Oh my goodness were we busy in July! It was tons of fun! I've already given 4th of July and the big Olson Family Reunion their own posts, but here is the rest of July crammed into one super long, picture heavy post. :) Enjoy.
Wilson's 1st Birthday:
We got to help Wilson celebrate his 1st birthday with a fun party thrown by Brad and Mel. We helped set up and Ian did a cute photo booth. There were balloons and a pinata. Pizza, salad, chips, cake, and Mel's famous rice krispie treats in the shape of a 1. Mel did a cute "All About Wilson" game. I didn't do as well as I should have though. ;) Wilson seemed to love it and all of his cousins definitely loved it. Happy Birthday Wilson B! We love you so much!
The week after the big Olson Family Reunion we got to have the Henshaw girls stay with us! We loved having the cousins here all week to play with. I could get used to having Liz around. She got Talia and Beckett their milk in the morning and kept them busy playing with them. I don't think I was up before 8 all week! Weston and Mimi were thick as thieves. Those two are just the best little cousin buddies. The boys introduced their cousins to Yu-Gi-Oh cards while they were here, so that kept them pretty busy. We also played with water outside, went down to BYU and played at the Bean Museum, had a super fun dinner with Grandma Nan and Gwen, went to the splash park and had lots of cousin play time. It was such a blast spending the week hanging out with Joy too. Love that sister of mine! The reason they came and stayed all week was because Mimi did a BYU Gymnastics camp each afternoon. She loved it. I hope they come again!
Ian turned 34 in July. We had a fun birthday dinner while the Henshaw's were still here. Mel and Brad came to celebrate with us too. We did his presents and cake and everything a couple of days early because when the Henshaw's left they took Weston and Davin with them and dropped them off at Grandma B and Grandpa Bob's house to stay for a week. We wanted to celebrate before they left. Ian got a beard trimmer and a new game. On his actual birthday we got to spend the whole day together without the kids at Lagoon. It was Verite's summer party so we hung with friends and did a few things on our own too. My friend Tara is such a sweetheart to watch Tal and Beck for us all day that day! After we finished playing at Lagoon we had dinner at In N Out and ended the night seeing Ant Man. It was a pretty great birthday. Love you Ian!
The boys were SO excited to get to spend a week away from home at Grandma & Grandpa's house. Because of a big wildfire on I-15 they also got to spend a surprise night at the Henshaw's house before they got to Orange County. Grandma had tons of fun things planned for the boys to do. They made a laser maze out of yarn all the way down the hallway. They got to make a whole car town in the living room out of painter's tape. Grandma took them to pick out cars for it too. They went bowling. They played in the spa. They hung out with Auntie Jules and Dean. They went to the Griffith Observatory. They went to the Huntington Beach mud park, which was super cool. They also got to visit Great Grandma Snowball. And the highlight was getting to fly on an airplane with Grandma B back home. Weston said he wished the flight had been longer. Haha. They are so lucky to have such fun grandparents!
The boys were so excited that they made it home in time for the 24th of July. We don't really do anything super special. We went to the splash pad this year with a few friends in the morning. Then that night was our neighborhood's Cul De Sac of Fire. We get together with a bunch of neighbor friends and have a potluck bbq and do fireworks. At the end they set the whole pile of firework trash on fire and have a fire race down the cul de sac. It's pretty crazy. It actually makes me pretty nervous, but it's always a good time with lots of friends. We sure love where we live!
This year was the first Dattage Family Reunion for all of the descendants of Glen and Fern Dattage. They were my great grandparents on my Dad's side. My Grandma Olson's parents. :) We don't get to see them all that often, so it was a blast to see cousins and aunts and uncles (great, twice removed, whatever). They just did it on a Saturday. We all brought sides and desserts to contribute to the meal. It was held at this fun park area with a "redneck water slide." The water slide was basically a giant slip and slide down a hill. It was really fast. One of my cousins, Shane, is a police officer. He took a break from work to visit with the fam and clock our water slide speeds. Brad's top speed was 32 mph! Weston LOVED the water slide and pretty much spent the entire afternoon going down. Davin only tried the smaller slide once and wasn't a big fan. Talia did the big slide twice and the smaller slide once. The smaller kids spent all their time at the water table and the kiddie pool. I love that my kids are old enough to play on their own. I got to visit with family and take some time to look at pictures of my great grandparents and write down some of my memories of them for the Dattage memory book. It was a fun reunion and I was glad to see G&G Olson again so soon! I also may have volunteer Grandma Olson to head up next year's reunion with the promise of helping. She wasn't too happy with me. Haha. Oh well, it will be great!
On Sunday after the Dattage reunion Mel brought Mom down to stay with us for a couple of days before she headed home. We had a low key visit. We worked on sewing. I finished my Snowball quilt piecing and sent the quilt home with Mom to be quilted and bound. Yay! Mel worked on her quilt too while I did Jamberry's and we tried to keep Wilson happy and out of Mel's way. It was kind of tough to get much sewing done. Good thing Wilson's so stinking cute! Grandma brought Talia and Beckett their finished quilts! The kids all have Grandma B quilts now and they are all super adorable. We also did a couple of fun things with Grandma B like a trip to the Lindon pool, seeing the Minion movie with the littles, and going to Gardner Village to visit the quilt shop and the candy store. We even ran into the cutest baby alpaca at Gardner Village! Thanks for visiting Mom! We love you so much!
I planted a container garden again this year. My main harvests have been zucchini and yellow summer squash. They are so fun to eat and bake with. I've made zucchini bread, zucchini banana chocolate chip cookies and cookie bars. I also made baked parmesan squash bites. Yummy. The kids and I have fun watering the plants and watching them grow.
At the beginning of the summer I discovered a bird's nest in my hanging planter. When I went to remove it because I thought it wasn't being used I found a blue robin's egg in it. I left the nest and eventually we had 3 blue robin's eggs. When we got back from the Olson Family Reunion the babies had hatched! They were teeny tiny. We must have just missed the hatching. It was SO much fun to watch them grow and watch the frequent feedings. We couldn't really go out on the porch though because mama and daddy robin would get really mad and squawk at us and swoop down by our heads. We tried to respect their space and stay off the front porch, but you know it was right by the front door so we had to go in and out occasionally. The babies grew really fast and within just three weeks they had all left the nest. Such a fun thing to experience and watch.
We finished up swimming lessons in July. Everyone did so great! Weston and Davin were both swimming all over the pool and learning to dive. Talia was an expert back floater and was learning to put her face in the water and breathe properly. She even practiced diving a little bit. I'm so proud of them and glad we did Oneal Aquatics swim lessons again this year!
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