Awning

It was quite a project, but we now have an awning over our back patio!  We are enjoying eating, sitting, and playing in the back yard even more than we have in the past, especially since Adam installed misters and we had a fan put in. 

It's made it bearable to hang out there in the heat this summer, but I think it will be downright awesome all through the fall!  The real challenge now is to figure out what more we could possibly do to our backyard to make it more fun...

Family Reunion

My mom was in charge of the Anderson Family Reunion (my grandfather's parents' children) this year, so because she asked if I would take some pictures while I was there I went to special effort to take some good snapshots (and a few posed pictures...but I wasn't super thrilled with most of them). Here are some of my favorite shots from the afternoon. 

These two hit it off and were as thick as thieves the whole day...this was in the first 30 minutes! 

My grandparents' generation

My parents' generation

Advantages to having a waterproof camera

1.  Taking the camera to the pool (for, say, a family birthday party) without the fear of it being ruined. 

2.  Underwater pictures (obviously)

3.  Handing your camera to a child to take pictures when you're too busy having fun to stop to take any more pictures (Katie, 5, took these shots...I think.  It's getting hard to tell for sure because she's getting so good). 

4.  Instant teething toy! 

Lily chewing on the camera in question.

One thing a waterproof camera won't do for you?  Despite its advantages, it won't take the pictures for you, even if you have the best of intentions...so there are still plenty of missed photo ops.  Oh, well. (At least I have these!)

Note: all of these pictures were taken at our end of July family birthday party at City Pool.  All except for the picture of Lily chewing on the camera at Sand Hollow Reservoir, which I stole off Shelli's blog and slapped in here to prove my point.

Swim Lessons 2011

This year is the first year of swim lessons that I couldn't get all the kids with their different levels in the same session at the same time, so I took the parent/tot class with Max in one session, then Adam took Katie and Isaiah to their classes in the next session.  This is also the first year that we didn't have any issues or things to work on--all the kids did really well and passed their levels! 
Here they are with their teachers:

Katie, level 2 Advanced

Isaiah, level 3

Next year we will probably have to split them into two sessions again because we'll have a parent/tot, a level 1, a level 3, and a level 4!

Catching up

I know, I said I was taking a break.  But it's funny how not feeling pressure to blog makes it more fun. And I've found time to fit it in here and there over the past couple of weeks.  I'll never catch up completely, there were too many little moments that went by over the past few months that went unrecorded and are, therefore, forgotten. Alas, that is life. But there are a few things you may have missed out on that were recorded, at least in pictures, that I am slowly getting back to. Wanna see?

If you were not a fly on the wall at our house, you may have missed... (click on the picture to view the post)

Easter

Toddler Time

BFFs

Katie's Dance Recital

Photographers...of a Sort

Playing in the River

The Double Wedding

Vacation in San Diego



part one



part two



part three



Recipes (One Old, One New)

Gak

Isaiah's Karate Tournament

Riding the Bus

Slip 'N Sliding in the Nude

Isaiah Turns 8

First Swim at the City Pool (of the season)



Scrunchy Face

Lily - 9 months

Gunlock Rodeo

Well, now I'm only about a month out, but we've been busy this month!  So stay tuned for lots of new posts of all the fun things we've been up to.

Tomato Master

I have to preface this post by saying that Isaiah doesn't like tomatoes.  As in, "Ew, gross, tomatoes?!"  But last school year he read a book about tomatoes in guided reading that had "recipes" in it (there were no actual amounts listed, and no precise directions), and he came home and made his own recipe book featuring those recipes, as well as a few others he made up and learned from us. I am heartbroken that I can't find the recipe book; it had "Written by a 7-year-old!" in a star burst on the cover, and hand-drawn pictures throughout.  It was truly awesome.  But, while we cannot currently find the book itself, we have made the recipes!  One night, as a reward, Isaiah and I made his "chunky tomato sauce pizza" and "tomato salsa."  And despite his dislike for tomatoes, they were a big hit! 

(And *ahem* although I know you want the recipes, but because we couldn't find the recipe book, we mostly just made them up as we went. You could pretty much google "pico de gallo" and "tomato sauce" and go with the most basic recipes to duplicate what we made.  Well, mostly there was some tweaking going on to make the tomatoes less tomato-y...)

the Lake

Two years ago we rented jet skis and went to Sand Hollow Reservoir with Shelli and Ben and their family.  We all said then that it was the best. day. ever.  Ever since then we have been waiting for an opportunity to do it again...but I was pregnant unexpectedly last year, dashing all my fun summer plans, jet skis included.  So when Adam brought up the idea of renting jet skis this summer, and I was adamant that we needed to do it.  We talked to Shelli and Ben, and invited Echo and Russ and Grandma Bubbles, and set out to have another awesome day on the lake.  We had so much fun, in fact, that I really didn't take a lot of pictures; I was too busy playing.  But here are a few of the ones I did take:

Lily eating sand-mmmm!  (Side note: Lily started crawling on her hands and knees here at the lake!)

Happy swimming girls!

the big boys "fighting" with their "weapons" (aka oars)

Grandma and the girls singing "row, row, row your boat"

Hi, Isaiah!

little boys keeping busy in what Max called "my big sandbox"

Rachel

Adam

awesome picture off the back of the jetski while I was pulling Grandma and the little boys in the boat 

chillin' in the water

the lake is exhausting!

I loved this snuggly picture of Max with Grandma

the girls doing a cheer for their castle building