August

The Tour of Utah bike race had a portion of it starting at the IM Flash campus by us.  So, I took the kids over there to see all the fun.  We played games, watched BMX stunts and saw the start of the race.

Ashlyn wanted to play Mario Kart one day, and I later found her like this. And here is the view from the other side, too.

This little painted Indian decided to use marker all over herself.

Jayden had a pass to the Olympic Park from his ski Utah pass.  We brought Kyler along so the two of them could do everything together.  Ethan, Austin, Lauren, Ashlyn, and I just hung out watching their fun.  We ate lots of food, and luckily there was a playground.  We also had fun watching the people on the arial jumping pool. We ate lunch on a hill where we could watch. There were some that were actually pretty good, but a lot of people were more novices. We also walked through the museum.  I was bummed to find out most the games had been taken out.  Instead there were a few we could pay money to do.  That was disappointing.

I get so many cute pictures of this sweeting sleeping.  She's just so cute, I just can't resist.

I've been meaning to take the kids to the Hill Aerospace Museum for years... really since we lived in Logan and drove past it a bajillion times as we drove from Logan down to see family.  I can't believe it took us so long to go!  That was a lot of airplanes to look at!  It was interesting to read about them and see what things they did.  It was also interesting to see the different speeds the jets could go.  Some are super fast!

The girls had fun giving Josie a ride.  And funny enough, I think she actually likes it!  She didn't try to get out at all.

School started way too soon!  I really wished we had another month to relax and enjoy time together.  Summer is the best.  But, back to school we go, ready or not.

A mom in the neighborhood snapped this pic of all the 8th graders at Dylan's bus stop.

I decided to spend some fun days with the girls when all the boys were at school.  We went to the Thanksgiving Point Farm several days.  The girls loved riding the ponies! Ashlyn's first ride she just said "whoa, whoa, whoa..." the whole time around.  She was so funny to watch. We rode the ponies over, and over, and over again.  I think one day we did them like 7 times! Maybe more!  It was awesome that the lines were so short we could do that.  Ashlyn loved riding the biggest ones.  Lauren went back and forth.  We had fun learning the names of some of them, too.

Here we are on the wagon ride.

Lauren started Kindergarten!  She was so excited!  We love that her two best friends (Elle and Sarah) are in afternoon kindergarten.  The entire rest of the neighborhood ended up in morning.  I was ready to request a switch until I learned all three were afternoon.  It has worked out better than I thought it would. I like having the extra time in the morning with both girls.

Devon and Kirk Family Vacations

Devon seems to like to avoid Kirk family vacations.  He will go to great lengths to miss them.  He would even break his collar bone to miss one.  

Well, truthfully (I hope) he does actually want to come, but for some reason he always has something come up like a scout jamboree, or work, or needing a surgery.  This last weekend, Devon, Steve, and David were doing a 100 mile bike race (Hotter Than Heck Century) and Devon his a bump, lost control, and crashed, which resulted in a broken collar bone.  Of course, this was also the weekend before the Kirk Family Vacation.  Steve was awesome and took good care of Devon. He stuck around at our house for a little while after getting home to make sure Devon was okay with his concussion.  He also realized he could take Devon with him to the REAL game that night and get him checked out by one of the other doctors that was a surgeon (Dr. Edwards - Lavell Edwards son... I think that's pretty cool).  So Devon met with Dr. Edwards in the REAL team locker room and Dr. Edwards said he could do surgery on Monday.  This was awesome in the sense of getting his shoulder taken care of soon, rather than meeting with a doctor on Monday, and then scheduling a surgery, but it stunk because it was part of the Kirk family vacation.  The Kirk vacation was a staycation that included sleeping in tents in Steve's backyard for two nights.  

So, on Monday we joined the family to go to the Planetarium, only to find out that practically the whole Planetarium was under construction.  What a bummer!  This coin donation thing was just about the only highlight.  We hung out with them for a little bit, and then headed to the hospital for Devon's surgery.  Ben and Sierra were awesome and suddenly had 6 kids to take care of.  After the Planetarium they all went bowling, and then to a soccer game that Steve needed to be at.  It looks like they had more fun than Devon and I.  We waited around for a long time.  They said they were a little behind schedule.  I think they were way behind schedule.  His surgery that was supposed to start at like 3 didn't start until about 7. While we waited we watched a little of the Olympics.  We also were so lucky they had a crossword puzzle book to give us something to do in the 3rd waiting room they put us in before the surgery.  Loads of fun, I'm telling you.

  

 While Devon was in surgery I found some lunch, watched some Olympics, and read my book some.  When Dr. Edwards finally came out and talked to me he said it went well, but that it was pretty messy in there.  He had to put 8 screws in to hold it all together, and he gave me this picture.  I waiting a long time for them to call me back to see Devon.  He was coming out of the anesthesia pretty slowly. This was familiar for me.  The only other time Devon has had surgery, it was for his appendix.  They almost kept us all night because he was so sleepy, but finally sent us home around 10 or so.  Again, this time the original plan was to go home that night.  We thought we would be home around 8 or 9.  But because of the late surgery and Devon's slow waking up,and the fact he wasn't keeping his oxygen levels up, we got the bonus of sticking around for the night.  I'm glad they could take care of him, but it was a bummer.  Good thing I'm used to sleeping in a hospital after our stays with Jayden.  I totally didn't bring anything with me, but that's ok.  They released Devon the next morning.  His shoulder was already feeling so much better!  He could actually put his shirt on alone, which was a huge improvement.

Huge shout out to Ben and Sierra that continued taking care of our kids for almost 24 hours when they weren't really expecting it.  Sierra even slept in the tent with the girls, pregnant and all.  Ben slept in the house with the boys.

Once we were released, we stopped by Steve's house to get some of our stuff.  Then I drove Devon to our house to drop him off.  He just wanted to rest at home, instead of at Steve's.  I drove back to Steve's where everyone was cleaning up tents, and waiting for the men to get back from golfing so we could go swimming after a BBQ.

 What a fun vacation, even if Devon and I missed most of it.  It all worked out because at least our kids had fun and were totally taken care of.