What we did over the summer...

In June we took a "stay-cation" at a resort in Peoria for a couple of nights. 

We spent hours in their enormous pool.

Dallin went down this slide dozens of times. He was the only one of our kids tall enough to ride.

 It's pretty nice having an 8 year old who can haul all the luggage back to the car!

For the 4th of July we were at home. We went to Water N Ice to fill bottles of water and let all the kids pick out their own treat. Dallin chose this huge jawbreaker and licked it until it was about half-way gone in one day. The dental hygienist in me cringes when I see these pictures! I don't know what I was thinking ;)

We painted and drew pictures on our driveway and then lit our own fireworks. Dallin is a little pyro--he loves fireworks more than anything. My dad gave him a huge box of fireworks that he had collected over the years and Dallin wouldn't go inside until we had lit them all.

At the end of July we went to a parade in Jarom's hometown. The kids are here sitting on the curb waiting for candy to be thrown. This parade is the highlight of their summer. I think they look forward to it more than Christmas.

 For the rest of the summer we tried to always find a pool to swim in and keep cool. These are pictures at a Junior High pool. Dallin jumped off the high dive about 30 times until he had a headache. I couldn't get pictures because I had to stay near the little ones.

Check out those moves!

Then a couple of days before school started, I made a special dinner for the kids complete with crowns celebrating their new grade and a little bubbly to make it feel festive!