Tradition

Almost every year, we girls get to start our summer off with a bang in St. George with the Fetzer girls.  Krista & Kate kindly allow us to pretend we are part of their fun family of girls during a week full of girl-fest stuff …. nail painting, crafts, swimming, shopping, walks, games, cooking, tanning, movie marathon, mass sleepovers … you name it.  Best way to kick off summer!

It's always hot in St. George in the summer, but we had quite the heat range this time.  Good thing there was a pool and a lake close by.  (And truthfully, the 119 was when the car sat on the hot pavement for a few hours.  It thankfully never got quite that hot.)

We always end up celebrating Haley's birthday there since she's a summer girl. :)  Officially a teenager now.

The sand dunes is a must.  We always go at dusk when the sand is warm but the air has cooled a tiny bit.  The red sand is as soft as you'll feel anywhere.

Baby Hannah's 1st year at the girlfest.

3 cute 8th graders from 3 different Bountiful jr high schools.  

Breakfast in bed, which this time meant a huge bowl of Corn Pops to share.

Taking selfies in bed -- the girls took literally 600 pictures on my phone.  We saved a few good ones.
Something we haven't done before is take the girls to a show at Tuacahn, which this year happened to be The Little Mermaid.  Go see that (or any show) if you happen to have the chance! They flooded the stage with water and the mermaids literally glided around the stage on some kind of wheeled something hidden under their skirt/tails.  Still wondering how they did that.

Another first -- we found a lake nearby and spent the day playing there.

Serious photo bombing skills from Kate in the background.  See why I love them so much??

A group bubble bath is always on these girls' list of entertainment.  They're getting bigger, though, so only 3 could fit this time.

And always swimming, swimming, swimming.

And now summer is official. :)

The remodeling continues ...

This time, to the outside of the house.  Here is how the house looked when we moved in, and for the next 2 years that we lived here.

I knew that all of those evergreen hedges had to go.  For my sanity, if not for curb-appeal.  But we also felt like the front door needed a more welcoming entry.  I wanted to have a walk-way and steps going from the front door to the curb, not forcing every guest to walk up an icy driveway.  So we started ripping things out ...

Even the dirt was an improvement, right?  Sure opened the entry up.  Then we hired a designer whose work we had seen around town and he had some fun ideas for the rest of the remodel. 

The old cement came out to make way for the new walkway ...

Then the new porch and columns started going up.

New windows went in, the finish work went up and it started looking pretty darn great.

When we first asked the designer what he thought we should do to update the look of the house (aside from ripping out the fetzer bushes), his first recommendations were to get new windows and paint the brick.  I was all on board with painting our house, but Mike had some understandable reservations.  Once you start painting brick, there's no going back.  We drove and drove and drove around many neighborhoods, trying to find painted brick houses that we liked and could imagine on our house.  And we finally found one …. the exact color and style of what we wanted for our house.  We talked to the owner, who was so kind and shared every detail of her remodel.  It gave us the urge to make the leap on our house.  And we couldn't be happier that we did.  Here is the end result….

One more before and after ….

The end of an era

Christian graduated from 9th grade last month, which means no more jr. high.  Overall, I'd say a great 3 years.  He finished strong by being nominated as a Student of the Month, earning the Outstanding Student award from the music department, and going to southern California with the Jazz Band.

He played a killer solo of Stairway to Heaven with the Jazz Band for their final concert….

Walking the walk to receive a graduation certificate.

The very cool Benn D.  I'm so grateful Christian has good friends.

Playing with the band on the Santa Monica pier.  They put an instrument case out and actually made a decent amount of $$.

They also spent time at Disneyland and Six Flags.  Fun trip.  He returned from that trip and went straight to another youth camp for the week.  And then Summer Driver's Ed. starts.  High school, here he comes ….