Quantity NOT Quality - July

July was definitely the busiest month for us. But we also had a lot of fun, and it was good to have so much to do - it kept the anxiety of moving and the unknowns ahead at bay.

Elayna in her usual outfit - doing her usual activity.. Because there was gravel everywhere the only place to ride bikes was on the back deck. Gratefully it was large enough Elayna could go back and forth - and it kept her in a confined space!

I got to help my friend, by picking up bread from the food bank that was too old to give out - to feed to her pigs.. I should have gotten a picture of her pig. But I thought the amount of bread products in my car was amazing. Understand - the bread filled the entire back of our Expedition.. and the front seat. Not to mention all the stuff I tried to gift out because it wasn't bad yet, and looked really good!

John mentioned that we should try to get pictures of the kids in the lavendar that was across from the house we were staying at. One, because we wanted pictures of our kids for their birthday. But also because we thought it would be a good memory of Sequim - being the Lavendar capitol that they are.  Well. I tried and tried - but it just wasn't going to work out which is why we got pictures this summer by my cousin.  But here are some of the failed attempts.  Partly it was weather that messed us up. The entire week before it was dark, cold and windy.. the day before and the day we moved (as pictured) it was hot and sunny - not a cloud in the sky. It made it impossible to get any decent lighting.

I try for nice pictures - and I get grumpy.. I try to get them to be silly - hoping for some nice faces after.. But I just get silly - then pictures of them looking at each other.

I guess Elayna was looking at them to see what she was supposed to be doing.. Then the boys were looking at her to make sure she was doing it. Too bad they couldn't get the timing better for my sake.

Weston was just stubborn, but I got him talking about money.... and what he would buy if he had some.. And I got a pleasant look at least.

Weston looking happy - being excited about the arrival of the moving truck. And the fact that I said he could play in it for 10 minutes before we started loading it!

That night we were all up until about 1:00 AM getting the truck loaded and trying to figure out a way to sleep on the empty floors. But I still didn't have good pictures of the kids (my opinion) so I figured we had one last day to try.  Well we were all tired. And after I broke down and started crying at one point. John and I had it out with each other... sort of.. but then he explained he just thought it would be fun - but didn't really care about the pictures... And all this time I thought I was fulfulling an assignment. 

Anyway - it was a little more relaxed and he started helping the kids smile. Well we didn't get any great pictures - but at least they were happy and I was done crying.  I actually took so many pictures, that if I scroll quickly it looks like a film strip.

poor Weston - he gets puffy eyes too if he's too tired.

So we drove away from our home of 5 years that day.. We had been ready to move for over a year and it was finally here!  We drove up to my parents that night... with a lot of traffic delays. But we made it and were ready for Elayna's birthday party the next day.

Elayna turned 3 years old. And what a joy she has been - and what a pain at times too! But we love her, and I can't believe how much she has added to our little family.  It was fun to be at my parents for her birthday because not only did we get Grandma Liz and Grandpa Steve, but we had Andrea's family too. We had her party on Sunday because John was headed to Scout camp (the whole reason we stayed in Sequim an extra 6 weeks) the next morning.

Elayna doesn't like cake, cookies, colored/flavored ice cream. or much of anything else. She's rather odd with her eating. But if we all ate like her, we'd be a lot healthier!   But to feed the crowd and other birthday go-ers.. we made a cake just for show. I think it turned out rather well for using just what we had on hand on a sunday afternoon.

We did have pizza - Elayna's favorite food - hand's down... no close second.

John and I found a cute little "Fancy Nancy" dress and thought she would love it.. But she wore it for about 20 minutes and hasn't worn it since.

We did get to use the rest of our fire works from the 4th of July... a tradition I'd like to keep going!

During that next week the kids and I had a day with just Grandpa. We went and got some kid's meals and found an amazing park in Lindon.. The kids had a blast. By far one of the most impressive parks I've ever seen. 

I tried to get a fun picture of the kids.. but as always - it just wasn't going to be.

Grandpa Steve enjoyed the park almost as much as the kids did.

I just love this shot.. I need to edit it a bit.. and maybe I'm just weird - but I think it's pretty fun!

So one afternoon the kids were out playing with grandma and grandpa.. And having a great time. It all started when the kids decided that they could get pushed on the tree swing.. and the other two could through pine cones at the one on the swing.  I questioned the safety of the situation - and was told "That's why we're wearing helmets". Personally I was more worried about the lack of safety goggles.

View from John's Scout Camp

Me or John or both of us had the idea of taking pictures of each "state" sign as we passed a new border. I meant to face book them each day, but that just didn't happen. So here they start!  After a week of grandparent time - we started our move out East.. with the first leg stopping in Utah.  

We found that Elayna forgot how to sleep in a real bed, since her's had been gone since we moved from the red house almost 2 months before.

And weston still likes to cuddle when he sleeps - that's why we don't let him sleep with us!

We tried to stop for the Utah sign, but there was too much construction. Still - we would have stopped except that the cones were too close together to get in or out, and there was so much traffic we weren't sure we would ever get back on the road.

Once we did make it to Utah Tyler and Weston took off on their bikes around the neighborhood and sadly Tyler was lost for a good amount of time. Pretty scary, but after we were calmed down from that. We started to settle in and had a great time.  Almost too much fun.  We found an amazing splash park in Highland that we went to at least 1 time a week. The first trip was with cousins since Brenda was still there for a few more days.

Happy meal toy that no one thought was funny except for me!

We got to go fossil hunting with Jan and Torri and her kids.

We took a weekend and went to  Birdseye to go shooting and 4-wheeling. What fun. I still want a 4 wheeler.. They are sooooo much fun!  And to say the kids had fun - is a vast understatement.

After playing all day, riding the 4 wheeler whenever she wanted and shooting guns with Daddy and Grandpa, she had finally had enough.  So tired, but so cute when she's moppy.

yes- it's a weird face. But for a good reason. I can never remember which eye I look through - which as I found is very important to be looking through the correct eye when shooting - you hit the target more often that way!

When we got back. Grandpa was cleaning the 4 wheelers and I'm not sure how, but a very fierce water fight started. And at the end, everyone was soaked... except for the kids who were in swimming suits.

The adults layed down on the back deck to rest... and found that our wet impressions looked really funny so then we started working on our wet impression art.

Again - on the bike...

John and I left for a few days to go look for housing in Columbus (a little close to the wire), but while were gone they had a lot of fun - including very festive pizza parties... 

Loving Grandpa - I hope he knows how much he is loved.

Jan had some more puppies and Elayna could not have been happier.. Well if she could have held them all day, every day she would have been happier. But the little visit she got was great.

And you can't visit Grandma and Grandpa with out running Taylor.. The kids were in heaven with all the ice cream. Thank goodness we only ran it once (I think??)  That's a whole lot of ice cream.