Sending Kenzie to College, the Second Time

Duchess loves Kenzie the most, especially in her old age here.  Really wish Kenzie could just take the cat with her to her apartment, but sadly she must stay behind.  Kenzie tried to give her extra attention but Duchess still meowed angrily at us when we returned without her yesterday!

All crowded in with all her possessions, it was off to Cedar City again on Friday evening!

Saturday morning Chris helped her reassemble her desk, bookcase, and office chair.  I lugged in all the food and then we picked up some additional groceries, too.  It was a cooler day temperature wise, plus Kenzie's on the ground floor this year, so it was far easier to move her stuff in!

We tried to be a little more efficient this time.  Last year we didn't know exactly what she'd need so we overpacked.  This year Kenzie was able to have a better grasp of what she'd be using so hopefully we did better.  She did say she wasn't feeling quite so intimidated returning to the same apartment building and same campus, so hopefully all goes well and she has a fun semester!

Cameron is 12!

Cameron loves being "birthday buddies" with Dad.  He was so, so eager to open his presents!

Parker pointed out to him, "That's not actually a megaphone."  Cameron answered, "That's okay.  I'm still going to yell into it!"

After much consideration, Cameron finally decided he'd like to go to Chuck-a-Rama for his birthday.  He had two plates of rice and edamame, a couple of rolls, and then some ice cream.  But he was happy!

Since we'd stuffed our faces, we had brownies and ice cream the following night instead.  Nothing like spreading the celebration out! 

Cameron sure is a cute kid.  He's funny and can make friends with anyone.  By far he's the most extroverted of all of us.  He is growing up quickly but he still loves stuffed animals, his dragon blanket, and playing with anything that resembles a weapon.  It sure wouldn't be the same around here without him!  Happy Birthday, Cam Buddy!

First Day of 7th & 11th Grades

Cute Parker starting his junior year of high school!  He was beyond delighted to head back to school!

Cameron had 7th grade orientation today, so just a half day to start.  He was up extra early because he was so excited (and for him, it wasn't sarcastic excitement like Parker!).

Cameron heading out to walk with Ethan and Evie who both live down the street.  They've all been friends since they were in nursery, and now they're headed off to middle school together.  Here's to a fun year for those cute kids!

Wheeler Farm

We kept the tradition alive yet another year, and walked around Wheeler Farm to celebrate the last day of school.  Here Kenzie was laughing because the horse was peeing in the background.  Luckily I don't think that's visible in the picture because Parker's in the way, but the kids were all laughing about it.  The farm smelled as lovely as always!

Bunny!

They put up with the annual picture taking because we also went to lunch for a slice of pizza afterwards!  Just like that, summer ends yet again!

 

Las Vegas

After camping, we had a day to catch up on laundry and work, and then we turned around the next day and Chris and I flew to Vegas for two days for our anniversary. 

As expected, it was insanely toasty, so we tried to walk around in the air conditioning as much as possible!

We stopped for Icees and split a piece of pizza for an afternoon snack.  Can't beat that!  And in true Vegas fashion, an older lady behind us was high as a kite, waving her arms around and dancing to the music in her head.  

If there's a giant pretzel on the menu, it's sure fun to order that when it's our anniversary!  We ate at Yard House because it was across the street from the show we were seeing and Chris had won a gift card at his work's summer party.  

A little blurry, but we saw Cirque du Soleil's "O" at the Bellagio.  It was impressive - acrobatics, a moving floor (that meant sometimes the cast walked across shallow water, and other times they dove headfirst into deep water), fire twirling, and lots of just really strange things going on.  I was more than a little puzzled, but now I can finally cross that off my bucket list!

And now for just some random pictures I took as we walked around Vegas - here's Caesar's Palace.

The conservatory inside the Bellagio.  I thought Cameron would like the frog.

We saw two of the fountain shows because it took so long to walk through the crowds!  It was a long, hot walk back to our hotel even though it was 10:00 at night!  It might be a while before we decide to go to Vegas in summer again, but it was a fun little trip!

Annual Camping Trip

In the Disney cartoon version of Robin Hood, there's a little turtle who waves a small flag when cheering for his dad during the archery contest and he says, "Yay, Dad!"  Kenzie has always quoted that and finally she made little red flags and wrote "Yay, Dad!" with fabric paint on them.  The boys ran to get theirs when the trailer was successfully hooked up to the Highlander. It was a new setup, so we were all glad it worked!

Ledgefork is a pretty area!

Having nachos and taco salads for our first evening.

That deer in the background on the left was not shy at all!

The boys gathered up a huge pile of sticks for us!  We roasted marshmallows and also tried roasting the little frozen pizza rolls!  For sure Cameron and Parker decided we have begun a new tradition!

During Young Women's Camp this year they had some little kits to decorate stickers with little beads.  It was a fun project and I even made a couple, so I bought a few kits.  I sat down to start it and it was funny how all the kids came over and plunked themselves down eagerly to make a few stickers.

It rained like crazy for several hours, so we wound up finishing inside the trailer.  Parker seemed to have the most fun and made several!

When the rain finally cleared out, we had a lot of soaked wood to work with, but still managed to have one last campfire.

The chipmunks were very bold this year!  We started calling one "Pancake" because he would run in the way as the kids played boules with the big metal balls rolling about.  No fear whatsoever.  The best/worst was our last morning, we assume it was the same chipmunk, but some chipmunk came into the trailer through the hole for the sink hose!  (It's high up, but many times we witnessed Pancake doing a crazy vertical leap at our trailer so he finally found his way in!)  He wasn't happy to be in the cabinets so he was loudly chittering away at 7:30am and I had to rattle the doors of the cabinets until he finally went back out.  Chris had gone outside and he said he wished he had gotten a picture of the sassy look that chipmunk had given him when he stuck his head back out of the trailer.  Too funny!  We also had a hummingbird fly briefly into the trailer, so it was kind of a bizarre how much everything wanted in the trailer this time.  

It was a fun little camping trip!  Always nice to get away for a few days and even though we had a few leaks, the trailer made it one more time!