We just had our last hurrah of summer with my brother and his family visiting from Colorado. Very few people will ever come visit in July. With temperatures reaching 110 I understand why. But my brother’s family was compelled to come at this time for a family reunion on his wife’s side. So we got visitors in July! We made sure to plan activities around water or indoors to beat the heat as best we could.
We take for granted that we have a pool in our backyard, but that pool was put to good use. The kids woke up the first morning and had their swimsuits on by 9 am. They were in and out and in and out – many times. We set up a movie at night and enjoyed the pool with glow sticks and the pool light. Swimming at night is always more fun than baking in the afternoon sun!
We celebrated Steve growing one year older and wiser too.
Steve is not a “things” person. He doesn’t like stuff whether its cool or not. So for the last couple years we’ve spent his birthday in Scottsdale at a resort for a little overnight trip. But this year with a nursing baby it just wasn’t working out, but he was insistent that he wanted an experience for a gift. We gave him the gift that will continue to give and bought him ASU football tickets. It should be a fun season.
We enjoyed a day at the lake and it was awesome. We got there just after 7 in the morning and there was no one on the lake, with the smoothest water you can find.
Both Hallie and her cousin got up on the wakeboard for the first time.
I think everyone enjoyed their time on the tube – young and old. I saw my kids grinning from ear to ear, water splashing up in their face, yelling to go faster. My sister-in-law and I were pressured into riding as well but after seeing the kids fly around there was no way I wanted to go fast. The only way to guarantee a nice smooth ride was to convince Bennett (with candy) to join us! Its like giving candy to a baby…or something like that.
Although I have no pictures to prove it (I have a lot of GoPro videos), we swam a lot. Mornings were ideal because it wasn’t quite scorching but by afternoon we were looking for something to do inside. We landed on rock climbing one afternoon and I was pleasantly surprised with how much the kids loved it. We didn’t take our two youngest which made the whole thing possible. I envisioned it being a 1 hour maximum activity. After over 2 hours we finally had to pull the kids off the rocks kicking and screaming because they had a plane to catch. Rock climbing is a lot of physical exertion and yet the kids went up and down time and time again. Great family activity!
We were sad to see them return to Colorado. We drove a tough sales pitch to convince them they needed to move, but I’m not sure we were successful! Hallie was convinced they needed to move to Arizona because they don’t have any family in Colorado. “It’s not fair mom, Kinlie doesn’t even have a single cousin there.” Its not fair. Cousins are awesome and I’m so glad we were able to spend time with them this week.
