July little things

(I’m slipping this in WAYYY after June, but love to have it here to document!)

June was filled right up with family and Newport and Utah.

We started out in Newport, all of us together to celebrate the 4th of July.

Lucy learned to cook Nichol’s pasta (our family favorite), along with some other good foods in July!

We loved having Jake (my nephew) with us, and also one of Grace’s dear friends from Hawaii:

Loads of Wimbledon watching and beach games:

…and beauty-walks:

Love these sweet girls who were with our friends there and took Lu to a movie with them:

Exploring my favorite Lido Village on bikes:

Oh the sunsets. You can’t miss a sunset in Newport.

It’s a rule I think 🙂

Our little condo flooded because of the air conditioner…so that was a little bit of a problem…

But we fixed it and loved having Josh with us part of the time:

…and some other friends too:

Played “One and Done” and the losers (two of them!) had to sing the star spangled banner at the ferry crossing:

Our other cousins came and stayed near us, LOVED sharing all our favorite places with them.

Lucy took her first solo flight so she could do the much anticipated Motor Home Trip with my parents and her group of cousins:

…and Grace had her first “solo drive” from the desert to Utah with Bo Jangles as her special co-pilot so we could get her up for the reunion:

Good friends visiting Newport:

When everyone started to clear out, just these two were left, and we decided we should probably get manicures:

…and cook beautiful food in the sunshine:

And then it was down to Elle and Josh so we rode bikes to Crystal Cove, ate at the Beachcomber Cafe (one of my favorites), and walked and biked all over that gorgeous spot:

Carson joined us after his board exam that he had been studying his guts out for, and we had a one-and-a-half day double date:

Loved that time with just those two kids…and the long car drive up to meet everyone else in Utah:

Claire’s summer school dorm room, and roommate:

FINALLY a reunion with Grace and Carson (who had missed each other in California):

Then it was time to get to this glory: Bear Lake!

For the annual Eyrealm Reunion.

We basked in all that glory and loved the “Count it all JOY” reunion.

The sisters and I had a conference call about our podcast launch coming up…pretty exciting business, and we had the best helper Molly to help us with the details (on the right below):

We had some special “just us” family time in Utah together, every one of the nine of us:

Together and a night at Graces summer apartment in Provo:

…all between Claire’s summer volleyball hoopla, teaching camps and practicing for the upcoming season:

Claire had a pretty incredible summer semester at BYU and met some pretty great friends:

Lucy adored that Motor Home trip with Grammie and Grandfather:

We basked in the Utah mountain glory, thanking our lucky stars we were not in the deep heat of the desert:

Love these Utahns!

The boys and this gaggle of kids headed off for their annual adventure in Oregon:

We soaked up the remaining people at Bear Lake:

And headed on home for missionary farewells and friend reunions:

Love this thought below, and Grace is snuggling one of her cousin’s babies.

Did I mention our kids have TWENTY-SEVEN cousins in that Utah area? (Counting cousin-in-laws but not the rapidly growing number of babies). WOW, they have so much fun up there all together, how incredibly lucky they are to have that army of support!

Dave and Lu had their LAST TRIP TO WISCONSIN for her medication and the clinical trial:

And also up there above, she’s working her tail off to learn to braid her own hair.

Elsie came back with us from Utah so she could start school with Lucy (we made the long road trip together, and she was such a great travel companion!)

Lucy got all trained as to how to find her school classes, and had her FIRST DAY of classes:

(Elsie had to wait a couple days to get her documents all in order, but she started too, and it was so fun to have those two girls together at the same high school!)

Not sure what this call was for, but so fun to “gather” when we can!

I started my tradition of baking lots of loaves of bread and delivering to women in the Relief Society I haven’t caught up with in a while:

Dave helps me with the bread when I don’t have enough time to let it rise all the way:

Enjoying late-evening swim nights under the sunset sky:

More temple:

Loved having and “extra daughter” Elsie here and being able to snuggle her up for a week or so before her parents arrived:

A fun bridal shower:

And the wedding day at the temple with one of Dave’s cousins:

Wow, July was a month.

And it was also SEVEN MONTHS AGO…no wonder these pictures seem so ancient!