Lazy, Summer Days

Sleeping in, swimming laps at the pool, and walking into my room to find my littlest, cutest, girl being creative:

Celebrating with Family

I'm about to have a teenager tomorrow. Thank heaven there's family to help me get by. Dinner, cake, candles, and laughter. It was a great way to end Tobin's 12th year of life.

Pep Rally Friday Night

Tobin's swim team buddies.



The joy of childhood.



Every Friday before our swim meet, we have a pep rally where the coach, Jonathan, pretty much says whatever he wants to and thinks our swimmers need to hear. He is extremely motivating and we love, love, love him as our coach! However, on this pep rally night, the outpouring of rain falling from the sky like manna was extremely more invigorating than any words. It became a free for all right outside our clubhouse! Yeah, I made them walk home afterwards. What was Tobin thinking?!

End of School Water balloon Party

Yep, that's Tobin hiding by the tree!




Our friends have made this an annual event--the water balloon party. Tobin always has a great time with his friends and I am able to take great pictures from my dry vantange point from the deck. My only question is this: is there a point where you should try and keep these things organized or do you let the kids go wild with the 1000s of water balloons in a bucket in the middle of an open field? let me know what you think.

Father's Day Pictures

Father's Day was a lot of fun for Andy--at least I hope it was fun. Katie and I arranged a golfing adventure with the kids. At the last moment, Noah wanted to go as well. Andy was so good and was totally like, we will make this work. In the end, Noah was completely happy to drive the cart and take a few shots every now and again. Tobin was very nervous about playing with Delaney, knowing how good she was. Andy and Manish set the tone with lots of laughter and silliness. You had some great shots and seemed to enjoy playing with Daddy.

Shark's teeth hunting

Tobin went to a birthday party for one of his best friends a couple of weekends ago! He had a great time and I was able to get these pictures and email from Tobin's friend's mom.

Ladies - the boys had a great time this weekend. While they did not get
a lot of sleep, they did have a lot of fun. They all found teeth and we
could have stayed on the beach all day long.


If you enlarge one of the pictures, you will see that the boys have the same shirt on. Birthday mom was able to order them online and the boys loved them.

Tobin skateboarding on his friend's ramp the day before going sharks teeth hunting.

T's first overnight with Church Youth

Tobin's tells his story about his adventure on the local river during a youth retreat:















Great story, huh!!




My story about the youth overnight as told to me:

Our ward had a youth overnight recently and it was sooo easy to let T go. He, and the rest of the youth, had to get into boats and row out to an island that is in the middle of the river for a cookout/campout. They had a blast and a lot of fun.

The Young Women's leader said that of all the youth there, T was the only one who said thank-you to the person's whose property we were on. I do find that hard to believe. The other incident that they shared with us was also great about T. There was one young man who was struggling to swim across the river. Tobin saw this and threw the football he had been asked to carry across the river and went to swim closer to this young man. They heard him say, "You can do it. You just need to do it a little further. I'm right here. Let's go." One of the leaders saw this and just thought Tobin was a great friend to stay with him.

So, while I don't know any of the details, like what they ate for dinner, why they were swimming instead of in boats, what activities they did, I feel like I know enough.

And Tobin...he told me nothing of this. And nothing of the trip. What's a mom to do?