Our summer thus far...

 We have had a fantastic summer so far! I know lots of kids are back to school but we have a couple weeks to go so we are in full summer mode over here still.

 (if you haven't noticed...writing is not a strong point of mine. but I do have cute kids...so pics of kids is what you get!)

We started off the summer with lots of trips to the YMCA pool..

Super fun visitors the Rogers came and stayed a couple days before they headed off to Sandbridge..

Many days spent at the beach...the thing I will miss the most when we move.

A couch on the beach?

Sadie turned 6 on July 20th..

My Grandma was in S.C. so she drove up for the day to surprise Sadie on her B-day..

Went out with friends for her birthday dinner..

Two days later we hopped on a plane and flew to AZ!  It was kind of a last minute trip but it was one of the best! 

Dinner at Cheesecake with the girls...

We swam just about every single day. My SIL parents have this very fun pool with a full on pirate ship...among other fun things.

Trip to the lake with Grandpa T..

This pic doesn't look like much but you are actually looking at a miracle.  Ronan is actually on the tube in the lake!!! He is the biggest weeny so this was HUGE!

Drove over to California for my brother and fam's sealing. It was so great to have all my family together (minus kids) and see how happy Justin is. I'm so grateful for Justin and Kristina and the choices they have made. 

While in Cal. the weather didn't get over a mere 75 degrees. I was dying! I always knew Cal. had great weather but this was unheard of! Noah is now seriously considering moving us to Cal....I wouldn't argue with that idea :)

It was so great to see Vanessa who has been living in Mexico. And I finally got to see Cory and Jessica's cutest fattest baby ever!

Dinner with my most favorite Chandler people in the world. Some of them may have moved from the greatest street ever but I still love them A LOT!

Met up with our VA school friends who were in AZ for an internship. Our kids are best of friends so it was so fun to hang with them. They were even on our flight home!!!...which made for a very easy flight.

And thats that! Next on the agenda is organizing rooms and gearing up for school. My kids can not WAIT!

This guy is loving his no teeth. I'm dreading the awkward giant buck teeth stage. I had it big time when I was little!!

DC Temple

Our stake set a goal to take your family to the temple at least one time this year.  I was nervous about doing this with it being a 3 plus hour drive but we did it and it was the best day trip ever!  Noah and I switched off going into the temple but the kids did great going on nature walks, lunch, visitors center and whatever else they did.  It was so great to show the kids this amazing temple.  I can't wait to do it again!

Summer can officaily start...

 Our kids got out of school last Friday. It seemed that every single person has been out for weeks so we were very anxious for this day to come! Brody is modeling the little teacher gifts we made this year. B&B treats and a cute note that said "you are SENT-sational.  We have been so lucky to have amazing teachers this year. Both my kids had Mrs. Dykes for  kinder and I can not tell you what an amazing lady she is.  She has even taught me so much...I just love her! She is almost worth staying here in VA so Ronan can go through her class! I said almost...

 I planned a little end of school bash for all the kids around here.  As the bus rolled in you could hear all the kids cheering and yelling...it was so fun!  Then we launched water balloons at them...they loved it.

 It was a mad dash to get to the water balloons....

 We had 2 giants buckets full of water balloons which were gone in about 1 min.!  All that hard work down the drain...but it was so fun to see how much fun they were having.

 This GIANT slip n slide is always a huge hit...

Then is was over...and now we are in full fledge summer mode!  

On tap for summer...YMCA pool, lots and lots of beach days, visit from friends and Great Grandma, Norfolk Tides baseball game, trip to DC temple, piano lessons, math camp, and hopefully organizing this place for our big move at the end of this year.  It's gonna be a great summer!!

dance

Last week Sadie had her dance recital at the Norfolk Scope. If you know VA, you know the scope is big and downtown which was intimidating to me, but we made it through the dress rehearsals and Sadie did great in the recital. They danced to the song "9 to 5" which was ADORABLE!! They wore fake secretary glasses (which Sadie didn't like to wear) and carried little secretary notebooks.  So so cute!

I stressed about doing her hair for weeks!  Her hair does not hold a curl worth a darn, so I gave sponge curlers a go.  BAD idea!! Her hair was basically straight when I took them out, so I went back to the curling iron and prayed the curls would stay. It was OK, but definitely  need to come up with a better solution next time.

This video is awful, (we were not supposed to video or take pictures at the recital, but I had to get some footage for the fam to see!)

Sadie is 2nd from the left.

Happy Birthday Ronan...and Me

 Ronan turned 3 on April 17th. It was on a Sunday in the middle of finals for everyone so we just chilled at home and had a little family party. He loved it. 3 is certainly a fun age. Ronan is leaning so much at such a fast pace and lives life to the fullest! He keeps us on our toes for sure but we love him so much.

 Opening a Birthday package. He got beyblades...so now every time we get a package he thinks someone sent him new beyblades.

We have this super fun bike trail next to our house so we took a bike ride up to Noah's school. I was a little nervous Ronan wouldn't be able to last the whole time but he did great and kept right up with the rest of them.

 Noah being the much better parent than I am let Ronan make and frost all the cupcakes.

My Birthday was 5 days later. We spent the day together...ate way too much food at Chipotle (as you can see) saw Rio (loved it) and had a great dinner with Noah at Bravo.

Easter

This Easter was probably my favorite Easter of all.  

Powerful, amazing talk by our Bishop...just what I needed

Uplifting music

Lunch with all our favorite school friends

Dinner with all our favorite church friends

Lots of great food...I remember how much I love deviled eggs every Easter

Skyped with my Fam to end the night

Perfect.