science day 2.0

Remember last year's science day? We did it again a couple of weeks ago.

We repeated a few experiments and added a couple of new ones. Just like last year I wasn't able to take pictures, but a friend took this great one:

quick Utah trip

On July 8th we left for a quick trip to Utah and came back on the 9th. A friend was getting married and Ryan convinced me that it would be fun to take the whole family for the lighting-fast trip. He was actually right.

The boys all traveled well (with a little help from the DS), we got to Provo early enough Friday to play at the hotel pool, got to go to the lovely wedding dinner at La Jolla Groves (we recommend it!) where we saw LaVell Edwards, attended the sealing Saturday morning at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple which was wonderful and the kids were excited that they were able to be inside a temple in the waiting room, fished Saturday afternoon at the Spanish Fork Reservoir where my brother Joel met up with us, and headed home.

Thank you Jim and Michelle for giving us an excuse to make such a crazy trip. And thank you Joel for letting us see your Solvang shirt.

I didn't get any good pictures of the newlyweds, but here is a blurry one. I hope Charlie didn't make his way into any of the professional pictures.

Benjamin might be our most photogenic child.

Ryan and the mother of the groom. I don't know who took this picture. Either Ben or Charlie.

The 4th was with us.

We had a great time on the 4th this year. We started out watching our local parade. I hadn't been in six or seven years so I'm glad we live close enough now that there's not really an excuse not to see it. We walked around the corner and sat on the first patch of shady grass we found. Ryan did some of the announcing, but we weren't close enough to where he was stationed to hear him. It's also kind of a bummer that the floats and different groups in the parade aren't allowed to throw candy to the parade watchers. But, it was still fun and the kids even stayed interested.

Ben saw this balloon arch and said, "Mom, you better get a picture of that." The theme of the parade was celebrating women's right to vote, so there were a lot of suffragette costumes, and yes, we heard the song "Sister Suffragette" from Mary Poppins.

We also liked this Fife and Drum group:

Later in the evening we went to a friend's to watch fireworks and before it got dark they let us milk their cow. It was kind of fun if you ignored all the flies.

waterski '11

After a brief hiatus last year the waterski trip returned this summer. Ryan's dad fixed up his boat and we headed back to Lake San Antonio once again. Ryan brought the horses up again, too.

Alex and Ben both got up on real skis this year behind the Sea-doo (much easier than being pulled behind the boat). Charlie could only be convinced to stand in the little ski long enough for Ryan to pull him back and forth along the shore. Wesley loved sitting and splashing in the water.

The boat did have a few hiccups, like when it wouldn't start and Ryan, Sam, and Amy had to push it to the dock. And a couple of the cousins were burned on some coals, but mostly it was the same tubing, splashing, swimming, smore-eating, marshmallow-roasting, soda-guzzling, story-telling, fly-swatting, sun-screening, Andy-Gumping, popsicle-eating trip it always is.

We got home late on Wednesday night, and on Thursday morning I managed to cut my foot, pass out twice, and had to get stitches. I'm glad that happened after this trip. I don't think the lake is the best environment for keeping a wound clean and free of infection.

Here are the three heroes pushing the boat. Ryan injured himself doing this.

horsin around

The Haslam family has had many occasions to get together and celebrate in the last few weeks.

First we celebrated Christine's (Ryan's sister) 40th birthday. To surprise her, Ryan and his brother in law and dad all went in on a new horse to replace Sox. They presented Christine with the new horse (who she named Ruby) and then all the adults went country dancing.

We've also had get-togethers for a baptism, a temple night, and of course the waterski trip. It's a good thing I like these people.

Father's Day 2011

Here are some pictures from Father's Day. This summer has been so busy that this already seems like so long ago. I can't even remember all the cute things the boys made for Ryan. Alex made a pop-up card and Ben made a little book and a huge card and I think Charlie drew about 10 different pictures for Ryan. He also got a new book and a little shop vac.

Ryan requested a Greek omelette for breakfast. I'm not the best at omelettes but this one turned out pretty good.

Later we had the extended family over for dinner and badminton in the backyard.

Fun day.

Great Dad.

last day of school

We celebrated the last day of school with a little more fanfare than usual this year. In the morning Charlie found this butterfly in the backyard. We think it might have been injured or something. We left it alone after we took the pictures and it disappeared after a while. We hope it recovered and flew away.

After picking the boys up from school we went to see Kung Fu Panda 2. We had decided that was the one movie of the year that was theater worthy for the kids.

Then later that night the boys requested to "camp" in the backyard. Ryan set up the tent and even started a fire in the fireplace so we could roast marshmallows for smores. Somehow I was the lucky parent who got to sleep outside with them. I think they all slept better than I did.

But before we settled down in our sleeping bags, we played around with some dry ice. We added soap bubbles to it and it kept us entertained for quite a while. It is fascinating stuff.

ben's park day

I got to tag along when Ben's class had their Park Day during the last week of school. They played a lot of classic games (egg in the spoon relay, gunny sack races, sponge relay, water balloon toss) and had a giant hunt in the sand for hidden treasures.

Here's Ben with his friend Will:
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Ben and Charlie were pretty good at the balloon toss.