Water Olympics!!!

I love this picture.  This is my friend's house. Katie Bell.  You may know her from her role in Harry Potter as Gryffindor's Quidditch Chaser.  We live in an apartment right now so we love going over to the Bell's house.  They have a cute house an a lot of land full complete with gardens, front porch swing, chickens and ducks.  My kids love it.  And don't you just love that flag!!  And look at all those girls!  We all have a lot of girls in our families.

Last week her kids wanted to do water balloons with mine and that sparked our amazing idea for water olympics!!  We held them on friday to kick off the olympics.  We had an obstacle course, water balloon toss, chicken run, track and field 400M dash and a podium for the closing ceremonies.

Blake likes to wear his rock lobster swim pants and lightning mcqueen hat.  Ben helped him through the obstacle course.  Blake is a pretty big joiner.  If anyone is doing anything he will jump in and join them.  It's pretty cute. 

I took some quick shots of the kids during their dash around the house. 

Katie has everything at her house so when I suggested platforms for the winner's stand she had them and a back drop, and a table for dinner, and room for the inflatable water slide, and the list goes on.

It's snapshots like these that make think, "is that what I look like all the time?  Does my face always look odd and I just don't notice because whenever I look in the mirror I am actually looking and trying to look nice?"  These are not flattering pictures but oh well.

I love Adeline's smile in this picture.  She really is happy to standing on the podium.

It was a fun night.  Sometimes the best ideas are those that happen spur of the moment.  For some reason they just come together better. 

Little Sammy gets married

We have had a busy, busy few weeks!  I have never felt so tired.  We drove 12 hrs to Utah, had four crazy days of crossfit (turns out I'm not as strong as I thought), dinners, showers, wedding set up/clean up, flower arranging and the kids going having a blast with cousins and not going to bed on time.  After the wedding we drove another 10 hrs to CA, another three days of cleaning, cleaning, food prep, cleaning, set up, cleaning, the open house, cleaning, a trip to Walnut Creek for Pacen's baptism, more cleaning at my mom's and then another 4hr drive back home.  Seriously so tired.  But it was worth it because LOOK HOW HAPPY HE IS!!!!

Have you ever seen Sam this happy?!?!?!?  They are a cute couple and we love having Hilary around.  Daisy just told me today that one day she wants to grow up and be big so that her and Hilary can be friends.  Right now they can't be friends because she is still little but one day she will be big and they can be friends.  I think all the girls were pretty smitten with Hilary.

The best thing about our family is how well the cousins all get along.  They all play really well and there are very few fights.  I love it.  And the girls love being with their cousins.  I don't think the adults enjoy the sleepovers and late night swim parties as much as the kids but it is still fun seeing them all together. 

The reception was catered by J-Dawgs.  They are a hot dog place in Provo and it was SO cute seeing the little kids in their nice church outfits shoving hot dogs into their mouths.  Blake is a true Hancock and ate his entire hot dog with no problem.  I took a ton of pictures of the kids with food in their face but it really was so cute.

It was a great, crazy week.  I was pretty impressed with how well the adults handled it all as well.  We all played really well together and their were hardly any fights!  That is a success for us Hancocks! :)

I also have to say that my parent's backyard turned out to be really cute for an open house despite all our reservations.  It looked great!  We didn't get any pictures of it though.  Sad.  

So we are finally back at home.  We are still in the middle of buying a house.  Our place is half packed and I can't wait to get settled again.  I keep hoping that we can get everything done so that on my birthday I can move into my new house.  That would be awesome!  However, if that doesn't happen my birthday plans include watching all of Downton Abbey, start to finish, with the ole Benji.  He said he would do it as long as he could have ice cream and popcorn each night.  I love being married to him.

Transitions

 
My sister came down a few weeks ago and grabbed both Heidi and Kaylee on her way to California.  We got a whole ten days with just two kids!  I know that when you have two kids life still seems really crazy and hectic like you are making it but it is still a lot of work.  I don't mean to belittle those moms who only have two kids who find it stressful because that was me before.  However, after having four kids and dropping down to TWO it is a breeze!!!!  And so quiet.  It was a really good break for us especially since we have so much going on.  It's stressful stuff too so it's not like a lot is happening and you have something to show for it.  It is just a lot of transitional stuff that causes you stress.  Ben finished his residency and starts work next week at his new job.  We are also trying to buy a house and that is a whole messy process as well.  That also means we are moving soon but we will also be gone for a while right before the closing should be going through (should be...I hope it does because I am finished living in our apartment) but I've gotten a lot pre-packed so it won't be such a rush at the end.

 So far this summer the girls swam at grandma's all week long while we did things like watch Brave, play at the park, and even took the little kids out to yogurt.  Since the kids have been back I've tried to make our summer on active one.  With Ben home we decided to finally go on some of the many hikes around Medford.  We did Upper Table Rock Tuesday-it was a good first hike.  We pushed the double stroller and I had to laugh as Ben pushed it straight uphill and was ready quit once we started.  It was a hard hike but the kids did well.  We live in such a pretty place though.  I really love living in Medford and am glad we get to stay here.

 Then on Wednesday, the 4th, we did a hike in Jacksonville.  It was a much easier hike except for one VERY steep hill we had to go down that scared the girls a bit. Aren't they so cute though?  I'm so happy we went out and did these family outings.  We can't do a lot of big family vacations this year so these were really fun day activities.  In fact Ben wants to take just Heidi and Kaylee back to Table Rock on Saturday to do the hike without pushing a huge, heavy stroller.

 OK, you can't tell how steep that hill is from the bottom but it was like when you are on a roller coaster and you can't even see the bottom because it just drops off from view.  It was steep.

 At the bottom of the hill was a creek the kids played in until we continued the trail back to the Britt Gardens.

 Then we ended our 4th festivities with a BBQ with friends.  It was beautiful weather with a nice breeze.  The kids ate watermelon until they ruined their outfits.  We finished off the night with fireworks and then put the kids in bed.  It was a long day but it was very rewarding.