Wrapping up summer

 The kids are back in school! We enjoyed the rest of our summer and squeezed in a few more things before sending them off to school.

One Sunday the kids got out all the old dress ups and put them on. 

They would parade around the house while Annie videoed them with her commentary, then they'd go back upstairs, change, and parade around again. 

Maybe they were just practicing for the 4th of July parade our ward has after our annual pancake breakfast. 

The pancake breakfast was our first ward party since before covid, so it was super nice to feel connected to the ward again. The young women served the breakfast, and cheered on the kids who went in the parade (and some joined in the parade, too). 

That night we set off some fireworks in our driveway. That was about the time that Megan started to feel sick just in time for her birthday, which was the following day. She laid in the back of Jacob's car and watched the fireworks, but after a while we cut it short and just sent her to bed, finishing the rest of the fireworks Monday evening when we ate Megan's cake as her "family party."

Megan's friend, Anna, and her siblings had had so much fun at Megan's birthday party, they decided they wanted us to come swim with them in their pool. So after Megan recovered from her illness we brought along her pool float from Shannon and went to hang out with the Bells. It was a perfect activity on a super hot afternoon.

The last week of summer we packed full of fun and activities. The kids each had some clothes and/or shoes they needed, so we designated Monday as our back to school shopping day. It was quick and pretty painless, only needing to go to Ross and Target to find everything we needed. We went out for lunch at Burger King as a bonus. 

Peyton got her braces off! We celebrated with popcorn and caramels.

I got recruited into the PTA board this year. They had 3 people and needed 4 to make a complete board, so I agreed. We were in charge of the back to school luncheon for the teachers the week before school started, so I made us these matching t-shirts. The luncheon went well, but we had a ton of leftovers from the food Texas Roadhouse donated. 

The following night was meet the teacher night at the school, and the PTA had a table set up to sell t-shirts and memberships. It was a crazy night with the table busy the whole time, but a success. Though I don't love evening activities, and hope as a PTA we keep those to a minimum, at least there is a good crew we're working with. Rebecca is the treasurer, Snow is VP, I'm the secretary, and Sabrina is the president. I'm sure we'll get to know each other very well over the next couple years. 

Ryan, Rachel, Kenzie, and Peyton have been doing swim team all summer at Los Niños Pool. Rachel didn't love it, but they all did great and got some exercise. The last day of practice they took out all the lane lines and played water polo in the rain. Apparently that was super fun.

Friday we crammed in two more things the kids had wanted to do before school started again: time in nature, and lunch with Dad. 

We went to Colossal Caves and did a tour there. The weather was lovely and overcast, though once we were inside it didn't much matter.

There are pretty cool formations inside the cave.

After the tour we came outside to some rain drizzling on us. That's always a nice surprise. Then we headed to Chipotle to meet Jacob for lunch. Carnitas tacos is the family favorite.

Friday was also the long awaited day that Todd and Savannah's family were coming back to Tucson from their epic summer trip to Georgia and Utah. They were very missed. We made welcome home signs and tried writing stuff to welcome them home with chalk, but since it was raining all day that part didn't work great.

When they got home right at everyone's bedtime we drove over real quick and there was a glorious and happy reunion, especially with Ryan, B, and Sammy.

The next morning were the swim team championships. Because of covid, the timed trials and the championships were just held at the individual pools rather than getting everyone together and making one long day of it. We were very grateful for that. The championships were long enough at just two hours. I'm so glad we didn't have to wait for 7 pools worth of swimmers. 

Peyton woke up feeling sick, so she missed swimming that day, but the others all did great. We celebrated the end of the season with Eegees. 

We watched the awards ceremony a few days later via zoom and picked up their ribbons (and Ryan's 2nd place medal for IM) the following day. 

Ryan got 5th swimming backstroke in the IM relay, 6th in breaststroke, 5th in freestyle, and 7th in freestyle relay.

Ryan also got 2nd place in Individual Medley. Since this is a competition among all the county pools, Ryan was super surprised when they announced his name as 2nd place. 

Rachel improved her times in all her races and got 6th place in butterfly, 4th in the medley relay swimming butterfly, and 8th place in backstroke. I'm proud of her for sticking it out through the summer and improving even though it wasn't her favorite way to spend her time.

That afternoon we went to Purple Heart Pool with our long lost Knight cousins. 

It's nice having them back. Since Marie had been staying at their house and hasn't found a new place to live she and her girls are temporarily living in our house. 

A few final pictures to wrap up the summer. Annie planted and watered these flowers all summer and is happy to see the fruits of her labors.

Megan now has many panda shirts, and even more stuffed animals. Here are just a few of her favorites: 

Even though we didn't go on a trip, we were able to enjoy our summer relaxing, attending cooking camps, YW camp, volleyball camp, swimming, taking care of lots of animals, and watching too many screens. We're happy to get back to a more set routine. (At least I am.) 

Megan is 7! (Worst birthday ever)

 Megan was super excited for her birthday. She currently is obsessed with Pandas, so we had a panda themed party and party favors. I got these Panda sleep masks from Amazon, but there weren't enough for all the guests coming to her party, so the cousins got them. 

We also used them as a blindfold for the piñata and Pin the Eye on the Panda. 

Megan wanted a "donut panda cake" so we looked for some ideas on Google. We had a fancy cake planned with donuts decorated like pandas stuck around the outside, but she wanted both a friend birthday party and a family birthday party, so we decided to just do donuts for her friend birthday party. I picked them up from Dunkin' Donuts, then Megan and I decorated them to look like pandas. They turned out super cute.

For decorations we made balloons into pandas, made panda goodie bags for the piñata candy, and made a shooting star donut piñata.  

Leading up to her party it was good to have something to work on every day to keep Megan busy getting ready for her party instead of just dying waiting for time to pass. So she helped with all the decorations, and even decided to use our Cricut to cut out little bears to add to the panda goodie bags. 

The day of her party dawned very cloudy and with a forecast of rain at exactly the hours her birthday party was planned for. Since the main activity planned was swimming, jumping on the trampoline with a sprinkler, and the slip 'n slide, I was a little worried that we'd have a bunch of little kids to entertain, but be stuck inside. Luckily the weather forecast was wrong and by the time the party started there were clear skies and all the water fun could go forward.

We had pizza for lunch.

After drying off a bit while eating lunch we all went inside to open presents. 

Megan was very grateful for all the cool panda gifts she got (and other gifts, like a sloth stuffy and art supplies). 

The piñata proved to be very strong. Everyone got several whacks at it before it broke. Candy happiness for all! 

Megan was glad her friends from school, Peyton and Ali, and her friend, Anna, from church could come celebrate with her. With a summer birthday, inviting school friends to her birthday party requires advance planning and this is the first year we've had much success with actually getting any friends to come out. 

It's a good thing that Megan had a fun time at her birthday party, because when her actual birthday rolled around she was throwing up and had a fever. It was a miserable day for her.

She opened a few gifts that day, but most of her family gifts we waited on until she was feeling a bit better later in the week. Rachel and Annie generously gave Megan all their My Life Dolls and accessories. Megan also got a giga-pet that she has been wanting for a while now.

Our neighbor, Shannon gave Megan some pool toys and a gift card. 

The day after her birthday, she started feeling a bit better, at least while the Tylenol or Ibuprofen was working, as you can see by her smile. 

Her fever continued for several days, but finally after 4 days of sickness she was recovered completely. We are glad to have Megan in our family and look forward to a great year. And in one year she'll be 8 and it'll be time for her to get baptized!