Our Fleeting Summer ~ {July}

Here is a recap of July now (and to be technically correct, a little bit of August as well.)

First off, the Fourth of July!

We started off with the annual 5K in our neighborhood. I did not run this year, but got to enjoy watching my little guy not only reach his goal of beating his time from last year, but SMASHING it! Bennett surprised us all (well in some ways I'm not surprised) and finished in 28 minutes 19 seconds! He is one competitive and driven six year old!

Here are the spectators:
Bennett's cousin, Franklin, ran with his Dad as well! He did amazing. I am so proud of these young boys making such big goals! I don't think I would have ever dreamed of running 3.1 miles at that age!

Bennett always gets his signature "red face" when he exercises hard.

The boys with their running partners (aka dads).
After, we headed to our annual breakfast and swim at my aunt and uncle's house. We love it so much! In fact, the kids say the 4th of July is their favorite holiday (right after Christmas, that is.)   Of course, the day wouldn't be complete without eating a pastry the size of your face. Mylie finished every last bite. Swimming makes you hungry!
It is almost impossible to get Coy to look the camera.
Bennett's floaties make me laugh in this picture. He for some reason got this terrible fear of deep water this year, even though last year he would jump off the diving board and swim to the side with nothing. His first round of swimming lessons was a fiasco this year...He was so terrified of where he "couldn't touch." Luckily, aunt Cheryl invited us over a little later in the month before Bennett' second round of swimming lessons. He finally got over his fear, and we couldn't get him to stop jumping off the diving board and swimming...with no help from any flotation device!
We discovered that in yet another way, Coy is so much like his brother. He found Bennett's container of cars, and with no help from anyone, this is how I found him. Bennett used to do the same thing: organize the cars. Look closely to see how he has grouped them all. Pretty clever.
We love Popsicles on the Swingset! Many days after dinner, we would finish up our day outside.
Coy tries to eat every last drop of popsicle, and is always mad when it is gone.
Mylie sporting her orange lips:
Here it is. Coy trying to lick off every drop. Look at his belly. That is why the shirt comes off first. I love his pout in the second picture. That is his signature pout.
He know right where to put the stick when he is done...
Remember the red face? He was playing hard again, so here it is! I think he tried to see how many times he could run up the ladder, go down the slide, run and touch the fence, then run back to the ladder and do it again until Dad got back with his ice cream.


Even though we already hit Disneyland this year, we still decided to go to our Stake Lagoon Day. We left Coy with a babysitter and missed him, but had a lot of fun with the older two. Mylie was such a good sport and went on whatever she could, and Bennett tried and loved all the thrill rides this year, although I still think his body is still a bit too little for some of them. (He bruised his head on Colossus.) His favorite ride of all was Wicked. We had fun taking turns taking him on that, and because he is so small, we always got on pretty fast because of the booster seat line!
The next day we headed up to a cabin Russell's grandpa built in Idaho. We spent the weekend there with the Harkness family. The kids had fun playing games, coloring, making cards, throwing water balloons, dancing, watching movies, and just having some fun relaxing. Mylie especially had fun playing with her cousin, Kaydence.
Here are those swimming lessons when Bennett was finally fearless..YEA! He did such a good job and hopefully we won't backtrack next year! And the last picture is just cute because the kids got to stay up and watch some fireworks from our bedroom window one night.


And that sums up our July and our first week in August! We just celebrated Coy's second birthday, so hopefully I will get all of that caught up and on here as well! And this past week, Russell and I reached our 11th anniversary! We haven't celebrated yet because we were camping, but will do so soon! And I just can't believe school starts again already this week! WHERE DID THE TIME GO??!!!