last week

I'm finally up to my last week of Indiana. My mom came to visit for my last week, and then we both flew back to Utah. I was happy to see my mom since it had been a couple of months, but I was also so sad because I knew that I had to leave when she left. I had such a great summer with my niece and nephews (and John and Ashley) and I am so lucky that I have had the summers off to spend with them.

While waiting for Grandma we played at the park. Her flight got delayed a few hours, so we had lots of time to get excited!
Since it was my mom's birthday when she arrived, we made her a minion cake (Despicable Me is her favorite). Makelle helped me make the cake, Zak helped John frost it, then Lantz stuck his fingers in it while we made the minions. Zak was responsible for the cutting of the cake a little later.

We took a trip to the zoo and saw the new baby giraffe and went to the sea lion show. It wasn't quite Sea World, but we still got a show (right Ash!?).
One of the mornings we played at the park. We were having a great time playing on the spider web, until Makelle and I were both climbing out and I stepped on her "favorite finger". She cried and cried and told me "you want to know the worst part? The part when you were stepping on my finger". I felt so bad, luckily she forgave me!
We had a very exciting trip to the Science Museum. We had been there for maybe 45 minutes when the fire alarm went off and we all had to evacuate in the middle of a huge rain storm. We were soaked through by the time we got to the car. Before we had to leave we were playing at the water station, and Zak turned the PVC pipe the wrong way a couple of times and looked like he had an accident. Luckily after going out in the rain the rest of his clothes were just as wet! We also had a sleepover movie party in the living room, made a family mural, and read tons of books.


At the park we found a fort that someone had built. I tried to get Zak to say he built it, but he told me that was dishonest because he didn't make the whole thing! They did make some improvements however, and Makelle swept all of the surrounding dirt so that it looked nice.

For our last day we played at home. We tried to fit everything in one last time. Zak and Makelle painted my nails, we played lego's, did tricks, played with play dough, colored and just spent the day together.

One day we watched Charlotte's Web and we all loved Templeton the rat. Lantz loved him so much that he made up a song for him!

Zak climbing a tree at the park. He is getting so tall and can do everything on his own!

No trip is complete without a game of Hopscotch, and Makelle is a pro!

Well that is the end of my summer in Indiana, so now I will finally turn the blog back over to Ashley. I had a wonderful summer and miss the family all terribly. Hopefully I will be able to get to Indiana again soon!

Virginia

I know it has been over a month since I left, but I still have things that I haven't posted that are awesome and need to be seen! A couple of weeks before I left, we took a trip to Virginia to see Ashley's dad and Joan. We had a great time. We went swimming, ate great food, went to the Little Debbie store, swam some more, ate some more, ate some more, and did some more swimming!

We had so much fun in Joan's pool. It was stallow enough at one end to play in, and deep enough at the other to practice our dives. Plus she has a million pool toys. We spent a lot of time "just sitting on our noodles minding our own business"!
When we weren't swimming, we were eating. sometimes we didn't even get up from the table between meals, we would eat lunch, snack and chat, and then eat dinner! There was also a never ending supply of Little Debbie snacks, and homemade salsa from John.

Here is a video compilation of Lantz singing. They were all so hilarious and adorable that I couldn't decide which one to put on the blog, so put them all. Enjoy!

Thanks for the great trip Richard and Joan! and thanks to John, Ash, and Kiddo's for taking their trip while I was there so I could join them!

more summer

Here are some more pictures of our summer. Most are just us at home, but they are my favorite part of visiting John's family. The pictures are pretty random, but mostly in order. Hopefully the descriptions aren't too confusing.

We had the chance to go to the Mullin's house and Zak and his cousins rode their horses in their pond. I am terrified of horses, but did pet one (mostly so it wouldn't get any closer to me). The horses were really good, and even let the kids jump off of them into the pond. Zak had a great time.
Playing at the Science Museum and in the water. John and Ashley were at Youth Conference when we went to the museum, so LaDonna took Ashley's pass and ID because they look a lot alike. The guy at the museum asked her to see her ID three times before telling her the pass was expired (I handed her the wrong one). Oh well, makes for a funny story.
For the activity for Family Home Evening one night, we played the flour game. The purpose of the game is to cut away at the packed flour without having the penny fall of of the top. If the penny falls off of the flour on your turn, you have to dig it out with your mouth. Naturally I was the first to make it fall (in my defense, it was my first time playing). We all took a turn digging out the penny, except for John, so Ashley decided to just put flour in his face. It didn't turn out so well for her, and Lantz was just disgusted!
We went to a new lake (well the lake isn't new, but it was my first time going), called Hardy Lake. It was beautiful and not too hot, and we had the beach pretty much to ourselves for a couple of hours.
We went to the Fair one night to look at the animals, and Zak and Makelle wore their cowboy boots. They looked too stinking cute! Lantz fell while playing by the window and smacked his eye on the window sill. He got a nice goose egg and a little black eye. Have I mentioned that he is a nut?!
There are always silly pictures in forts when I come for a visit. Some of these pictures truly terrify me, I went into the fort with my niece and nephews, and somehow got pictures of three little monsters!
One day while the older kids were watching a movie, Lantz and I built a "tall tall tower". He told me what face we should make in each picture. I love this kid!
For the 24th of July, my mom sent the girls Pioneer bonnets (and Makelle a matching apron). Makelle wore hers to church, and Ash and I wore ours to dinner at a friends house. Makelle looked adorable. Ashley and I looked a little ridiculous, but we had fun. John and Lantz love chips and salsa! Ashley and the kids reading a book on the computer. Ashley will be mad that I put that picture on, but I think it is funny! Before doing our nails one day, the kids had to organize all of Makelle's nail polish. I don't think we ever actually go to the painting part!
More fort fun. This was our most amazing fort, we could all lay down comfortably in it and we watched Madagascar 2 while we were in there.
Lantz eating yogurt is almost as messy as Zak eating yogurt. Makelle's church smile. She is super shy at church, and won't smile or talk to anyone one, so we came up with the church smile. She has no trouble showing that off to people! Zak, Makelle, and I went on a date to see Ramona and Beezus and out to lunch. Makelle accidentally bit her finger while eating her french fries, so Zak bit his so that she wouldn't feel bad. What a good big brother!

Summer 2011

We've had a great summer with lots and nothing to do. It has been great! We spent the week of the fourth with Ashley's sister, LaDonna, and family and stayed pretty busy the whole week. Here are three of those days (more to follow).

For the 4th of July, we went to the Sellersburg Parade and then went to Waterfront Park for activities for the kids and fireworks over the river. Kentucky puts on a great firework show! The Old Navy flag shirts were courtesy of my mom. The entire Gerhauser family had them. It was a real "Somewhere Out There" kind of day!
It was a super hot day at the zoo, but there were mist sprayers every so often and lots of people to carry kids or push the stroller (thank you Austin and Brayden), so it was a fun day!


We went to the bat museum and while the Madsen's went on the factory tour, Ashley, the kids and I hung out by the giant glove and in the little batting cages. I took probably 50 pictures of the kids posing on the glove. They had a great time and were hilarious!

Later we had our own firework show. The Madsens went a little crazy at the firework store! We started the fireworks at about 8:30 and were done by 10. After they set off the first two (of many) big fireworks, one of the neighbors came out and angrily asked how many more fireworks we had! I think someone eventually answered with "um, a few"!