Grandma Ginger's House

The children absolutely love spending time at Grandma Ginger's house!

It's like a calm oasis of creativity and exploration. 

These are some of the things we do at Grandma's house:

Take long baths with cousins, bubbles and toys. 

Celebrate summer Birthday's.

Visit elderly neighbors in Grandma's truck.

Arts and crafts galore all day long!

Hike rock canyon and gather rocks to paint. 

Enjoy amazing local theater. 

This year we went to Into The Woods and The Little Mermaid.

Play with dress-ups and create plays to perform. 

Go on outside explorations. 

Here are some pictures from our trip to Bridal Veil Falls. 

*Side note: Reese and Rella were just the most awesome playmates! 

They got along so well and devised a series of fun games together. 

On this particular outing they played the "baby rock collecting game."

Of course, we love the delicious meals at Grandma's house. 

 And long, un-rushed grandma story time is just the very best thing ever!

Thanks for hosting us Grandma. 

We had a great time!!

Utah State Feis

Lugging all of their competition gear across the country 

was a small price to pay for the

 chance to have family be able to support the girls at the Utah State Feis!

 Grandma/Grandpa Young, Bonnie, Grandma Ginger, Grandpa Lewis, Aunt Mel, Aunt Robyn and cousins Luke, Maddie, Mason and Zaylee were able to come watch.

Bonnie somehow managed to not be in any pictures?!

  I was however able to capture the most of the family members present.

(Avery post dancing helping to entertain with the i-pad)

It was a LONG Feis day and quite different than the Irish dance scene in our region.

Utah is still in the infancy stage of Irish dance, 

so the feis was very small and struggled to run smoothly...

but food and family support kept us all going!

The girls did a great job dancing and placed quite well:

Avery = Five 1st places and one 2nd.

Brinley = Four 1st places and two 2nd's.

Apsen = One 1st and one 2nd.

After Avery checked her results she leaned over and said:

"Mom, I kind of feel like we cheated somehow."

It was a cute and sincere comment, however, they did not cheat, they just competed against a much easier line-up of dancers due to the newness of Irish dance in this region. 

Thanks the family members who spent the day with us at the Utah State Feis!

It was so special to have you there!

Beautiful BBQ & Rodeo

  
Our financial adviser happened to be putting on a BBQ for all of his clients 

while we were in Provo.

It was held at a most picturesque park up Provo Canyon.

There was a delicious catered meal,

band,

balloon makers,

face painters

and even shaved ice.

This picture I took at the park, shown below, had NOT been edited. 

Attention friends in our neck of the country - the sky really IS that blue in Utah!

After the BBQ we rushed to the Strawberry Day's rodeo in Pleasant Grove.

It was SO fun!

The weather was beautiful and entertainment grand!

 The picture above of Grandma Ginger getting a little emotional during 

the national anthem is so sweet!

We. Loved. Every. Second. Of. It!

Flight & Technology

Let me just start off by saying that flying  

without an infant is SO much better than flying with one!

We have done our fair share of flying with wee ones since  

becoming parents twelve years ago...

and this was a pretty awesome change to not have an infant/toddler along for the ride.

Flying across the country 

solo with all the kiddos was simple compared to previous experiences.

I am going to break up my blogging/pictures into 

categories rather than chronologically 

for simplicity sake. 

First up, our brilliantly clever Uncle Duane who is the MOST 

savvy technology master that ever there was!

 

Above Left - Duane is holding the outer compartment of a lamp he made with his laser cutter.

Above right - Reese examines a 3-D printer at the SLC maker space.

These are not pictures of his "workplace," but rather his "play places."

He has a "maker space,"

 (AKA- where really smart people make really cool things using technology) 

at his home in the boat garage. 

He let the girls cut foam with this electric cutter he created.

Duane is also responsible for the revival of the SLC Maker Space!

He brought his enthusiasm and smarts to a small & struggling group of inventors.

He helped restructure the group, recruit members and secure a 

much larger warehouse where classes are 

offered and independent operations now thrive!

 We were able to visit his site and take a little tour, 

which included custom laser cut name plaques for each of the girls! 

We are so proud of Uncle Duane for following his passion and helping others 

in the community to realize their creative potential! 

Look for some pretty amazing technology advances coming your way!

Avery got a 1st!

Before I blog about our Utah trip I need to announce that Avery got a 1st in a Novice dance!!

It was so sweet to see the girls embrace and watch how

 thrilled Brinley was for Avery's success.

Since it was only her second Feis in the Novice category we were

 not expecting this so soon.

 When she asked to go look at her results we sent her along, on her own, to check them out.

Shortly thereafter we noticed her racing through the crowd of people back to us announcing that she got a 1st. We thought she was joking, but soon realized that she was not. 

Needless to say, we have don't have a spiffy video of her, like we did with Brinley, but we are

 just as proud of her for the accomplishment!

*Take note of Reese's face in the picture above. 

She's pretty much hilarious. 

The girls in their school dresses. 

This is what they compete in...well until the big girls get their solo dresses.

After the Feis we went to Olive Garden for a little celebratory meal.

On the long drive home we stopped by "Grandpa's Cheese Barn,"

and afterwards Reese fell asleep in the car with this in her mouth.

 

The end.

We are home!

We are home...we are tired!

I left with the children on a trip to Utah one month ago.

Cody joined us for the last week.

We arrived home Sunday night, exhausted.

After our day of travel which started at 3:30am, 

we arrived home, ate, unpacked and then re-packed 

 Brinley for a week of girls church camp and 

Cody for a business trip to Minnesota.

Cody was off bright and early Monday morning first to head to 

work and then the airport,

Avery and Aspen started Vacation Bible School for the week,

I got Brinley off to girls camp...

and Reese, well she basically struggled through the entire transitions. 

Cody arrived home at midnight last night from his  

super cool futuristic training seminar.

Tomorrow Brinley arrives home from girls camp and VBS ends....

then we unpacked and re-pack the girls for Dance Camp, which starts next Monday.

Trip updates to follow.