July 25, 2014

1. Bethany on her car in the yard.  The kids all are crazy about riding bikes in the front yard and would all day.  Kate recently earned a new bike too, which means that all four of the kids have now recieved or earned a new bike/ car/ ride toy since May.

2. Kate went to hip hop dance camp at Wasatch Dance this summer.  It was only a few days.  She was by far the youngest and got a little frustrated that she wasn't as good a the ten year olds, but tried so hard and had a lot of confidence in the end.  I was very proud of her for doing her best and competing in such a new things.

3-4. Harvest picture.  Our one apricot we ate off the tree. We split if between us all.  And it was perfect.  We are looking forward to a real harvest next year.  We have been getting all kinds of lettuce, tomatoe, peppers, squash, onions, brocoli, carrots, radish, beets.....  It has been our best garden ever.

5.Three daughters sitting on a garden bench eating peas!

6. Puppet shows for beth over the stairs.

7-8.  Beth eats a shake at sundown with Cola by her side.

9-10.  We made a steak dinner on the day of Jake and my 11th wedding anniversary.  Kate and Sam decided to make it a fancy dinner surprise for Dad and we decorated.  Jake and I also the next evening managed to go to the Provo Temple though a session together.  I think it has been at least one year and perhaps even two since he and I made it together to the temple and not alone some evening or morning while the other person is stuck at home watching kids.  It was delightful, and the perfect way to celebrate our anniversary.  Then we went to a nice dinner at La Jolla Groves- which felt extra fancy since we were in dress clothes from the temple.
We have tickets for a trip to New York in a few days we are calling our anniversary trip.  But it is actually for the ten year anniversary that we didn't really celebrate last year since we had a new baby not the one we just celebrated... well maybe both.  After literally 7 years of saying we are going to take a trip, we are actually doing it.  It has been half the fun pre-trip just sitting in the evening and planning our first get away from the kids since before we had any kids.  And even then we didn't really go on a lot of trips so it is a long time coming and well deserved.  Just like last year- when he won that trip to Thailand, but went without me because I was 8 months pregnant with Bethany, Jake won a top marketer award internationally for one of the companies he does work for- and this year the trip is in Croatia in a few weeks.  It took Jake and I about ten days to finally decide to no go, but the trip would have taken us away from the kids for 8 days and we didn't think we could do it... typing that seems crazy because when somebody want to take you on an all expense paid luxury vacation to Croatia you should almost always take it.  But we decided we would rather spend our time away from the kids and work doing exactly what we choose, and going to Croatia with a bunch of people Jake works with who are notorious for drinking too much, is not really worth 8 days away from our kids.  I am pretty sure we deserve some kind of awesome parent award for that. Or crazy person award.... we are still deciding.