Thsammy the Thscooter (say with a lisp)

So this happened last week.... Miles saw this scooter for sale out on the street by my parents house with a sign that said $1200.   Miles has been begging for a scooter for months and looked at Mike with big puppy eyes wanting him to buy it.  Mike jokingly told Miles he could have it if he got the owner to give it to him for $700.  So without hesitating, and to Mike’s surprise, Miles marched right up to their door.   

Now we have Sammy the Scooter.  😂

We managed to get it without Miles knowing we actually went through with the deal. He was beyond excited when he saw it parked in the driveway a few days later.  The squealing that came out of his mouth could be heard miles away! 

Mr Cool Guy 😎 

That’s better 😁

We let him drive it to Grandma’s house while I followed behind him.  He feels so grown up. 

Miles has proven to be a more responsible scooter driver than this guy!

Cheering on the Climbing Everest bikers

Some of Mike’s buddies from Zanconado we’re doing something call “Everesting”.  They pick a patch of road that’s on an incline and they go up and down, up and down, until they’ve climbed the amount of elevation of Mt Everest.   (29,000 feet!!)

We decided to join them for a bit and cheer them on. They had to climb Big Mountain 22 times and it took them all day.   I went 3 times and that was hard, I can’t imagine doing it that many times.   Mike could have gone all day, but I’m kind of glad he didn’t.  I’m sure he’ll tackle the challenge someday! The man loves his bike.  (And to be honest, I’m esp liking biking this year. 🤫 shhh, don’t tell running.)

Covid-19: June outdoor Fun

It’s been a month of outdoor adventures.  Here’s some pictures:

Meg bought a new little electric scooter with her own money!!  She loves zipping around on it. 

Awesome sunsets!  I swear the Bountiful bench has the best sunsets in the world! 😍

Bike rides with my man!  (I tag along on his recovery days. It’s the only time I can keep up!) 

Sometimes I run and Mike bikes... I ran up the trail by the B and Mike followed me on his mountain bike. 

One day Mike and I took the boys to hike elephant rock for their first time.  They both made it no problem! We even jogged parts. 

The boys and Mike climbed up the rock and said the view was unbelievable.   I took their word for it and stayed on the ground. 😬

Will is the butterfly whisperer.  Or is it a dragonfly?   Whatever it is, it stayed on his finger for the last half a mile.  😂

Another day we took the entire fam (Nathan too) on a hike up to watch the sunset above the temple.   It was super fun and relaxed until Will wandered too close to a rattlesnake and got rattled at. 😱 🐍 

Then everyone was a little uneasy. 

See our new friend under the rock.  🐍  He rattled at me when I took this picture even though I was really far away zooming in.   We didn’t go any closer. 

Meg was esp relieved when we made it to the bottom without having any other snake encounters.  

Will was in a silly mood and was making everyone laugh.   I’ll spare you the pictures I took of Will when he was done adjusting his shorts 😜😳🤣.  He was in a rare mood! 

We love our weekly Cherry Hill adventures with the Hiatt’s.  It’s been keeping us sane and giving us an outing to look forward to each week.  

Playing in the hammock.  😍

The butterfly whisperer!  🦋 

Our Covid summer is actually really great!!  

Covid-19: Back to Church (well, kind of)

It’s been 3 1/2 months since we’ve been to church...  What a crazy time for a new Bishop. Poor Bishop Mike only had about 2 months of “normal” church before everything shut down.  It’s been a weird few months with him learning to navigate how to be a Bishop among the shut down of church and with social distancing.   

Our leaders finally gave the green light to begin phase 1 of reopening churches.   That was a process in and of itself to figure out the best way to phase back in.  Mike broke our ward into 3 groups (only those who are wanting to return, and after lovingly discouraging those over 65 from attending at all right now).  Our ward was assigned the 2nd Sunday of each month.  We get the ward building for the day and we have 3 groups going for 45 min sacrament meetings.  (Only Sacrament meeting).  There was about 45 total people in each group.   The families come to their assigned time and spread out in the chapel.  Everyone is encouraged to wear a face mask and all the doors are propped open so nobody ever needs to touch a door.  Major precautions are taken with administrating the sacrament.  Each family uses one bread tray and the bread is spaced out.  The trays aren’t passed down the row, but held by the priesthood passer only who walks in front of the family to distribute.  Two water trays are carried with the water spaced in the tray, and a separate tray for discarding the cup.  Those handling the sacrament used hand sanitizer before and between administering.  Those speaking in the microphone would wipe down the pulpit and microphone between speakers.  It was all carefully planned out and I was impressed with the care that was taken.  

Don’t my girls look adorable on their way to church!!  (Mike and Miles were already at church and Will felt dumb in his mask and wouldn’t get in 🙄).  It felt good to have a little bit of our normal life back, even though there wasn’t much that was normal about it. 😂

Covid-19: Flatten the Curve Virtual Race

During April we were pretty much on lockdown.   It was hard to find things to do to engage the kids and keep their spirits up...  Will started doing a lot of exercise with me.  He liked to run and bike, so we decided since he’s so goal-oriented, that we would set up a way to keep him motivated.   I found some online virtual races and we signed up.  

We settled on the “Flatten the Curve! Run, Walk or Roll” event.  It took place over the month of May, and you would log any miles you biked, ran or walked each day during the month.  They kept a leaderboard,  (which Will was consistently in the top 3 for his age group!), and at the end of the month, they sent out medals and pins for reaching different milestones.  

Will and I had so much fun going on bike rides, runs and walks together.   

Here’s a picture of Will on his first 20 mile bike ride.  (It was a little too far and he didn’t enjoy the way back... We went on shorter rides after that... oops 😬)

He had some great running miles!

Miles with his friends!

By the end of the month he had over 100 miles!!  💯🥇 🙌.  He loves his medal and pins.  What a cool accomplishment for a 10 year old! 

He earned all the pins up to 100 miles .... I was so impressed!!  There was the hand-washing pin, the 6’ apart pin, the stay-at-home pin, the bleach pin, and the hand sanitizer pin. 

Not to brag or anything, but I earned the 200 mile pin.😜   It was of the coveted toilet paper roll.  

It was such a fun thing to do together!   Thanks for sticking with it Will!  You’re a champ!  I hope we have many miles together still to come!!  

Morgan is Sweet 16 🎈

I feel like we’ve been waiting for this for so long, it felt like it was never going to happen...  but it did!  Morgan is 16!   

We woke her up (around 10!) with breakfast in bed.  She’s such a teenager!  

We had a fun weekend celebrating Morgan!   Part of her presents was a room makeover.  She just needs to pick a paint color and we’ll get going! 

For her birthday meal, she picked Red Robin.  (And sweet Morgan even let Ivy come because Ivy really, REALLY needed to get out of the house.) 

Morgan party was awesome!   We had a private showing of Shazam at the movie theater.  When we showed up, they had 20 large soda cups and lids out for each person, and 20 large popcorns covered with lids. Everyone grabbed one and then they each picked a lounge seat to sit in.    The theater was so clean and we had it all to ourselves.  It will be hard to go back to the usual way of watching a movie when this is all over.  

Morgan has such sweet friends!   I guess sweet girls attract sweet friends!  🥰🥰

Covid-19: Grandparent Birthday Lunch

Usually Grandma and Grandpa take the kids out for a birthday lunch, but not this year.  Add it to the list of Coronavirus disruptions.

Don’t worry, Grandma had a fun idea to celebrate all 3 of our June birthdays in her backyard.  The birthday kids picked Firehouse Subs for dinner and grandma invited all of us.   It was so fun!  We visited and had dinner together in her decorated backyard.  

Grandma even make Oreo Ice Cream Cake!  Everyone’s favorite!!  

The Birthday kiddos;

Grandma and Grandpa couldn’t resist messing with Morgan on her 16th birthday...  This is the front of her birthday card:

This is her face after she read the front of her card:

Then she opened the card...  not exactly what she initially thought 😂

Grandpa enjoyed her reaction so much he had to turn around for a minute he was laughing so hard. 🤣🤣