Summer 2012, part 2

We ended our summer with a wonderful bang this year!  A few days into August, we headed to Maui for a full week.  It was pretty fun as a mom to watch my 5 ducklings, each with their own backpack and roller bag going through the airport.  Goose loves to be a part of it all, pulling her own "Minnie Mouse" suitcase she picked out at Disney World earlier this year.  Every time we travel, and Mark and I are herding them and checking to make sure we have everyone, I always feel like a family of ducks.  It's pretty great.

We stayed in some condos on Maui right across the street from the hotel called the Grand Wailea.  We could enjoy all the fun parts of that resort, but be in a condo with a little more room.  It was great.  The first day we were there, we just wanted to enjoy the beach and the pool.  Zelle had recently partially torn her MCL in a soccer tournament (3 days earlier), so I'm not sure this was the best move, but she went into the ocean and did all the things she normally would have with a big knee brace.  Needless to say, it was a sandy mess by the end of the trip, but I was so glad she was able to enjoy all the things she loves to do there.  I'm not sure why beach time is so fun for us as a family, but there seems to be something for everyone to do, and we all get to just enjoy being together.  We played new card games, read books, built sand castles, body surfed, and boogy boarded.  The hotel pool has multiple water slides, a rope swing, sandy beach pool area for little guys, and beach volleyball that we enjoyed several times.  Midway through the trip, Goose decided she could swim without her floaties.  She took several lessons throughout June, but I wasn't ready for her to swim on her own yet.  She could not be dissuaded, however, so she now swims all by herself.  I'm nervous the whole time, but it goes along with the super independent spirit of the Goose.  Monday night, we picked Elise up at the airport.  This was such a treat to get a few days with Elise in Hawaii.  We sort of daydreamed about how fun it would be earlier in the summer, but then decided to make it a reality with her upcoming wedding.  When else would we get summer time with her like this, the way we used to get summer time with her every year?  We have lots of fond memories of her coming out to Danville to spend weeks at a time with us most every summer.  So, that was the inspiration behind the trip.  As her wedding got closer with  more and more to do, she could only make it out for a few days, but it was so great to have her there.

Mark husked a coconut off a coconut tree where we were staying, which has become a tradition every time we go to Hawaii - glad we could continue that :).  We also found a snorkeling beach where we saw lots of fish and eels.  We were hoping for sea turtles, but only Zelle, Abby and I saw one the previous day when we rented a canoe at the beach.  We went to the aquarium one day, and found a fun breakfast/smoothie shack and took our breakfast to eat at a picnic table at the beach.  One night we went to a luau for dinner, and another night we drove up to the base of Haleakala to the Haile Male General Store where we had an incredible dinner.  We also watched a lot of Olympics!  My favorite Olympic memory there in Hawaii was watching the US women's soccer team win the gold medal match.  We picked a bag full of plumeria blossoms (which are heaven to me), and all the girls made their own leis while we were watching.  They wore their leis that night to the luau.  We were sorry to see Peel go, but so glad we had the days we did with her.  We went to church on Sunday there, and after picking Goose up from nursery, we asked her how it was.  She said, "it was good, but all the friends were hitting me."  Sounds super fun.  We also visited a plantation where we saw all kinds of the great trees and plants that grow in Hawaii - mango, macadamia nut, papaya, guava, and more.  One day we went into Lahaina where we saw the huge Banyan tree and the museum there.  We visited the old prison, and learned a little bit about the missionary history of Hawaii. On our way home, we stopped at a fruit stand and decided to try every fruit we'd never had before that was there.  So we all tasted starfruit, passion fruit, jackfruit, among others.  It was fun to have a little taste test back at the condo.  I think we liked all of them pretty well.

It is always really sad to leave Hawaii.  It's such a magical place, but it was great because everyone was looking forward to being in Woodside so much.  It would have been much harder to leave without that to head on to!  So we arrived in Woodside late one night and couldn't figure out how to get in any of the gates.  (Mom and Mike Dahl had given us good directions, we just botched it)  So, anyway, we were throwing suitcases and kids over the gate and rolling our bags down the dark driveway at midnight one night - pretty funny.

Woodside was magical!!  We enjoyed being there on our own for a couple of days, but were really looking forward to everyone else's arrival.  We spent our time enjoying the property and heading into Stanford campus where we went to the art museum and got in trouble for Goose touching some Rodin sculptures.  Oops.  Over the next couple of days, people started arriving - yay!  It was really wonderful to see the cousins all playing together.  They spent many happy hours at the playground swinging and  playing "rapunzel" up in the tree house.  We had some great bocce ball matches, and lots of good soccer games.  We also enjoyed the pool most afternoons in the heat of the day.  We all took turns making dinner, and it was great to eat all together on the patio.  The kids absolutely loved driving/riding on the golf carts.  Jacob and Zelle were only too happy to give passengers rides anywhere on them.  We also played tennis whenever we could.  A couple of times we played until it was too dark to see anymore.  One night, we had a nice adult dinner with Chinese takeout and spent time catching up with each other.  It was nice to hear about everyone's lives in a way we can't with the chaos and unpredictability of evenings with kids.  We enjoyed the theater and saw the first Bourne movie on it.  We also had lots of Roberts market smoothies and food.  Thank goodness for Roberts right there!  While we mostly wanted to just enjoy being at the property together, we did venture out to San Francisco one day with all the kiddos.  We went to Pier 39 where we ate clam chowder out of bread bowls (high on my girls' list of to do's there), and saw the sea lions and view of Alcatraz.  From there we headed to the Conservatory of Flowers, which was exciting because it's been closed for years and years since the '89 earthquake, so that was a first for us.  The next day, Mom and Mike worked hard to arrange some horseback riding for all the kids, and a trail ride for other people who wanted to ride.  The kids had a blast, and it was beautiful to ride through the horse park - what a perfect way to spend my 37th birthday!  We celebrated with cake and pizza later that evening, and I kept telling my cute nieces and nephews how glad I was that I got to have them as my friends at my party this year.  What a treat!  It's fun to see how after only a year of use, all of us have already built lots of fond memories there.  Our kids talk about it as if they've been going there for 10+ years.

After such an amazing extended vacation, it was time to get back to reality!  We headed home and tried to get any last school supplies we needed, and make sure uniforms were clean and ready.  We had lots of meet your teacher/orientation meetings.  For Labor Day weekend, we went to Lagoon and rode the rides since we hadn't done that all year.  I even rode "3-2-1 fly" with Abby and Lu.  That is a crazy ride, but it was really fun.  Goose got her fever again, so we are definitely back into that mystery, but for now, don't feel like there's a whole lot to do about it, except know we will have a sick kid every few weeks.  I don't really know what else to do.  On Monday, Zelle and I saw the Obama 2016 movie with Pell, Dad and Mom.  It's an amazing movie that I wish everyone would see.  It's quite an education...phew.  Mark gave Father's blessings that evening and we were ready to go for the first day of school!

We've just completed the first week, and it went really well.  Zelle is past being excited about it.  She already had lots of homework this weekend, and is in the thick of the 8th grade stuff of life.  She handles it well, and I'm really proud of her because I know a lot of it's not fun.  Abby was pumped to start 6th grade, to be in middle school and to graduate from jumpers.  The excitement was over, however, with her first weekend homework yesterday...bummer!  Lu loves her teacher, Mrs. Johnsen, who both Jacob and Elise have had.  Susie loves being at school with her sisters finally, and even thinks the bus is ok.  She has Mrs. Freestone who Lu had for first grade.  She wasn't as tired as I thought she might be waking up early and going to a full day of school.  That's not to say she wasn't tired, but I was bracing for exhaustion, so I was pleasantly surprised.  Goose started at Holladay Preschool, and goes 3 mornings a week.  She loves it already, and wasn't too happy to see me Friday when I picked her up.  She said something like, "You weren't supposed to pick me up yet.  I wanted to stay longer."  Too bad we can't convince her teachers of that because I totally agreed with her...haha.  I love my time with Goosie!

banyan tree in old Lahaina

Zelle and Goose at the pool

burying Abby in the sand

picnic lunch at the beach

yahoo - leis that we made

this kills me...

drip castles

bowl of mystery fruits to try

Woodside!!

a happy chauffeur 

other modes of transportation

grandpa and some of his granddaughters

Abby holding court with some tinies

D teaching the girls how to roll taquitos

pier 39

Dahlias outside the conservatory of flowers

Annie, Wuze 'nuggling

horse time!

Tuggy feeding the horses carrots

back to reality!  1st day of school

we all survived the first week :)

Never a dull moment here. Mark took the girls (all but Goose) on a daddy/daughter campout on Friday night after school.  They had a great time, and Goose and I went around visiting my sisters - so fun!  Saturday we were back to soccer games...no game for Zelle yet, we're still letting her knee heal, but Suse and Tugs were excited to be back out there, and Abby had her first game with her new team.  It's mostly nice to be back into a routine, although it's a busy pace.  We're happy, healthy, and grateful.

May Days

at the monster concert

butterfly cage...

our butterflies, before we released them

Happy 3rd Birthday, Goosa!

she's in a Toy Story phase right now...

hooray, a carousel!

boat ride at Liberty Park

fond farewell to Kearons

s'mores and visiting

This is definitely out of order, but as I was going through pictures for the last post, I was reminded of some fun May events.  Suse worked really hard on a piano piece to play at the "Monster Concert" at Libby Gardener Hall at the U.  The theme was Wizard of Oz (or Lizard of Oz, as Goosa says these days), and Suse was the lion.  I've never sent a video, so if it works, I'll send it.  If not, at least I'll post a picture.  We also celebrated Goosa's third birthday at Liberty Park because she said what she wanted to do for her birthday was ride a carousel.  We also rode boats in the little lake there and went to dinner.  We also hatched butterflies...we got one of those mail kits where they arrive as caterpillars and when they build their cocoons, you transfer them to this little netted cage and then they hatch and you release them.  It's really fun to do with kids.  And, we had a farewell pool party/BBQ for the Kearons, which was great to be together one last time before their move to Germany.  So this is a bit of a disjointed post, but these were some spring events, and will hopefully be good commentary for the pics...

Summer 2012, part 1

Hooray for summer!  We were all ready to say good-bye to homework and schedules this year.  We didn't actually start out very slow and relaxed, though.  Mark took Zelle and Abby to Guatemala on June 5th - the day of Zelle's last final, and the day before Abby's last day of school.  It was quite a bit of work getting all the gear purchased, assembled, and labeled for this trip.  I had another (of many) moment of insight into the hundreds of times my Mom has done this for us traveling somewhere to have an interesting experience.  Anyway, by the time we got them safely off, I was pooped.  I was also a little nervous dropping them off with their huge backpacks.  I'm happy to be writing this with them safely home! Anyway, Zelle made a great slideshow of their trip, but in absence of that, I'll send a couple of pictures.  They toured for a few days before starting the "CHOICE" segment of the trip.  They visited lake Atitlan (believed to be the waters of Mormon), saw ruins at Copan in Honduras, visited Antigua, a beautiful colonial town, and the famous market with the really long name that I can't remember now.  They were great travelers, traveling to LAX the night they left, with a layover til midnight, then a 4 hour flight to Guatemala City.  From there, of course, they began touring and starting the trip, and Mark said they were troopers.  They also had several long bus rides (7-8 hours each way to the ruins, and 8+ hours to the village).  They stayed at the village of Nueva Concepcion for a week where they helped construct a hospital.  Mark said the first morning was the hardest physical labor he'd ever done - hauling huge, heavy bags of sand over hills, etc on his shoulders, to be mixed into concrete.  Zelle was working on wrapping wires for the walls of the hospital and Abs mixed concrete, among other things.  They taught English classes, went on a hike, and played soccer and games with the villagers in the afternoons.  They really liked the families they met on the trip, and came home saying it was a great experience.  I think we'll try to do this every couple of years with as many kids as are old enough.  

While they were gone, I enjoyed being with my 3 littles.  Lu, Suse, Goose and I did lots of swimming and baking, crafts and playing with friends and cousins.  It's fun for me to be able to enjoy them with the perspective of having older kids and knowing that this time is so short at these ages.  I love the simplicity of life with younger kids, and we had a great time.  Natalie and Suse took swimming lessons at our pool several times a week, and Suse continued with piano lessons.  Lu decided she wants to play the cello, so we have said farewell to the piano (no tears shed on that good-bye), and will pick that up in the fall when the teacher we're thinking of going with can teach again.  

When we got everyone home, we enjoyed a week home with tennis lessons, gymnastics, soccer for various kids.  We also went to the Hale Center Theater production of "Sound of Music," which was really good.  We usually go to 3-4 shows a year there, and they're all really good.  We were also able to see the USA Women's National team play and beat Canada here, which was a blast!  They were so fun to watch and have a lot of good players.  We're excited to watch them in the Olympics.  

At the end of June, Mark took the four older girls up to Logan for some Harris grandparent and cousin time.  The cousins all do a tennis camp together at the sports academy there, and it's become a fun tradition everyone looks forward to every year.  I got some great time at home with Goosa to enjoy her, and get to errands and things I'd put off.  We had a youth activity at our house Thursday night, and Mark headed to youth conference the next day.  

The following week, Abby's friend, Sierra, flew into town from Danville, and they went to BYU basketball camp together.  It was their first sleepover camp, and first time in the dorms, so that was exciting and fun.  While it was a little too much basketball for girls who like but don't love basketball, it was a fun excuse to be together and go to camp.  We celebrated the 4th of July and Annette's birthday at the annual party at Mike Harris's house.  It's always a blast to swim at their house with the water slide and play tennis.   We couldn't do any fireworks there this year because of all the wildfires.  Everything looked so dry.  Zelle started coming down with a fever and feeling bad as we left Mike's and was sick the next few days.  

Before we knew it, we were already into the second week of July - how does that happen every summer?  I took Lu to NYC where we had a fantastic trip!  We stayed at Mom and Dad's new place there, which is awesome.  We arrived late Tuesday night and went to bed when we got there.  The next morning, I couldn't believe the view when we woke up.  I've seen the pictures from Dad, but it's totally different to actually be there.  You just can't get over the view and the location.  So, on Wednesday, Lu and I met Diana and kids at the Museum of Natural History.  It was so fun to see them, and to explore the museum.  What a fun place.  Diana took the kids home for their naps, and Lu and I got lunch and headed to Wicked.  The girl playing Elfeba right now is awesome - I had chills so many times.  Lu loved it too, in her very reserved Tugsyish way :).  From there we walked to Times Square and explored the mayhem that is Times Square.  Clint called from a meeting he had just finished nearby and walked over to meet us at the Disney store.  He then introduced us to the Plaza Food Court, which was amazing food.  What a find!  That was the coolest place.  Then we walked through Central Park to Clint and D's new (to us) place.  It was fun to see the apartment in "real life."  We got to have dessert with them and enjoy the evening with them.  What a great home, and what a great family. We loved our time there!  The following morning, Lydia really wanted to see the Statue of Liberty.  I assumed D would not be up for this, but she was, and it was great for me because she knew where to go on the subway, etc.  We waited in a long line for the ferry and took the boat ride to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  Cool, but we decided the Staten Island ferry is the way to go with kids - if you're not getting off at those places, which we weren't.  Still, always very cool to see the Statue of Liberty and the amazing view of Manhattan you get from the water.  After that, D took kids home for naps again and Lu and I hopped on a double decker bus at Battery Park.  We had a great overview, driving by the UN, Wall Street, the Chrysler Building, etc.  It's about the right level of info for kids. We got on and off a few times to explore China town, Little Italy, and ground zero.  The new Freedom Tower looks pretty cool that's going up there.  I wished we had tickets for the new 9/11 memorial, but we didn't.  The neighboring church, St Patrick's, I think?  has a pretty good photo timeline, though, that was neat to see with Lu.  That night, we met D and the kids at the park for a picnic dinner and playing on the playgroup.  Afterwards, we walked along Fifth Avenue and got dessert at the Plaza Food Court again :).  The last day was shopping day for us - Lu really wanted to see FAO Schwartz, so we explored that and did the big piano, we went to Dylan's candy bar, and then the much anticipated American Girl Store.  We had lunch there, got Lu's doll's hair done, and shopped.  By then it was time to head back to the apartment, where D and the kids met us and said good-bye before we headed out.  It's so fun to have one on one time, and in such a fun place.  I have loved this fun tradition!

While I was gone, Zelle went to girls camp, which she loved.  They embroidered, and she taught Abby how to embroider when she got home.  They've both done some great projects so far.  We had our neighborhood "walk and talk" at our house (one of three) last weekend, and then sent Zelle off to "Retreat for Girls" for her third year.  Zelle got her braces off last week before I left for NYC, I should mention, and Abby got braces this week and Suse got a retainer, so we've had lots of sore teeth around here!  Besides Natalie, everyone has some sort of appliance in their mouth - we are in the thick of the orthodontia years.  Bring it on!  

on their way to Guatemala

at the ruins in Copan, Honduras

 Zelle playing soccer with village kids

 grubby workers!

 Before and after braces for Zelle - yahoo!

 water slide at uncle Mike's house at 4th of july - here's Lu flying off of it

 Goose after a late 4th of July night...

 Museum of Natural History in NYC with Josie

 dinner with uncle Clint

 riding the subway to the statue of liberty

 picnic at central park

 big piano at FAO Schwartz

 Dylan's candy Bar

 American Girl Store

 Abby's before and after - not so yahoo :)

Well, that gets us caught up to the 1/2 way over point of summer.  I can't believe it.  I wish I could slow time down.  Mark and I celebrated our 17th!!! anniversary yesterday and went out for a nice dinner.  The house was really messy and the girls weren't down when we got home, so the girls didn't exactly knock it out of the park for us, but hey, at least we don't need to find babysitters anymore...Today, Goose is sick, so I have rare time to write while she's napping and Mark took the others down to his niece's missionary farewell.  What wonderful, busy lives we have, with so much to be thankful for!