Family is the Best!!!

We had a couple of nice surprises this week.  # 1, Adrienne invited us up to watch her boys play their last soccer games of the season, and have DINNER, and #2, Jieun and Dan had us over to DINNER, the following night.  Two nights of not having to prepare dinner--now those are nice surprises!  We also had the privilege of listening to Caitlyn's Orchestra Concert at BHS.  Her orchestra sounded very good.  You could tell there is a lot of talent in Bountiful, UT.

I'm not sure if you can tell just how "into" the game these two boys are :)

Caitlyn even had a short solo!

The day that Jieun invited us to dinner, Jennie gave me a haircut--on her day off!  She was tending Yuna while Jieun took the girls to a playdate.  

We had our family night this week with the Young Single Adults.  In theory, Caitlyn would go with us and it would be our actual family night, but she had too much homework this week.  We watched, "The Ultimate Gift" and ate popcorn.  

Obviously, things have settled down as far as cleaning, packing and organizing go.  We had only one person go through our house this week.  Hopefully, when school gets out that will pick up.  Roy made this cool bench to make our mud room look more like a mud room.  The bottom piece was on clearance at RC Willey, it had been part of an entertainment center or something.  I have a couple of turquoise pillows to put on it, as well.

My kids don't realize how lucky they are (or maybe they do), to have a dad who is always thinking of fun things to do.  For the Memorial Day weekend (Saturday) we met at the park to shoot off rockets.  Everyone who lives in Utah was able to come.  Dan's family rocket worked fabulously.  We shot it off 3 times.  The third time it came down in a tree and Dan and Caitlyn worked hard to get it out.  They had to cut off the parachute, so we didn't shoot that rocket again.  Adrienne's family rocket whooshed up two feet, then back down and started on fire.  We were all seated pretty closely to the rocket launch, so AJ acted quickly and squashed that rocket with his foot.  That ended that rocket! Matt and Crista's rocket was pretty cool.  It was small, and had an airplane that attached.  The airplane was supposed to separate from the rocket and fly down, while the parachute came out on the rocket part and brought it safely to earth--that's not what happened.  It went up--Really, really high, but no parachute came out and it didn't separate.  There was a soccer game going on in the field below us--which is where the rocket came down.  There were several delighted children who were watching soccer, but one mother wasn't too happy.  She said, "You need to be careful, it almost hit us."  We shot off Matt's rocket one more time--after the soccer game was over.  Matt had tried to tweak it, but the same thing happened.  I would say though, that even with the mishaps, it was a successful activity.  The kids had a great time and the day was beautiful, sunny, and not very hot.  Gunnar and Ollie went home with another rocket kit that Roy had on hand, and Matt went home with some ideas of how to fix his rocket.  We asked Elise if they had got their rocket made yet.  They said they never got it--lo and behold--it was still at our house!

After the rocket launch, we had a barbeque at our house.  When everyone brings something it makes it so easy and fun.  Roy made the burgers and hotdogs, Crista brought a watermelon, Jieun made a Jicama, mango Salad (my recipe that I picked up at Sizzler), and Nick brought salsa, Guacamole and chips (We missed Sara as she was in Arizona with her sister at a friend's wedding).  Adrienne made a delicious lemonade cake.  

Ollie got stung by a bee-we think--but later there was
no sign of a sting on his foot so we're a little stumped.  It all worked
out as he got to watch grandmas lap top--without Gunnar
dictating what he could watch.

After everyone else left, Ori had a minute to the laptop all by herself--a
good thing as she'd been bitten earlier by Yuna who didn't want to share.

Roy was sure lucky, he got snuggles from Ruby who
isn't very generous with her snuggling.

We had everyone over Saturday, because Sundays are more hectic now with Roy's new calling--Plus he's supposed to go to Ward Prayer with his ward.  This, I think, will be a good experience for our family.  Jennie's gone with us once, and we'd like that to continue because it's a nice bonding time for the four of us.  Plus, she doesn't really enjoy going to her own ward prayer.  

We miss our Texas family.  They are in Midland this week enjoying the Jackson family.  We're excited that she'll be here in two weeks!
It looks like Max and Mav will be great friends:

Adrienne and AJ took their family to visit Thomas' grave for memorial day.  Roy and I will do it tomorrow.  We're also planning on driving to Springville to decorate grandpa and grandma's grave.  

Have a good week!