September 2020- St. George again, and back home to Oregon

 
We celebrated Ava's half birthday with cupcakes!

Kids smushed against glass- always funny! Sorry dad about your den door.

Grandpa reading to the kids. They were all entertained with the book called Z is for Moose.

Sunday visit- we did quite a few of these puzzles in the summer. Coen loves to help and is pretty good!

This is so blurry, but I had to take a picture to remember my dad jumping up and down like crazy waving goodbye to us each time we left his house. Haha, I love him!

The kids were very excited about this tunnel they built in the sandbox. They poured water into it and then said it turned into a volcano.

Something random, but funny- one day Coen and Ava were fighting. Coen shouted to Ava, "You drink MILK!" It was such an insult to her because she hates milk. She was so mad, but it made me laugh so much.

Audrey's morning wake up committee. 

We went to the Disney Store and bought quite a few swimming suits that were on clearance. Here is Audrey in her new Snow White swimming suit. 

We had a Dahn party in the Cowley's backyard with a bounce-house water slide. It was so fun for the kids- they played outside for like 6 hours! It was unusually hot for the beginning of September (100 degrees) so we enjoyed the last bit of summer. 

Audrey climbed in the cooler all by herself!

Ava's best friend from Oregon came to play when they were in Utah- Ava said it was "the best day ever!" They played Bratz dolls all day.

Coen was so happy to play with his bestie too!

Audrey was comfortable to let Grandma and Grandpa hold her after we had been there a week or two. I thought they looked cute like this one night at dinner!

Audrey toddling around the neighborhood- She is a pro walker now!

Back home in Oregon, there were horrible wild fires all around our house and the smoke was so thick and so bad that people could not leave their homes. We could see so much ash on our front porch and driveway in our camera. The air quality index in Eugene was 480 when I checked one day- it should be like 30 or lower. We were glad to miss this!

Tammy helped me make a gluten free pie with peaches from their tree. It was so yummy!

This is where Brent and I spent a lot of time- working at the table downstairs. We were so lucky to have grandmas help us watch the kids!

Emma looking so cute one day when I was watching her for a few minutes.

Our Oregon friends came again to play! They played in the backyard and Ava and her friend made nature soup.

They also made a huge fort!

I had been working on converting my blog into a book- one book per year. I finished 2015 and the book came in the mail. I was so excited! I plan to print a book for each of my kids so that when they turn 18 they'll have their books of memories from their childhood. 

Pretty blue eyes.

Audrey liked carrying these little toy suitcases all the time. It looked so funny.

Brent's grandpa Dahn made this Milne toy truck and they got it out of the shed and cleaned it off for the kids to enjoy.

Grandpa Dahn would have turned 100 years old in September so we had a family gathering at his gravesite and talked about memories of him. Brent and his mom put together bags of his Grandpa's favorite treats. 

Brent wanted to go to St. George one more time! I felt like it was the summer break that just kept on going around and around. It was really fun though to go and see Andrew's family who is living down there now. Audrey walked in to the condo and gave herself a kiss on the mirror. 

Brent played with the kids while I worked during the day. One evening we went to the dinosaur park and Coen was finally brave enough to go down a slide! Coen says it was fun going down the slide by myself.

We went swimming a lot in St. George! The first day or two the water was really cold but they turned on the water heaters and the weather got warmer, so it got better. 

Ava really improved her swimming (despite not having swim classes this summer) and she was able to swim pretty well- without her floaties if we're keeping our eye on her. Coen was still terrified of having water splashed on his face. 

Andrew and his kids came swimming with us a few times. The kids loved the waterslide!

We went to Snow Canyon with everyone. We went on two small hikes.

On the way back to the car on the second hike, Brent and my parents took a different path back to the car. It ended up being off the trail and they took a long time to get back to the car. Luckily they arrived safely!

I bought two new swimming suits at the mall- it had been years since I got a new one! 

Cute matching cousins.

Brent taught us how to play shuffle board at the condo. 

Brent used his animated Simpsons plan of happiness cut outs to teach a lesson at home church.

Audrey riding in her pink car- she and Brent both LOVED using this car.

One evening we saw an owl just outside the condo!

Ava had her first day of school, in St. George! She meets with her zoom class Mon-Fri 8:30-10am. Her teacher is Mrs. Potter and she's awesome! The kids had sweet rolls to celebrate the non-traditional first day of school.

My parents, Brent, and Ava went to Kanab, known as Utah's hollywood. These movie sets were used in filming in or around Kanab. 

Andrew loves Audrey, it's so cute!

I decided we better find Ava's baptism dress in Utah. We found one online that we really liked and were going to order and then went to Kid to Kid to see if they had any dresses. We found the exact one we were about to order at a much cheaper price! Ava looking at her reflection is so sweet.

Trying out our new swimming suits.

Brent helped the kids make forkies from Toy Story 4.

Ava and I spent a little bit of time alone at the pool on the last day after Brent took back the younger ones. We had a fun time together. It's fun now that she's growing up and we can have some chats.

Ava would like to say: Grandma bought a Rapunzel dress and shoes so I dressed up as Rapunzel and I got the shoes, dress, and wig on. We watched Tangled that day. Coen dressed up as Flynn Rider and Emma dressed up as Elsa. 

Laura came to visit and we noticed our girls were kind of twins.

We had dinner with Laura and my parents and then had a camp fire after to roast marshmallows. 

We had a LOT of stuff to fit in our red car to get back to Oregon. Besides the clothes and stuff 5 of us needed for all summer, we had bought some presents and Brent also had some things from his childhood to take back. He always fits way more in the car than I think possible. We were all squished in between our stuff!

Audrey talking on her phone.

Coen helped Audrey ride this little car and she was so happy about it.

Audrey was pretty good the whole drive home- I had to basically hand her a new toy or snacks every few minutes. Coen helped too, and she adores him, as you can see in these pictures. 

She wanted to hold his hand at one point. On the second day we stopped in Burns at a little restaurant that a Mennonite family owns. We got steak sandwiches and salad and homemade cookies- so yummy!

We also made our usual stop at the last Blockbuster in the world, in Bend Oregon. 

We got home and I'm not totally sure if Audrey remembered home- it had been about 2 months since we had been here in July. We had to try really hard to baby-proof the house now that Audrey walks, crawls up the stairs, and gets into everything! She is a handful! But a cute handful. Here she is showing me what the bunny says as she sniffs and scrunches her nose.

And just like that, we got back into the busy swing of things at home!