JULY 2016

One Sunday while trying to eat dinner, Jack was being a nuisance and only wanted me to hold him. So I put him on the ground and sat by him which made him happy. Thus the picture of me eating dinner on the floor. Kyle thought it was quite funny. On Sunday's we usually go to Amy's or Ashlee's. If Cory is around and asleep we throw Jack on him to pester him

For the Fourth of July this year we went to Boulder, UT with Dr. Mike and Kelly Anderson. They have a cabin on the Burl Trail. To get to the cabin you have to drive up a river for a hundred yards or so. When we arrived it had just flash flooded so we had to hike in. It was crazy and the kids whined a lot, but we made it. It's one of the prettiest places I have been to. Boulder has some fun festivities for the fourth. The guy from Dual Survivor (tv show) lives there. Kyle thought it was pretty awesome that we were eating right next to him so he secretly took his picture with him:) Boulder celebrated the 4th on Saturday, so Monday (the 4th) we packed up and headed to Richfield to be with my family. Amanda my SIL is from there and her family does crazy fireworks for the 4th so we went with Ashlee to those. Amy was there, but she had found out a boy in their ward got killed when he fell off the mountain behind her house. Travis is in the bishopric so they decided to head home and make sure the family was ok. So so very sad. Breaks my hear.

I feel like I take a lot of pictures of these two sleeping. Sometimes they decided to sleep on the floor. I don't understand it because their floor is wood and hard, but they prefer it weirdos. It's actually Gus who asks if he can sleep on the floor then Oliver has to copy everything he does.

Kyle for work is lucky enough to take his customers sometimes to do fun things. We met 2 or 3 of his LV accounts at Cowabunga Bay in Las Vegas. We had so much fun. I think we decided the wave pool and lazy river were our favorites. While in Vegas we went to Ethel M. chocolates. They are crazy good chocolates really really expensive, but crazy good. We also went to Krispy Kreme to get a fresh glazed donut. Nothing beats a hot fresh donut.

On our way home from Las Vegas this lady was in front of us and wasn't turning so naturally Kyle honked and got really frustrated at her. I made him turn around at the bank and help her. Her car wouldn't start, I felt so bad. Kyle didn't know that was the case and felt really bad after the fact. He can be a very impatient driver a lot.

I did signing time one Sunday because our singing lady was going to be out of town and couldn't find a sub. I made a really cute poster that says "I sing you sing we all sing for ice cream" I put all of the program songs on it. Sewed cute little cherries for it, so if they sing all of the songs really good and get cherries on top of all of the song's ice cream cones then they get an ice cream party. Since it is summer I put on all of my pool attire. I had a squirt bottle full of water I would spray at them if they were singing really hot. So they threw the beach ball that I had wrote all of the songs on. Whoever caught the ball chose a song to sing and something that I was wearing. Whatever they chose that I was wearing was how we sang the song. So I had a snorkel on and we sang the song like we were talking through a snorkel and so on. One of the boys when I first started said you kinda look ridiculous. One of my friends is a teacher and snapped this picture. I agree with the kid I did look ridiculous, but it was the best they had sung in months. It was a lot of fun, and I could barely talk after my voice was shot.

Amanda invited us to her Aunt's house in Bloomington to swim. She has this cool built in slide. I think Oliver went down it at least 100 times.

Oliver being a spaz, and Oliver in Funder's cool truck

The Kirby and Reeve's girls invited us to a carnival at the Paparazzi building that they were putting on. When they invited us I thought there were going to be a bunch of kiddos, but we were the only guests. It was ridiculously cute. Kyle and Julie just gabbed it up while we played carnival games. They even had fake goldfish inside bags of water. They looked real. The Kirby's recently moved out of Julie's house and I'm going to miss Preslie so much. I really really love that girl.




This was my favorite side dish. Ann Nielson brought it, it took her 2 days to make it. Thats commitment right there.

This picture is my running partner, neighbor, soda bringing, adult conversation holding, best friend. They just moved in July to Parowan. I cried my little eyes out all day. I hate that she left. Every single kid on our street has moved. I feel bad for Gus and Oliver. 

Since everyone is moving we decided to have a block party to say goodbye. I made cute popsicle invites, we provided the hot dogs, homemade rootbeer, and water. We asked everyone to bring a side.


Gus and Oliver got invited to Bradyn's birthday party. They moved 2 days later. Gus was pretty sad they left and always asks if Bradyn can play. He was 4 years older, but played really good with my little rugrats.

Jack threw Oliver's fishing pole over the boat, so Kyle dunked his head into the lake. He didn't like it at all.




We have gone to Kolob and stayed at Gma Linie's cabin. It has been a lot of fun exploring, finding treasures, and making memories. Kyle loves Kolob and has missed going up there. It's nice things with his family are mending for the most part.

We finally convinced the Funderburks to come and swim and play with us one evening. They have two girls Gus and Oliver's age and they have a little boy on the way. Gus calls Macy his girlfriend. Funder taught us how to use illegal fireworks. We also went to Macy's birthday party in cedar. It was a bike one and the boys loved it.


Kyle did the 100 mile bike race in Panguitch again this year. It's called the Desperado Dual. He said he did really well until the last 30 miles. I guess the wind picked up and he bonked. Dr. Mike and Wayne (from work) drove up with him. We stayed home and watched Cars the movie on the tramp and had popcorn. The first two pictures are of Kyle, Dan, and Dr Mike riding their bikes to Kolob. I think it was Dan's first time.


I couldn't go to the bike race because my SIL had a baby shower. She is due August 22nd. She got so many cute pink things. My dream.

Onjali finally came to town again so we went to Main Street Cafe for dinner. It's a new owner who is an Italian guy. I got the chicken gnocchi it was very delicious. I want to take Kyle, I'm so glad they got new owners! While I was gone Kyle took the boys on a bike ride and Jack fell right to sleep.

Random pictures from this past month. We went with the Woodbury's to get free lunch at the Community center a couple of times. My kids thought the food was disgusting so they basically only ate the fruit or veggie. Gus liked the chocolate milk as well. That explains the picture of us on the grass. Caitlyn got her wisdom teeth out so I took a pic of her, Oliver and Kin. Those are Oliver's favorite people. Jack absolutely loves the rocking chair grandpa Ballard gave Gus when he passed away. He sits in it every night to watch tv with us. Aunt Ali sent us Koozie's from Kip's birthday party. Kyle always uses the one from their wedding so its nice to have a new one. I learned how to put the scorpions we catch in epoxy. We give them as birthday presents now.

For the 24th of July my mom always get this huge waterslide. We left Kolob early to partake in the fun. I guess she switched the time to earlier so everyone had been there for awhile already. It wasn't as fun as previous years.


Gus has been working at Gma Linie's house every morning. He sleeps with his clothes at the end of his bed so he can wake up early and hurry and get dressed. She has been teaching him all about the pool, boy ducks, tunnel spiders, and everything in between. Whatever she says is gospel. He has a pretty good work ethic that kid.

We met Brooke and Lola at Veyo pool one day. That place is always a good time

Some cool shots of the boys swimming. Oliver is practicing his dives, and Gus likes to get thrown in the air by Kyle.

Meet the newest member of the Ballard family. His name is Gum, actually we haven't named him yet. I think his name should be gum because we have bubbles the chicken and then gum the duck. get it bubble gum?! I'm so clever. So we got home from Kolob last Saturday and this thing was quacking like mad in the back yard. I gave it a ton of water and it quieted down. Dick (the quiet guy aka the cat stealer) asked Kyle if it was on purpose. He didn't like it. We thought it was the Snodgress' but I just talked to her last night and its not theirs, so now we get to keep it I hope. Kyle doesn't want it, but its pretty friendly and has been eating all of my bugs. So I think he is a keeper.