Summer extension

One of the only things I like about summer ending is the excuse to go to St. George to extend it a little. It had been too many months since we had been there, so since Syd was off track we took advantage of the time we had to spend a while in the George. We had a great time together with just our family. It was so great to be together with no responsibilities other than to just HAVE FUN!

As you can see, the kids were very happy to be together. The held hands in the car a lot of the time. When Kayman's hands were not occupied they found themselves full of sisters' hair, so luckily he was willing to keep them occupied this way.

Andy had to go home after a few days...someone has to work, right?! My parents came down the day after Andy left and spent some time with me and the kids. We took their boat out to the lake and had an unexpected experience on the way home. One of the tires on the boat trailer blew out. I did what I could to help my dad fix it. I'm sure glad it happened when my dad was there, and not when we borrowed it last week! We don't have a hydraulic jack that made it so easy to fix. He had to wedge a rock under it to get the trailer high enough to even get the jack underneath it.

We spend a lot of time at the pool at my parents' house. They are so nice to let us use their place, and we loved swimming where we could have the pool to ourselves without having to worry about keeping track of everyone in a crowd. The girls got very comfortable swimming in the deep end, and Syd even learned how to tread water. By the end of the first day their fingers were bleeding from holding on to the edge and climbing in and out of the pool so much.

Here is Jess posing by the hot tub.

Syd loved to jump from the edge of the pool onto this floaty.

Mr. Stud was pretty cool with his glasses on...as long as he was floating on something. He didn't much like being in the water.

Princess Syd soaking up the sun. Check out that view!

We took a trip up to Dixie Rock, a favorite place of ours. Andy and I used to go there with friends when we were dating in college. It's so beautiful! The kids loved hiking around on the rocks. It seems that none of the kids inherited Andy's fear of heights.

We are so fortunate to be able to go to St. George and have such fun times there as often as we do. It is one of our favorite places to be. Of course we always have to drive by our old apartment and show the girls where we used to live. They think it is pretty cool.

It seems like a lifetime ago that we were living there. It's amazing how much has changed and how fast the years go by. While I was there this week I ran into a lady that used to go tanning nearly every day when I worked at a tanning salon down there during college. She thought that maybe it was 3 or 4 years ago. I had to think about it for a minute before I realized it has been 9 years! I have changed a lot since then, and my life has changed a lot. I am so grateful for my loving husband and 3 beautiful children. My family is so wonderful and I am pleased with where I find myself after so much time.