AUGUST

 

After Tahoe we had such a fun Get Air visit with Aunt Alayna, Uncle Eli, Tanner, Tia Sophia, Uncle Brett & Mason! Eli & Brett may have had the most fun racing each other while us mamas talked.  I always enjoy my talks with Alayna:) 

On the way to Folsom to go to SeaQuest for to pet a sloth!  Too cute & the girls had so much fun feeding and petting the Mama sloth.  We fed a bunch of different animals.  They even had silkie chickens which just kicked dirt at me.  Ducks, rays, cookaburras, capybara….they even had cute little sea otters! Girls had their faces painted by a mermaid:) And Noelle even found a RAINBOW SLOTH! 

SHOPPING downtown Turlock with my girls one day…Noelle talked to me into getting these cute strawberry jars.  They also all had a fit about a “mascot” in Main Street antiques that was not for sale…a cute little soft black kitty! They never want to go back😆

We made Noelle’s pick from the Disney princess cookbook; monkey bread! WOO! 

She admitted to me later she did not love it…but the rest of us did!!! 

Glitter slime making

 

BIRTHDAY party with my sweet Sia. Get Air:) She had so much fun & was SO excited the whole month before going:) 

Fresno Airport. Going to PROVO! 

 

Plane ride went SO well.  Even Michael enjoyed it, which is so exciting because now he wants to travel more.  

 

Provo airport! I spotted two of these bears right across from each other so I had the girls run and get pictures with them!  YAY! 

MONDAY - SO fun.  We figured out how to shuttle over to BYU & spent all day (8:30-5:00) on BYU campus taking it slow and enjoying every building Michael wanted to take us in.  We went to the library and read together for an hour, explored the bookstore thoroughly, of course Bean Museum, creamery for ice cream, law school to find Michaels picture and to let him reminisce,  and the HFAC (where Michael lived during undergrad), Chick-fil-A :) 

It is such a gorgeous, amazing campus! 

 

 

 

TUESDAY - We did some grocery shopping in the morning and then dropped dad off for classes;) I had to take the girls to my favorite cupcake place in the Universe, Sweet Tooth Fairy (for 2nd breakfast) where I INHALED my cookie dough cupcake and Sia took one bite and was done and Noelle praised her funfetti one and Gwinna could not finish but did like it:) Anyway it is cute in there! 

After that I had to show Noelle the temple we attended while in Provo where she was born.  Looking like a cake. Apparently they are redoing it and she is sad about that.  I reminisced about climbing up the hill from the MTC to the temple…fun to talk about it all with these girls of mine who I hope will someday be doing the same: ) 

We attempted to find our old home but could not. Fun to drive in the area anyway.  We went back to hotel to the place where the girls probably loved the most on this get away: the indoor pool!!! Ha. I enjoyed it too.  Too much water up my nose but we had it all to ourselves the entire time we were there so I was jumping in with them.  My favorite, of course, was the hot tub.  We picked up Michael Joe a couple hours later and headed to Riverwoods for Malawis pizza. Yum. Another trip down memory lane.

We visited Blickenstaffs. .  .not nearly as big anymore but still fun.  Moons Rare Books & Cozy Nook Treasures - two places where Michael had too much fun while me and the girls went to the bathroom & found another little cutest toy corner:) 

Dole whip for dessert at Provo Beach, not quite like Disneyland.  Poor Michael had to put out a work fire while we enjoyed it.  All is well now but it was a bummer for him to go from being so excited about all of the fun things he saw and held and bought in the shops to being so stressed about work. 

 

 

 

 

  

Wednesday - We did laundry as a family at the Cougar Laundromat.  That was fun.  Gwinna even took a sped up video of us all folding together:) We got Hawaiian food for breakfast …weird;) and then dropped MJ off for classes again.  Me and the girls headed back to Riverwoods to play in the splash pads. They did, I watched😝  Rocky Mountain ice cream for desserts…they all got mint chocolate chip ice cream which I did not realize they even knew what that was 😛 Definitely not my favorite. AND THEN! I surprised them with manicures & pedicures at Paradise Nails.  Noelle was super nervous about it all and ultimately has decided never again and did not end up getting a pedicure. We did gel for both and the lady was like “you spending a lot of money today” … oops…yes:) It was fun though and lasted for a couple weeks.  After that we needed more sugar, apparently:) Hawaiian shave ice! I want to get it every summer and never do so we finally did that! YUM.  

 

 

Thursday - Krispy Kreme for breakfast with my girls after dropping the daddy off.  Hot donuts.  No shortage of all the sugar on this trip! We went to Barnes and Noble after this and read for about an hour in the childrens section….Halloween books and I Spy with Sia;) Michaels just to check out decor…bought some for the hotel room for fun. We also found a place called Tuesday Morning and Noelle fell in love with a rainbow Halloween throw blanket : ) More swimming this day.  After we got MJ we headed over to Pioneer Book. Such a fun used bookstore!!! We walked into a creepy costume shop named Taylor Maid and then back across the street to a yarn store that Michael could not stay in for longer than a minute because it smelled so awful.  Heindselman’s Yarn.  

Waffle Love for girls dinner and then over to Rodizio Grill for ours…I could not get enough of the ham & pineapple! I do not remember loving this place but I enjoyed it this time. Me & Gwinna recreated our picture from about 9 years ago! 

I bought a tiny Halloween framed art piece that I love from Heirloom Art Co.  

Good day.  

 

 

 

Friday - Swimming in the morning after taking Michael to his last day of classes;) Then we went BACK to near Riverwoods to Color Me Mine where we painted ceramics and realized they don’t fire them til Wednesday! Oops! I discovered we have one in Fresno though, so we brought them home with us, wrapped up well and we will do it here;) For lunch I wanted some Waffle Love and Sia wanted sushi so we took her to Happy Sumo to get take out rolls. 

After we got Michael we headed back to campus to park and tour the whole Museum of Art. So peaceful and pretty. Of course Noelle loved the rainbow.  We did Creamery for burgers and went through the bookstore one last time:) We then headed over to the HFAC (which they are demolishing eventually & Michael is sad about) one last time to watch The Sound of Music.  And to say that is was AMAZING…as Sia DID say to me multiple times throughout, does not even begin to cover it. I loved it so much and my girls did too which made it THAT much better!!! It was over two hours long but I don’t think any of us really felt that.  Ending scene we became the audience & sang Edelweiss with the family.  Ugh.  I got all emotional.  So lovely.  The girls did get slightly freaked out when the guards were screaming and running up the aisles with flashlights shining them at us 😆

 

Weirdos.  Sia kept saying this looked like Vecna’s vines every time we passed it in the hotel so of course we had to get this crazy picture 😖😋

 

Thrilled to be here:) haha

Things I learned on this trip: 

I prefer an indoor pool. Maybe I always knew this…

We need to explore more in our own home town and around it. 

Playing with my kids really is the best exercise 

Michael and Gwinna actually had FUN flying and MJ is planning our next trip already! 

HOMESCHOOLING begins. August 22nd, the Monday after we came home;) Perfect. Michael Joe gave us all needed blessings and it was an awesome beginning to a slightly rocky week of getting our footing with what this future will look like.  Dare I say I am loving it all so far.  

I love the pace of our days, the more intimate time I am able to spend with my babies, even the learning and teaching of MATH!, the freedom to switch things around, slow it down, or decide another way. . .it is all so good! LiftED program is awesome & I am so grateful that I have the help that I do too, otherwise it would feel overwhelming.  

It rained the day after we got home. SO nice and needed here! 

I also pretty much immediately got sick upon coming home (hence Noelles sweet note and taped on throat drops). AWFUL throat pain for days. May have had something to do with the pool:/

Added eyebrows to Pam…I thought her forehead looked too big! 

😂😂😂

Sweet Grandma and Tia Sophia invited us to “tea” hehehe where we tried on all kinds of Great Grandma Florence’s summer collection of hats. So fancy & cute our Grammy is.  They fed us lemon cake and fruit (cantaloupe in cute little balls) and hot apple cider…”tea” :) YUM. 

We swam and Sia did not want to get out because Uncle Brett got a new toy that they were having too much fun playing with:) When we finally did leave I was getting ready to pull away when the girls BURST into laughter in the back seat and I look back to see them all smothering MASON?!!:) hahaha….so we took the boy home and fed him Taco Bell and a pouch and played Halloween songs from the Steve & Maggie show on YouTube (that we used to play for our girls) for him & played with our kitty and fake cake pops & Michael pretended to be a ghost;) Oh and Soph gifted Michael a new set of kitty bowls that are Halloween themed & of course now Michael is telling me we should keep them out all year!! 😅

One Sunday Bree taught and asked us to write our own psalm . . . I did not exactly to that but here were my thoughts that day:

Feeling gratitude for experiences had
Attending Sound of Music brought such joy to my family & emotion to me 
Our youngest turned multiple times to me with astonishment in her eyes & expressed how amazed she was 
Our eldest felt the difference of what it means to be around those who feel as you do - beginning with a prayer in a full auditorium 
Feeling grateful for those who feel the rhythm of the gospel and their expressions of it
You today Bree, sharing the talent you have in playing the piano even though it likely brought pain to the surface for you 
Feeling joy in knowing there are so many of us who DO FEEL the Gospel truth & continue to share through testimonies & talents