More fun while in Utah...

*Julie - this may freak you out a little, read with caution ;)

So another fun thing we experienced on our SLC trip was the reptile bday party going on in Grandma's neighbor's backyard - which they were super nice to invite the kids to! Yes, that is my daughter petting and loving a 15 foot anaconda!

And Traeden wearing a 7 foot Burmese python around his neck!

Jax enjoyed the snakes also, but the giant tortoise was definitely the most fun! He just chomped on the grass like he hadn't eaten in weeks.

It was a fun little surprise! My kids always love an opportunity to learn about and touch real animals!

Smith happens :)

Okay, so I don't know why it's been so long since I've posted anything! Could be that we have either been out of town or have had company every week since my last post!!! Not to make excuses... :) So we were very lucky to make an impossible-looking flight to get to SLC this summer for the annual Smith Fam Reunion!!! What a blast! We always have such a great time with the Smiths, they are such a fantastic family! We really had a lot of fun! It is always great to give our poor, cousin-less kids a chance to play with the next best thing - our cousins' kids!!

Araleigh, Nicole, and Kataunna on the swings

Traeden enjoying croquet with Hunter, Michael, and Jackie

Getting ready for the movie!!

Araleigh performing on the "stage" that she found, with Kataunna!! So cute!!!

So day 1 of the reunion, we met up at Grandma's for dinner and a movie under the stars. Day 2 was golfing for the guys, then bowling, then on to family pictures - quite an ordeal for over 50 people, lots of those being under the age of 5!!! Next we had dinner, the annual "fishing pond", then out to Draper for the fantastic fireworks show. Day 3 was up at the cabin in Lamb's canyon, for tons of food, hiking, and games. We had such a great time, and it was so fun to see everyone and catch up on everyone's lives!!!

Beach Bums :)

For the 4th of July this year we took a last-minute trip down to Panama City, FL to have a nice, relaxing family vacation on the beach! We literally were bums all weekend - it was great! We totally slept in every day, then lounged on the beach and at the pool and that was it!!! It was great to have a trip with no agenda! Panama City is a beautiful beach, and we are very blessed to be able to visit there!!! I know I have posted pics of this place before, so here are just a few this time:

Araleigh had the right idea :) She took "relaxing at the pool" to a new level!

The boys had a great time jumping over and into the big waves. There was a lot of seaweed, which is why the water looks green. We all came out covered in green slime :)

Araleigh loves the sand. She never fails to get it absolutely everywhere! I am still washing it out of her hair...

The morning we left there was a storm moving in, which just looks awesome!!

Traeden is 9!!!

My baby is 9. Whoa. I really can't believe I am old enough to have a 9 yr old. Well technically I'm not old enough :) But still, that's an old kid! Traeden had the option to have a party this year, but he kept insisting that all he wanted to do was Delta (the happiest place on earth) and the "alpine slide", both in Utah. Well, wish granted, to Utah we went! We allowed Trae to open his gifts a day early, because we weren't going to bring them all with us, the lucky guy! He also received a set of golf clubs (Dave's heart continues to leap for joy) along with a new basketball and even, thanks to Jax, a Bakugan!!

We miraculously made it to SLC despite some monsoon-like rain in Chicago (no exaggeration - the cars were basically floating down the streets!) but unfortunately my poor hubby had to sleep in Denver again due to an unexpected delay! He has the worst luck! Unfortunately there was anticipated bad weather in Utah as well, so our Delta plans went down the drain. He was pretty devastated, but a good sport, and still had a fun day, getting plenty spoiled by his aunts and uncles and attending "Up". Thanks Grandpa :)

I still made his cake to look like the water trampoline we have at Delta...sort of :)

He then had an extended bday on Sunday with the Smiths, which resulted in more spoiling and even another cake!

We went to Lagoon with Jeff and Liz on Monday, which was a lot of fun! Jax proved to be the adventurous one that day, riding by far the most thrill rides - over and over! I think Trae was a little tired, because he was a little difficult and didn't want to ride anything non-kiddie. I was not very happy about that. But we still had fun!

Araleigh loved the train the most - it has animals so of course it was her favorite!

She also loved having Traeden "drive" her around in the little cars.

She didn't want to do the swings at first, but after a minute she loved them!!!

But at least we were able to grant one birthday wish, the alpine slide in Park City! Trae loves this thing, ever since we took him on it when he was 4! For 2 years after that all he talked about was how he couldn't wait until he was 6 so he could drive it by himself and race us! It was so fun being up there with him! The first time, Jax and I went together and he went by himself, the second time, we had to race! We were having a blast until he got stuck behind an EXTREMELY SLOW kid about halfway down the track!!! He was pretty mad, and still claims he would have beat me if it wasn't for that kid!

He then got to climb the climbing wall, which he is very good at!

Jax and Araleigh had fun on the little train!

Then we were off for lunch and swimming at the fabulous Tuhaye!! We had an amazing meal with a fabulous view! The food was great, and we were out on the patio by the pool! It was such a beautiful day!

My little princess enjoyed a dainty lunch...

Then time for the beautiful pool! The scenery was absolutely perfect!

Thank you, Liz for the perfect day!!! What a fun time!

Happy birthday, Traeden!!!

The end of an era...the end of bad weather!!!

Baseball season has finally come to an end, at least in the little league world!!! Youth baseball is its own religion out here, and with 2 boys in at the same time, our lives became pretty consumed! We had practice or a game nearly every day! It was a lot of fun watching the boys play and have fun making new friends. They both improved a lot over the course of the season, as well!

On another note, it seems summer has FINALLY arrived in Chicago, which meant time to break out the slip n slide!!! I had to post some of my favorite pics!

This one is just plain awesome :) Trae is the master slip n slider!!

Jax preferred the body board approach

And Araleigh would pretty much just splash in the pool in between the boys' turns! Yay for summer!!!!

Jaxon is 7!!!!!

I can't believe our Jax is 7!!! That's so huge! For his birthday this year we let him have a party with a few friends from school. He originally chose a laser tag party, but after he had been to 7 laser tag parties (apparently it's the cool thing to do when you turn 7 out here) he decided he wanted to do something different so we did a bowling party instead!!

He of course chose a bowling alley cake, which I think turned out pretty well, considering I had originally planned to do a bowling ball and switched at the last minute!

The party! Traeden had his last regular-season baseball game that day, so Dave was with him, and I was left alone with 6 seven-year-olds!!! It was a little overwhelming, but they had a lot of fun! It was cute to watch them cheer each other on and laugh at the funny cartoons on the screen after each play.

It amazed me how, even though we had the bumpers up, we still managed to lose our balls into the next lanes several times. The boys are pros at bumper-jumping :) It was a good thing we pretty much had the place to ourselves, because we really put the employees to work!!!

Those who know Jaxon well know that when he is "into" something, he is really into it!!! He gets very passionate about it and wants nothing but said thing! Well this year's "thing" is Bakugan - similar to Pokemon and Yu Gi Oh, it is a card game but it actually comes with little action figures that start out as a ball, and then pop open when placed on metal. Before his birthday, he had one, which he bought with his own money. Well apparently when his friends asked what he wanted for his birthday, he told all of them the same thing. He now has 21. He is so excited. :)

His other big gift this year was his very own golf clubs!!!

Not sure who's more excited, Jax or Dave, who has been wanting to teach his boys to play for years!!! He can hardly wait to get out on the course with them! His birthday was super busy, he had a baseball game in the morning, then karate testing, where he earned 2 stripes!!! We then went out to dinner at our favorite breakfast restaurant, Walker Bro's for an awesome breakfast-for-dinner!

Happy birthday, Jaxon!!

Zoo Day

This is kind of a random post, but I wanted to get these pics on here before I move on to bigger events :) I am very lucky to hve some great friends here in Chicago, and we all have memberships to different places so we all get each other in for free! It's a nice system! So this was a trip to the Brookfield Zoo with my friends Sarah and Amber and our cute kids (just the little ones, big ones were still in school) It's a really nice zoo and we really had a great time! Araleigh loves animals more than any kid I have ever seen, it is so fun to watch her get so excited!!! She is all smiles and squeals of joy all day!

This huge dinosaur roars and moves his tail and spits water! It is very life-like! There is actually an entire dinosaur exhibit with more Jurassic Park - like dinosaurs which is really cool. Araleigh is a little freaked out by it, though!

The giraffe exhibit was really neat, the giraffes could get so close to us! This one came right up to Araleigh, she was so excited!!!

This was some kind of monkey, I can't remember what kind. One of the big ones, but not a gorilla. The kids thought it was so hilarious when he decided to relieve his bladder right in front of us, he seemed to enjoy the laughs he got. I think he was showing off a little :)

We ended our day with a little play time at the park, climbing on fun animal statues and posing for pictures. What a fun day!!!