Kids are fun

Cleaning out my phone and found these random pics I've taken of my beautiful children. :)

Omaha

We love driving down to Omaha and exploring!  We generally go every month or so, since our temple is there!  This last trip we visited the Omaha Children's museum for the first time and had a great time!  Angel and Grins weren't excited at first, saying "Children museums are for little kids" but they ended up finding plenty to do to keep themselves entertained!  In fact, they were the last out of the museum when it closed! :)

Angel and Grins building robots!

Scratch spent the majority of the day at the water table!

Although he loved dressing up like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle almost as much! :)

Wiggles had a great time building things!

Daddy's Epic Kayak Adventure

Somehow, Daddy heard about the "South Dakota Kayak Challenge" and decided to give it a try, even though he's never done any kayaking trips nearly that long before (and had no idea what he was getting himself into!)  The challenge was about 74 miles long and, as it turned out, was a 98 degree, sunny day!  We learned that cheap, wide, plastic kayaks like ours are not intended for long distances, and certainly not races, but he didn't let that stop him!  He just kept plowing through, mile after mile, hour after hour, finishing in about 13 hours!  We waited for him at the finish line and were SO incredibly proud of him for finishing!!  What a feat!

Here he comes!

The view of the finish line, just as the sun was setting.  It was a perfect evening!

Scratch's Preschool "Graduation"

Scratch joined preschool with just a few weeks left in the year, but he sure enjoyed every minute of it!  His teacher, Cathy, did a cute little "graduation" celebration the last day of preschool and Mr. Scratch was pretty adorable if I do say so myself!

Wiggles Field Day

I had the delightful privilege of helping at Wiggles' end of year "Field Day".  It was so fun to see her having fun with her friends!!

Utah Summer 2018

We just returned from the most wonderful visit to Utah!!  How I miss that beautiful state and the incredible mountains!!!

We started our visit with a few days at a cabin with some of our favorite cousins!  Grins enjoyed the mountains, trees and 4 wheeler so much he didn't even mind being surrounded by all girls!! :)

The girls had a blast being silly together!  The favorite activity of the trip was "playing school" with "Miss Sophy" as the teacher.  We laughed that we are on summer vacation yet they want to play school!

While in Utah, we hiked to Lake Mary to visit the resting spot of my dear friend Bea.  I miss her dearly!  But being there in her special spot on Lake Mary was so peaceful and serene, I knew it was the perfect place for her.  We enjoyed sharing some silence and some fond memories and gratitude we felt for having had such a lovely person in our lives. (Sadly, our Dad was ill and couldn't come with us, but he was there in spirit)

The hike was hot, very dusty, and we were short on water, but my sweet children took it all in stride.  These four mean everything to me.

We paid a visit to Thanksgiving Point and recreated a picture we took 7 or 8 years ago.  The kids look a LOT different but the shark hasn't changed a bit! ;)

Likely because I booked our airline reservations at night after a very busy day, I somehow managed to select a SEVEN HOUR layover in Denver!!  What was I thinking?!  Initially we planned to go explore Denver but since we'd been traveling since 3am and most things were closed for the holiday, we just slept in the airport.  We did squeeze in a bit of exploring while we were there, though, and enjoyed some rides on the "underground railroad" at the Denver airport! :)

Wiggles, a Girl On The Run

Our little Wiggles joined "Girls on the Run" this year and just ended the season by running a 5k!  Her good friend ran with her and Wiggles wore a whistle, and whistled every time the two of them got separated.    She was SO excited, and we were SO proud of her!  Our little sweetheart is really growing up!