Back to school

 Jude is excited to have Miss Schmitt this year for 2nd grade.

 Not sure if you can see the girls behind this mess on the desks, but Mrs. Stenfors has already told them they will be split. I tried to tell them to pretend like they didn't know each other but the matching backpacks may have been a giveaway.

 Three funny ladies, I think the girls will enjoy Mrs.Stenfors.

 Roe hugging head locking Jude

 1st day of 7th grade with boys =no drama, no trouble sleeping, no nerves and not really into taking pictures.

 girls not shy around the camera

 scary that this is only1/3 of our kids

 Jude showing off his tan and fighting the water

football fun @ Discovery center, half days every day would be nice!

 

Sometimes I wonder if I should have held Jude back, some of his besties are in 1st grade this year, don't think that would fly with a March b day.

We are family

I got all my sisters with me:)! This makes my heart happy, when we get together a natural mood lifter, funny because we are so different in every way, maybe that is why we get along so well. Kenzie watched all the kiddos and we all got a date night at Bourbon & Baker with my parents. With Jess living in Utah, this is a rarity so much loved.

Eddie treated us and the kids to a day on the lake, lots of laughs.

 I made Mason piggyback me to the jet ski, I was super nervous that our driver was screaming and I thought I would be ejected into the puddle by the end of the trip.

Tia had to be boated back to the dock for a pee break so she didn't partake in this experience.

 Kingston loved to "drive" the boat before falling asleep at the wheel.

I think we were over capacity on the pontoon.

Stuck in muddy waters here.

Summer Skills

Jeryka wanted the girls to put their list of skills somewhere they would see them often, I found Roe's hanging above her bed one morning and it is still there.

Roe had some tough skills to get this summer and has been working hard on giants, she did them for the first time this week and I don't think I have ever seen her so excited.

Jeryka is the biggest motivator, I just pray Roe will be this driven and disciplined in other aspects in her life than just the gym.

I think I have a future coach on my hands, she has loved spending the summer afternoons helping with the younger girls. In the gym and away from girl drama is fine with me, even if she is pretty stinky and sweaty, she fits right in with my boys that way:)

Some blurry repeated footage & Trav told me a weak ending but Im not feeling any editing.

On the road again

Our last afternoon we spent soaking up the sun at the park with friends and family, these two do not tolerate too much sun or heat. The goodbye was a little easier knowing the Pond gang would be heading to Ks soon:)

I thought they outlawed this spin around wheelbarrow thing, we used to have one of these at city park, maybe they make them safer now, maybe I don't want to know.

I tried this new age merry go round and thought it looked super fun, I think you need to be a little shorter to fly like Trinity is.

We decided to stop on the way home and got some good recommendations of fun things to do in Vail for the day. It was gorgeous here.

This pack no longer fits in one hotel room, I think I have mentioned before, another blessing of vacationing at my sisters house, we all had enough sleeping space.

We rented bikes around the villages a thumbs up, Jude had to warm up to the hand breaks.

Night out on the town, not quite as successful as the day, lots of expensive busy places to eat, we ended up going back close to our hotel for Bart & Yettis, a little more kid friendly.

The kids would be happy hanging at the pool

And then just when we were getting pumped up for the drive home we ran into 2.5 hours of this crap! Again makes me so thankful that we live in a place without traffic. Kingston had to pee, Jude, Roe & Xander were thirsty, and all we have left in the cooler is beer.
Back to reality and time to make my one family vacation scrapbook a year, since my kids don't have any of their own, they can at least reminisce on vaca pics someday.

Snowbird

 did not disappoint! We debated between going up to Park City or snowbird & decided to try something new.

We stopped at the C-store to pick up some 1.00 sodas to save 8.00 on each pass, it was worth it, but we got some stares caring out 9 big swigs out, we be cheap like that.

For 32.00 you could stay and play all day and was a gorgeous 70ish degrees up at the resort.

 The ropes course was not a favorite, but looked pretty awesome I thought. Then again, this was easy to say from watching below.

 the bungee trampoline, always looks like a lot of work to me

 the mountain coaster was everyone's favorite

 kind of like the balance beam??

 the food was a little disappointing, not a lot of options, the beer was hot and the pizza was ok

 the alpine slides

the mountain flyer, my personal favorite seemed like the smoothest safest ride of all

Cherry Hill

 We went to Cherry Hill to get some pooltime in.The lazy river got shut down twice for poop incidents in the time we were there.

 The kids enjoying Pirate's Cove

 A boy told Xander in line Roe was "hot" and tried to cut in line with them. They pretended to be going with the kids in front of them and didn't let him cut, she freaked out and has no interest in boys, I hope Xander continues to be the protective older brother.

 Cardiac canyon was the kids favorite, it was a lot of work just to get down this river in the tubes, I did not love this.

photo op with all the kids