...And the Livin' is Easy!

Happy summer vacation everyone! Are things slowing down for you? I remember when I was young and the summer months seemed to pass slowly. Every day was filled with lots of playing, family vacations and outdoor excursions. Now the months pass quickly for me...way too quickly!

Alyssa had her 9th grade promotion dance last week, and now claims she has been released from the imprisonment of Jr. High. Moving on to high school will be a big step for her and she is very excited. She will be attending a week-long harp camp this summer as well as girls camp,and will be celebrating her 15th birthday in a few weeks. She has a new short hair cut that is attracting way too many boys if you ask me. Instead of looking 15,she now looks 17,or 18, or in her dad's opinions 19. Yikes!

I dropped Chelsea off at the airport on Monday for her tour to Seattle. She has been texting me...keeping me informed about all her daily activities. She is having a blast. They performed at a Senior Citizens facility yesterday and the people loved the singing and dancing. Her performance at a park was canceled this morning due to rain, but she has another this afternoon and will also be taking the underground tour of Seattle. Fun! One of the most exciting things for her group is that they will be singing the national anthem at a WNBA game tomorrow night.

Paige and Christian are enjoying the longer summer days, as they should be. They are pretty good to get up and get their chores done, so that they can play outside with each other (they play really cute together..usually) or with their cousins Mckenna, Emily and Dietrich. They had a lot of fun at Aunt Candi's last weekend. We went for Justin's birthday party and the four kids (Christian, Paige, Jessica and Justin) played and had a great time!

Paige is attending Sylvan to help out with her math skills a little. She will be going back to public school in the fall and we want to make sure she is ready. She loves it there.

Christian graduated from Kindergarten last week and is really excited about eating lunch at school next year. I helped with his class's field day, where we played lots of fun games outside, and I was also able to go on his field trip to Tracy Aviary as a chaperone. It was lots of fun! He got to play with another cousin, Madsen, the next day and they both kept me laughing the whole day. Thank goodness for cousins, by the way. There aren't many kids around here to play with.

So on Saturday Carlos and I will be celebrating our 17th wedding anniversary. The time has gone so fast. When I look at my kids and see how big they are, I am amazed sometimes at where the time has gone. I will be giving a talk in sacrament meeting,for fathers day, on attributes of a father, and it's easy for me to come up with those attributes because Carlos is a great father to our kids,and a wonderful husband to me.

After church on Sunday, Carlos and I and the kids will be flying to California to spend a few days at Disneyland and then a few more at Newport Beach. Christian did the thing the other night where he got out of bed to come to our room and tell us he was too excited about going to Disneyland to go to sleep. I can see where they got the idea for the commercial!