Our Summer 2017

Besides our big 2-week family vacation that we took at the end of July, here are a few highlights from our summer. We started off the summer by taking a quick trip over to Tucson, Arizona for the Tucson temple open house. Tyler was going there for Scout Camp and decided to get tickets for all the scouts to see the temple on their way to the campsite. Audrey and I followed along with all the kids so we could go through the open house with them. 

We were shuttled from a church parking lot to the temple and Taryn said it was her first time a bus! 

We loved walking through the temple and talking to the kids about eternal families and Heavenly Father's plan. I love how the temples are designed to include features from the local cultures, so the Tucson temple has a dome on the top like some of that city's historical buildings. I thought that was pretty cool. Here's a picture of the kids after we finished walking through and also a picture of the Scouts with the temple behind them.

I've still been playing volleyball twice a week at church and love it so much. This summer Abby joined me when she wasn't at another camp. We take pictures every once in awhile, so here was the latest one. 

Our pool sadly had a lot of issues this summer. While Tyler was away at Scout Camp the pool pump died. Tyler ordered new parts, replaced them himself, and then we had to wait to get the water clear and swimable again. Luckily, the girls were able to swim at the Kasallis house and with new slides, who wouldn't want to? It took Taryn quite a few swim trips to work up the courage to go down the slide herself. She even had to wear a floatie every time she went down the slide because she was too scared even though she knows how to swim without floaties. We also visited a lot of splash parks that have recently been built in our city. The girls and I went across town to the east side to find a splash park that we heard was awesome with its own little slides. The girls had a blast and I took some of the best pictures there because the day was so sunny and beautiful. 

One day while Tyler was still at camp, we were able to go to Peter Piper Pizza for a patient appreciation day for Aubrey's orthodontist. The girls had fun playing and we took a picture with their orthodontist signs to post on social media for advertisement. We didn't win any of the raffles, so the girls were sad (they were raffling off fidget spinners that the girls are obsessed with!), but we got lunch, games, and a few goodies. It was still fun. They only allowed four people per patient, so Abby got to spend the day with Grandma and Grandpa. We had lots of playdates, especially while Dad and Abby were gone during their camps. Here's Taryn with her friend Presley when they had a fashion show for the moms. So cute! 

Speaking of fidget spinners, I was not going to purchase any for the girls, but after Tessa got a homemade one from a friend who made it from Legos, they spent the next couple days making their very own fidget spinners using our Legos. It was pretty creative. 

Tyler needed a current picture of his family to send to his optometry school who were getting their 10-year reunion together. So after church one day while we were all wearing coordinating colors, we took a picture. Everyone looked so cute even though Taryn didn't get her eyes open. It was the best one of the bunch. 

On Sam Kasallis's birthday, we joined their family to go see Despicable Me 3 in the theaters. They had displays out for pictures; and we even ran into a minion as we walked to the theater. The girls thought that was pretty awesome. 

For the 4th of July, we drove down to San Antonio to visit Scott and his family. Abby is obsessed with Nadia who is obsessed with Abby. Nadia apparently talks about "Abby" all the time and even gets sad when Chloe's friend Gabby comes over because she thinks they're talking abut Abby. Nadia's starting to smile more freely now as she gets more comfortable with everyone, so Abby takes pictures every time they are together. It's so cute. 

Right before we showed up, Scott and Nevla had been placed with Nadia's birth sister. So with three kids under 2, we pretty much just hung around their house, held babies, and played games while we visited. The girls were able to swim in their blow up pool in the backyard and we took some walks to their neighborhood pool and playground. 

We did venture out to the Bass Pro Shop one day and took Chloe with us. I love how they have such fun picture spots and we seem to take pictures at the same ones every time we go. So here are the most current ones.

The morning of the 4th of July, Scott and Nevla's neighborhood HOA was hosting a BBQ, so we walked over, had food from a food truck, and the big girls got to play on the water slides and at the park. We love spending time with family. 

Another summer adventure was when I let the girls have their very own Cupcake Wars. Abby and Taryn competed against Tessa and Aubrey and they both made different cupcakes that they baked and decorated themselves. I was supposed to be a judge, but it was too hard deciding between my own children and both cupcakes were really delicious. We had fun posting pictures on Facebook as the Cupcake Wars went down. 

Here are the final product pictures. Abby and Taryn made vanilla cupcakes with a strawberry jam filling and strawberry vanilla frosting. Tessa and Aubrey made red velvet cupcakes with a milk chocolate center and vanilla frosting. We even made some mini cupcakes so the Kasallis's could taste one of each and put in their votes. It was pretty fun.

This is Aubrey with Clare from our ward. They like to come over and play games with us; and the girls love playing with Clare. She's obsessed with Moana so they'd watch the movie at our house and my girls would share their Moana toys for Clare to play with. Aubrey loves being the babysitter and is great with all babies. This picture was too cute not to keep and post about.

We had our annual dress-like-a-cow day for free food at chic-fil-a this summer. We saw a lot of friends there that day, so it was fun for the girls to see their friends and not be the only ones dressed up like cows.

We spent one evening this summer on a full-city search for Blue Bell ice cream. When we were with Scott and Nevla, they had found a new flavor, Groom's Cake, and it became our family favorite. After a friend found the ice cream at an Albertson's in our town and brought it to us, we decided to go on a search to buy more. We drove to three different Albertson's looking for Groom's Cake ice cream, but never found any. But the girls had fun playing in the store's shopping carts and racing down the aisles while we searched all the freezers. Such fun memories! Tessa decided she wants to play the violin in her 5th grade orchestra. I would have loved to talk her into playing the bass like Abby. (They only have to bring it home once a week, not very many people pick the bass, and you pay a yearly fee instead of a monthly rental fee.) However, with Tessa's tiny frame, I just couldn't justify making her play a huge instrument, and she really wanted to try the violin. So before the end of summer, we rented a violin from a friend in the ward and Tessa was able to start getting familiar with it. There are different sizes of violins depending on the player's size and Tessa had to rent a 1/4 size violin. It's so tiny! My cute little Tessa. I love her so much!

The week before we left for our summer vacation, Audrey's sister and family was in town visiting for Sam's baptism. Our kids love to all play together. The night before we left, they were celebrating a birthday so we were able to participate and the kids all had a go at the Batman pinata. It was fun hanging out with them, swimming, and playing. We even made plans to see them in Utah since they were going to be home by the time we were going to be staying in their same town. So fun!

Our final summer adventure before school started was a Chihuahua baseball game. My parents had been wanting to go, so we found a night that worked and all went together. We sat in two separate rows since we got some tickets from a friend, but the girls had fun switching between sitting by us and by Grandma and Grandpa. 

We were very close to the field along the first base side and there were signs everywhere talking about the "fly ball zone" and to beware of fast-flying balls. The girls were a little nervous, but I told them that Dad would protect them. At one point a foul ball was tossed into the stands by a player, and Tyler reached out and caught it with his bare hand right in front of me and the girls. It was awesome! The girls loved taking turns holding the ball.

Near the end of the game, the girls had decided to sit with Grandma and Grandpa which was closer to the field and a worker came over to ask if Tessa and Aubrey wanted to participate in one of their middle of an inning games. They got to play musical chairs on the field! It was so fun to see. Tessa was so nervous and cried the whole inning leading up to it because she wanted to do it, but didn't want to be in front of all those people. But she went out there and did it. I was so proud of her. There were four girls; Tessa got out second and Aubrey won! It was so fun to see them on the big screen. They didn't win anything though which was one of my reasons to try and talk Tessa into doing it, so I felt bad about that, but she was happy once it was all over. These were the best pictures I got from behind the camera man. One with all the girls while the announcer introduced them and one with Aubrey shaking his hand after winning. It was a great end to the summer!

YMCA Sports and Classes

Our summer was filled with camps, YMCA sports and classes, fun activities, and exciting vacations. The camps were mostly Abby's and Tyler's. I already posted about Abby's volleyball camps and church camp. Tyler was gone for two weeks in June: one week for Scout Camp, and another week for High Adventure. He had a great time camping, swimming, mountain biking, and hiking; basically doing all the fun, outdoorsy, stuff he loves to do with all the boys from church. He's not very good about taking pictures though, so I'm sad that I don't have any pictures to show. It was hard having him gone so long, but we kept busy finding things to entertain the girls. To start, we had joined the YMCA again, so for the summer session, every girl played a sport, and Abby played two! Taryn chose indoor soccer and she was counting down the days until her first practice. She was so excited to play. She had a great coach and really had fun learning the basics. She liked to play and was good at chasing around the ball, but we kept working with her to be more aggressive and go for the ball instead of just dancing around the group of kids who were all competing to touch the ball. She really did have a fun time and loved to stop and give us thumbs up during her games. She even made two goals during the season! We were so proud of her. Here she was at her first practice.

And here are some pictures from her first game. 

Finally, here's a team picture at the end of the season. One serious picture, and of course one funny picture.

Taryn also took gymnastics and ballet classes. Here are a few pictures from those classes. She had a lot of fun doing gymnastics and getting better at cartwheels, the beam, the vault, and doing back-bends. Her last month in ballet, Taryn was the only girl in her class. She had fun learning ballet steps and having that one-on-one time with her teacher. 

This was also the first summer that we used the YMCA pools. The older girls would swim while Taryn had soccer practice, but we'd go early some days too so that Taryn could also swim. They had a fun time playing their own games and entertaining themselves in the swimming pools. Aubrey and Tessa had to take tests each week to show that they could swim in the deep end and swim without me in the room. They were awesome of course and loved having the independent bracelet that allowed them full reign of the pools. 

Tessa and Aubrey advanced to Rollers 2 in gymnastics for the entire summer. They love doing the tumbling and especially the vault. I took the majority of my pictures at their last practice. It's so hard to get good pictures of their tumbling, but I found on my camera, I could take action shots that basically show them doing the move in slow motion. And then I picked and saved the best shot from each action. First, here are a few of them together; one from stretching and one from the balance beam. 

Tessa loved the vault and mastered the front handspring over the vault early on. However, one time she over rotated and fell hard and it took her weeks to work up the courage to try again. By that time, Aubrey had mastered it as well and moved on to doing it with a twist. Both were awesome at it by the end of the summer. Here are few still shots of Aubrey on the vault. 

 I've also included a still picture of Aubrey as she did a one-handed cartwheel. I really love watching them learn and perform these hard skills. They're so talented!

Tessa still amazes me with her power, strength, and grace. She was so close to doing a back handspring without any help. She can do it by herself with the cheese mat that gives her an easier angle. And I loved how I was able to get this perfect handstand of hers on the beam.

Tessa and Aubrey both picked soccer for their summer sport. Tyler ended up being their coach since no other parent signed up. He had fun working with them and we made new friends with other lds families because two boys from another ward in our stake ended up signing on our team. The majority of the team were beginners, but they won a lot of their games still. Tessa scored multiple times throughout the season and Aubrey had some awesome blocks when she played goalie. I took a few pictures throughout the season, but we forgot to take an official team picture at the end of the season. Here's a picture from one of their first practices. They were trying to score on Tyler. Most practices ended with the kids scrimmaging Tyler. That was their favorite part - one against seven. Tyler loved it too! 

Here are some pictures from one of their games. Tessa was fast and very good on offense. With a little more ball-handling practice, she'd make a really great soccer player. She was debating if all the running was for her though because when I asked if she wanted to continue playing soccer, she was just like, "eh. I guess not." Aubrey preferred playing goalie or defense because it was less running. We just tried to keep telling her she still had to pay attention to the game and not just visit with her fellow-defense players. :) 

Here's Aubrey and Tessa after their first game. And I also took a picture of them with their teammate, Haydn, who was the only other girl on their team. They all had fun playing together.

Abby had decided at the end of the last school year that she may want to try out for the school basketball team this coming year. The coaches at school suggested that they play on some team before trying out, so Abby signed up for basketball through the YMCA. Besides shooting hoops in the street with friends, she's never played before, so it was definitely a learning experience. Her coach, Kenny, was very gracious and worked with her a lot. She played on a team with two of her friends, Bella and Anahi, who we met when they played on our volleyball team. 

They lost the majority of their games, but Abby had definitely improved. By the end of the season, she was more confident on the court, and wasn't as nervous when she got the ball, and she even attempted a couple shots. She had a good learning experience and now can decide if she really liked it enough to actually try out for the school team come spring. 

We coached two volleyball teams again this summer, but didn't get any pictures until the final games since I'm actually coaching instead of just watching. Most of our girls were with us for at least a year and a lot of them were finishing their final season with the Y because they'll be two old to play once school starts. A lot of our girls were trying out for their school teams and we've just been hearing that they've made it, so we are so excited for them. It'll be fun to watch them play each other for school now, but already have so many friends at other schools because they knew each from YMCA volleyball.  

 We had a great time coaching, but we told them we couldn't coach anymore since Abby was trying out for her school team. We found out just last week that Abby made her school team, and the A team at that! She'll most likely be the starting setter. We're so excited for her and to see her play. Her school games will be the same time as the YMCA games which was the main reason we stopped coaching. It was fun while we did it, and it was awesome to have something that Tyler and I could do together and with Abby too. Now it's time to sit back and just be a cheerleader and spectator as Abby continues to play, but we'll miss all these fun girls and the fun times we had.