Summer Vacation

I'm not winning any prizes for photographer of the year, blogger of the year, or even mother of the year. But here is how our summer has been so far:

No pictures of pre-vacation days except a few of the tadpole release the night before we left. I'm not sure how he survived long enough to be released - we looked some things up online the night before we released him and realized that we had been doing several things that we were not supposed to do. Maggie had a friend all lined up to take him while we were gone and then in 2 short days, his tail got really small, his front legs were strong and he jumped out onto our wall - it was time to release him.

Here the girls are pre-release - the lid was only on for the drive to the pond.
There he goes - he headed for the water almost immediately, we hope he survived. On the 15th, the girls and I flew here(below)..., well not here exactly, but to this state. We were in the SLC area for 4 days, Christopher joined us and we headed south for a Reeves reunion. Sadly, I only have maybe 10 pictures of the whole week we spent there. We hiked in Zion's two days, spent a day in Bryce, went to Cedar City for the Shakespeare Festival and swam in the pool, played games, had a birthday party for Heather, wore matching t-shirts (courtesy of Moi). I'm really banking on brothers and sisters and my dad to come through with more pictures for me.
Isn't it beautiful?
The four girl cousins.
After the reunion ended (very abruptly - a story for another day, I'm still too embarassed by how it all ended, but my family handled it very gracefully) We drove to Colorado for a week.

While there we went to Breckenridge for 2 nights/3 days. I did manage to take a few more pictures that week, but still not enough. Above: Paige and her daddy on a hike. Below, Maggie, Ashlee, and cousin William in the middle of the small lake we hiked up to. There was a sandbar out to the middle - the water was freezing!

Here are the girls with their cousins playing dress-up in the visitors center on the day we left. Sadly, I have no pictures of them playing in the river, the marshmallow roast or the picnic with all of Christopher's sisters (who live in Colorado) once we were back in the Denver area. I really missed some opportunities.

Then it was back to Utah...where Christopher flew home to a smelly, smelly trash can and we stayed 6 more days. Those last days were spent at Lagoon, going to the pool, going to a wedding reception in Logan, a Funeral in Provo, eating out, visiting family, and playing in my grandmother's backyard -heaven on earth. She still keeps it perfectly maintained.

Above is my baby girl at Lagoon - I have never seen these jugs anywhere but UT - and they weren't just at Lagoon. I spotted them several times in peoples cars. Anyway, we got 2 to share between about 17 people (free refills) Paige really liked it. I didn't try to stop her too often, after all the only ride she got to go on was the train. Don't worry, she hasn't had any soda since.

Anyway, that's been our summer so far. We got home 2 days ago, and spent yesterday at the Jersey shore...no good waves yesterday and lots of jelly fish. (Ashlee loves to collect them) I don't have any pictures of that either. Christopher left this morning for two months....we are all sad today. We'll spend today and tomorrow un packing and settling in and then we will be on the look out for stuff to keep us busy.