A Load of "Our Summer" Pictures

What we've been up to lately....

Swimming lessons, very dirty faces, and driving Rice King's Jeep everywhere we go. (Ava says we're not giving it back to him till it snows.)

Some swinging???

Snake hunting in the garden.

They caught me this "present" one day. Luke calls through the window "Mom close your eyes and come outside we have a surprise for you!" As you can see Luke sports the work gloves when snake catching. Ava on the other hand has no reservations about any animal or bug. She wants to keep EVERYTHING as a pet.

Without fail every snake she holds poops on her. (maybe she squeezes them a little to tight.)

Petting cute baby goats at the "udder" (other) Nana's house. Jeremy's Grandma has an identical twin sister and Ava thinks this is the funniest most wonderful thing ever and that is what she calls her...the udder Nana.

My friend and I did a little sewing. Can you tell by the look on her face she is not happy. Even putting puppy paw print ribbon on it wouldn't keep this dress on her. Big waste of time that was.:) At least I got a picture of her in it. The minute we get home from church this girl is out of her dress and in to a t-shirt and shorts before I can blink my eyes. Oh and don't even get me started on her hair......it's either down with just a clip or usually just a headband (thanks a lot cousin Laura! :)) Or the only way to get it up and out of her face is if it's in two pig braids (thanks a lot Little House on the Prairie!)

This was a really fun day! We got to go up the river with Papa John in the canoe, while he and Grandma Patsy were still here on their visit. We fished, swung on a tree rope, and even saw a baby magpie and a muskrat.

On Memorial Day weekend we camped out in the backyard. For dinner we ate sea rations. Ava LOVED everything inside the cool pouch-o-food. Now when she spots any kind of cracker she says, "Hey, lets eat some of these Army Man crackers!"

We made the mistake of letting the kids watch Big Daddy that night in the tent. Not the best movie for little kids. After Ava tried to pee outside on the playhouse wall I realized that Jeremy and I really need to be more careful about what we let our kids watch!

We went to our little town carnival and let Ava scream her head off on the Dragon rollercaoster. (That's my girl, she has a really LOUD set of lungs on her.) We also bought nasty-but-kind-of -good blueberry candied apples. And Luke rode this scary flying carpet ride with his little friend, they were so small on it. When they tried to lift their arms up they slammed from one side of the seat to the other.

I got my hair chopped. You can't really tell in this picture but it really is shorter. I like it. It's faster to do or not do now.

Karen and Tim invited us up the canyon for some spur-of-the-moment dirt bike/ 4wheeling riding! We all had a blast!

"Much bouncing around like crazy and loosing no one!" Indiana Jones ride quote.:)
The little cousins just have so much fun together.

I am so cool sitting on this bike with the kickstand down and all. There is NO way I could or would ever ride one of these...they are so heavy!

Jeremy on the other hand could and had the time of his life! It was a really fun little Father's Day outing for him. Thanks guys.:)

We picked up PF Chang's oh so yummy lettuce wraps that day, to go with the Chinese food we cooked on Sunday for Father's Day. At Church all the kids got up and sang to all the Dads, little Ava had THE BIGGEST cheeser grin the entire time. It was so cute. I wished I had my camera.

She looked a little like this.:) I love this girls smile and laugh! This was in the truck coming home from our first "real" camp out of the summer. We loaded up Dad's canoe and all our crap and headed for Payson Lakes. It was so beautiful up there! That evening we went for a little walk. The moon was full. The flowers were the most beautiful shade of blue off set by the white Aspen trunks and green leaves (the pictures don't do the colors justice at all).

Check out those nasty dirty marshmallow hands!

In the morning we hit the lake. Notice Luke with that lovely pink princess pole. We were able to stay out on the lake for quite a few hours because Ava fell asleep. She really isn't the best fishing buddy. She fished for all of maybe 10 minutes. Luke decide to take over her pole. Ava moved on to playing with the worms for a while. Then it was on to a cup to scoop up the water. Then she was done. Ready to move on to something more exciting. To bad we never caught anything or she might have spent a few hours playing with her"pet" fish. Instead she whined until we were ready to call it a day and just before we made it to shore she was out like a light. We were able to fish and row in peace after that. Oh that girl.

After fishing we went on a hike to find Lizard Lake. Didn't make it all the way to the Lake but had fun playing in the stream. The trail isn't marked but we found out the way to go for next time. It's supposed to be a pretty little lake that's full of salamanders! Fun for Ava!)

Jeremy says he doesn't like to camp with me anymore. I guess I go a little insane at night waking him up at the slightest little crunch of a leaf or snap of a branch. I told him that I was on edge this time because we left our trusty bear dogs at home. (We were spending most of our time on the lake and didn't want to worry about them.) This was one of the few times without them and let's just say I had withdraws. At one point though it really did sound like someone or something was in our camp. Jeremy even caulked his gun extra loud to scare "it"off but he never did venture out to find the giant bear. He knew it was probably just a skunk or squirrel. That morning I tried really hard to find the bear tracks that would prove him wrong but didn't find a one..dang it. Next time we go I'm sure a sleeping pill of some sort will be slipped into my drink or hidden in my food, so he can sleep in peace.
Oh and this something exciting...

Jeremy got a new job! :) Thanks to an awesome friend of ours.... He got a teaching job and he just loves it! He will be at an elementary school this fall. Plus he started back to school himself. He's getting a Special Ed Teaching Certificate and then can start in on his masters. Luke and Ava made him this cute little congratulations poster. We are so proud him!