Olivia's Baptism Pictures

Olivia got some pictures done in her Baptism dress that Nana made for her. I can't believe she's 8 years old...where did my precious baby go?

Precious Izzy-Biz

Bubba-licious!

My sister-in-law Aria was so nice and took some recent pics of the kids. I LOVE how they turned out!!

What a handsome man!!

Utah Trip

We got to spend 2 fabulous weeks in Utah this year! Tommy and Aria went to New York for a mini-vacation, and we got to watch their little ones Max and Sydney for the first part of the trip. We enjoyed every day either 100 degrees or less, LOTS of outside time and just hanging with the cousins!

  Tommy has the coolest backyard to play in!

Our tragedy was Olivia waking up with Pink-Eye one morning. No fun for her, but we didn't let it stop us!

We went over to the other cousins and found a set of wheels for everyone! Roller blades, bikes, strollers took us down to Draper park where we played and played and played!

 Here's the brood at Draper park. We're just missing Laura's kids, otherwise it would be all the grandkids on my side!

  

 My kids were especially excited to go to the movies at Uncle Matt's house. He has a fabulous theatre room that we definitely made good use of!

 BBQs with all the cousins were a regular activity.

We went and watched "Brave" I think we took up an entire row at the theatres!

 My kids were especially looking forward to the Fourth of July...FIREWORKS! Uncle Matt bought a TON and we spent over 2 hours setting them all off! We had some delicious desserts and TONS of family time! I LOVE being around family!!

  

  

Happy 4th of July!!

  

Uncle Tommy taught all the kids how to light their own fireworks! My kids felt SO GROWN UP!!

The other big highlight of the evening was rolly polly hunting. They were almost as excited for rolly pollies as they were for the fireworks (my kids are easily entertained). They must've caught about 15 of them, and created a habitat for all their new friends to live in.

We had AWESOME make-your-own sundaes which meant LOTS of candy on top of ice cream...DELISH!

 One day we went up to Park City. At Olympic Park, we got to watch the freestyle ski jumpers practice their jumps into a huge pool. We also got to watch one run of a bobsled team practicing before lightning shut the place down. We were going to go do the Alpine slides, but the downpour made us change our plans and head to Burger King for ice cream instead...all the way to Park City to have Burger King sundaes...my kids thought it was a fabulous day!!

Once Shayne joined us in Utah, we took the kids on a tour of BYU. We hadn't been back for years, and it was a TON of fun showing them our favorite napping spots around campus, and the great places that we used to hang out. Of course we had to get some BYU gear for the kids (and about 6 things for Shayne...). And it wouldn't be a stop at the BYU Bookstore without stopping at the candy counter. I remember many days going by the candy counter, and getting a bag of sweedish fish to munch on during a particular class to help me stay awake. The candy was so cheap there, we thought we'd get the kids each a 1/2 pound, that's not too much right? WRONG! A 1/2 pound of candy is A LOT of candy. One of the kids (we are sworn to secrecy who it was...) ate WAY too much, barfed it all up in the WILK and then felt fine! We toured a bunch of buildings, Olivia's favorite was the Kimball Tower which houses the nursing school. Izzy loved relaxing in the shade of the huge trees, and Quinten loved the candy counter...

Future BYU-coeds...I'm so excited for my kidlets to go here!

After our BYU day, we went camping with Aunt Steph and her family. We went to Yuba Lake and had a TON of fun. Steph tried to talk us into staying two nights, but Shayne's anti-camping won out and we stayed only one.

Here's all the cousins so far on the Black family side! What a handsome bunch!

Of course no camping trip would be complete without s'mores!  

Aunt Steph and Uncle Brady came prepared with EVERYTHING!! 

The next day we rented a canoe and spent a couple hours perusing the lake. What fun!!

  

  

  

We came back from camping just in time for Sydney's 4th Birthday Party. I have NEVER been to a party so amazing as this!!

  

 The birthday girl is the cute fairy dressed one!

We didn't know it, but in Utah, fairies regularly come to check in on the kids. Our kids got REALLY into making fairy houses, complete with swimming pools, ponies, pets, clothing for the fairies. Only to find them the next morning all lived in! It was so magical!!

  

We shared some delicious Hawaiian Shaved ice with the Isoms before going to Discovery Park. What a cool park! 

  

Sadly, all those rolly pollies that the kids found died, and there were plenty of funerals, and they now have a rolly polly cemetary in the backyard.

So many cousins to play with, two weeks just weren't enough!!

They even squished all together every night to sleep! We love you all!

Everyone was quite sad to come home. Our kids are already planning their next fun-filled trip to Utah. If we could only get some of those Utah cousins to come out to Arizona and visit us here...