I can't believe July is almost over. It has seriously flown by, and we've done a lot of really fun things. It's been a fun summer, but, as usual, much too short. 

This last week was spent in mainly getting ready for starting school with the kids soon. We spent more time at home this week, the kids just playing with each other, the girls reading a bunch, and me researching school curricula and ordering books and things. We went school supplies shopping one day and got almost everything we needed. We'll finish our school shopping this week. 

Tucker had his neutering appointment on Wednesday, and we watched a friend's dog for the weekend (bad timing, with the neutering). Tucker seemed totally fine after his surgery, maybe a little too fine, since we've had to force him to take it easy and not play too hard. 

One night, Pippin, the dog we were watching, was outside when the Smiths started shooting off fireworks in their backyard. He must've been terrified, and we went to bring him inside, like 5 or 10 minutes later, and he was completely gone. The girls and I searched for him for probably half an hour, in the backyard, and then I put them to bed. I kept looking for him and stayed up later, to keep an eye out for him, but he never came back. I said a very fervent prayer for his safety that night, and that we'd find him. And then I went to bed. The next morning, he still wasn't around, so I got dressed for my workout and then walked over to our neighbor's house, to see if he'd gone home, and there he was, on the porch, whining and howling. I was so grateful. I think the Holy Ghost whispered to me to check at their house that morning, probably right at the moment when he was there (Daniel had checked the house much earlier in the morning on his way out to a hike, and Pippin wasn't there). I'm so thankful for the gift of the Holy Ghost! It was quite an adventure. 

Daniel hiked Lone Peak on Saturday. He got up at like 3:30 in the morning and went with a couple of coworkers. He was gone until mid afternoon, and he said he was absolutely beat, that it was a really hard hike. 

The kids and I did our own hike, out to the Bear Canyon Suspension Bridge. There was a lot of whining and complaining on the way up (which annoyed me greatly, and I admit to being somewhat unkind about it), and then they were totally fine after we hit the bridge and started heading down. 2 miles, a little over an hour. It was fun! 

Then we headed home for a little bit of chores, and showering. And then! We had an unbirthday party! It's one of the things we had on our summer bucket list. It was so fun! When we were out shopping this week, we got some supplies for it. We played "don't eat Pete," played keepy uppy with balloons, danced, opened presents that we'd gotten for each other, ate cake, sang "a very merry unbirthday to you," and watched Alice in Wonderland. It was a wonderful unbirthday party! 

Last night we did a fire and tinfoil dinners, which is always a hit at our house. We also did s'mores and roasted marshmallows. I also talked to my dad for an hour yesterday afternoon. 

July has been a good month, a nice little break for my calling. I still did some visits and self reliance stuff. But I liked not having meetings. And yesterday I declared it a real day of rest, even from visits and calling stuff. I took a nap and ate and hung out with my kids and Daniel and read my scriptures. It was lovely. 

I've been playing outside in the evenings with the kids, throwing balls around and pushing Sawyer on the swing. The evenings have been warm, but so nice. 

I went to the temple one day. Finally. I feel like it's been a couple months since I went to the temple. It was very nice to be there. 

We had a movie day with our friends and watched IF. It was cute, but the younger kids were less interested. It was definitely a bigger kid movie. We had fun, though. 

Holbrook Family Reunion

Honestly, there isn't much to write about the Holbrook Family Reunion. We went to the pool every day. Sawyer was always so anxious to go and threw fits whenever we didn't go right when he wanted. He enjoyed testing his new swimming skills and practicing swimming across lengths of the pool. Jack also really loved going to the pool. The girls enjoyed playing and hanging out with their cousins and Aunts. Jennie had agreed with a bunch of the girls that they would make bracelets and exchange them at the Family Reunion, and it was a big thing for this reunion. One afternoon the girls all got together with their cousins and aunts with all their respective bracelets supplies and made bracelets together. 

We had dinners together, we went to the kids activity center, we drove out to Cascade Springs for a hike. Cascade Springs was so pretty, and so unique.

On Friday we had our lake day. It was one of the best lake days we have ever had. The beach was perfect, not too muddy. And everyone played happily, and the water was cold, but not so cold that we couldn't swim. We had dinner there and just had a good time together.

Daniel worked part of the time while we were there. But he did get to go on bike rides in the morning and came swimming with us a few times. The kids were bummed that he had to work, but he got to spend some of it with us. And that's better than what I thought it would be. 

Daniel and I had walks almost every night after putting the kids to bed. We just walked around outside of the resort, but it was nice to spend that time together. We also went on an 8-mile hike together one morning. It was so fun. It was cool and overcast, and we started hiking just outside the resort. We hiked much longer than I thought we would. Daniel's been sort of training himself to hike a bunch of peaks this year, and he wanted to do a longish hike to prepare. It was beautiful up there in the mountains, so pretty. We talked a lot, and kept on hiking. On the way back down, we ran a portion, on and off, of the trail. It felt good to just run. 

The next morning, Daniel took me for a bike ride. I was certainly not much in the mood. He took me on a pretty simple loop, but I got really frustrated about the curves in the downhill. We took another loop, because I felt like I should -- to get in more practice. The second loop was a better run. Daniel taught me some good skills. I just wish I was in better shape for biking up mountains, and also that I had more skills. All in good time, I suppose.

We had a great reunion! Most people left by the end of Friday, but we stayed until Saturday evening, going to the pool one more time, playing games at the Kids Center, going on the gondola, and going to a fun candy and soda shop and taste testing a bunch of candy and root beers. It was a nice family day we spent together, and with Dad and Jennie. 

 This week has been fun. We took Tucker to see Sammy a couple of times this week so that they could get used to each other. Daniel had asked Emily to watch Tucker for part of the time we are going to be in Park City, and she said that she didn't feel comfortable doing that because Tucker and Sammy hadn't been socialized enough. So we met them a couple of days at a dog park close to Emily's apartment and let them play together and be together for a bit before taking them back to Emily's apartments to continue the efforts. They did really well together, so Emily agreed to take Tucker for a few days next week. The Freis are taking for the beginning of the week. The kids loved seeing the dogs play together, though. It was pretty fun to watch them interact. 

I went mountain biking with some women in my ward. I texted them a week or 2 ago to see if anyone would be interested, and they were. So on Monday, Brittani Jacobs picked us up in her truck and chose a trail to go on. We had a really good time! The trail wasn't too difficult, though there were some scary curves on the downhill that I didn't handle very well. I fell into some trees at one point and bruised up my legs pretty good. But it was still fun. We made plans to go a couple more Mondays this month.

The kids and I went to the Lindon Aquatic Center with a bunch of our friends. They had a great time. But Sawyer monopolized all my time, wanting to go around the lazy river a million times, so I didn't get much chance to hang out with my friends. We had to leave early anyway, because Jack and Brooke had dentist appointments.

I went to a dumb improv show with a friend in my ward. It was her birthday and she wanted to get out and do something fun. I was really more in the mood to be home that night, but I went with her anyway. I think she needed to do something and hang out with a friend. The improv show wasn't spectacular, and we were super late anyway, so we missed half of it. But one of the performers was a friend I went to high school with, Adam Broud, so it was fun to see him. 

Daniel and I went on a fun date that I planned. We've been doing these fling dates where we assume a different character and pretend we're on a first date (or a client meeting, or whatever). I was supposed to be this hippy lady; I wore a bright flowy dress and feather clips in my hair. Daniel was supposed to be this nerdy tax accountant (ha!), and when he walked out in his outfit, I struggled not to laugh and break character. He was wearing shorts, tube socks all the way up his legs, tennis shoes, a polo shirt buttoned all the way up, and glasses with tape around the middle. And his hair was parted in the middle and slicked down. It was so funny. I was dying inside. We picked up Cubby's for dinner and then drove out to this park over by Utah Lake for a picnic. It was a beautiful day, not terribly hot, though a little more windy than I would've liked. Then we walked down a walking path to some hot springs right by the lake. We just waded into the hot springs, but it was lovely. I'd like to take the kids back there one of these days. 

Tonight, the girls and I watched Wicked together while Daniel took the boys on a little bike ride. I think they had fun together, and then he put them to bed when they got home. Wicked is quite a long movie, but we watched the whole thing! The girls LOVED it! And Brooke was very upset that we have to wait for the second half of the story. I've been wanting to watch it with them for a while. But I never did anything about it until Camille was invited to a birthday party where they would be watching Wicked. And I said, "Ooooh, no. She is not watching it for the first time with FRIENDS! We must watch it together before that!" It was very fun watching with them. And I love it, too, so I wasn't mad about having to see it. 

I woke up today with a song from one of the Tinker Bells movies in my head, and it made me indescribably sad. It made me remember the good times when my little girls were tiny and into watching Tinker Bell movies. I cried for the first quarter of my walk this morning, like 15 minutes, and felt better after that, but more determined to enjoy my kids in every stage. 

We had a Tucker and Sammy play date today. I drove the kids and the dog down to a dog park near Emily's apartment to hang out with them. They did really well together, even after we went back to Emily's apartment to see how Sammy would react to having Tucker in her space. It was pretty fun, watching the dogs interact and hanging out with Emily. 

We started and finished painting the girls bookshelf this week and got it back in their room. And also put up the wall art, finally. Their room is looking so cute... when it's cleaned up, haha. And Brooke has more ideas about making it look nicer, which we'll probably do in coming months. I'm coming along slowly but surely with all my summer projects! It's exciting and feels good. I hope I'll be all done with them by the time I start school with the kids, because at that point, I'll have no extra time for stuff like that. 

A texted-on-my-phone conversation I had with Brooke today: 

Me: Should we do a girls night tonight? You and me and Camille? Or are you too tired?

Brooke: I want to, but I am a little tired. ........Let's do it!

Me:  We can do it another night... I was thinking I could put the boys to bed a little earlier than usual, we can paint nails and eat popcorn and watch the live action snow white.

Brooke: Okay! Sounds good! Also, if you didn't notice, my nails are completely destroyed! 😃

Me: Hopefully if I put the boys to bed early, then you won't be too late to bed after the movie.

Brooke: Got it!

We ended up watching "Mirror, Mirror" instead, and Brooke ran out of time to paint her nails. But we had a fun night anyway.

The Week of the Fourth

We had a delightful 4th of July. I got up and walked with my friends and worked out and got ready and made good. Then the Christensens and the Freis came over for a lunch BBQ. Everyone brought different meats to grill and sides to share. We had steak and chicken and smoked sausage and shrimp, and a bunch of sides. There was so much food! We ate a lot, and the friends stayed for most of the afternoon until we all had to leave for our next events. 😆 

In the evening, we went to David's house for his annual BBQ + fireworks night, which is always a delightful time. I felt kind of sleepy and not at all hungry for dinner. So I just had salad and Dan's salsa and watermelon for dinner, which was more than enough. The fireworks were fun, and my kids all loved it. 

Other things we did this week: 

• The boys had swim lessons. Sawyer hated them until the end, and then he was sad to be done and wanted to keep going. He resisted almost everything Thomas was trying to have him do, but Thomas was tough with him and still made him do stuff. It was really good for Sawyer, I think.

• We went on a hike with Sammy and her kids. We did about a half mile hike up to a waterfall, and the kids had a lot of fun, both hiking and playing in the stream at the end. 

• The kids and I had a "read-a-thon" one afternoon. The kids got all their blankets and pillows and some stuffies and arranged these little "reading nests" for themselves. We started by reading our book together (we're in the middle of the 3rd "Wild Robot" book). And then everyone got out their own books and read quietly to themselves, altogether. Sawyer even got some Berenstain Bears books to look at while everyone was reading. It was so quiet in the basement. I don't think the house has ever been that quiet in the middle of the day when people have actually been there. 😂 I was pretty sleepy, so I just snoozed on the couch with the kids for 20 minutes before I started reading my own book. It was quite a lovely activity, though. Someone (I believe it was Camille) put it on our summer bucket list. And had been asking for weeks when we could do it. It was pretty fun. 

• I hosted book club one evening. I got ice cream to serve for the occasion, which I thought was a great idea for a middle-of-the-summer book club. We sat and talked outside. It wasn't too hot, and it was actually a really lovely evening. 
• The kids played with their friends, and the Davises came over one day to play. We went up the mountain to have a picnic with the Winfields and the Frei girls. The kids played in the stream and had so much fun with their friends. 
• Yesterday, I met Sammy and Brian and Melanie at a new park in Provo to let the kids play. Daniel and Brooke are on a bike ride with their friends. The park was fun, but it was pretty hot. And Camille was kind of bored with no one there her age to play with. She kind of wandered over to hang out with the adults off and on the whole morning. 
• Daniel took Camille on a daddy- daughter date to the Lehi pool. They had a great time! 

Yesterday's highlight: watching Sawyer start swim lessons. He was very excited, but quickly became very nervous. I was glad that our swim teacher was firm with him when he didn't want to cooperate. But it was pretty cute, just the same. 

Other highlight from yesterday: we had a family home evening lesson about how it's okay and good to ask gospel questions. Joseph Smith asked a lot of questions that led to some pretty cool revelations. But I taught the kids that it's important to go to the proper sources when you have questions or doubts. We did a little explanation of the scriptures -- what the books consist of, the study helps at the end of the books of scripture, and how footnotes work, etc. The kids were pretty engaged and I think they enjoyed learning that stuff. It wasn't my own idea, really. I mean, I've had the idea before, and I think we had a lesson introducing scripture for the girls after Camille got her own set of scriptures. But it was cool how the inspiration just came yesterday. I was driving the boys home from swim lessons, and I was just thinking about what I should prepare for a lesson, knowing I wouldn't have a ton of time to prepare, and this lesson idea just popped into my head, along with explanations and questions to get them thinking. It was pretty cool. I feel like the Spirit was guiding me there. 

Today's highlight: we went on a hike with Sammy and her kids. Last week, Cap sent me a Marco polo inviting us to go on a hike with them, but we couldn't go that day. It was very cute that he asked us. So we made a plan to go this week. We did the Battle Creek Falls trail in Pleasant Grove, and we hiked about a half mile up to the first fall and stopped to play for a while. The kids loved playing in the stream while Sammy and I just sat and chatted. It was a nice hike, and we did a lot of imagining on our way up and back from the falls. I was trying to take the Fernandez' kids minds off of the hike and complaining. And we had fun!