Summer-IZE

The kids with their school "walking" group first day of school.

My heart is breaking. Summer is over!!!! Thankfully, we may have a few more days of warm weather-but school is in! There are a lot of reasons that I could ramble on about why I am so upset that my children started school today, but let's just leave it at sadness and I am missing them dearly already!

In the meantime, I haven't blogged for forever...pretty much all summer long and so I am going to try to summarize our activities this summer in three different parts...June, July, and August.

PART ONE-JUNE

Most of our June was centered around dad and the last days of his life here on earth. However, amongst the sadness and sacredness of that event, we did seem to be able to have some fun with our family.

Mack played his first year of T-Ball, had a rough start, loved playing catcher and pitcher, was a phenomenal hitter-every time, loved paying with all of his friends.

Mack turned SIX, Celebrated with every family member on the Ostenson side, got a lot of Batman stuff, had a double birthday party with cousin Christopher, & showed us his toothless smile (hopefully the last year!!).

Calli Turned 10! Had a few friends over, made Stromboli's and beaded watches, got peace stuff and a laptop (which she payed for 1/2), played games all night, and played "popular" girls in the morning??

PART TWO- JULY

Went on a mini family vacation south, stayed at Circus Circus, swam and rode the rides (we are an amusement park family), saw Ryan and Becca and cousins in Vegas, stayed at Grandma Nelson's Oasis in St. George and relaxed the days away! So nice being together with just our "little" family.
Mack and the clowns at Circus Circus

Still July....Visit from Grandpa Craig and Grandma Sue, taught Grandpa Guitar Hero, day at Riot Zone, Movies, Ice Cream, and Bowling, so much fun to see them and grateful that they are in our lives.

Calli's cousin, Maddie came to visit for a week and Mack and Quentin went to their house for a cousin exchange. Matching pajamas, swimming, walking everyday with mom (aunt) and grandma, rollerblading and scootering, made watches, and shopped until we dropped!!!!!

Girls Camp at Falls Creek, three girls, four leaders and two priesthood, four mile hike, shot my first gun EVER, beautiful creations of our Heavenly Father, floating a very rocky stream, punctured every raft we had, laughed until my belly was sore, Felt like a little girl again!

Love my fearless Presidency!!! These are them!!! Aren't they gorgeous????

PART THREE-AUGUST

Mack finally learned how to ride two wheels! After two fearful years of deciding that falling off wasn't fun...determination got the best of him and he conquered it after the first few minutes!! Bike rides were my favorite summer activity with my kids this year!

Aunt Bethany and kids came to visit, had a sleepover at Grandma's and went to the zoo.

Alex (Jeff's little bro) and his new wife Anna got married on the 15th!! Beautiful couple, beautiful day, beautiful grand kids, beautiful family. Such a special experience to be in the temple with Jeff's family and be able to be reminded of the beautiful blessings and promises of the sealing. A great reminder considering that Jeff and I ourselves had just celebrated our 16th (gasp!) Anniversary. We went to Jackson Hole for a night while Grandma O watched the kids and had a special time there together.

As a last hurrah, we went to Boise to do our back to school clothes shopping. SOOOOO FUN! It is a tradition that we have started and it is always so fun. The Ross family is just like family to us. The kids love each other and I won't go into how attached I am to my friend Val! We love you guys! Thank you for EVERYTHING!!!!
One more thing.... This was a common scene at our house this summer. Quentin and Calli sitting on the stairs reading. I don't think that I could count how many books Quentin read over the summer. Glad that was one of their activities.