Our Summer

 We went to northern Idaho for a family reunion. There was hiking. There was swimming. There were roller coasters. There was an epic game of basketball. We also had a program to share memories and songs to celebrate our parents' 50th wedding anniversary. Northern Idaho is lovely, but it's in the pacific time zone. Those two hours messed with my biological clock. And so did the fact that it would start to get light at 4 am. Anyway, it was great to have the whole family (except my nephew who lives in Hawaii) together. 

Isn't this picture of my parents the best! Madelynn, Andrew's wife, took it. They are so great. 50 years of marriage!

Uncle and niece--they have the same birthday!

We got back from the reunion and had Aaron's parents come to visit for a couple of days. It was great! We went to a cave and ate some good food and toured Aaron's work. We all went to watch Annie do her riding lesson. And of course there was a puzzle.

We haven't gone swimming as much this year as we usually do (every day). But we have had a regular swim day with our co-op. Scotty also did two weeks of soccer camp which he absolutely loved...after he refused to participate the first day.

We took a family trip to Lockheart, TX. I already posted about that on facebook, but I'll put some pictures here too. Aaron planned this trip and made it happen. It was nice. It's nice to be in the role of enthusiastic supporter instead of planner/instigator. 

Like I said, Aaron had planned this trip, so the kids and I weren't thinking of which sights to see. But Aaron mentioned this 120 year old library. When we got there, the kids and I were like, "Hey, we know this library! We read a book about it." It was a fun moment. The book we read was about a librarian who refused to come down from the library until the city funded a children's section (or something like that). She stayed up there in the tower for a week.

We babysat William and Heather's kids for a weekend while they (finally) went to her sister's sealing. It was really fun. I bestirred myself to plan some actual activities while they were here, and I think it went a long way to keep us all a little happier and make some memories. We swam at the lake with our co-op, swam at the pool, had a fire with hot dogs and smores, and got snow cones. 

Mindy lost her first tooth! I was also babysitting these guys when Lucy lost her first tooth! (I think. Or at least she lost a tooth.)

Oh yeah! And Miles locked us out of the house. I didn't have my keys because we had William and Heather's van. And Miles's little fingers twisted the knob lock on our garage door. And then he locked Annie out of her room (pictured below). It's funny how much havoc a little person and their little fingers can wreak:)

Annie loves horses, in case you didn't know! She goes every Tuesday from 3-7 to help with giving lessons to other riders, and she takes a lesson herself. Then she will also go help with lessons and birthday parties on Saturday twice a month. She stinks to high heaven when she gets home, but it's a good experience for her.

I went to girls camp with Annie! I'm not in young women's, but our ward needed another person to go, and they asked me. It was fun because Scotty also went with Aaron to young men's camp. There was lots of rain, especially for the boys who were in tents. Aaron had brought a long a tent from the scout shed...and the zipper broke while they were there. So it was an adventure. 

It has been a fun summer! The weather in Texas has been unusually cool and cloudy and rainy and nice. I am excited to get back to some more structured schedules, but life was good this summer.