Catching Up Is Hard to Do

Whew. So many pictures, so little posting...

Here's where we play the catch up game. You ready?

First:

The Background.

1. Last soccer game. Josh rocked the game. Fun team, good coaches. Hooray.

2. Family picnic in the craziest thunderstorm. Hail. Lightning. Buckets of water. Kate and Ben, terrified. Fun with Eric & Nina, Kurt & Ashleigh, Blake, his girlfriend, Hillevie, and Chapin.

3. Ben, almost naked, eating on the kitchen counter. I just want to eat him up sometimes.

4. Third grade Pet Day. Sophie brought Natalia. But only after she cried hysterically for 45 minutes about why I gave away her guinea pig, Teddy. "How could you? HOW COULD YOU?" Well, this is how I could. And guess when they left the GreenHouse? Um, yeah...in February. Has anyone missed them? Nope. Not one word has been spoken about them. Did I cry a tear for Sophie's sadness? Well, honestly...nope. I'm just glad the smelly things are in a good home.

5. Wasatch Back Barbecue. Fun was had by all.

6. Last Day of School. Did I cry? Heck, yes. When they played taps and lowered the flag, I was just glad I had on my sunglasses. I don't even know if it was our last year at this school or not, but I bawled as if it had been. Cute kids, great teachers, happy place.

7. Last Day of School hot dog roast and chalk art festival. We had a water day planned, but we got rained out. Go figure.

8. The neighborhood helped tear out and re-sod Jeff and Liz's front yard. We won't say why it had to be done (too much fertilizer. Oops. Did I just say that?), but we will say that we had a great and magnificently dirty time helping fix the problem.

9. Liz and I did a long run that ended up involving the craziest thunderstorm I've ever seen. Wet t-shirt contest. I win.

10. Father's Day was a rousing success. The picture Katrina painted is lovely and David was so surprised. He ALWAYS guesses his presents. This one...he didn't guess. Thank you, Katrina!

11. I took the cousins to the park to hike the stream. Loved it.

12. We had our first two weekly neighborhood barbecues. More about those in another post. Suffice it to say, I LOVE MY NEIGHBORHOOD. (Oh, yeah, you already knew that.)

13. Our trip to the St. Joe river fell through. We decided to opt for a staycation. (Did I really just use the term "Staycation?" Yes. Deal with it.)

Day 1: Hike to Timp Cave, visit BYU, have lunch at the Cougareat (good times, good times.), and go to the I Spy exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art.
Day 2: Lagoon in all its glory
Day 3: Fishing in Midway
Day 4: Cleaning the house (what a fun vacation!) and having dinner with Matt and Ananda! Hooray Matt and Ananda! We stayed up until 3 am talking. I shouldn't stay up until 3 am anymore, but it was still extra fun.

14. Natalia had a stroke. So sad. She's still improving, though, so I'm hopeful.

15. Ben and Ez had a blast pulling out all the flowers from our front flowerpots, and pulling leaves off of our front tree. We had a blast re-planting them (not) and watching them perish. Ahhhh...two year olds. They're never boring.

You still here? You are brave.

Second:

The pictures: