June seems like a blur in my mind right now.  I kind of felt like this girl of mine all month, except maybe with some big iron balls connected to my feet.
Ha!  
It was a good month though…we made it through with smiles thanks to our new simplified summer routine (back HERE). 
(My friend just sent me those pics from a “mud” birthday bash a while back.  Thanks Ashley!)
We started out the month with a great pizza-making-fest with some good friends.

Love them all so much.

We worked our tails off to get some landscaping done (this little plant research session was at 2:00 in the morning before I left for the BBS conference):
Speaking of the BBS conference, I spent each Tuesday night for the last little while on the phone for conference calls trying to help get it all situated. It all turned out great, and I have so much to share about all the things I learned soon.

Did I mention we worked on landscape a bunch?

Can’t wait to get all that dirt covered so we’re not tracking around non-stop dirt into the house.

Every morning swim team:

The girls went to girls’ camp.  Here’s Elle getting her stuff ready:
 

And Grace’s goods getting ready to go…

We had to drop off all their stuff the night before:
 

And then the next morning they were out.

I got a whole bunch of great pics from my friend but can’t get them uploaded right now.  Suffice it to say, they had a great time.  Elle was in charge of doing the slide show and worked her tail off on it when she got home.  I’ll have to post a link when I can get it from her.
Humans of ny interesting-ness:

Makes me want to store up as much love and memories in Lucy’s brain before it’s too late.

Speaking of Lu, she went crazy in June with some craft-making-extraviganzas:

She has this awesome book (I think given to us by my mom) that gives great instructions on how to make all sorts of cool things.

I mean, is that a cool snake or what?

She also got a little patriotic.  I love how she puts a whole slew of mediums to use.

Grace somehow sweet-talked me into this after doing a whole bunch of work for me:

And Elle had a little meeting with a modeling agency…

We went to dinner with our dear friends we miss:

Max took the ACT again.  This is the only pic. I could grab:

Grace did her first photo shot a while back.  She was pleased as punch that this family chose to blow up her pictures on canvases and hang them in their home.

They were pretty cute.

It was Father’s Day.  For the pictures we took click HERE, but here is my snippet from church:

I had some dads come into primary and we interviewed them with all sorts of questions.  We sang them their favorite songs.  If the kids sang well enough we cut off their ties.  (Old ties we had brought from home but the kids ate it up).

Luckily Lucy had made Dave a new one in her class:

She helped make a grand Father’s Day feast:

She’s getting pretty good at peeling potatoes late…a newfound talent for our girl:)

We gathered with Dave’s dad that night before he and Dave’s mom left for Ghana.

Max scored when I sweet-talked these two teenagers into running some errands with me.  We ran into Marshalls and he found and bought himself some white crocs for $5.95.

He was so darn excited about those things and had a little extra skip in his step as he traipsed around Costco with me.  That kid’s sense of style sure cracks me up.

I love stuff like this:

We took out some time to work on balancing a checkbook.

These kids have been earning a little bit with all the summer stuff they’ve been doing.

(Money system is back HERE…I know I’ve linked to that a bunch, but people ask a lot so there you go.)

During Max’s volleyball season a bunch of his non-volleyball friends signed up for a community basketball team.  Since Max couldn’t play he and a friend were the “coaches.”  They cracked me up.  Max had an iPod to show the team plays (but played games on it in jest most of the time) and even made himself a compass bolo tie and wore a suit to most of the games.  This is the only game I could go to and even then I only caught the last few seconds…

…the seconds after Max got kicked out of the game because he tried to go in and play for one of the guys on the team who had fouled out and they didn’t have enough players to finish the game.  Max had thrown on one of their jerseys and tried to play in his spanking-new white crocs for a few points until the referee caught on.

Seriously these boys crack me up.

I love that they are finding active things to do.

Dave and I celebrated our anniversary (HERE).
I talked about how many funny things I do like my mom back HERE.  She always takes pictures of great food.  Somehow sometimes I can’t resist doing the same.

Because honestly, look how good that looks.

On the morning of our anniversary I woke up at 3:30 am to take Elle to meet her carpool group who were taking her to the airport.

She got to meet up with some great kids and great leaders.

…and go on what they call a “Legacy Tour.”  
It’s a tour of all the Mormon church history sights.
I have always wanted to do that, and my girl got to do it before me.  Lucky girl.
Here they are getting ready for a little prayer before they left for the airport:
Then all those kids left their families and every single technological device behind and headed out for the trip of a lifetime.  
I felt so happy they didn’t have anything to distract from such an event and spirit-filled trip (that was one of my favorite things about the trip), but man oh man I sure missed being able to text that girl.
She brought her camera and took some awesome photos.  I’m trying to sweet-talk her into doing a guest post for me outlining all the cool stuff she did, but until then, here’s her schedule.  
They spent a LOT of hours on the bus exploring all over the place.

So happy for her that she got to have such a unique and great experience.

In the meantime Grace and I had some funny adventures at self-checkout at the grocery store.

…Without my wallet I had left at home and scrounging up any cash we could find in Dave’s car as well as a few dollars I happened to have in my pocket.  We were trying to get ready for her birthday I would be out of town for.  So sad.  But people sure took good care of her while I was gone and we got to celebrate before I left too (HERE).
Here she is with one of her church leaders who came with the other girls and surprise-decorated.
Other friends kidnapped her and took her out to breakfast.
Sweetness I tell you.
Lu got to play with a few good friends a bunch.

…at home and at swim team.

These girls finished up a good swim season and then we were off…
…for the BBS conference and for South Carolina for the fourth of July.
I do love summer.

Similar Posts

7 Comments

  1. Elle meeting with a modeling agency! No surprise – she is beautiful! Did they find her through your blog and contact you? I'm sure that her church history trip was an amazing experience.
    And cute Grace and her first photo shoot! Very cool!!

    1. Great question! In case Shawni doesn't get a chance to respond, check out these responses: http://bit.ly/1zTvhXk; http://bit.ly/1lg9Gyq. In short, members of our church have the opportunity to be baptized by proxy (in place of) our ancestors who have died (no dead people being unearthed and baptized. Creepy 🙂 ) . We believe those that have died have the agency to accept or reject this ordinance performed for them.

  2. What a busy and fun month it looks like you and your family had…I can't tell you how much I enjoy reading your blog and appreciate the tips you share with regard to parenting…i.e. the money system, chore charts, etc. As a mom–it's so nice to be uplifted and inspired each time I stop by to read.

    many blessings…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *