Natalie my Tomboy

I think of all of my girls Natalie enjoys sports the most. She is also the one that picks them up quickest. She loves going out and getting dirty and I think could hold her own with against any boy in sports. Right now she is trying her hand at Softball. She is really enjoying it. She had her first game on Wednesday night. She did really well. This is what the sky looked like during the game. You could see the storm clouds moving in. It only rained on us for a few minutes. But we toughed it out.Natalie's coach is also one of my really good friends. She's awesome the wonderful JoHanna (or Jomama if you are Ella) If the pitcher throws 4 balls the coach gets to step in and pitch.Natalie is an okay batter. The girls have not had as much practice batting.Natalie is the team catcher. She is really good at stopping the ball.

I am really not sure why she is wearing those pants! I thought that when I pulled into the game. Hey too late to stop her now.

The cousins are here. The cousins are here (sorry loaded with a ton of picture's)

Caleb and Ryan came to spend the week with the family last week. It was great fun. I always try to have fun things for the boys to do but this time they were here it rained most of the days so there goes all of my outside fun. The boys arrived Sunday night. My kids were so excited to have the boys around. Monday we went to the sand dunes.There were a ton of bugs at the dunes. It started out that there were a few moths that quickly turned to a few dozen with then turned into a million moths flying around. I tried to get a picture of the kids with them but they seemed to want to hide. As we worked out way up the dunes we got attacked by mosquito's. But they were not the only wild life that we found up there. The kids found a lizard, a frog, and a rabbit.I went to the dunes for mutual a few weeks ago and that is what gave me the idea to take the kids. On the top of this dune there is a crater. I did not get to go and see it the last time I went so I was determined to see it this time. Until...... Tyler wouldn't go up the dunes very far. I think that he has a fear of heights. Plus he was freaking out about the going down part. But everyone else went up to the top including Ella who I thought wasn't going to make it.There was a great view. This is taken where Tyler and I were hanging out at.From part of the way down the dunes. It's too bad you can't really see how steep it really is.There was a beautiful rainbow on the way home. It didn't really translate to film. After the dunes we came home and had s'mores. We were originally going to make them up at the dunes but we were getting eatin alive by mosquito's.Check out the moon in the back of this picture. Caleb is making the marshmallow just how I like them made. On FIRE!!!On Tuesday the kids played out in the water. It was a great day for that too. Not to hot or to cold. That night we went to see "Night at the museum" Which was a funny show. I found the boys like this a lot throughout the week.Wednesday we played card games inside. We played a game of Uno that lasted 45 minutes. Then I finally had to change the rules to make it so that we could win faster.We also had a bubble gum blowing contest. Some of us did better then others. I was surprised to see that the 2 younger boys couldn't blow bubbles at all.

Thursday was the 2nd day of crummy weather. I asked to kids to pick up the bedrooms. Tyler and Ryan were done within a hour. Nichole, Natalie, and Caleb cleaned the room for 5 hours. They didn't even start to clean it for 4 of the hours. But hey that's okay. I got a little break for a few hours. And Ella well it's Early Monday morning and she still hasn't finished her room. On Friday Nate took the boys on the father/sons camp out. It started pouring rain Friday night but they all slept outside anyway. The boys all had fun. Caleb and Ryan left Sunday morning. I had a great time with the boys. Until next year.

Rainy Days

Rain Rain go away come again another day!!!! Friday night I was taking the YW on base to go swimming ( this is the second time that we attempted to take them swimming ) and it started to down pour. I just pulled up to the visitor's center and it was raining just a little bit. By the time I got out of the Visitors Center it was pouring. Because of the rain the girls did not get to go swimming (In the indoor pool. Go figure) But the Self Defense class that I signed everyone up for was still on (side note * Self defense was a ton of fun. I learned a lot. And I think that every women should take a class. The teacher has a very hands on approach to SD and I have the bruises to prove it. Not from the teacher but from Anna). The rain continued off and on all night and all Saturday. It cooled down enough for me to snap all these pictures of Ella but really 2 minutes later it was raining again. It rained so bad that it flooded half a lot of the roads in town. It reminded me of when I was living in Arizona and the rain would pour and pour and the roads would flood and you had to go 5 blocks out of your way to get past the flooded roads and get to where you really wanted to go to begin with. I felt bad for Nate, Tyler, Caleb, and Ryan because they were camping Friday night. The good part was we now know that the tent is waterproof. I like the rain it makes things so much nicer but I don't like doing my hair and having it get rained on.

Temple Trip and YW sleepover

Friday night I had the Young Women sleep over at my house. We all had a great time (I hope). They arrived at 4:00 and we were supposed to go swimming. But, the pool broke and we were not able to go. I found out about that about a hour before the girls came to my house. The ladies and I decided that we were going to just go for a walk instead. I didn't tell the girls that they weren't going to be able to go swimming so they all came in their suits. They decided that they were going to go outside and jump on the trampoline with the sprinkler on underneath it. I thought that they would never want to do that but they loved it. Then we put together our tin foil dinners. Mine burnt. The hamburger was so hard that I could not even poke my fork through it. As bad luck goes we almost had to cancel the walk because there were thunder storms pushing through. Because of the threat of that we ended up going to the bishops house and playing around the world ping pong for a while and then we went for our walk. It was the perfect weather for it too. It was nice and cool outside and because the trail is so close to the freeway we were able to get several truck drivers to honk at us.

After the walk we went back to my house and set up the tent, made smores and roasted star burst (the girls idea not mine but was actually tasty). We played some games together. We decided that we were going to go and heart attack and moon some of the girls that couldn't make it to the sleepover. So at one o'clock in the morning we cut out several hearts, jumped into the cars and headed over to decorate. It was a lot of fun. When we got back from that all of the girls went to bead while Sheryl and I just hung out in the living room until we thought that it was safe to toilet paper their cars and sneak up to the tent and scare the girls. The TPing was a success but the scaring the girls was not. Sheryl and I ended up staying up until 2:30 in the morning.

I got up and made some biscuits and sent my girls out to wake up the YW but they wouldn't get out of bed so Nate collapsed the tent down on them. Which then they promptly got out of the tent. The girls made the leaders breakfast. It was bacon, hash browns, and eggs cooked over coals in a paper bag. It would of been very successful but some of the bags burned up and the bacon burned onto the bottom of the bag. All in all the sleepover was a success and tons of fun too.

Saturday morning the primary went on a trip to the temple. They walked around the temple grounds, got their picture taken, and then had lunch. It was a neat experience for all of the kids. Nichole liked to see the fountain.

Natalie liked all of the pretty flowers.

Tyler liked the lunch the best.

Ella walking around the fountain.

Nichole didn't want to cooperate with the picture and I wasn't there to make her.

The last day of school

Thursday was the last day of school for the kids. Yes!!! I love summer break. I went to Tyler's award ceremony at his school. He took home an award for most AM (accelerated math) objectives mastered in his class. He mastered 72 this year. I asked the kids what they are going to miss most about school and what they love most about summer and this is what they said:

Tyler is going to miss math most and he loves playing on the computer.

Nichole is going to miss her friends and she loves that there is no school.

Ella is going to miss playing games in preschool and loves having pool time.

Natalie is going to miss her friends the most and loves that there is no school.

Tyler with his teacher Mrs. Harris
The teacher's put on a show for all of the kids at the school. First (below) they lip sang and danced to leader of the pack and then (above) they danced to YMCA.

More from Georgia

This is my last full day in Georgia. It was a bittersweet day for me. I was so excited to go home and see my family but I was so sad because I knew that it was going to be a long time until I saw Lesley again. Lesley practicing being a 1950's icon. Curler's and all.
Lou and her bestie Trista

Ava who I think looks just like JT. Everytime she would do something I would think. Well that is what JT would look like crying or that is what JT would look like throwing a fit.

Bella what a beauty

Kassy I can't believe that she was 6 weeks old when I met Lesley.

Aria my chubby little friend

Ella loved Trista and tells me how she wishes that we could go and play with her again tomorrow

These picture's were taken in Lesley's backyard. The trees there were so tall.