June's Little Things

June seems to be the slowest month of the Summer

for our family and to be honest I sometimes struggle with finding a routine. We had many lazy days at home, had a few cousin days at grandma's house, spent some afternoons at Lagoon, and celebrated some June birthday's and Father's Day. 

Here is a look back at the month through pictures.  

A lot of our down time was spent in the backyard blowing bubbles, swinging, and just trying to keep cool in the shade. 

We've put our Lagoon season passes to good use. 

The highlight for me is going to beautiful station park either before or after Lagoon and getting something to eat. 

This is Khloe's first year to ride the rides. 

Of course her favorites include the cars, planes, and train. 

We had fun celebrating cousin Annie's and cousin Max's birthdays during the month. It's always nice to have a reason to get together with family. 

June seemed to be an extra hot month. 

We took advantage of one of the hot days and enjoyed a cousin pool day. 

We continued the water fun and had a water day at grandma's house. The kids had fun on the slip and slide, but I think the snow cones were the favorite. 

Nothing says summer more than a nice summer evening and dinner at Call's Drive In. 

Storms and Life Lessons

Earlier this month we had some crazy thunderstorms 

move through our area that resulted in a significant amount of 

damage to our yard. 

My Flowers went from looking like this...

to this in a matter of minutes:(( 

To say I was devastated is an understatement!!!

(and if truth be told I may have over reacted just a bit)

Now that most things have bounced back, I have reflected on the situation and have learned some life lessons:)

Earlier in the evening I had gotten multiply warnings on my phone saying that a severe thunderstorm was headed to our area, and that damage to property was a possibility. 

I ignored the warnings!!!
 I thought it would be too much work to move or cover up all of my flowers, and that it probably wasn't going to hit our area anyway. 

Well sure enough, just like I had been warned it did HIT our area. 

By this time it was too late to do anything.

Over the past couple of weeks I have thought about the situation.

How often are we warned by church leaders or parents and we choose to ignore them? We think that we know what's best, or it won't affect me, or that's just too much work. 

The "Storms" of life can be pretty brutal sometimes and just like my poor flowers, we can be beat up pretty good. 

As the world continues to get more and more wicked, I'm 

more and more grateful for a living prophet and apostles that 

warn us when things might be coming our way.

The real challenge is to listen and obey. 

Wrapped Around Her Finger

One of Khloe's favorite people is her 

Great-Grandpa LeWayne. 

He is generally the first person she will go to when we have a family get together. He always gives her his undivided attention and it's no surprise that she gets whatever she wants when grandpa is around:)

She gets to spend one day a week with grandpa and grandma and probably has more fun that one day then all the rest of the days combined. They take her on bike rides to see the trains and ducks. They go on walks to see Aussie, the dog. They eat plenty of icecream, popcorn, and probably Pepsi:)

But BEST of all she gets to develop a relationship with them. 

Waterfall Canyon

One of our Summer goals this year was to get outdoors and enjoy our beautiful mountains, after all there is more to do than just ski in them:)) 

Saturday evening we packed up the kids and headed to 

Waterfall Canyon in Ogden. 

The first part of the hike was sort of hot and dry and I worried we were going to come in contact with a rattlesnake. 

Fortunately we only saw a few lizards and some cactus, although some of the hikers warned us that a rattlesnake 

had been on the trail up ahead. 

The second part of the hike was beautiful, shady, and followed along a stream. The hike ends at a beautiful waterfall and some amazing views. 

Sometimes I think we get so use to our surroundings and forget to stop, look around, and realize what a beautiful state we live in!!!

It ended up being a pretty great evening and a fun hike. 

St. George 2016

St. George Trip 2016 ended up being pretty great!!!

This is a 8 year traditions and it's one that I look forward to every year. We ended up having a pretty big group this year, which makes it more fun so we  decided to get 2 house in Paradise Village, the new vacation rental resort in 

St. George. 

There are those must have do's that we do every year like the town square splash pad, eating at the Pasta Factory, shopping, swimming, and exploring Dixie Rock. 

This year we threw in a few new things to shake it up a bit. 

 My kids LOVE the center of town splash pad and could spend all day there. They are both really social and can make friends easily. 
With that many kids around they are bound to find a friend and have fun playing together.  

Us girls decided to sneak away for an hour or so to get pedicures. 

None of us have ever gotten one before, so it was fun to experience something new:))

Friday night we went to dinner at the Texas Roadhouse. 

That was the first time that the kids or myself have been there. 

It was the perfect restaurant for kids: noisy and it didn't matter if you made a mess since there were peanuts all over the floor anyway. 

To end our fun Friday we hiked around Dixie Rock at sunset and had fun being together. 

Saturday morning was pretty low key.

We hung around the house, played games, and spent most of the morning at the pool. 

That afternoon we were able to sneak away and do some sealing in the temple. It was fun going with family and being in the temple together. 

That night we met back up with everyone and had dinner at the Pasta Factory, one of my favorites. 

We had tickets to see Peter Pan at Tuacahn. 

I had high hopes for this show and ended up being disappointed. 

I wouldn't say it was awful, but it was pretty low key especially for Tuacahn. If you are thinking of seeing a show this year I would recommend Tarzan instead. 

Sunday morning we woke up early to do a little hiking. 

There are a lot of great places in and around St. George to hike.

We decided to do the Red Cliffs hike, which was easy enough for the kids, but still had the beautiful scenery that we were looking for. 

After our hike we decided to go on another adventure. 

After watching Studio 5's list of must do's while in St. George we thought it would be fun to take the kids to Glitter Mountain. 

We had a lot of laughs getting there and had fun once we finally found it:)

The rest of Sunday was spent swimming, playing games, and grilling. 

As always I'm kind of sad when vacations are over, but I'm glad for the memories made and the time spent with family.