Jackson Hole Summer 2012

We made it up to our family’s condo in Teton Village TWICE this summer, which is a new record for us since having kids.  Seth and I used to spend a lot of time there, but with five kids in tow, travel is just a little trickier these days.

Our first trip was a week-long holiday over the fourth of July with Jeremy & Chris’s family.  The kids had a blast and were so excited to spend a week with their cousins.  In usual form, a really fun bug somehow made its way through all TEN of our kids, which made for lots and lots of vomit.  Other than that (and one trip to the emergency clinic for a very dehydrated little cousin ), the trip was a success!

Free gondola rides after 4:00 p.m. means we did a lot of traveling to the top of the mountain

All the cousins.  We are so lucky that all our kids match up and they adore each other.

Swimming at the condo pool

We drove into Teton National Park and had a campfire dinner at the Gros Ventre campground

And saw a moose…..

Then we did some paddleboarding on Jenny Lake

On the way home we happened to drive through Soda Springs right when the geyser was erupting, so we stopped to let the kids see it

 

Jackson trip #2

Three weeks later we were back at it again, this time with the rest of the Wallace clan.  Ben & Megan were in town and made it up for a few days.  It was so nice spending time with them and our other family members we don’t get to see as often!

Family day hangin out by the river.  Its amazing how long a river will entertain kids.

They skipped rocks, splashed in the water, took turns “floating” down, tried to commandeer logs and turn them into watercraft, and some even had a nice bath (Ok, just one…..)

But isn’t he the cutest????  Such a nice, round bum.

After our picnic, we rode bikes up the road a ways via the fabulous bike path they have in the park. It was so much fun. So much in fact, that the ladies snuck out the next day and rode from the condo all the way back to Jenny Lake.  It was fabulous!

Just having fun in the village square

We let the kids do some of the rides at the ski resort since we had some passes left over from trip #1

Noodle was our best “flipper”

On our last night Grandma Lesli took us all to the the Bar J Wranglers.  I haven’t been for years and my kids have never been.  I wasn’t sure if they would appreciate the music and the humor or not, but they loved it! Sparky especially.  He was cracking up at all their silly jokes. After the show, he told me he really loved the fiddle music and wants to learn to play the fiddle.  Such a sweet boy!

It was a successful summer season in Jackson to say the least!  Now, if we can just get up there one time this winter for some skiing, that will really be a miracle!  Thanks everyone for such great trips!

Oh Crap, I forgot!

I hate it when I get behind on my blog. I’m trying really hard to get caught up, and just when I feel like I’m making progress, I look through my pictures and discover that I have forgotten stuff!  Lots of stuff!  Well, I can’t be a proper family record keeper and just leave stuff out, now can I, so now if you’ll bear with me, I have a little “catching up” to do……

 

Lets start with some fun summer field trips:

Nature walk around the lake with the Martin & Whitemyer kids

Quick day-trip out to Antelope Island.  Kenni was over the moon because she got to do the Junior ranger program and she got another State Park stamp on her passport

Took the kids to see the Airplanes at the Aerospace museum when Kenni & Sparky were there for space camp.  They loved it.  Such a great (free) activity for kids.

And of course we hit McD’s after that for some grease-burgers and Ice cream (It was baby J’s birthday).

 

 

 

Ok, on to the next thing I completely skipped over……

Fathers Day!  Happy Fathers day Seth!  We love you so much!

 

And of course we can’t forget about Noodle’s stitches…..

We drove down to SLC one evening in early summer to watch Seth play on his outdoor old man soccer league.  It was the first game we had been able to attend and we were so excited to be there…….for about fifteen minutes, which is when Noodle came over to me crying.  He had fallen off the playground and cut his chin.  I told him it was no big deal and I would get him a band-aid, but when I cleaned the blood away, I could see a big chunk of fatty tissue just gaping open there on his chin.  I figured that was probably a bad thing.  I sat there debating in my head what to do with him (I avoid doctors and hospitals at all costs…..) when another parent came to take a look and said it definitely required stitches.  Dang it.  So, I loaded five kids up in the car again, said a quick good-bye to Seth and headed back towards home looking for an insta-care facility.

Two hours and five stitches later……. all better.

 

Twenty-four hours later those puppies burst open while he was jumping on the trampoline and I literally saw two hundred dollars just running down the drain.  Aggghhh!  kids! 

 

Ok, last thing.  I got the rare privilege of babysitting my sweet nephew Mr. T.

Baby J loooooovvvvvved having a real baby to play with.  Mr. T? Not so much.    But he was a good sport, and he let her play “baby” with him for awhile before he let me know he had had enough.  Hmmmmm……. maybe this is why I don’t get to babysit him much anymore???

 

Wowza- I think that is all for today!  I feel better already.  Now I can move forward with just the regular old “Im way behind” posts and not have to stress out about stuff that went undocumented. Thanks for your continued patience.  We will get there eventually….I promise!

New roommates

So we’ve been back in our new (old) house for a few months now, and everything is getting back to normal, with just a few changes.  Since the boys all shared a room in our rental house in Price, I couldn’t convince any of them to go to different rooms now that we are back home.  I explained that we have more bedrooms here, and they could branch out and all have their own rooms, but they were not having it!  So I thought what the heck! I’ll just let them all sleep together, it’ll promote brotherly togetherness, and harmony and all that, right? 

Wrong.

They stay awake for hours, giggling, wrestling, and getting into all manner of trouble.  I come down the stairs at least 3 times a night yelling, threatening, etc.  Its really awful.  Every day I vow tomorrow is the day I will separate them.

And then I wake up to this……

Just look at them all snuggled together like that.  Its so sweet! So then of course I become a huge sucker and the process repeats itself…..

Why are sleeping kids so adorable?

It really makes it hard to be an effective parent sometimes.

Its Birthday Season!

It finally occurred to me this year (duh……) that 3 of my 5 children have birthdays that land within a 10 day window.  OH gross!  I don’t know how this happened to me, but it has made for a really busy week and a half! 

Here we go- Baby J was first.  She turned two and now I’m starting to worry that she is not my baby anymore .  Soon I will have to call her “Terrible Toddler J”- well, actually that name already applies but we’ll pretend it doesn’t since its her birthday.

We had a joint b-day party at mom & dad’s pool for J & L.

Yes its her birthday and I forgot her swimming suit.  But she doesn’t care- she was just enthralled with these ridiculous goggles.

 

Next was Sparky’s turn.  He got to have a birthday party with his friends at the drive in movie.  We took them to see Ice Age 35 or something like that.  (there have been too many….) But they loved it anyway.

(Thanks again for coming to help me Chow!  I couldn’t have done it without you! OH, and the same goes for the next party……. You’ll see…….)

 

Ok, last was Smurfy’s big day.  I am ashamed to say that at the end of this 10 day extravaganza, I was a bit exhausted, not to mention we went on a family vacation right in the middle of all this that I will post later.  Anyway- my point is, I kind of dropped the ball on Smurf’s party.  It wasn’t till about a month later.  You can’t tell from the pictures though, right? They all still look happy

We went to the new splash pad in town and it was a hoot (and free. I love free.)

He seriously adores this stuffed chicken he got from his friend.  He sleeps with it every night.  Such a funny, sweet boy!

Summer Camps & Lessons

Our summer began with a whirlwind of camps and lessons the kids had signed up for.  First on the docket?  Tennis camp!  One week of lessons up at the high school for Kenni & Sparky. They loved it and the younger kids so badly wished they could play too.  I never thought I’d say this, but I think we may become a tennis family?  The kids have all started asking for tennis rackets for their birthdays.  (Probably because I made them play with D.I. rackets, much to their utter humiliation )  Bwaaaaaa-haaaahaa!

 

Next in line was Aerospace camp!  Seth’s Grandpa Pantone volunteers his time recovering and fixing up old war planes from World War II for the Hill Airforce base Museum, so he had the inside scoop on getting our kids into this awesome camp.  They learned so much!  (Again, there was an age limit, so the younger ones didn’t get to go, but they so badly want to go when they are old enough).

 

And last were Swimming Lessons.  This is the first year we have actually put something together out at my mom’s pool, even though we’ve been trying to do it for years.  I was a little worried about driving down there every day for two weeks, but it turned out to be really fun.  All the kids did great in their lessons and I loved their instructors!  We will definitely do it this way again next year.

Stake Lagoon Day

When I was a kid, we looked forward every year to stake lagoon day!  We knew it was the only chance our family would get to go to Lagoon because it is otherwise just too dang expensive.  Now that I have a family of my own, stake lagoon day is still our tradition.  We have a lot of friends and neighbors who have season passes and go all the time, but I think that takes some of the magic out of it!  For us its still a once a year on that magical and dreadful day This year, I managed to convince my brother Marty’s family to come along with us.  They were perfect Lagoon-mates.  Our kids are the same ages, have the same “thrill-levels”, and are equally obnoxious. Also, they too, are Lagoon deprived and see it as a rare treat just to be there, so that’s fun!  In fact, I was shocked when Lisa agreed to meet me there on such short notice.  (Marty was later shocked when he discovered how much it costs, even with the Church discount.  Its just not what it used to be.  I told him to keep in mind that he has SIX KIDS…….) 

Anyway- it was a great day (sweltering hot!) and I took loads of pictures, so here are a few!

Oh wait- I have to start by showing you this little bit of evolution evidenced in photographs!  This is Baby J’s first time on an amusement park ride.  As you can see, she is clearly not a fan.  She is screaming and pointing at me to tell me that this is all my fault!

Now shes so offended she can’t even look at me!

Wait………wait- is that a smile I see????

Success!  She now officially loves rides!  PHew- what a drama queen She is going to kill me someday for this.

Ok, now we have all the kids lined up for Bombora.  May I just say before our husbands arrived, Lisa and I did look pretty funny herding these ELEVEN children through the park.  But we only lost one a few times

Isn’t that the cutest?  I think they were nervous for the big coaster

Another Stake Lagoon Day on the books!  Thank goodness we all survived!