Such a great week!

We were waiting for dance to start one day and I got these pictures of Ali. If I were to paint them they would remind me of a cross between a Degas and a Rembrandt. The light shining through the window on the dancer. I thought they were beautiful photos of my beautiful daughter so they must be posted. Nothing else to do about it.

Curious minds want to know....

And the gap gets wider!!! Snaggletooth is his new nickname. Can you believe Ty lost another tooth? The irony of it all is when he had his last tooth pulled a few weeks ago my dentist told me to get him to the orthodontist straight away. So, we went, he has no teeth but we took him to the orthodontist and he needs a whole bunch of structural work done. Great! No teeth but here we come orthodontist.

Amanda turns 20!!! For those of you who have know me a long time you will be freaking out with me on this one. Amanda was my baby, she loved me the most for a very long time. She is all grown up and studying to become a nurse. She is such an amazing lady and I am lucky to know her. I love you Mands! You are going to do amazing things in this life because you are so DETERMINED!

We had such a great week because Sadie and Hollie came for a visit. We had so much fun hanging out with them and remembering what it is like to have a baby around.

Sadie was enthralled with the trumpet concert.

Sadie was not so amused with the soccer game. She wanted to get out there and play, what is this sit on the sidelines and watch thing. She got very good at saying open and tic-tac. She loves the pink gratefruit flavored tic-tacs!!!

Sadie loves to read especially books on the i-phone which she can load herself. Whhhatttt??? She can use the i-phone, find her apps and load them herself. Then she has fun playing them. Did I mention she is 18 months?

Sadie's favorite activity is playing with the dogs. Full facial kisses are the best, lots of dog tongue involved. Grosses us all out but she LOVES the dogs. The dogs love her too because she is so generous with them at meal time. They are more than happy to pick up whatever she drops, which is nearly everything you give her. It was so fun to have them visit!!

Ali at her soccer game doing tricks during her brake time. Shouldn't she be resting?

We have had such a fun week this week. So Byron's retirement plan is to buy one of those big rigs and have a traveling home. My plan is to buy a beach house and rescue sea turtles. We will see who wins. He was a happy man testing out this big $250,000 RV. It was nice I will give him that. As for being my permanent residence, I don't think so.

So I got amazing news today! We got a H&M in Farmington, Utah. That is only fifteen minutes from my house!!! Can you believe it? I discovered H&M as we were moving away from D.C. and was so sad to say good-bye. But then Dallas got one so that was better because I could shop it whenever I was visiting the Pollan's. Good bonus. But now, we are making it big-time in Utah. We got our own. So now we have Chipotle, which we love! Awesome chips and guac. We got Five Guys which Byron actually has talked out loud in his sleep about....not joking here. He was so happy for Five Guys to come, we even have a Five Guys Now Open sign hanging in our garage from their opening week. Best burgers around....I hate to get greedy here but I could still really use a Pot Belly Sandwich; amazing sandwiches and shakes...... and a Sweetwater Tavern, best ribs ever! I know I am asking a lot, but look at all the great Eastern establishments that have moved out West so far....it could happen, right? So tonight for date night you know where you can find me. H&M here I come!!! Such a great week!!!

Reminder to Self- broken vase and crocodile tears

There were big crocodile tears. They were Ali's, not mine. She felt bad and said she was sorry. I picked up all the pieces and asked if she was ready for soccer yet.

When considering whether to buy pottery for exorbitant amounts of money while at the Jackson Hole Art Festival....please refrain.....this one lasted an entire year and one month. Why did I fall in love with the swirly orange twists and the beautiful red interior???? Alas, another one bites the dust. Tonight's project....see if I can superglue it back together. It won't be water tight but I can still look at the pretty orange swirls.

New Trees in the Yard- Out with the old in with the new

Best peach crop ever. This is only half of it. I already picked the first round. They are so yummy! Too bad we are probably pulling out this tree to put in an RV pad.

Chinese Lace Bark Pine

Candicans Colorado Fir

I like how instead of feeding hummingbirds we are feeding wasps. Urgh! I need to reset the wasp traps and get rid of these buggers. Between the raspberry bushes and the sugar water we are doing a good job of drawing them into the yard. There were about a dozen wasps swarming this feeder.

So I took out the aspens about a dozen of them. Three were substantial in size, probably 30 feet tall. Four were mid range about twenty feet and the rest were 8 foot saplings. We are still working on getting the stumps out- so far we have one done.

To replace the aspens I put in two new trees. Chinese Lace Bark Pine and Candicans Colorado Fir. I was looking for moderate trees 20-30 feet not 60' or more. I found these two and loved them. Especially the Candicans Fir. I even had that one delivered because it was so big but I wanted it so bad. The guy was really nice and brought it all the way up my hill. He even pulled it out of the plastic and dropped it into the hole for me. What service! Yeah for Rockin' E Nursery. I will be back. Plus I added a new Rainer cherry tree which the deer immediately ate all the leaves off of. I hope it grows back next year. And I added an Elberta peach tree, the deer only ate a fourth of the leaves off this one. So glad I could provide them with a nice salad for dinner. On the ground I put in three Rose of Sharon bushes. I love these as they are blooming right now when not much else is. Hopefully it will all live. Oh and we got the boys banana trees planted up on the hill amidst all these new trees. Will they live through the winter? The catalog said they were cold hardy up to -35 degrees. The catalog also said we would get strawberries the size of peaches and we haven't seen those yet. We shall see next spring.

I really am in love with my two new pine trees and can't wait to decorate them with white christmas lights. I just love the hill lit up for Christmas.

Olympic Park/ Park City

My Mom ended up with forty or so free passes to play up at the Olympic Park in Park City so we got the cousins together to go for a ride. We had plenty of turns going down the zip-lines, the alpine slide and the EXTREME zip line. Believe me it was extreme. I really wanted to do the bob sled but Byron said I would have to wait for winter. He wants to do it on real snow or ice or whatever is on a bobsled run. So for our next Anniversary we are going to do it.

The line of cousins ready to head down the alpine slide. There is a section on the slide where it is built on scaffolding and is really cool. It was very old school roller coasterish. This was worth the wait. We waited twice too because last time we came up to ride it rained on us and we had to take a bus back down to the bottom.

I hate to advertise our favorite restaurants because that could potentially make them more busy the next time we try to go but Bangkok Thai in Park City is by far the best Thai food on the planet. So good. In this photo Tyler had just spilled another glass of water, which made the second for the evening. The funny part was he actually dumped it straight into his lap. That must have been cold.

Byron and I ready to slide.

A trip to Park City isn't complete without a picture by the Bear and a trip to the chocolate store for a caramel apple. The apples were delicious and the bear is as cute as always. We drove the kids by the shoe tree and they spent much time speculating as to why all the people threw their shoes into the tree. Amusing conversation.

This looks like Rachael and Tyler zooming down on the Zip Line. The kids did the short zip and the adults got to do the extreme zip. The extreme zip was fine until they had me propped against the door ready to burst through and then I decided maybe I had made a bad choice here. It was fun though once I finished my initial scream and realized I hadn't plummeted into oblivion.

The cousins had so much fun going down the alpine slide and zip-lines. It was a beautiful day with extra long lines but we still had lots of fun.

Creative Arts Academy

I love how all these girls are dressed in a ballet uniform. It makes me want to sit and take photos the whole class long. They are so sweet in their matching costumes.

Of course she wanted to be dancing for the photograph. We are at dance class aren't we.

Ali and Gabby started their first class at their new dance studio. We were going to another dance place over the summer but they let Gabby's Mom kindly know that Gabby was to tall for their competition dance squad. Are you kidding me? These girls are 5 and they are already singling them out because their bodies are not perfect....what is this world coming too? So we both switched studios and are hoping for better things here.

Ali's First Soccer Game of the Season

Post game treat. Yummy sticky donut. She was nice and shared bites with her brothers.

Ali was a superstar at her first soccer game. Not only did she look darling running around in her shin guards and pink cleats but she played really well too. She blocked about ten goals from going in. It is like she has a defense geared brain. Whatever happens don't let the other team get the ball into the goal. At this age there is no goalie but she was always ready to hang back and deflect any balls heading toward the goal. They have another cute girl who is geared toward scoring so between the two of them they should have a great season.

Streeeeetching out Summer.

We took a little trip up to Pine View Reservoir with our friends the Gappmayer's. Brett is showing us how it's done on the knee board. He even performed a 360 around the back move. We will have to practice some more to get that good.

Kiddos having a lunch time swim.

Ali and Gabby hanging out on the boat.

Relaxing in Pine View Lake with the Gappmayers. Brett, Byron and all the kids jumped in for a little dip. Thanks Gappmayer's for such a fun trip!

So I had to taunt him but Byron performed a nice back flip off the back of the boat into the lake. The boys wouldn't do one though.
Do you think she is having fun?

Nikki and Kate just before Kate fell asleep on Nikki's lap.

This is my triumphant moment when I got myself up onto the knee board. I have to say my boys all made it look so easy and I was worried I wouldn't be able to keep up with Tyler and Carter. Their skills are increasing quickly, one day they will out do me and I will have to admit defeat and cry about being the old Mom, but NOT TODAY! I even swished the board back and forth and my boys were very impressed with my "skills."

Ali had a fun time on the water skier trainer. She was waving hi and singing. I am pretty sure she would have stayed out there all day if we hadn't hit that big bump.

This was too cute. Tyler, Ali, Gabby and Kate were all bouncing around like Mexican Jumping Beans. It did get pretty rough and Ali had to come back to the boat for some reassurance. Nobody flew out though.

Happy boys after tubing together. They had a wild ride but managed to stay on their raft.

Tyler smiling after his turn on the knee board. He was up and out of the water in no time.

Waiting for Carter to finish his gymnastics class lends itself to lots of fun things; including the Ali pretzel.

Allowance day is the funnest day at our house. The kids all run around like crazy checking jobs off their job chart and when they get them all done they get their $10.00 They think they are rich at this moment and throw out all ideas of saving for big ticket items. The long box Tyler was diligently saving for gone. He even put $8 into his savings account last week but three days later when he got another $10 out it came. He withdrew everything there is .18 cents left in there just to keep his account open. The boys are happy with their new Beyboard and Bey tops. Some sort of advanced top game. Ali is loving her new fish named Rainbow. It has stayed alive for nearly a full day now. We are braking records here folks!

This is not my car but when I walked by and saw it I was wishing it was.....I know no coveting... but seriously cute bug.

We are trying our hardest to stretch out summer for as long as we can. Why do I dread the coming of winter? I ran into a friend in Jackson Hole last month who lives there full time. I just can't even imagine living somewhere colder than Utah. Her advice was to "embrace winter." So that is my goal this coming winter. I will be embracing it. I guess that means I have to say yes to the Alta pass my husband keeps asking about. Do I want a ski pass or not? Well no, but if I am embracing winter than I guess the answer has to be yes. Okay, so here we go....the official start of me embracing winter. You may need to remind me of this resolution when the first flakes start to fly. It is pretty easy to embrace winter when it is still 80 plus degrees outside.