Austins Gymnastics Review, Yard Work, and a new little friend

This last Thursday Austin had his 'Gymnastics Review' at school. He did a great job and I did an un-great job of taking pics but here are a few. I tried to put a video on but it took over 1/2 hr to download and I am super impatient soI finally gave up. No video :(




So proud of the medal he got! I am glad that they make it so special for the kids




Yesterday (Saturday), it rained all morning, we did sneek in a 9 am soccer game before the rain started. I cheated, these pics are from Bradyns soccer game a couple of weeks ago.




But finally the sun peeked through the clouds, so we bravely ventured out into our yard to do some yard work. We weren't outside but 2 minutes when the boys came to me with their feet looking like this.......



But due to all the rain, we found a friend in our yard. A frog! The boys were so excited. I gave them a pot to make the frog a home but all they wanted to do was hold him. Their little minds were a churning and they decided that if they found 1 frog, then certainly there would be more frogs in the yard. They took turns being the 'frog seeker' and the 'frog watcher'. The 'frog watcher' got to hold the frog so that was the coveted job.




Needless to say, as soon as the frog was unsupervised, it hopped right out of the pot and was never to be seen again. I don't really blame him, but the kids were disappointed. As for Nate and I, we felt like we worked all day and didn't get much accomplished. Earlier in the day, we had gone to DI (my favorite store) to exchange a bed frame we bought and found an outdoor dining table that seats 6. We bought it and repainted it. So today (Sunday) we had a nice bbq outside and ate dinner at our new table.
That's about the gist of it!

Not as cool as I thought I was :(

Today we went to eat lunch at school with Bradyn. (Thank goodness friday is Pizza Day!) We got there before he did and got our lunch and went outside to sit down. Soon after, Bradyn came out with his buddies, most of them from his soccer team. I yelled for him and waved so he would know we were there. Bradyn wanted his friends to come sit by us but they had other plans so sit under one of the basketball hoops. This is how our conversation went...
Me: "Bradyn, you can go sit by your friends if you want and we'll catch up with you on the playground."
Bradyn: "Nah, I'll sit with you guys."
So we ate in silence for a minute and then Bradyn said
"Mom, can I go sit with my team?"
Me: "Sure, we'll see you on the playground."

**Tear**

I guess when you are 7 and in 1st grade friends come first. I love that he has such good friends and that he feels included. Here are a couple of pictures I took.




Bradyn and company


Austin and Ty LOVE eating lunch at Bradyns school because the love to play on the 'big kid playground'

Our Saturday Adventure

Yesterday we had quite a fun day! First, Saturday morning we headed over to the airport because one of our friends, Curt, has his pilots license and owns a little 4 seater airplane and he invited us to take a flight with him. Nate, Bradyn, and Austin went first. They were in the air for about 1/2 hour and then they landed and picked me up. They boys wanted to still fly so they went with us. It was so great to see St. George from the air!! We saw our house(s) and the temple! We missed Bradyns soccer game so we flew over the soccer field where they were playing. Curt let Nate and I fly the plane. It was great. Curt did this thing called "weightless" where he would drop the nose of the plane down and it was like we were "weightless" on a roller coaster. It was great. They boys wanted to do that over and over.



Nate getting into the plane. He was sooooooo excited!



The plane just taking off from the runway. Thanks Curt and Heather for the great morning!!



After our morning airplane ride, we came home and ate lunch and packed some goodies and set out on a fourwheeling trip in Nate's Jeep. The boys love the jeep. We went out toward the arizona strip. The boys and I hiked around a bit and Nate played with his Jeep trying to climb stuff (it's a guy thing). Nate wanted us to go see some cool rock formations so we all got back in the Jeep and as Nate backed up, we ran over a glass bottle and immediately the tire started to hiss. Nate said "Buckle Up Boys" and we drove back toward St. George as fast we could. It was a pretty bumpy ride! We had two prayers in our hearts, one that we would make back to cell service before the tire went completely flat, and two that the hole in the tire would be somewhere on the tread rather than the side wall. So we made it as far as we thought we could go and then called our bro-in-law, Matt, to come get us. While we were waiting for Matt, the boys went exploring and Nate made some phone calls to the local tire shops. None of the tire shops carried the size of tire we needed in stock. We said another prayer that the tire would be fixable. Matt took us home and Nate set off to Wal-Mart to see if he could get the tire fixed. He called me about 1/2 hour later and said "You are never going to believe this, we are SO blessed. The air was coming from the stem on the tire where you put the air in, the stem had popped." He kept saying "I don't know how in the world that would have happened". It was just one of those tender mercies of our Heavenly Father. So anyway, I didn't get a chance to take any pics on our fourwheeling trip so I took a picture of the boys hanging out in the Jeep this morning. Bradyn asked me if we could go fourwheeling like we did yesterday and I told his it wasn't an appropriate Sunday activity, so I guess the next best thing for him was to just take a box of Wheat Thins and hang out in the Jeep. I thought it was pretty funny.


So Ty was nearly naked but he did put his shoes on and head outside with his brothers. I am sure our neighbors think we are really great parents! He is such a funny kid. So independent!