Moments of Summer

As Corey was getting his bike ready to ride to work this morning, he found that it had a flat tire. Someone ran over a goathead. He teased Mel that it was her fault cause she rode his bike back from our service project last night. So Corey took the van to work today, with his bike in the back. He took his bike to get fixed at Scheels. And funny thing, as he was ready to drive back home today after work, the van had a flat tire, too! Thankfully he was close to the Sandy Costco. He put on the spare and drove it there. They found a big piece of metal, a tire jack piece or something? The person who used to rent the house where we were last night used to work on his cars, so there's a chance we drove over that there too on the gravel drive way. That's the last time we do service! Just kidding. I had dinner ready and we were trying to wait for him when he called with the flat tire news, so we got the ok to start without him. Daniel and Peter already had....

I didn't stop them, cause I thought they looked pretty adorable. Peter squatting up there... I'm glad they like the potato salad! It's Wesley's favorite.

We saved some for Wes, cause he missed dinner too. He had gone to American Fork for his first in person LBB rehearsal since March quarantine started. We hired Hyrum to take him. We are paying him with gas for the Fiesta. So, Joseph and Ethan weren't here, Mel was at work, Hyrum and Wes were gone, and Corey was gone. Only 8 people made it to dinner, such a small group! Two people on each side of the table... Lily and Sophi to the west...

Owen and Daniel on the south

Abi and Natalie to the East...

And a selfie of Peter and I. I have Peter sitting on my lap right now, and he just saw this picture of himself and said "Cheese!"

A few other pictures from the past few days - testerday at dinner, Mel and Wes were having a "no smiling" contest and were both losing.

Yesterday at breakfast, Mel was sad to find an empty box of cereal, but then she asked "Do we have lemons?" and she put some in the box.

Get it? "When Life gives you lemons...." Haha, so Hyrum came down for breakfast and was excited as he picked up the box and it was not empty, and then he felt like hitting Mel for her joke. "I was looking so forward to having cereal for like 4 seconds there..." So hard to go from a high to such a low! He knew it was Mel right away, "I could just tell." Ha. I don't post much about Mel or Hyrum. The older kids need to start keeping their own histories. They are living their own lives and I don't know much of what they're doing. They kinda document via instagram I guess. But they should start blogging. I have one video of Mel - The Fiesta has had a bad car battery for months, and on Monday it wouldn't start when Mel was done with work and ready to come home, so I went to pick her up and we jumped it and took it straight to Burt Brothers. We went home to get dinner ready while they worked on it. On the way home, she impressed me with her solfege-ing skills.

Impressive, no? One of the many perks of getting a degree in flute performance! Wes still makes it on the blog quite a bit, maybe cause he's silly and still acts like a kid. Wesley was hanging out on the floor yesterday... rolled up in the front room carpet and reading a book.

His defense for this weirdness was "It's warm..." It was a pretty cold day Monday night - it snowed in the mountains! So he had to start his Tuesday by getting his temperature up. Later he was dancing in the front room.

Wes has taught Owen to say "Dance Party!" and then they all bust a move, then freeze, then say again "Dance Party!" over and over again.

The Girls are in the Lego Zone. The basement looks like it has for years when they are in the Lego zone. Abi on June 8th - a very nice ramble home she just built

And as soon as she was done she was ready to break it and build a different one, which she did. She liked the outside of this one, but not the inside that much, it was too crowded and the bedroom was really small. Thus began her dreams of something bigger and better, and before the day was over, it was taken apart to make a lego home with a basement!

Cute basement with a piano, I liked the little book shelf too.

And she liked the inside of this one, but not the outside... so she'll be destroying it soon to make another one. Perhaps she has a future as a home designer. Abi, sign us up to design a new home for us someday. Always creating. It reminds me of the story President Monson shared in April 2003 General Conference talk:

  "Elder Monte J. Brough of the First Quorum of the Seventy tells of a summer at his childhood home in Randolph, Utah, when he and his younger brother, Max, decided to build a tree house in a large tree in the backyard. They made plans for the most wonderful creation of their lives. They gathered building materials from all over the neighborhood and carried them up to a part of the tree where two branches provided an ideal location for the house. It was difficult, and they were anxious to complete their work. The vision of the finished tree house provided tremendous motivation for them to complete the project.
  "They worked all summer, and finally in the fall just before school began for the new year, their house was completed. Elder Brough said he will never forget the feelings of joy and satisfaction which were theirs when they finally were able to enjoy the fruit of their work. They sat in the tree house, looked around for a few minutes, climbed down from the tree—and never returned. The completed project, as wonderful as it was, could not hold their interest for even one day. In other words, the process of planning, gathering, building, and working—not the completed project—provided the enduring satisfaction and pleasure they had experienced.
  "Let us relish life as we live it and, as did Elder Brough and his brother, Max, find joy in the journey."

Legos are like that - my kids like the finished product, but they are always eager to go build and create again. Lily has borrowed my phone a lot lately, so that she can watch youtube videos of instructions on how to make the Elf Legos. She's almost made the all of her dragons again. When they do give me back my phone, there are also a lot of selfies...

A typical summer day also includes Owen waking up early. He's always the first one up. Yesterday he was hanging on out the floor, waiting for me to finish exercising and get him breakfast. He's a very patient little kid. He'll knock on our door once in the morning to let us know he's up and waiting, but he is good to not knock again as he seems to be aware that that wakes up Peter. He just waits quietly for us to come out. Thank you Owen! 

And one last set of pictures for today - this is Peter's favorite toy

He is so smart. The first shape he learned was the blue circle. But now he can do the orange star and the purple x shape too.

He can't do the triangle or square yet, but he's getting there!