Pineview

We had a fun time camping up at Pineview with Corey's family! We came up yesterday after church, set up camp, and enjoyed a tinfoil dinner. 

Meat and potatoes, yum.

Corey's brother Mark did a lot of work with all the prep for this family outing. 

The boys played some spikeball last night until it got to dark for them to see. 

I thought it might be fun for Corey and I to go on a ride this morning, and even figured out the trail to take (Wheeler Canyon and East Fork and/or Middle Fork that start at the west tip of Pineview Reservoir) but we didn't get a great night of sleep, and thus didn't get up in time to make our escape. Some other time maybe. So we had breakfast (pancakes, eggs, and bacon & sausage) - 

And then Corey took the boys fishing. He bought them fishing gear when I was gone in Indiana last week. When I'm trying to cope, I eat. Corey goes shopping.

They didn't catch anything this time, but they will next time!

Peter missed fishing - he slept in for quite a while.

BeReal went off early this morning and Joseph sent me this adorable Realmoji with Katharine, aaaw!! 

Look at her cute little no-neck face! She is so cute. After fishing, the kids went back to the beach to play. 

Well, what is left of the beach. The reservoir is so full, there was hardly any beach front to sit on! Everyone's canopies and chairs were half in the water!

Older kids jumping off of some metal structure that said "No Climbing" on it. "Oh, that was just for when the beach was dry... they didn't want people to fall and hurt themselves on the sand! It's totally ok right now with all this water." Wes ready to jump.

Ok, climb at your own risk. Abi's turn to make a splash.

Owen did a good job swimming. Sitting on a log for a little break. 

They had fun. When Wes and Abi had had enough, they left and cousin Isaac needed someone to play with. He started to swim over to my kdis ont eh beach. "Natalie! Help me! I'm drowning!" She looked up at him and with little sympathy said "You're too big to drown" and continued to dig in the sand.

Isaac calls to Daniel - "Daniel! Help me!" Without hardly looking up, Daniel yells "Not a chance!!"

Peter has been digging too...

but he looks back at Isaac and then goes to his aid!

Peter, you're a hero! Good job buddy. You other two, we need to work on your compassion. Or maybe they just knew that Isaac was playing around, so they were probably just teasing Isaac back. Peter returns to digging. 

Back at the campsite, we had lunch, Abi threw up (she thinks she overate), and I took a nap in the shade while Joseph and Natalie took Katharine to the beach. 

Playing with the paddleboards. 

Back at the campsite, Corey and I took down camp and loaded the cars. Soon I was ready to go back home. We played with Katharine in the car while we waited for the kids to be done. Peek a boo!

Joseph took these pics of Katharine smashing her face against he glass.

Silly Katharine!

She is silly and o-so cute!

Doing her "ooo!" face for us.

I left with WLODPK around 5, when Corey's sister was coming, so that she could use our car pass. We hit a rainstorm about 20 minutes into our drive. Corey stayed a bit longer and we gave him a heads up about the coming downpour. They were able to find shelter and keep things mostly dry, and Corey left soon after dinner. We had a safe drive home, and that was fun! Corey's family is staying another night, but our kids wanted to be home for the 4th of July breakfast tomorrow, so we'll be heading over there for that in the morning!

Guatemala Recap

Corey and the girls are almost back from Guatemala. Here's a recap of their adventure, not that I've been there or know much of what they've done. I was actually going to title this post "Long and Painful" cause I think they are going to be a bit travel weary for a few days. But I hope they've had fun, even though they've been on their way back since Sunday night. That sounds long and painful to me. But we'll try to focus on the positive for a few minutes - They spent most of their time this past week in Puerto Barrios. Natalie relaxing at the beach - 

It seems to me like they should have had a fun time at the resort - without any little kids in tow, how hard could it be?

Corey texted last Wednesday "I think the girls are having the experience I was hoping for. In order to respect the local culture, I made a deal that with food 1) we could have meals, no snacking. 2) I wont do anything to help cool. I like helping you at home, but it seems wrong for me to lift a finger here in Latin American with 5 daughters. So they are making breakfast and I'm working"

 

They had fun at the resort - going down the water slide - 

They took a little river tour - 

The bugs at Mel alive - she had over 100 bug bites on her legs.

And of course did some tourist shopping. 

Getting their hair done at a little shop -

They left had a pretty relaxing few days at Puerto Barrios, then left there on Friday night for an 8 hour bus ride back to Guatemala City. They didn't need to check out of the hotel in Puerto Barrios until Saturday, but they left early cause Corey wanted to make it back to the city on Saturday so they could go to the Guatemala Temple. And he didn't want to spend 8 waking hours on the bus - seemed less painful to try and do it at night, which mostly worked, except for when the police stormed the bus at 1 am and woke them up to show their passports. 

They made it to the temple, yay. 

Going out to eat in Guatemala City. This was the first pic I'd seen of Corey since they'd been gone.

Mel was a good responsible adult, taking care of the kids so Corey could get some work done. 

Walking around Antigua

I think this will be a trip that the girls will remember for a long time. Sounds super fun to have an all girls trip. That would be a fun thing to have done with my sisters. 

I'll have to go with them next time, make it a mom and daughters trip. But maybe we'll just go somewhere in driving distance. They flew out of Guatemala Sunday night and arrived in Miami, where they spent most of the day yesterday until they flew out last night - and then they arrived in Las Vegas at 1:30 am this morning. They arrived at the Las Vegas Worldmark Hotel at 2:30 am, slept until 10, then checked out of their room, hung out at the pool, and tried to kill time until their scheduled 5pm flight, which has been delayed until 7:30pm. So it's 8:15 Utah time and they are FINALLY boarding the plane and will be arriving at 9:30. I'll be picking them up, hopefully we'll all be home at 10:30. And Abi and Lily have to hurry and pack for Trek - they need to be at the church for that at 6 AM tomorrow morning, fun fun for them to not have a chance to recoop from this long trip. Corey commented this morning "Doesn't always feel worth it to do it 'cheap' - esp with all the extra fees..." I also think it's not worth it with all the extra delays and layovers. Ugh. I have a trip to Indiana coming up soon and am not looking forward to the flight out. Ok, I'm going to leave to go pick them up now, yay.

Past Few Days

Hello. It's been a busy past few days. Let's see if I can give a qrecap of some things... tonight Katharine was looking so sweet and beautiful playing in the tub - 

And another pic that is almost the same of her sweet face, and I'm loving her little ears - 

Oh isn't she so cute?!? And then after her bath, the kids were playing with her and putting stickers on her face...

and I don't know why/how they had my phone but they were taking a video at the same time, and then Natalie put Katharine on the table, and Katharine slipped off and Natalie caught her but she still got bonked and that gave her a fat lip. 

The kids were sorry. They were also and are surprised that a fat lip can change a persons look so much. 

So that was the most recent happening of today. We also went to Daniel's soccer practice tonight. After it was over, the kids were all playing in the volleyball sand like it was the beach. 

Getting nice and dirty.

Dig dig dig - 

And Katharine is like "Hey guy's, let's eat this stuff!"

How does it taste, K? She also took a few bites of blossom petals - it looked like there was white snow all over the ground by the car where we parked at practice today. 

Spring is here and in full white and pink bloom (and more pink). 

I've been able to enjoy the flowers a little bit in the mornings when we pass them on our bike rides, (which we've taken each morning!) but I haven't taken as pics of flowers like I used to on walks, cause we're going too fast to enjoy them. I haven't minded taking Daniel to his soccer practices, cause I can do the monkey bars, which is all I can do since we cancelled our Momentum membership last month. It's sad :( sniff, I miss climbing, so do Lily and Wes. Everyone else seems ok. This morning Katharine was holding Natalie's old "baby" and I thought "aww..." 

The stuffed animals that are special to the kids come to hold a special place in my heart. I've been keeping them on a shelf in my closet once the kids out grow them... Natalie's Baby is in my room now, except for when Natalie or someone gets it down for Katharine to play with. Owen still keeps Louie on his bed, and Daniel still has his bear, and Peter sleeps with Tiny. What else... On Tuesday and Wed was carpool, flute and clarinet lessons for Abi and Lily, Lily also had a spring concert at school. Things are busy with all the usual stuff that come with a large family. On Tuesday, when Daniel went to the kindergarten bus stop, he wanted to ride his bike, so I attached the bike trailer and put Peter and Katharine in that and we were able to get them and the bike all back home, slowly and carefully so the bike wouldn't hit them. 

And of course Katharine has been practicing walking more and it's so fun! She doesn't get discouraged, she just keeps practicing and trying! Short video here, and a longer one below, both from Tuesday.

Also from this past Tuesday - Sophi had some friends come over to play, and they wanted to play with Katharine. They used her like Katharine was a real live baby doll! 

One of the friend has a smartphone, and so they did a photo shoot of K. This one was probably their most professional looking shot.

Some of the others had a bit too much of the "behind the scenes" in them.

It seems that Katharine was being patient with the game.

Dressed as a strawberry - from her Halloween costumes.

And an old outfit from the 70s or 80s that my mom gave me that my sisters (and I?) used to wear.

I thought their pictures turned out really cute! That was all from Tuesday. Fun. 

One other thing from last week that I hadn't documented yet - Wesley and Ethan went to Arizona on May 1st to go rafting on the Salt River with some of our neighbors. 

They earned their keep by being the muscle to putting up the tents and packing up the raft every day.