School got out at the very end of May so June was the start of our summer! This year we stayed in Hawaii for the first half of June before going to Utah.
My friend teaches a children's literature class on campus and asked a few of us to bring our kids for the students to read to. We divided into groups and each student read the book they had chosen to their group of kids. Kai is sitting there front and center in this picture.
A video of some of Kai's words- it is so cute when babies learn to talk!
Our babysitter comes on Thursday nights for an hour and a half while Brent is working at the temple. By Thursday night both the kids and I are so tired, and they're always so naughty it seems! So I started having the babysitter come in the middle of Brent's temple shift so that I wouldn't dread Thursday nights. I figure if I'm paying a babysitter, I better work, so I usually catch up on some work while she's here. On this particular Thursday I took a break from work to look at the beautiful sunset. You would think this is just a pretty sunset picture but I remember this night I was barely holding it together, having had a day where I was fully aware of the areas where I fall short as a mom. It was a rough day.
A year ago, Ava's Battle of the Books team won first place, and one of their prizes was a helicopter tour. She got to two passes and we all know I am NOT brave enough to go on a helicopter ride, but Brent was excited to go with her. Of course we procrastinated til the very last minute we could use it.
Luckily his throat didn't swell all the way shut (!!) and they got on the helicopter and had a cool 45 minute ride.
Ava says, "It was kind of scary when we were taking off because it was shaking a lot. Towards the end I was kind of feeling carsick and wanting to fall asleep. It was really pretty. We took off from the airport and then went all over the island. We swooped into the kualoa mountains by where they filmed Jurassic Park. They were playing music in our headphones so at that part they played the Jurassic Park music."
They flew past Laie...
And the Dole plantation.
A pretty rainbow early in the morning.
Coen read Dogman to Audrey and she thought it was so funny!
Our neighbors got a swing set to add to their fun backyard. Our kids spend a lot of time in this backyard since we only have a front yard! Kai tried out the swing- I don't think he had been on a swing since he was a little baby last summer. He loved it.
Splashpad time in our front yard to keep cool. We live in a very communal neighborhood. When we put out the splashpad, neighbors come join in the fun. All of the kids on the street play in each other's yards, coming and going as they please, with very few of the yards being gated.
Summer break on Moana Street. I went on a walk and found Audrey and some friends painting each other's nails. It's a carefree life for them!
They went swimming at the beach across the street one day and also walked through a tiny stream in camp to keep cool. Ava loved decorating her girls camp shirt with markers and playing lots of games with friends inside their tent.
While Audrey was at a Harry Potter camp at our neighbor's house, and Ava was at girls camp, I only had the boys at home one day. I decided to do something special for them and took them to our local soda shop which has a ball pit play area. Kai had never been to anything like this before. He was THRILLED. It was so cute to watch him and Coen play together.
Cutest brothers!
It was fun to go on a fancy date!
All of the food at the restaurant was so yummy, and this is the view from the seating. Wow!
I don't often get into the water when we go to the beach, but even I swam this day. As I was swimming, I saw what I thought was a bee in the water. I scooted over and it seemed to follow me. I looked closer and saw it was a tiny black and white striped fish! It was so small, like the size of a pencil eraser. As we were swimming and moving around, that tiny fish kept following our family. We were all wearing striped swimming suits by chance, so we didn't know if that's what attracted it to us, but we got a kick out of this tiny fish that would not leave us alone!
Here's a video of the helicopter taking off- I love Ava's nervous face for a second there. Also, turn down your volume since the helicopter noise is loud!
Their pilot was a female and there were 6 people total on the helicopter. Here they are just after taking off, passing a dock and Honolulu.
Look how gorgeous this island is! The pilot said they can see sharks sometimes in the water below but they didn't see any that day.
Flying over Hawaii Kai and the south east side of the island:Kai has learned how to ride a scooter so well.
Dinner on our balcony. We question if it's worth it, carrying all the chairs and food upstairs, but I think these are the sort of memories that make a childhood magical.
Brent bought new shelves- one for our dining room and one for our bedroom, to display his Legos and Disney popcorn buckets. He has come up with a theme for each month of the year and he and the kids build different Lego sets, one bag at a time several times a week.
Audrey cracks me up when she sleeps with her mask on.
Ava went to girls camp with our stake- it was on a property about 12 minutes south of us. Brent went one afternoon to be one of the Priesthood holders on site.
I went out on a girls night with my neighbor friends. We tried out a new food truck just down the road. Three of the four of us share a driveway, and then our other neighbor lives two doors down from us. We spend a lot of time together outside while our kids play, so we're raising our kids together. I'm grateful to have good friends around me!
A video of the boys:
That evening after dropping Brent at the temple, the boys and I walked around the temple grounds.
A video our babysitter sent to me. Kai had been dried off and changed clothes, and then he just couldn't resist and went back for more:
Our friends the Campbells had given us a gift card to their favorite restaurant, and also offered to babysit our kids. So Brent and I went to Haleiwa Joes (which is in Kaneohe, so 45 minutes away) on a Friday evening. There's usually a long wait at the restaurant, but that's ok because the restaurant grounds are a botanical garden... so beautiful!
I started jogging in the mornings this month so I could get in shape for Europe. On Saturday when I jogged to our beach, I was surprised to find there were no waves- it was so placid! There was also no one else there. I ran home and told everyone to get in their swimming suits - it was a beach day!
Packing for the summer was tricky as always! But this time we also had to pack for all of our vacations within the vacation, including Ava for DC, some of us for Europe, and others for Bear Lake.
More dress up time with the older siblings. Hahaha.
We survived the 6 hour flight! I changed activities with Kai every few minutes- we ate lots of snacks, played with different toys, walked up and down the aisle, went to the bathroom to wash hands, watched shorts on the ipad, and looked out the window. All of these things, over and over. It was exhausting!
Ava left for Washington DC for History Day on June 12. She is going to have her own blog post about that trip, so stay tuned.
Look at these cute faces!
Our flight to Utah was on June 16. Since it was on a day Brent teaches at 8am, we had to leave home a little before 6am for him to be back in time to teach. Our flight wasn't until 11am so we had a few hours to kill at the airport. It was just me and the younger 3 since Ava was already on the mainland. At one point there was a bird in the terminal and Kai was squealing, chasing it around.
Kai always falls asleep while drinking his bottle of milk. When I asked the flight attendant for milk, they said they no longer carry milk. Oh no! I tried giving him dairy creamer but he wasn't having it. I was thinking it was going to be a very long flight if I couldn't get him to nap, but luckily I tried some apple juice in his bottle and he fell asleep drinking that.
Being in Utah means lots of grandparent and cousin time! Natalie watched the kids two times a week for me and took them some fun places like the aquarium.
We had fun watching Brazil play in the World Cup. I remembered to bring this jersey that Coen wore when he was this age.
Go Brazil!
He had a group of different friends over and they helped eat some of the food in our house now that the family was gone!
Students kept inviting him to eat at the cafeteria since they had passes that were expiring at the end of the year.
Lot of cousin time! Both mine and Brent's sisters had a baby 3 months after Kai was born, so he has two little cousins his age. Here are a couple of them enjoying the pool time in my paren'ts backyard.
Here's Ava holding the other cousin that's Kai's age. Ava was like, "How come this baby just holds still and lets me hold him?" He is sooo quiet and calm copared to Kai!
Little cousin buddies for life!
Doing crafts with Natalie:
My parents took us to see Toy Story 5 - I loved it! Brent's mom watched Kai for me which was so nice for me since Kai would have probably only sat for a third of it.
We watched more Brazil world cup games- this is the only time I watch soccer.
Audrey lost her tooth and made this I love you card for the tooth fairy.
Natalie and Tammy took the kids to This is the Place Park. They did some fun activities like pull a handcart, ride in a train, and go panning for fools gold.
Kai loved Grandma & Grandpa's playset. Grandpa Bob often took Kai out to swing.
Kai got out of the bath and looked so adorable like this. I thought like he looked like ET or something. I sent it to Brent and he LOVED this picture.
This creepy picture needs a spot on the blog, because this will remind us about how dang HARD Audrey was this summer! She would throw fits and scream, disobey me, do things to push people's buttons etc. Almost every day I felt like she depleted all of my patience reserves and I was barely hanging in there at bed time. No Brent for most of the summer was hard on all of us!
Kai decided to use his fingers instead of a spoon for his yogurt:
Ava's laughing her head off on this picture because Kai took his binkie obsession to a new level:
As Ava and I were preparing to head to Europe I made some notes about him for both of our parents who were going to take turns watching him. I thought they make a good snapshot in time of what Kai was like at this age.
Just a sweet moment I caught:
A couple days after we got to Utah I did a webinar with a coworker on 401(k) audits. I was nervous since they expected several hundred people to be listening!
We did the webinar at a company's office and they had a fancy official set up. It went really well!
Meanwhile back at home Brent was finishing out spring term at BYUH and also busy being his normal social self. He went to Buffalo Wild Wings and met up with Brother Gordon there as he is a manager of a few locations on the island.
My sister and I took our kids to see the fairies at Gardner Village. Audrey dressed up as a princess for it.
Scheels with my parents. I stayed home and worked through so many of the kids' fun activities this summer!
My mom took the kids bowling with Cher's kids. Audrey got two strikes and beat everyone!
We went through a week of nasty air from wildfires. You can't see the mountains at all in this picture.
In a Monster's Inc short everyone is chanting, "go squishy, go squishy." Somehow Coen got the idea to chant this for Kai and really wind him up before he jumps onto the bean bag. I love how Kai stomps his foot as he's getting pumped up.
Ava also wondered why this cousin is soooo much quieter than Kai. Haha. These two look like twins when they're standing next to each other- the same height and weight and blond hair.
And that concludes June- next up, Europe!
