A Quick Birthday Visit

Hanxton loves Bryce so much and really wanted him to come to his birthday party. It worked out that the kids didn't have anything going on that day and luckily I have the summers off so we decided to go and make a day trip of it. We picked up Grandma Marshall in Cedar City on the way. Hanxton was so excited to see Bryce. They played and played until it was time for us to head back home. 

Happy Birthday Hanx! You are one special little guy. 

Swim Lessons

Bryce took swim lessons again this year. He is really good at swimming already and pretty confident in the water, but we just wanted him to get stronger and learn new skills. Since he could pretty much swim independently most of what they worked on this year was arms and breathing. He did pretty good with his arms for being such a young kid. His breathing was hard. His teachers was trying to get him to breathe out of his nose and he just couldn't do it (he can't even really blow his nose). It was partly a sensory thing with him but he was super frustrated and to the point of not wanting to go back-and he loves to swim. I talked to his swim teacher and we decided that she would have him breathe out of his mouth instead of his nose and after that he was just fine. 

He did great in swim lessons and afterwards he was even more confident in the water. He now goes down all the local water slides life jacket free-something he wasn't doing last year. He also can dive down really deep to retrieve items, such as diving rings and stuff like that. And guess what a few weeks after swim lessons he taught himself how to breathe out of his nose. He was so proud of himself and so was I. #BryceEE

Early Morning Bike Rides

We have a really nice park that was recently built not far from our house. Unfortunately the only time we had visited was when it snowed and we went there to do some sledding. 

Bryce and I decided to go on an adventure and get up early enough to ride our bikes and then play before it got to hot. He was so excited that we were up and out the door before 7. It was a beautiful morning and Bryce had a blast exploring and playing with the whole park mostly to himself. We will definitely try to go back again. 

Summer+Cousins=Fun

 One of the best things about summer is that we get to spend a lot of time with our cousins doing fun things. Whether its a trip to the splash pad or pool or just getting cold treat together. These kids are always happy when they are together.

Here are some pictures of some of our adventures so far this summer...

St. George Carousel

Snow Cones from Honakulai Ice with Grandma Tawny

Swimming at the Washington Rec Center

Here's to many more adventures and fun play dates with our cousins this year.

For Free

I had to go to Costco just to pick up a few pictures I had ordered. On the way in Bryce saw several people leaving with watermelons in their carts. He asked me if we could please just get a watermelon. I said yes and headed back to pick one up. Then I got in line with nothing but our melon. There was a nice older gentlemen in front of us and he told the cashier that he wanted to pay for our watermelon too. Bryce thought that was great that he got his watermelon for free.

#payitforward

Picking Cherries

There is a cherry farm in Hurricane, not to far from us, and I decided it would be a fun outing to go and pick some cherries. My sister Tiffanie and her kids joined us. The kids all had a blast picking cherries, even Bryce participated and had fun although we weren't able to get him to try any of them afterwards.

Fresh Fruit is the best and for some reason it seems to taste even better when you pick it yourself.

May Book Recap

Here is a look at what I read in May...

The Upside of Down-I really wanted this book to be more than it was. It was okay, but I wanted it to talk more about raising a child with downs and it didn't. I love novels and true stories about children with disabilities so I was just a little bit disappointed with this book. 

I liked both A Dog's Way Home and Perfect Set. I like most of the books written by both these authors so no surprise there-2 thumbs up.

Sold on a Monday and Where the Crawdads sing were my favorite reads this month. I gave them both 5 stars. They were both thought provoking and intriguing in their own way. It took me a little bit to get into Where the Crawdads Sing, but once I did it was great. 

Memorial Day Weekend at Otter Creek

For Memorial Day Weekend we headed to one of our favorite lakes-Otter Creek. My Mom and Jeff and a few of Jeff's kids went as well.

Last year we never made it to Otter Creek so we were all super excited to be going and to get to use our new trailer again. 

 We spotted a rainbow on the way-it must mean good things ahead.

 Bryce and Chloe were happy to get there.

 The weather was nice, maybe just a little bit colder than we had planned on, but nice.

My Mom and Jeff rented a Pontoon boat for part of the day on Saturday.

 The fishing wasn't great for anyone. Nobody was catching much-they just weren't biting like they usually do when we go there. However, I did manage to catch a couple of nice ones from the beach-I think Chloe was pretty jealous. 

 Bryce really wanted to catch a fish, but he just didn't pull it off. We bought him and Chloe both new poles before the trip so they wanted to break them in. Maybe next time.

 I think we were all happy just to be at the lake. Despite not catching many fish and the cold temperatures we all had a great time. It was a nice relaxing few days.

#OtterCreek #favoritelake

Moqui Caverns

On our way home from the Kanab tournament we decided to stop and do a little exploring. It was raining, but not so bad that we let it deter us. First stop was the Moqui Caverns-some cool caves just off the road outside of Kanab. We found a place on the side of the road to park and made the short trek up to them. They were pretty neat.

We decided that we would take the scenic route on the way home and drive through Zions. It was a beautiful drive, despite the crowds. We even stopped and went into the park and hiked to the weeping rock. After that we were ready to get back home. I took Bryce to find a bathroom first and we ended up getting caught in a pouring rainstorm and were drenched by the time we got back to the truck-only to find Landon out in the same rainstorm jump starting the battery to his pickup which was dead because he had left his lights on. We were all 3 soaked.

Good thing the drive back home was short. We were all happy to change into dry clothes as soon as we got there. 

Despite the rain it was a fun was to end our weekend