June 2010

June has been so much fun around here – I can hardly believe it’s nearly over already!

We started the month with a trip to Southern California.  We spent the first few days at Disneyland and had a great time there.  It was so nice having all of our kids big enough to ride everything and to not have to push a stroller through the crowds. (Obviously it’s been a while since we’ve been to Disneyland – 5 years!)  The only one of us who was not completely exhausted by the end of each day was Autumn who was always pushing for “just one more ride” before we left the park.  Her energy is amazing! 

 

After Disneyland, we spent a cloudy and cool day at Newport Beach where the kids had a great time playing in the waves, building sandcastles and watching a pod of dolphins play just off the shore.

We then headed to San Diego for 3 days where we spent a day at Sea World and a day at the San Diego Zoo, which we loved.  Devin has always been a big fan of pandas so it was fun to see them in real life along with all the other animals there.  Seth has been spending the summer writing a research paper on his top 10 animals and got a lot of great information and some new favorites while we were visiting the zoo.  It was a great and exhausting vacation.

Autumn had her big dance recital this month and did a fabulous job.  She absolutely loves to dance, especially in front of a live audience.  Her favorite was a dance to Alice in Wonderland’s flower song, but my favorite was her ballet where she got to dance as a toy bunny and was a featured dancer in the opening and closing numbers.

Devin, Seth and Autumn are all back on summer swim team and enjoying their daily workouts.  Megan has been running with me once a week (only by force – our young women are training for a 5k later this summer and I make Megan come on the training runs, even though she hates running and pretty much all forms of exercise right now – maybe it will grow on her:))

Devin joined the leagues of junior high kids everywhere by getting braces put on.  Lucky for him, he will only have to wear them for 18-24 months which Megan reminds him is nothing compared to the 4 years she was in braces.

Megan celebrated her 16th birthday and is now a legally licensed driver.  She swears that people do a double take when she is behind the wheel alone like she is too young to be driving, but I think she is just self-conscious.  I love that she can drive alone and have already used her to run several errands for me – it’s awesome.  Unlike the big to-dos Rob talks about back east, her birthday was pretty low-key and very low-budget.  She had a few friends over for games, pizza and a movie.  She had a great time!

Bryce and Devin went on a 3 day backpacking trip with the scouts and had a great time exploring a remote area down in Southern Utah where there were plenty of lakes to fish and mountains to climb.  They didn’t have any luck catching fish themselves, but did get to enjoy some of the bounty from the other boys and dads.

Hope you are having an awesome summer!!