4th of July

Being in the heat of Phoenix was looking really hot this year. We were not excited about it at all. Luckily, one of our really good friends from Ohio moved to Prescott, AZ which is a TON cooler (about 85 degrees) and right in the middle of Phoenix and Las Vegas. So I worked my charm and Shaun and I met up at my friend's house in Prescott.
They have an amazing house right on the side of the mountain with an amazing view.  It rained all day on the 4th but rather than ruining the day, it made it so nice and cool that it was wonderful. That night it cleared up for the fireworks and we were able to sit on the side of a mountain and watch the city fireworks without the crowds.

The day after the 4th we went to Sedona to play in the mountains. Slide rock is one of our favorite places to hang out and it was a hit with all the kids and grown ups. It has natural slides in the rocks and cliff jumping and rock throwing and all the fun stuff.

We played all day and then decided we didn't want to head home so late. So we stopped at a hotel and were able to get a great deal on a family hotel/lodge/motel room place. They had such amazing grounds. They had a coi fish pond that the kids loved to look at. They spent a good amount of time naming the fish and claiming them as their own.

At the bottom of the property was a fantastic little river. There were rocks to climb on and they even had crawdads that the boys spent about a hour trying to catch. There was a nice shallow place out of the way that Summer crawled around in. The hotel even had some chairs sitting in the river so that you could sit and relax and soak your feet.

To top off the trip, when we were packing up to go Kelly found a tarantula in the parking lot. I didn't know that tarantula's were in Arizona, but come to find out Sedona is one of their major breeding grounds. I know Troy picks them up in the parking lot and adopts them, but I couldn't bring myself to pick it up. In fact while we were taking pictures and looking at it, I swear Shaun screamed like a little girl once.  It was awesome...both the scream and the tarantula. :)

Visiting Vegas

Dave has been interviewing around and we weren't sure if we'd be moving this summer or not. So we decided that we wouldn't be able to go to Idaho and Utah this summer. It's the first summer in 4 years that we haven't gone. I think I was more bummed than the kids. Going north for the summer has kept me sane during the summer months.

So the kids and I have been taking a lot of little road trips. We leave on Monday or Tuesday play for 4 or 5 days then come home for 3 or 4 then head out again. It's been fun, hot but fun.

Our first trip was to visit Shaun and Kelly in Las Vegas. Two weeks from the day that they moved in, we showed up on their doorstep. While the temperature was pretty much the same as it was in Phoenix, it was so fun to hang out with them. It made it feel more like summertime. 

The first day there, Porter was already bored out of his mind with all these girls. Shaun saved the day by pulling out a super awesome Lego. It has 3 different building plans (t-rex, tarantula, or a crocodile) and it has a motor that powers it. Porter was super pumped. He spent pretty much the whole visit building it. It took him all four days of working on it. He was super proud of himself and really pushed to get it finished by our last day there.

 I totally dropped the ball and forgot to bring the stuff for "kitty faces" we were able to do "princess faces" with fancy makeup. The girls felt really fancy and pretty. So we did a modeling show. Addie and Rachel were a little confused about how to sauce up their model moves, so Eva showed them how to be more self-absorbed and shallow. :)

We got to go to Shaun's work and see his cool helicopters. Unfortunately, no tours of the Grand Canyon, but he says he's an amazing tour guide. He does make up his own facts for people though when they ask questions he doesn't know the answer to. It was pretty hilarious.







The girls had tons of fun with each other. They love that they get to throw down blankets and have a big sleep over every night. I think it always takes an extra hour and a lot of threats to get them to go to sleep, but I'm sure they love it.

Glad Bags

At the beginning of this summer the kids were driving me crazy with arguing and tattle-taleing. I remembered that when we were kids, one summer Grandma Berry put together "Mad Bags". In the bag she had put $5 in dimes. If we fought then we had to give up one dime. I think Troy broke the system the first time he got in trouble. He gave his whole bag to mom and said, "Just keep them all." So I decided to try to implement the idea, but called them "Glad Bags" and hope that the kids wouldn't outsmart me like Troy.

So Porter and Eva get a bag of $5 in quarters and Ivy gets $2 in dimes. If they fight, argue, throw fits, tattle tale, etc. they have to give me a quarter/dime that then goes in MY "Mad Bag". On Sunday before church we go through our bags and talk about why they had to pay me that week and how we can be better this next week. I then buy back whatever quarters they have left with dollar bills. Then they do tithing. And they get more quarters for the next week.

It's worked really well for us and has been a good way to encourage good behavior, practice counting, understand tithing, start new each week, do an allowance. Their favorite part is when I buy back quarters and dollar bills with larger bills. At first they were a little upset that they didn't have as many coins or dollars, but once they figured out that the higher bills were the same and didn't take up as much room, they fell in love with the idea.

Well, Porter decided that he really wanted this Wii game called Skylander. So we told him he would have to save his money to get it. So he has worked all summer to save his money to get the $70 together to buy his game. This last week he finally got it all together and went to Target to get it. Luckily it was on sale for $60 and we had a long conversation about taxes. He loves his game and is so super proud of himself for buying it.

Eva decided that she wanted to buy something too. But she didn't want to spend all her money

and wanted something small. So I took her to Claire's. Claire's is a teeny-bopper type store with tons of costume jewelry and stuff like that. As soon as we walked in the door she squealed and clapped her hands and yelled, "This is AMAZING! This is my favorite store in the WORLD!" We then took the next hour to look at every little thing they had. She finally settled on a makeup compact. While she can't wear makeup anywhere, she has had fun learning about it and putting it on her and Ivy. It's been super cute.