Visitor 4

Our fourth July visitors were the lovely and talented Carolyn and Whitney Nielson. The day after Hillary departed, they rolled in from the ATX. That's Austin, Texas for anyone who doesn't know- so basically, anyone not from Austin. And Whitney lives in Lubbock, so I will call it LTX.

We were so happy to see them. Unfortunately their visit coincided with our busiest week of the summer. We happened to have all these random things going on- 2 different weddings, an awards dinner for Coach Judkins, Sadie's play rehearsals/final performances, Sadie's surprise birthday party, swim lessons every morning, etc. Most of our summer has been clear, but we were busy and I feel like we didn't have nearly enough time to do fun stuff. On top of the busy stuff Sadie was a grump and didn't want to do anything fun. Like, Mimi wanted to take them to the park: "no!!!", go on a hike: "no!!!", go to a movie: "no!!!". Sorry Whitney and Carolyn. 

Carolyn and I got in several great walks and explored the Murdock Trail some more. 

Whitney and Carolyn went on a great hike, which my kids refused to do. Yes, I stole their pictures.

One day Elise went to the park and got treats with Mimi and Whitney all by herself since Sadie didn't want to go. 

We did go swimming at a friend of a friend's house one afternoon. I have so many connections to the girl that it is confusing to explain, but she is one of my cousin's best friends and my cousin invited us. The pool was complete with a diving board and slide, which my girls took full advantage of. They went down the slide together repeatedly and smashed each other into the walls. It looked painful to us, but they enjoyed it. 

Carolyn and Whitney helped put together all the party goodie bags for Sadie's surprise party and reassured me that the cupcakes looked great even though they actually looked like a 9-year-old made them. 

 They took on the fun task of watching Camille at the party venue. 

I feel like we spent a lot of time just hanging out at home between our other commitments. Below Camille is shaking her head no while climbing on Mimi.

On the last evening of their visit we had a little dinner get-together at Ron and Lani's house. The girls enjoyed playing with Jack and Sam and we all enjoyed the beautiful views from the back deck.

It was so fun to have them here. The drive from Texas is no joke and we really appreciate them taking the time to come visit us. 

Visitor 3

Miss Hillary John Salazar. She overlapped with my mom for 1 day. Naturally, we stayed up until all hours of the night talking that night with the 3 of us. 

When Hillary walked in Sadie and Lou went crazy. They love Hill so much.
We kept right on with all the fun activities.
We made our first visit to the Provo Rec Center. It was really fun and really packed. It started pouring outside right as we arrived so the outsides pools and slides were closed. Hillary rode around and around the lazy river with the girls.

 The indoor water slides didn't allow lap riders so I waited at the bottom with Millie while Hillary went to the top and sent Sadie and Elise down before going herself. Elise came down crying and said she hit her head, but Sadie loved it. Sadie ended up waiting in line by herself when Lou refused to go again. I tried to get a picture of her coming down, but all I got was her in the big blurry splash at the end of the slide.

We also played at a Chick-fil-a play place.

One morning Hillary put make-up on the girls which made Sadie look like she is 15 years old. Sadie's lashes with mascara on them actually touch her eyebrows.

Another day we visited what we call the dinosaur park. We played a big game of hide-and-seek and left Millie happily sitting in the swing. As Hillary and I were hiding when it was Sadie's turn to count I giggled to myself as I observed the scene. It looked like there were 3 little girls (Elise hid in plain sight every time) just sitting at the park doing nothing with no adults. Just then another car pulled into the parking lot with some picnickers . I ended up coming out of hiding after a few minutes because I didn't want someone to think the girls had actually been abandoned.

Hillary stayed long enough to help me wrangle the kids at church and then I drove her up to her mother-in-law's house for the remainder of her visit. We were all sad to see Hillary go, but it's not hard saying goodbye when you will see people again in a few weeks.

6 Years Old

Our Sadie lady is 6 years old today. Wow.

Her birthdays always cause me more reflection than my other girls'. I guess it's because she is the oldest and our experiment/learning child. Every stage for her is new for all of us. I am so much harder on her than the other girls. I hope some day she can forgive me for that.

Anyway, this last year has been a big one for Sades:

-completing Kindergarten

-learning to swim

-making lots of new friends at school

-sharing a room with Elise (of course Sadie sleeps on the top bunk)

-getting better at forgiving herself for making mistakes

-competing in her first organized sport (soccer)

-learning a few songs on the piano

-giving her first talk in Primary

-waking up at the crack of dawn no matter the season

-having consistent chores

-learning how to pump on the swings

-continuing to ask amazing questions. For example 2 days ago she asked me how the first people got on the earth since they didn't have a mother to give birth to them

-learning how to read fluently and truly comprehending what she is reading

-being in her first play

-saying she is sorry to a friend whose feelings she hurt (that is HARD for Sadie)

Sadie loves: the color pink, reading, playing pretend, shopkins, The Octonauts, Tinkerbell and the other fairies, all things princess, coloring, swinging on the swing set, swimming, water slides, being recognized, dancing, new anything (but mostly new toys), spinning in dresses, candy and treats.

Sadie's current best friends: Jersey, Claire, Hunter, and Bentley. Actually, there are a ton more but those 4 are probably her closest friends at the moment. 

We love you Sadie. 

Somehow I got caught in a trap of watching videos from Sadie's first few months of life. I don't think I have watched these videos since Sadie was a baby because we got a nicer camera when she was 6 months old and I started uploading our videos onto our youtube channel as a way to share them with family. The girls love to watch our youtube channel videos repeatedly, but since these ones aren't on there I haven't seen them in years. 

Anyway, here is Miss Sadie Rose Nielson's first time on camera:

And a cute video of her with Daniel at 2 months old:

Visitor 2

On July 5th we met up with July visitor #2, Nana. I am considering the Cottles as July visitor #1 even though they didn't stay with us, because we hung multiple times at the very beginning of July. Daniel also happened to leave for his first recruiting trip of the summer on July 5th.
The girls and I met Nana in Salt Lake for an extended family dinner. Before dinner we visited Grammie's grave. Sadie's middle name is Rose, after Rosemary (Grammie) and she is very interested in everything Rosemary-related. Maybe I have forced it, but Sadie feels a real connection to her.

Sadie had asked to visit her grave several times so we thought this would be a great time to go. I actually hadn't been back since Grammie's funeral so it was nice for me. It also made me sad for two reasons: 1)my girls don't get to have Grammie in their lives and 2)they don't get to have a grandmother live close to them like I had with Grammie. I really hope one day we get to live within *reasonable* driving distance of one of our parents.

Back to my mom's visit. We had fun visiting with cousins at Sunday dinner and then with 2nd cousins and beyond at another gathering that night.
Monday morning (and every other morning) we were up and ready bright and early for a 9 AM second round of swimming lessons for the girls. A couple of the mornings we got donuts after lessons.

We did our fun outings in the afternoons after Millie's nap.
Monday we met the Sullivans at the Museum of Natural Curiosity.

 Aside from the bloody nose that shut down part of an exhibit for a while, all the kids were thoroughly engrossed and entertained.

 Millie and Andrew loved sitting in the water table.
The huge windows letting in tons of natural light made for some great shots of Camille's gorgeous blue eyes.

 Sadie and Lou loved the wind tunnel

The Alpine splash pad was another afternoon outing. I had never gone with the girls and it was fun, even if the girls spent 1/2 hour playing on the bike racks.  

 

We also played on the playground for a good portion of our visit. Lastly, I left my prized cooler bag, the perfect size for small picnics, at the splash pad. So disappointing. Had to settle for a new huge one from Costco. 

We got a babysitter one day and went shopping for coordinated outfits for the John family photo. This is what we ended up with. 

The dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point was another outing. We met the Sullivans again and the kids had a blast. At one point they got a little too rowdy in their game of screaming tag.

We also made oobleck (called goobleck by my kids), which was an instant hit.

 We ended up with a massive mess of it and the girls haven't stopped asking to make it since.

We all love having Nana here. 

Mom, you were a lifesaver while Daniel was gone so long. We had so much fun with you. 

The 4th

The morning of the 4th of July was the 10k I had been training for for a few months. I got ready and out the door in plenty of time. The problem came when the address listed on the race website brought me to the middle of nowhere. The Cottles were running late too and weren't sure where the park was. When I finally arrived- 5 minutes after the 10k runners had started- I called Lexie and found out she had my race bib and she had already started running. I had my hands full of stuff but I just started running. I tossed my water bottle and an uneaten banana in a nearby trash can, stuck my keys in the back zip pocket of my leggings and made my way along the course alone. About 3/4 of a mile in, I saw Lexie, grabbed my bib and clumsily pinned it on while running. It was a little awkward as I ran around people for the first half of the race, but I felt good as I settled in after a big hill at the halfway point. Towards the end of the course there was a 1/2 mile of switch backs straight up a steep hill. I was dying. It was not pretty, but I finished in just under 55 minutes, which was my goal. I think the adrenaline I had from the mess at the beginning made me go faster than normal.

Lexie and Nick's sister Brittany looked a lot more calm than I did as I crossed the finish line. 

In the end it felt good to accomplish a goal I wouldn't have thought possible 6 months ago. It's not impressive for most, but it really was a big for me. And now it's over. I will try to keep my running up, but with no clear end goal and schedule I will probably run a little less.

Unfortunately, Daniel and the kids didn't arrive until 20 minutes after I crossed the finish line. Daniel told me something about how it was hard to get 3 kids ready and out the door. That made me laugh. 

 After playing at the park for a while we went to visit Daniel's grandparents since they live only 10 minutes from where the race ended. This picture of triplets from different generations is Daniel, his great grandfather and the Millster. Camille is making a funny face so she doesn't look as much like Daniel's twin as she normally does.

Grandpa Blood is quite the photographer and seemingly has his camera out at all times. He got some cute photos of the girls and even captured Camille's first un-forced steps! The first time she just stood up and took several controlled steps without me encouraging her every step of the way. Too bad she didn't walk any more for a few weeks.

*please note the Kate Gosselin patch of hair
After the nice visit we headed home for some patriotic prep. I painted Sadie's nails with stars and stripes and then the girls helped me make a yummy flag short bread with cream cheese frosting.

The Gaines family came over for some fireworks lighting and spectating. Ben had bought some great fireworks and neither the girls or the dads could wait until total darkness to set them off. At about 8 PM we did sparklers, set off all of our fireworks and then settled in to wait for the neighborhood and Utah Valley to start lighting up. Camille was terrified of the fireworks.

One of these years I will capture a good picture, but the view from our driveway is seriously awesome. There are fireworks going off in every direction (all kinds of fireworks are legal in Utah) and you can see way down south of our house. Neighbors in the cul-de-sacs north of us are always setting off huge ones as well so you get a 360 degree experience.