are a few pictures of some of our activities.

 

Besides going out to eat alot to catch up on all our cravings,

 we went to Millcreek Canyon, for hotdogs and s'mores

and we went to Rocky Mountain Raceway
 we watched and set off lots of fireworks
Wolfcreek for two Family Reunions
Snow Basin, the gondola and a hike

We went swimming several times
Museum of Natural Curiosity
Duchesne Demolition Derby
Ogden Temple Open House

Hollywood Connection

Several sleepovers
Alpine Water Slide 

Night in Midway

                              Gardner Village                              

Night in Heber
Shopped a lot!
Several Parks

Tracy Aviary
Seven Peaks

Ice Skating
Splash Pad
Pineview
Trafalga

Lagoon
Movies

 

 

Saratoga Springs 

 

Neptune Park with good friends the Moffats and McNeils.

Kamree and Emily at the top of the pyramid.

Bellon Family Reunion

Kamree and Adrielle getting reacquainted at the reunion at Wolfcreek.
 

Uncle Ben kindly took the brave kids for rides on his too cool bike.

Morgan wore the helmet since he went outside the parking lots for a longer and faster ride!

Kamree liked it so much she went twice.

 

Mason has never gone shirtless swimming until we were up at Wolfcreek in the pool on a rainy/overcast day.  His skin was so ghostly white that it only took a couple of hours to give him a 2nd degree burn.  This picture was taken on day 5.  He went shirtless for several days after due to the intense pain and for fear of the blisters sticking to the shirt. It was so painful that he would cry if anyone breathed on him.

Lake day at Pineview reservoir.

Independence Day!!!!

Grandma Bellon's 4th of July Stake Breakfast.  This was when we really felt like we were home.


 
Some of our huge home fireworks after the barbeque and before going out to watch the real fireworks throughout the valley.

 

 

Playdates 

 
This is a new park in the Daybreak community.  It is one of the best parks we've found.  With the Pendletons and Deckers.

Sleepover with the Wells.

Showing off the soccer shirts and Kamree's Spanish shirt. (the only shirt we've seen in Spain with Spanish writing)

 

At Trafalga with the Chatwins.  Chris is driving Kamree and Kaiya bringing up the rear.

Brandon driving Mason.

Rocky Mountain Raceway and the double deckers.

 

At Tracy Aviary with the Decker boys.

Rock Slides in Alpine 

 It's about a half mile hike up to these secret slides and it was brutal in the heat and super bright sun with very little shade.   This was just a couple days after my PRK (eye surgery) so my eyes were extremely sensitive to the light even with dark sunglasses and holding an umbrella.   Kamree is going down a small slide below the large one above that ended in a large pool.

 

Mason, Payden and Morgan are standing at the top waiting for their turn to slide.  The place was extremely packed leaving little room to even watch.  Morgan was the only one that went down the slide leaving the rest of us to hike back down wet only from our sweat. 

 Fortunately this splash pad was on our way home so the kids did get to eventually cool off.

Morgan practicing for the American Ninja Warrior.  (with the Davenports)

 

 Kamree learning to climb the silks from Heidi the silks pro.  We spent this afternoon/evening with the Davenports. 

Huber Family Reunion

Pictured here is one of the two owls that live in the trees near the pool/ sports area at Wolfcreek.

Kaiya and some of the girl cousins eating one of the many yummy dinners.

Morgan and the boys being boys. 

The day at Lagoon began quite rainy but turned nice and cool by the early afternoon and the lines were short the entire day!

 

Morgan flying high on the Jungle Joe at Pineview reservoir. 

On our way up to hike the peak on the Gondola at Snow Basin.

The hike wasn't too steep, but the gravel/dirt was slippery.  We had a few tumbles including Brent's parents which sent them both to the Instacare.

 

Most made it to the top!

Can you guess which one is Kamree and which one is Kaiya?

We had a week long reunion here at Wolfcreek with the Hubers and then Kaiya went up to Idaho with Grandma and Grandpa for a couple more days of fun.

Ogden Temple

The new Ogden Temple Open House.

Duchesne

We went out to Duchesne to see Corey's new house and four-wheeler.  The kids loved it all!  We went to the Duchesne Demolition Derby that is apparently the biggest attraction of the year.  We had to stand in line for 3 hours before the show was to start to get good seats.  It was great but it made for a late night drive back home. 

Corey's Wedding

It's official:  Corey (my sister) and Brandon are now hitched!!!

Our 4 kids playing after the wedding luncheon with Corey's kids(-1),  her new kids and new brother in law.  Perhaps there were a few too many kids on the trampoline. What do you think?

Millcreek Canyon

We had yummy fire roasted hotdogs and s'mores with the Deckers and Pendletons.

It was great, the adults sat around talked and ate while the kids ran around having fun playing games.

 



Seven Peaks

We went here 5 or 6 times during our stay in Utah.  This time we were with the Brinkerhoffs,  Payden, Adrielle and Parker.

 

Kamree and Adrielle on one of the many slide rides.  We could not keep Adrielle off the slides.  She loved them!!!

Oquirrh Ice Rink

 

You would think no one would need help being the 3rd time here this summer.

Outside the skating rink, as you can see, Kamree has grown a bit this summer.

Hansen Family Reunion

This was during the Day Reunion at Melissa's house the day before we came home.  Maybe this was a goodbye hug?

 

 

 

Goodbye to possibly the "bestest summer" ever!!!

 

 

 

Thank you Corey for the use of your vehicles, we couldn't have done it without them!!!!

 

And THANK YOU to Grandma Bellon for her hospitality and the use of her home for nearly 2 months!

End of the School Year.

The last couple of weeks of school were filled with graduations and final performances.  Unfortunately Kaiya's graduation act with her friends did not record well, and she missed her final flute recital since we were in Utah.

Morgan's Acrobatics Performance

Here is a 2 minute video of part of Morgan's acrobatics performance.  He is the little boy in black, first doing some tumbling and then doing the silks on the left. 

Kamree's Friendly Gymnastics Competition

 

 Kamree's Gymnastics Dance- She is the 2nd one out on the floor.

 

 

 

Kamree's Kindergarten Graduation

The  graduations are held at the cultural center across the street from the school and because it has limited seating each graduate gets just 2 tickets for their family to attend.  Kamree's worked out for us since Kaiya was still gone on her 6th grade trip and the boys were playing a futbol game during it.

Kamree is in the right in the front doing a dance from India.

Kamree's Graduation started with a program of dances from around the world then videos of the kids and ended with several songs with the kids and teachers.   I assumed I could quickly grab Kamree after the program and try to catch the end of the boys' soccer game, unfortunately they asked us to pick-up the kids across the street at the school.

After waiting several minutes for Kamree I finally found her in her classroom.  The class was taken directly to her classroom so that her well-beloved teacher could open her dozens of presents from the kids.

While waiting behind the crowd I took a couple of pictures around the room.  I've always thought the Kindergarten bathroom inside the classroom was interesting.  Besides having "friendship toilets", it has windows facing out to the classroom.

 



Here is the Spanish alphabet. The English alphabet in Spain, also has the lower case letters before the uppercase.
 

After the 30 minutes in the classroom we went out to the "Olive Tree Courtyard" for a Spanish buffet.  This photo was taken during Kaiya's "graduation celebration" but it was identical to Kamree's spread.  They had all kinds of fried foods and sandwiches with ham & cheese or nutella.  The drink choices, as always were lemon and orange Fanta, Coke or Beer.

Most everyone drank, mixed and mingled.  After a total of 3 hours I had no desire to stay any longer and Kaiya was due to getting home anytime from her 6th grade trip.

After picking up Kaiya and meeting up with the boys we stopped by the annual Medieval street market on our way home. 

 

 Last Day of School

Yippie! 

The last day of school was actually 2 days later but we were flying out on that day to the USA since it was saving us around $300 a ticket.  The day before the last day of school happened to be a holiday so of course we had a party.

 

The End of School Party

We had our friends up from Madrid for a relaxing end of the year pool party barbecue.   We barbecued, swam and the brave competed in making the biggest splash and the smallest splash etc. 

 

 

 

Brent doing a headstand!

 

Brian not wanting to drown!

 

Issac taking it easy!

Morgan and Brian playing crack the egg!

 

And Finally On Our Way to the U.S.A.

By the third flight and waiting through a 45 minute delay to board the plane the kids were spent (also it was 3am in Spain).  They could not wait to get onto the flight to warm up with the plane blankets and lay their heads down on the pillows.  Sadly. we were on the express which is not equipped with blankets or pillows and it was FREEZING.   The kids fell asleep within 10 minutes of boarding the "Express Plane", sleeping through another 45 minute delay while sitting on the tarmac. 

 

I eventually pulled out their pajamas from their backpacks to help them keep warm.  They slept through the take-off, the flight, the landing and woke up at the gate in SLC with Mason asking if he ever fell asleep. 

 

I'm not sure why the shirt was on the head.

 

Futbol... & Birthdays

The weekend before our three May birthdays, we went to the Parque Rio.   The park happened to be next to the Atletico Madrid futbol stadium on the night of the Champion's League final against Real Madrid.

They played in Lisbon Portugal, although that didn't deter the traffic and crowds.

As expected, while we were near the Atletico stadium and inside the park we saw candy cane stripes everywhere and as we made our way home through Real Madrid territory we saw plenty of blue and white. 

This is one of our favorite parks.  Here you can see the Atletico stadium in the background with  Hailey in front (clockwise), Kamree, Morgan, Kaiya and Mason

 

We didn't see this splash pad the last time we were here which did not matter since the whole park was being splashed from the pouring rain.

Here is a short video of Kamree, Hailey, Morgan and Mason flying down these slides.

Here is  Morgan showing off his jumping skills. 

 

May 27th- the Boys' Birthday

Morgan and Mason got these futbol outfits for their birthdays which they happily wore to school.  Morgan got much approval with his Real Madrid outfit whereas Mason got so much disapproval of his FCBarcelona's that I thought I was going to have to bring him different clothes.  Luckily, I had gone to his classroom first thing in the morning with treats and was able to switch the attention to his birthday.

For lunch the boys wanted nachos, so we took them to this restaurant down the street.  We ate outside, thus the boys and Kamree were rarely in their seats, until I placed a new package of futbol cards in front of them.   They barely touched their nachos with chorizo and soon returned home to add their new cards to their stacks while Kaiya, Brent and I enjoyed the rest of their birthday lunch without them.  The kids at school are infatuated with futbol cards so much lately, that the stores can hardly keep them on the shelves. 

 

Since Kamree's birthday is the following day we often celebrate both birthdays the evening of the boys' birthday so we don't have to have two cakes in a row.  Two days before Kamree's birthday she announced that she invited all her friends over for her birthday.  When I told her that we weren't having a party she said, "Well, too late!"  I asked her,  what we would do if they do if they came over and we weren't having a party?" She simply replied, " They can eat my princess cake and ice cream".  It's nice she let me know the plan before they showed up. 

 

I felt so bad that I couldn't whip up a princess cake that I went and bought the next best thing which was a "pink piggy chocolate mousse cake".   Kamree has been asking how many more days until her birthday non-stop for months and months.  It was nice it stopped for a couple of days before she asked again.  Now it's only about 350 days away Kamree. 

Odds and Ends

Kamree is posing for a picture to place on a thank you card for her beloved school teacher. Kamree is really going to miss her, writing her notes and bringing her in flowers. . 

The pre-elementary teachers are with the kids from 3 yrs old until the 1st grade.

 

Kamree's first (friendly) gymnastics competition.   

 

 

Morgan surprisingly won a poem competition in his school with a non-rhyming poem, which we still have yet to see.  We didn't think he would miss out too much by not going to the awards ceremony that happened to be during our church.  Full of curiosity, he ran over after church and got a whole bag of fun stuff.

 

 

Have you ever seen yellow watermelon?