Last Day(s) of School(s)!

Ellie's school district finished up school a few days before the Nate, Sadie and Luke's.

She had an excellent year and earned the Golden Scholar award.

This is given to all students who earn straight A's throughout the year. I was proud. Dustin was proud. She was proud. I can't believe she'll be off to High School in one more year.

Since she was done with school and the rest weren't, she proceeded to spend the night at her best friends' house for what seemed like a week.

 I don't know what they did, but I did get this picture on night.

Luke had Kindergarten graduation. I managed not to cry, but mainly because I had been subbing Kinder during the song practice and had already gotten all my tears out two other days.

Luke's award was for all of his spirit and energy that he brings to class. Also his creativity and desire to understand how things work.

 

This year was a great year for all of the kids honestly. We had the best teachers and everyone left the year happier, and taller!

Watermelon

We spent Memorial Day with the Ashtons and Simpsons like we usually do. There's swimming, barbecuing, and my kids favorite tradition is the Water Melon Eating Contest.

This year we divided the kids up into 3 groups and shockingly, my kids won 2 out of 3 times.

 

 

 

Surprisingly, the only time my kids lost was when there were TWO of them.

Also, Ellie gave Sadie really cool hair.

 Every girl deserves a sister.

May Days

May was a good month for our family. The end of the school year is always a little stressful but there is just something wonderful knowing that summer is coming!

Dustin came back from staying with his parents in Iowa and brought us all Iowa shirts.

We finished up sports for the season.

Sadie managed to find her stride at softball during the last game. I caught her excitement as she came home for her second run of the night.

I was selected to chaperone the 4th grade field trip.

I had heard to scavenger hunt was hard, so I came prepared with a plan of which monuments we were going to in which order so we could knock that baby out. Too bad it rained and foiled my plan! At least it wasn't hot.

Ellie decided she wanted to learn to make deviled eggs. And she did!

 The kids entertained themselves with nothing more than a roll of paper and markers

It was warm enough to go boating. . .

 And then the next day it was so cold I needed a sweater and the fire turned on during dinner out.

 For 4th grade Famous Arizona reports the kids had to wear their costumes all day. I about died when I walked out to the playground during 4th grade recess to see a bunch of boys in suits. I was a little worried that Nate would not come home with something to wear on Sunday.

Nate got 100% on everything -- presentation, report and essay! Which he totally should have because it consumed our lives for a month straight.

Luke also rocked his end of the year tests!

We started making our summer bucket list. I asked Ellie what she wanted to do, and she only had 4 items on her list: sleep overs, Tennessee, Big Surf and Waffle Love. Luckily they were right by our house the very next day.

  

And my long lost cousin came to town! He's actually my mom's cousin but we love when Ryan shows up.

And with that we were ready for summer!

Mother's Day

Mother's Day weekend was a mixed bag this year.

It started off so lovely when my husband had cookies from Levain bakery in New York delivered to me. Ridiculously delicious.

And it was also my LAST Mother's Day Tea with a Kindergartener. Luke is so loving that you can't help but feel like the most important person in the world.

And then Friday afternoon we heard that Dustin's dad had fallen off of his stool and broken his hip. It was a scary news as he has Parkinson's and isn't in the best of health. He would need to have surgery soon.

We were all obviously worried as we tried to carry on with the weekend and figure out when surgery would be.

Nate's team had their championship game and Dustin managed to help coach them to another win!

Dustin ended up flying out Saturday night and was able to be there in time to see his dad come out of surgery.

We were sad to not have Dustin on Mother's Day, especially since he had cancelled all of his Sunday meetings and he hadn't been in town for more than a few days at a time since January, but we all knew he should be with his mom and dad. I am so grateful that he was able to be there to support his mom as she went through such a difficult time.

My kids did a great job spoiling me.

After church I was treated to a pedicure with cold water in my mixing bowl and TWO lunches that were almost identical. Luke and Sadie were having a competition to see whose lunch I like better.

 

I ordered a turkey sandwich with cheese and mustard. Sadie brought me a sandwich with turkey and mustard and Luke brought me a sandwich with turkey and cheese. So I put the two together and called it good.

They even set a fancy table for dinner. And made me a trophy!! I love these kids and I'm so grateful to be their mother.

Utah or Bust!

Every other year, I go up to Utah with some girlfriends for BYU's Women's Conference. Every year our group gets larger and every year we have more fun!

This year we decided to skip the two cars and rent a 15 passenger van. It was the best decision we ever made. I loved being with everyone the whole time.

I can't even give a whole blow-by-blow account of what we did because it was far too much, but I can try and fill in what pictures I took!

Like when we took a pit stop at this gas station and had to get our picture in the giant rocking chair!

We spent the ride up chatting, making fun of Meredith sleeping, and reading People magazine.

 

We made really great time, ate dinner at Guru's, checked in and immediately went to play tennis. Our games were ridiculous, but we had the best time.

 

After that we filled our bellies with ice cream at the BYU creamery. 

Thursday morning I ran into 2 of my Freshman roommates from BYU. They were both as beautiful as I remember them. Funny story, I tried to get Dustin to go out with the middle one multiple times when the two of us were just friends.

Shannon is not a member and her family kept asking her if we had converted her yet.

The classes were really good, but Rita's Water Ice was even better!

That night we went to Wallaby's for dinner and then initiated the last few left who didn't belong to the cult of Ooga Booga!

 And then just stayed up late chatting.

Friday was LOVE day!

We took some more classes.

Did some shopping.

 Ate dinner at Pizzeria 712

 

Ate some dessert at the Chocolate

 Where Karen showed us her food baby

We also pulled some pranks.

 

Saturday we woke up early to clean up, check out and hike the Y

 Kristin and I treated it like a work out and booked it up the mountain.

 I love seeing Provo from the top of the Y

To treat ourselves, we had brunch at Cafe 300. So yummy and the portions are giant.

 On our way home we stopped by the Payson temple open house

 Where somehow Molly got us a golden ticket to skip the line and the movie!

We spent the night in St. George where we gorged on Cafe Rio and Swigg Cookies

Sunday we made the slow trip home in our BAM! shirts and said good bye to each other, but HELLO to our families and all the goodies we had brought home (cinnamon bears and BYU mint brownies).

 Can't wait for 2017!