Sweet summertime!

Summer is the best!! Can't believe it is over, but we did pack in a lot of fun this year.

Lots of fun times with friends

Redeeming their school ice cream coupons:

Living in swimsuits no matter the activity. A few times Russell slept in his swimsuit so that he could just get in the pool as soon as he woke up.

They did do some chores in between all the playing. Enlisted their friends’ help this time!

Beach days with friends

We had to say goodbye to these great friends this summer!!

We went camping at Disney one weekend. It was so much fun. The weather was great and we got to camp, yet enjoy a resort pool and other fun activities. Also, Disney is great at keeping the bugs to a minimum. The kids have plans to go back!

Catching the bus to the pool. The ride is half the fun!

Late night swimming!

Catching frogs!

Lots of rounds of Red Rover.

Making slime- and we have made so much slime at our house since then!

Outdoor movie night and songs with the chipmunks.

Lots of other fun activities this summer!

Ana’s first time bowling. She was a fan.

Smoothies a la Thomas

We watched our niece and nephew for a week, it was fun to have some more playmates here.

Fish-sitting our neighbor’s fish.

Beach day with the cousins

Twistee treat beach tradition.

Helping make Father’s Day dinner!

I blow-dried her hair for the first time ever, she was so excited.

Ana is the best cleaner I’ve ever had. Pretty nice perk as the fourth child since there are always so many messes! She loves to help clean, will clean up any mess she makes without being told, and will gladly help her siblings if they ask her to help with their chores.

Helping Russell with the dishes

Caroline has to swim with a swim cap because of some ear issues, but the caps are pretty popular with everyone else too!

Sunday afternoon hangouts

Pet sitting our friend’s bearded dragon is always so fun for the kids.

Still catching little lizards too

Painting nails

Fun with friends

The 3 older kids did VBS this summer and loved it. They also did a little camp put on by one of their favorite babysitters. Russell’s aging out of all these things in theory, but he wanted to go and loved it because he loves everything fun. He has the best attitude about life.

Sibling time!

The princess and the pea

Aquarium day together!

We had a great 4th of July!

Church 4th of July breakfast and bike parade!

Prepping for 4th of July BBQ

We had some friends over for dinner and fireworks, so fun!

Beach day with Dad for once!

Family karaoke night

We went to Utah for a week in July and had so much fun. We saw family for a few days.

Playing at Great-Grandma's house.

Then we drove south to southern UT and spent a few days at our friend's amazing cabin near Zion National Park.

Stopping for Korean food en route

This place was heaven, we had a wonderful few days here.

We drove around all this acreage that their family owns and went on so many cool hikes and just explored. Such an amazing experience!

Ana loved riding around in the UTV.

Our frog boy was happy!

Fishing for crawdads!

They caught so many!

Got to do some repelling!

We cooked the crawdads!

When we got back home our family had been invited to go scalloping with some friends! Sadly Ana and Caroline got sick so just the boys got to go. Russell and Thomas actually got sick later that day but they were glad they got to enjoy the experience before the week-long stomach bug started!

Poor sick Caroline. All the kids were pretty sick for 5+ days. Makes you so grateful when everyone is well!

We had a really fun Pioneer Day celebration at our friend's house. Making our traditional candy-covered wagons.

On another weekend in July the boys went camping in Georgia with Ricardo's brother and dad and their boy cousins. They had so much fun.

When the boys were off camping we had a fun girls weekend. It was nice to have some quality time with just the little two. Caroline had lots of requests which I honored-donuts, trampoline park, Chinese food, game night, movie night. We had a blast!

Sunday morning pancakes! The boys came home Sunday night and even though we had so much fun without them, Caroline was so happy to see her brothers that night and kept hugging them.

Last beach day of the summer + twistee treat stop

Caroline got invited to another fun summer camp at one of Russell's friend's houses. So adorable! Now Russell is trying to figure out what summer camps he can plan to make money!

The boys were a little jealous of the pirate theme and had to recreate their own interpretation.

Caroline got a hearing aid this summer-you can kind of see it in her left ear. She has been handling it great so far and is excited to be able to hear better.

Trying on my shoes already...

Our good friends from Jax came to see us last week. It ended up being right during a tropical storm and we surprisingly lost power for 12 hrs. We have never lost power for longer than 10 minutes since moving here so I was really not expecting it! Luckily it came back on right before lunch. Meghan snapped some photos of Ana helping me cook.