Rrrraaaaarrrrrr dinosaurs!

A dinosaur exhibit came to the Dixie Center and my Mom was kind enough to get me and the 3 older kids tickets.  The dinosaurs were quite large, growled and moved their tales and blinked.  The mouths opened and it was kind of scary, so we decided not to bring Mikayla.  Even Julie thought it was a little creepy.

After the exhibit were bounce houses, crafts, a fossil dig site and dinosaurs you could ride.  Maxine, Jack and Julie all rode a different dinosaur.

It was pretty cool but kind of pricey!  I'm glad my Mom was able to get the tickets because the kids thought it was awesome!

Bikes in Zion...

With summer out now, the kids are home and loving it.  Merril had some work to do up by Zion National Park and took the 3 older kids and their bikes for a ride.  The park has a bus system that allows bikes to be strapped on.  They took their bikes to the top of the park and road/coasted all the way down.

I made sure they had helmets but I stayed home with the little ones because we couldn't figure how to get the bike trailer up to the top of the park.

Merril and I have noticed that we have 2 little families.  Maxine, Jack, and Juliet do a lot of big kid stuff that the little ones don't for now.  We still do a lot of stuff together but sometimes it's just better to divide and conquer.

Loving the lake!

Spring was cool and we've had some crazy weather so we haven't been to the lake hardly at all.  This marks the 2nd time, I think.  We went the Tuesday after Memorial Day and the lake was a ghost town.  We played in the water, still a little chilly, and ate lunch!

Mark is getting so funny about food.  Whatever you got, he wants.  Who doesn't love cold watermelon?

After we got home, Maxine said she felt a little itchy.  Later we found a few swimmer's itch dots on Julie, Mikayla and Maxine.  We haven't had a problem with swimmer's itch for about 3 or 4 years although I see on Facebook that plenty of people get it.  Luckily, we build immunity to it so they're probably good for the year.

And just for something to do, we tried to potty train Mikayla.  Yeah, not really happening.  There were lots of little puddles.  She wakes up dry from naps and can go all night but doesn't do anything about it during the day.  We had her in panties for 4 days and I decided to back off.  When Julie was little, she decided to potty train herself.  We were still potty training Jack and she overheard repeatedly what to do but never had the pressure.  She decided one day to do it and it was a breeze.  I pushed and pushed Maxine and Jack and it took  years, substantially longer.  Julie took Mikayla to the bathroom in the morning and was able to get her to go but I never could.  So we're back to diapers for now.

End of school blur...

A week before school was set to get out, people started throwing up at our house!  Luckily it was fast, a 24-hour bug, and we all felt better after a day.  

Jack got it first, followed by Julie, then Mikayla and me.  Merril didn't feel well and then Maxine.  It was over in 72 hours.  Thankfully, Mark never seemed like his tummy was upset.  He just happily played while the rest of us were bent over a toilet or cleaning up the aftermath.

Then it was back to school for a few more days, a piano recital, and before we knew it, summer was here!  We've got some plans for a couple reunions and possibly heading to Northern California, reading and writing everyday and some trips to the pool and hiking.  I'm going to try and squeeze in some quilt making as well.

Maxine is done with elementary this year!  The next step is the intermediate school.  She's excited and scared.  The hardest transition will be the start time.  She has to be down to the bus at 7:05 a.m.  That's going to be a struggle.  I can see a lot of driving her to school in my future.

Jack: The Soccer Star!

Jack is a good kid.  He tends to roll with whatever's going on.  However, he doesn't keep reminding me of things he'd like to try like the girls do.  Jack mentions something once and if I don't pick up on it, he'll let it drop and I'll forget.  I was determined not to brush him aside again when he mentioned that soccer might be fun.  

It ended up being a fun season, they won more games than they lost.  Jack tended to hop around as the ball came close but he had a good time and made some good shots!

It was fun to watch him play and we had a good time!

Working on our food storage...

This was our Saturday project:

I bought some shelves off Craigslist a while back and finally got them put up.  Maxine helped me organize the food storage and I think it looks pretty fabulous.  I was able to get a better idea of what we still need and what we're running low on.  Loving it!