Blue Angels

Last Saturday, Idaho Falls had the opportunity to host the Blue Angels Air Show. For Father's Day, I had purchased Chris a ticket to go and take Jace with him. I was thinking what fun father/son bonding time, especially since Jace loves airplanes. As the 24th got closer and the airplanes were in Idaho Falls, we could see them from our back porch practicing. Jace was so excited it was hard to contain all his excitement!!! I started thinking that maybe it should be a family event, Ali and Baylie were making comments about wanting to go too. It didn't work out in the end for all of us to go but off Chris and Jace went to the air show. Here are a few pics of what they witnessed! All of this just amazes me!!!

Here is a lady "walking the plane"

Look, she's upside down!

Here she is again......

After the show, Chris and Jace walked around to look at some of the planes up close. A helicopter pilot asked if Jace wanted to sit in his helicopter but Jace was too shy to get in. Here he is in front of a couple of the planes. Too cute!

He told me this was his favorite to see up close

A long day makes for a tired boy!

He fell fast asleep in the truck on the way home. He is still, a week later, talking about the airplanes and asks to see the pictures. With all the traffic, it took them 2 hours to get home!! I'm glad they had such a fun day and hope that this is something Jace will remember for a long time!!

Would you like fries with that?

Lindsay got her first job, at Arctic Circle. She started yesterday and I had every intention to go on her first day to go see her in action. As we were driving that way, she past us and told us she left early because they were slow. She worked again today and I couldn't let my photo opportunity pass by, again. So off we headed for dinner and ice cream. Jace had been asking to "go get ice cream where Lindsay works" before she even left for work. It's a nice new store with a playland for the kids. I had to have Lindsay pose behind the counter, she wasn't very willing but I informed her I had all night. Sorry to embarrass you Lindsay but as your mom, it's kinda my job, and look how cute you are!!! She did have to go wipe down tables while we were there so I got another picture for the blog. YAY - somehow I think cleaning tables while being paid is much better than doing them at home though.

The little kids thought it was great to go see her working. Every time she would pass our table in either cleaning others or checking on patrons, one would say, "there's Lindsay!" She even got to make one of the ice cream cones for us and bring us out a milkshake, wish I would have had my camera ready! I like giving her a bad time but we are happy she has ventured out to earn some money for college. She is a great girl and we love her!!

Fleece blankets

This evening, Lindsay, Makenna and Emily spent 2 1/2 hours making fleece blankets. Emily had a Faith in God project to fulfill and Lindsay and Kenna wanted a warm blanket to pack to girls camp and during the cold days this fall for cross country. It was great, they all helped each other complete them without any arguing. It was a great evening for me to sit and watch my 3 oldest girls get along and work so well together.
Here is Makenna's blanket - red on one side with black and white leopard print on the other (Hillcrest colors) Emily went with a cute pink floral on one side and lime green on the back!! Bella loved the fleece blankets and just wanted to lay on them, she didn't even care if they were done or not. Here she is checking Emily's out!

Lindsay's is red on one side and black and white zebra print on the other (again, Hillcrest colors)

All done!

Great job girls!! I was happy to see you all get along so well and work together to get them done. This was a fun project for them and I'm glad I was here to witness their determination to get them completed. It didn't take them long at all and I'm glad they had fun together!

Fun day in Jackson

Chris had the day off yesterday so we decided to head up to Jackson and ride the alpine slides. Our niece Chelsie is visiting from Phoenix so we called her up and invited her to come along. It was a great day and the drive was beautiful. Here are my beauties sitting in the wild flowers along the steps to the slides. Chelsie is on the far end. Baylie is such a poser!! She said, "mom, take a picture of me!" How can you not when she has a face like this?

Me and Chris in the flowers.

Here we are posing at the alpine slide sign

Kenna and Jace waiting in line to get on the chair lift, for our second trip down.

Kenna and Ali, heading up the mountain......

My boys...........

Chris, Kenna and Emily getting their sleds.

Emily.

Kenna.

Alison. This is her second time down the slide. Her first time, she wasn't too sure about it and rode with Chelsie. She decided she could do it on her own!

Jace. After his first time down with dad, he didn't want to get off. He absolutely LOVED it!

Chris with Jace and Lindsay. Chris and Jace caught up to her along the ride, she said she wasn't going slow but Chris disagrees!

Second time down, Jace rode with me,

and Baylie rode with Chris.

This was such a fun thing to go do. We had done it years ago but it was more fun than I remembered!

Here we are in town at one of the antler arches

The kids had a great time, eating ice cream, candy from the candy store, and climbing all over this tree.

Me and Chris

Jace loved watching the stage coach, maybe next time, we'll ride it!

And our day was complete when we stopped in Swan Valley on our way home, for some square ice cream. I don't think it's even allowed to drive past the square ice cream store!

Jace proudly showing off his ice cream!

It was so nice to get away for the day. We all had a fabulous time!! If you haven't ever ridden the alpine slides, we would definitely recommend it. The only bummer of the day was finding out that some of the stores in Jacksons town sqaure are no longer there, so my shopping wasn't as fabulous. I think the kids were okay with that and I know Chris was!

My Swimmers

These past two weeks, I've had Ali, Baylie and Jace in swimming lessons. This was Jace's first summer of taking swimming lessons and he loved it!! Ali is already a little fish, she's taking after her older sisters, and Baylie loves to play in the water but is still a little timid. Baylie's teacher even made the comment that her timidness is what is stopping her from being a "wonderful swimmer." Jace loved being the water and always did what his teachers asked him to do. There is a game they play called fishy in the basket. The class and teachers hold hands with one in the middle and then the one in the middle needs to get out by swimming under their hands. When it was Jace's turn to be the "fishy" he would lift the hands up and walk right under. It was pretty funny to watch, mostly because he is just so cute! Here he is hanging out on the step waiting his turn to do floats.

They did a lot of games with the rings too, trying to get the kids to go under the water. Jace ALWAYS had to have the blue ring.

Jace doing a back float with his teachers help.

Baylie, looking cute!

Here she is doing something with one of her teachers.

Swimming back to the wall after learning a stroke from one of her teachers.

Ali, getting ready to tackle the front crawl using a water board.

Ali's class learning how to do some of the strokes. They have them sit at the wall and practice in the "air" first.

Here she is, working on her front stroke! GO ALI!!

They all had a great two weeks playing in the water and learning to be good swimmers. Ali passed her class easily and the teacher told us she was almost able to pass the next class as well. Jace will repeat his beginners class until he can back float and front float without help. Baylie passed all the requirements in her class but with her being so timid, the teacher thinks she should re-take her class to help her gain more confidence in the water. He doesn't feel like she'll gain that confidence in the next class which is in water above her head.