William wanted to re-live his childhood days by going on a bear hunt. When he was little his dad would take all the kids on a bear hunt and they loved it. They go everywhere pretending like they are in the wild "going through bushes and in a cave". They have several obstacles that they go through then they find the bear and have to run home backwards through all the obstacles. The kids had a great time.
Mom and Dad flew up to visit us. The second night we went to the park and had a picnic and played soccer. William is such a pill to play with. He is really good at maneuvering the ball and could keep it the whole time if he wanted!
Me and Rick against William.
Aaramie and Hyrum joined. Hyrum was the goalie.
This was our wonderful KFC dinner Mom and Dad treated us to. We also had an entire watermelon that we completely ate.
Saturday was time to work on the deck as much as we could while William was available. The boards were worse than I thought. We had hoped to just replace the bad ones but there were too many. Also, the new treated wood that we got didn't match in height or width. So we tried to salvage what we could and put it all on the side of the deck and then totally replace the part of the deck right by the back porch where we walk the most.
That huge ax that William is holding is really heavy and great for breaking things. William calls it "THOR". We found that the main probem that caused the whole deck to colapse was drip lines in planter boxes that they had built into the deck. We were so glad to get rid of that. Williams main stress was about how to rebuild the foundation but it worked out pretty easily.
The kids are such good helpers! Their job has mainly been to take out the nails.
Vienna even joined a little bit. She would work so hard to get a handful of dirt out of the planter box. Teach them while they are young!
I was the main chop saw person. You will see later that William and Dad created a counterheight setup that worked so much better. Thank you!
Every day that we worked on this we looked forward to the relief of the shade toward the end of the day.
Hyrum was SSOOO excited that Grandpa let him do the real drill. He was so proud of himself and actually put a lot of screws in. You will see below that the other kids saw how much fun he was having and they all wanted to drill the screws in!
I am always grateful for my mom's insight. She is so good at seeing things that others don't. She is creative and comes up with good solutions. Thanks Mom!
When Aaramie finds a camera she is sure to take a couple pictures of herself. Funny girl!
Notice the popsickle Eliza is eating. Every couple days I make a green smoothie and put all the extra in the freezer as popsickles so the kids have a great afterschool snack.
Wow! Doesn't that look nice!
Mom and Dad bought a surprise for the kids for all their birthdays. The kids had to close their eyes and this is how they did it.
A Swimming Pool!!!!!!
We had super hot weather the day before but this day was cloudy and cool. Plus when you first fill up a pool with a hose it is really cold but the kids wanted to try it!
Vienna and Eliza lasted the longest!
Quick! Get a bunch of projects done before Mom and Dad leave! We have had this lighting for 2 years and it has sat in the box because we haven't had time!
Of course we had to get some yard sales in and found this bed. It was all colored on so we bought some spray paint and painted it.
No more sleeping on the spare queen bed.
Rick won a bunch of ribbons for going to district in Track. He did a lot of events! Aaramie did the long jump in district.
