June = May on Steroids

June has been NON STOP. 

Holy moly. 

Addie and Aani went to St. George for girls camp. This was the only picture I got, the kids weren't allowed to take any phones/technology. They had lots of fun and were kept very busy. They stayed at Dixie State in the dorms, so they really didn't camp at all, but no one was sad about that.

We had one weekend during the entire summer to get together with the Vander Werffs, so we went camping/kayaking over night for Father's Day. Good times were had, but we all realized camping is just too much work to do for only one night. 

Aani turned 12, and instead of a party, she chose to see Newsies with a friend. It was playing at the Scera Shell, and I was quite impressed with how well they did. The girls and their friends had the best time and were total fan-girls the whole time.

She's been telling me for 6 months that she wanted Jelly Bellys for her birthday. Dreams fulfilled.

Took a little trip to the Red Barn in Santaquin for ice cream on her birthday as well. 

Anders spend 4 days in Zion Nat'l Park for High Adventure. They had planned on hiking the Narrows, but they're closed due to flooding, so they did Angel's Landing and some other hikes. He's disappointed they didn't do anything too epic, but I think Angel's Landing is pretty epic. Anders, on the other hand, says it's "over-hyped". Mmmkay.

We went to Lagoon 2 Fridays in a row, because both of our works had Lagoon days. Ava is the only kid who got to go twice, since the girls were at camp on the first day, and Anders had High Adventure the second time. Nils and I are Lagooned OUT. Having said that, I need it to be known that I have been on Cannibal twice now, and it's fun. I was quite unwilling to try it until last week.

The kids didn't want to read the scripture chapter out loud, and asked to listen to it. We told them they had to stand up the whole time and read along in their brains. 

Havin' a sit on the half finished deck, and Pip was ON THE CASE. She has a passion for chasing birds, and was on high alert

We went on a walk while at my mom's house last night, and walked by the apartment we lived in right after we got married. Our landlord was a real interesting fella, and claimed he was remodeling the bottom two units. So, that was 19 years ago, and he's not done yet? Those windows have legit been blocked out for 19 years. Something strange is afoot, me thinks.

The kids spent hours yesterday drawing pictures of Thanos. This is not normal behavior, for Anders especially. 

We leave in a couple of days for 10 days in Mexico, and Anders and Addie have Trek a couple of days after we return. After that, July will be busy with cousins visiting, after which Anders starts band camp for 2 weeks, and then school starts two weeks after that. We have never had a summer be so jam packed. Last summer about drove to the brink of madness, and this summer has been the complete opposite in many ways. It's been fairly cool temps, the kids are busier, I'm not home 24/7, which is turning out to be better for my sanity. Anders is working and can drive himself places and it's great. We are definitely busier than ever, but it's all good things.

Except, our fridge crapped out for good and we had to buy a new one. PSA: Samsung fridges are $1800 paper weights. Don't do it! 

Killer May

To sum up May, it's rained a ton, and we've had all the school functions. We haven't had to turn on our sprinklers yet, which I think is a record. Today was the last day of school, mostly for Aani and Ava. Anders and Addie haven't gone all week. Bring on summer! 

Summer is shaping up to be quite busy for these kiddos, and we have a big trip to Mexico planned. We will be visiting York and Luly in Mexico City! We're all pretty excited about that. I'm going to keep working and see how that goes- hopefully Ava doesn't burn the house down with her glue gun. I work very part time, so I'll be home more than I'm not. I feel like any time away from the kids seems like a long time, so I'm hoping we all survive. 

Alright, first things first: Nils had a basal cell carcinoma removed from his beautiful face via Mohs surgery. They got all of it on the first try, so we were thankful for that. The lady that did the surgery made the mistake of showing Nils the hole in his head and squishing it around in the mirror, and it made him quite ill. It made me laugh, because he was acting brave while she was doing it, but a few minutes later he confessed to feeling sick, and all the color was gone from his face. I'm sorry for laughing, Nilsy Nils. Life lessons: Sun screen is good. Hats are good. Skin cancer is bad. Don't look in the mirror at big holes cut into your head.

 The scar is looking much better, but hopefully it will fade a lot more with the help of some good ol' Mederma.

Sometimes being named Nils is hard, especially when you just want 2 tacos. "Mails".

Ava's final tumbling show off day. Miss Cassie decided to stop teaching, so we have to find a new place for Ava to take tumbling. I'm just not willing to go very far, so I need a miracle.

Orchestra concert for The Addie

Ava was in charge of posting on her class Facebook page for the week. They post every so often, and it's pretty cute. 

The class held the "Goodtown Gala", where lots of speeches were given, awards were given, songs were sung, and there was a buffet (with a balloon arch, even). I'm tellin' ya...teachers are amazing.

 Ava with Mr. Goodman

Aani graduated from 6th grade and elementary school, which is weird, since she was just born. 

Aani and BFF Lucy

Addie got two awards at school- one for English, and one for the Media Center. What a kid.

Ava sang in the choir and enjoyed it. She's in the very bottom right corner. The girl above her is way into every song, and we laugh and laugh because we're good people like that. 

Went to Price for Memorial Day and had a real party down there. 

This cemetery plot is for sale in case you're interested. 

Anders and his friends made The Whale of Fortune to bless everyone with a great summer. 

Sheared Pip again, and as always it's exhausting and traumatic for all involved. Why do we have a dog again? 

Just have to document for posterity:

Yay Spring!

Spring has exploded, and it's wondrous. We've been enjoying it A LOT for the last couple of weeks. Everything is green and lovely.

Spring Break: We had cousins come visit from Connecticut and Mexico. It's the most fun when we get to see our far away family. The kids can't get enough of each other. 

Nils and I had one day together during spring break, and I made him work out with me. He handled it well.

Nils and the girls texted me this picture while I was at work, to let me know how much they were missing me. It made me feel very loved, and I got to show people my attractive family.

Through a series of sudden, unexpected events, Nils and I got to go to a Jazz game for free and experience it from a suite. Sadly, the game was a boring, blowout win, and we felt very out of place sitting with the upper echelon folk. But, we got free nachos and stuff. We felt like we had to be reverent.

Primary Easter egg hunt. We only have one kid in primary now. Super weird. 

Had a fun night out with these gals. They each got new sneakers, and we all enjoyed some yumminess at In-N-Out. It's nice that they still like to be with us.

Anders got a flat tire on his way home from work. Oh yeah, Anders got a job! He works at a fun center nearby. Anyway, as Nils was teaching him to change his tire, Anders was schooling Nils on how he (Anders) doesn't need to know these things, because if he ever gets a flat tire, he can just YouTube how to fix it. Ironically, he couldn't YouTube it, because A) He doesn't have YouTube on his phone, and B) His phone battery was dead. Teenagers are smart. But, watching Nils that night made me wuv him even more, AS IF THAT'S POSSIBLE.

Easter hunt at Grandma's. These pictures crack me up. Oh man, Aani's face. Our kids sure know how to be soooo good lookin'.

Our anniversary was last week. We both worked. We took the kids to dinner, and to see Shazam!, and then we came home and fell asleep at 10:00. The kids were asking why we were going out to dinner, and Nils told them it was our anniversary, so they wrote these notes to us while we weren't looking. Stinkers.

We went up to City Creek to go to the Cheesecake Factory a few days later, and that was nice. Aaahhh, spring. 💖😍

Anders had a band concert, and let us know he didn't care if we went or not. How nice. I went ahead and went anyway. In this picture, he's resting his head on his hand to show his enthusiasm for band. I won't let him quit.

Aani's class performed 2 Shakespeare plays, back to back, as per tradition of this class. While we enjoy seeing our children perform, we really mostly don't care about any of the other children, and our kids have always had very minor roles in these productions. I'm good for about 30 minutes of any children's theatrical performance, so this was a loooooooooong 2 1/2 hours. Like, listen to an audio book long. Thank you, audio book.

But she's cute, and I made sure to pay attention to the one line she had at the very beginning of the play.

Explosion of Spring. Our grass has greened up like crazy, things are blooming, and we're finally starting to see the fruits of our 4 years of hard labor in the yard. It's coming together! 😭So much blood, sweat and tears.

Working on a deck for the terrace. It's going to have a fire pit and be the bomb.com. Can't wait.

I was in our old neighborhood today, dropping off a friend, so I drove by our old house to see the red tulips I planted all those years ago. They used to make me so happy. I can't drive by the old house without wanting to spray for weeds, trim things and mow the grass, so I probably shouldn't do that anymore.

My life has eased up a lot since Anders got his license. I used to spend so much time carting him around. He's enjoying the independence. So far, he's only gotten one flat tire, and locked his keys in his car once. We decided to end piano lessons for him, after a frustrating many months with his teacher being flaky.

The girls are all doing well. I don't want to jinx anything by writing it down, but they all get along and love each other. Sometimes we watch them and scratch our heads, wondering if it's too good to be true. They all have friends, but they also like spending time with each other. Addie and Aani are really into drawing and fancy markers right now, and Ava is all about the glue gun. She goes nuts with that glue gun, and the things she makes out of cardboard, paper, pom poms, etc. are pretty impressive.

That's all, folks.