Summer in Full Swing

I walked in one day to find Britton giving AJ a horsy ride, which he loved.  Britton is a great older brother when he is at home. He is so busy these days it is getting harder and harder to find him around.

Britton has been working pretty much every day at the pool.

Jenna has been busy babysitting for a few different families and doing ballroom dance summer classes.  We found a few hours to go to Lagoon on Wednesday and decided to try out Lagoon-a-beach.  Here is AJ taking a lunch break on one of the tubes.

The rest of the time he just pulled faces at the camera.

Korinne

Jameson has be doing a fun and fitness camp 2 mornings a week for last 2 weeks that is put on by one of the elementary school gym teachers.  This next week will be the last week, but he has enjoyed playing games with friends at a nearby school gym. He also spends a lot of time playing outside with any one of the 5 other boys his age around our cul-de-sac.  AJ has had a little more difficulty adjusting to summer without the structure of preschool.  Jameson is often away with friends so AJ doesn't have someone to play with 24/7 like he prefers. 

We have been searching for almost a year for someone to replace Geno, the barber we really liked for Jameson.  Geno took a job as an in-house barber for a big company in town which was great for Geno, but not great for his loyal clients, most of whom were African American. This week we found Marcus who used to work with Geno and learned all of Geno's tricks.  I had to laugh when I walked into the barber shop because it looked like a true man cave. There was a pool table, music blaring, sports on the TV's and a wall clock where each hour was marked with a different basketball shoe. The floor even looked like a basketball court.

 I think Marcus passed the Jameson test which is good because some of the others we have tried haven't. If they don't know what they are doing they pull his hair too much and it hurts.  He has a pretty fancy haircut right now and it took Marcus a full hour to cut it.

We hit the local splash pad this week which means summer is officially in full swing.

Ready or Not

 I didn't have pictures from Senior Ball for the last entry so here are a few of Britton and his date Eliza.

On Memorial Day Adam took Korinne and a friend and the boys to Lagoon for a few hours.  I thought it would be crazy busy, but it ended up not being so bad.  In the afternoon I ran a few errands with Jenna and Britton and then we stopped for a little froyo.

The 6th Grade awards assembly. 

Korinne received an award for getting one of the highest AR point totals in her grade and for reading over a million words during the school year.  She is excited to move on from elementary school and start middle school in the fall.

AJ's last day of preschool.

When I went to pick up AJ from his last day of school the teacher told me that I needed to sign yet another incident report.  AJ is a little bit of a wild card and when he gets in trouble at school they have me sign incident reports to confirm that I am aware of the situation.  This time he threw his shoes over the tall fence into private property so they weren't able to recover them. Darn. They were summer shoes and I had just gotten them.  I must say there is never a dull moment with AJ around.  He does some pretty random things.

Jameson and AJ on their last day of school-- May 31st.

Lifetouch came to AJ's preschool to take school pictures and I love how they turned out.

AJ- 3 years old

On Friday morning we made our first ever call to poison control after AJ got into my bathroom and drank an entire bottle of liquid melatonin. They told us that he would most likely be fine and to just watch him. While he did have a tummy ache and a headache he never actually slept.  It had the opposite affect on him and he had a rough weekend.

The last day of school for my older kids was Friday, June 1st.  Just a few days before school got out Britton was asked to run on one of Ridgeline's 2 Ragnar teams to cover for one of his friends that was injured.  He was in reasonably good shape having just finished soccer so he jumped right in and with only 3 days notice ran his first Ragnar Relay which conveniently started on the last day of school.

Britton leaving to meet his team for a 2:00 p.m. start time.

Both Ridgeline teams at the starting line.

Team Riverhawk Flock.

They finished in 23 hrs 3 min. Placed 11th overall and 3rd in the high school co-ed division. 

While Britton was out running Ragnar the rest of us went to the Conference Center for the Be One Celebration commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Priesthood Revelation.

Jameson, Adam and AJ at the Conference Center

 The program was absolutely amazing, but we did have a few hiccups because AJ was completely out of control (same day as the melatonin overdose) and had to be taken out of the building. Adam ended up taking him to the car and missed about 75% of it, but fortunately was able to watch it online after the fact. For those of us inside the Conference Center it was definitely an experience to remember.  The spirit was strong and the music was incredible.

AJ isn't very good at letting Jenna practice the piano.  Whenever she is practicing he will run in and sit on the bench with her.

Sunday night while the older kids went to hear President Nelson speak Adam and I took the boys down to the Genesis meeting.  With the Be One celebration happening only 2 days before the church was absolutely packed (think Stake Conference size crowd) and the Bonner Family did the program.  If you haven't heard of the Bonner Family look them up on Youtube.  They are like a black version of the Osmonds. 😁They have 2 parents and  8 kids and every one of them can sing! The church invited them to perform in the Be One Celebration (the kids live all over the country so they only come together to sing at special events) and they stuck around for a few extra days so they could sing for the Genesis Group. The parents joined the church when they were a young married couple with 2 small kids and now they are a large multi-generational family who are rock solid in the gospel.  I was amazed at their talent and testimonies and really enjoyed the meeting.  Definitely check out their performance at the Be One Celebration!

AJ was in the nursery and Adam went with Jameson to primary where they made African masks and learned more about Juneteenth, which is an African American holiday commemorating the day (June 19, 1865) that word finally reached the last of the slaves in Texas that slavery had been abolished and they were free.  

Adam kept telling the boys to smile.  "But we are smiling!!" he he

The girls and Adam left for girls camp on Wednesday morning.  It was Korinne's first time going to camp and she was excited.

Jenna and Korinne in their camp shirts

Korinne discovered a hidden talent--archery. She had great form and nailed the targets. Adam said that a lot of people commented on how good she was for having never done it before. Hey, she's got skillz, bow hunting skillz, etc. . .😉)

Adam spent the first 2 1/2 days with them at camp and then came home a day early to attend a wedding.  The girls had a fabulous time.

On one of the nights they were gone I took the boys to get happy meals and play at the park. They were in heaven.

Ready or not summer is here. Let the chaos begin.