Mesquite Days

With the van filled will dozens of non-fiction books for the library challange and enough stuff to last us 16 days we drove to Utah and spent a quick enjoyable evening with the Petersens before waking early and driving to Cedar City for Dahlia's baptism.  It was fun to share my birthday with this awsome kid again.  Greg even made me this fabulous donut birthday cake with Krispy Kreme donuts, whipped cream and homemade chocolate sauce.  It was a hit.  

We enjoys cousin time and cahtting with Don and Teresa then drove off to Mesquite to enjoy a few days with Grandma and Papa.  After church I took Greg to the St. George airport and came home to find the girls playing games.  We got together for a fourth of July dinner with Petersens and Brad's family.  

We got home from Brad's to be welcomed by Teresa and her kids.  They just couldn't wait to spend more time together.  While Teresa was napping the kids packed their bags and were ready to go when she woke up so what could she say?!  My kids were thrilled.  We watched fireworks from Grandma's house and then had a hard time getting the littles to stop talking and just go to sleep.

The next morning the oldest 5 girls were up and ready to go to breakfast with papa by 5:45am unfortunately, Lily and Dahlia were up at 4:00 for no apparent reason.  When the big kids left I took the littles to find a bakery but everything but Smiths was closed.  They were still pretty thrilled with their donut holes.

Once they were dressed and ready Brad took the two littles and Emily down to Bunker pond to fish.  He spend over an hour with them.  They sure love him!

Let the swimming begin!  The girls swam for hours and hours.  I think Kate was out there for over 6 hours and she got a sunburn to prove it.  She reaplied sunscreen several times even.  Ava and the twins joined the party.  Grandma ordered pizza and brought it poolside so they didn't even have to get out for lunch.

The little girls came in earlier than the oldest kids so they had a dress up party with Brad.  He wore some fancy pants and even carried a pink piggy purse.  What a sport!  Lily just lights up whenever she sees him.  He is such a great uncle to these girls.

We said goodbye to Addy and Violet (they had summer school the next day) and said goodbye to the twins (off to girls camp) but Cecily and Dahlia got to stay with us and we enjoyed a Come Follow Me lesson about the three degrees of glory (represented by the squishmallows) from Emily and Cecily.  Do you see the creepy headed bear that represents perdition?  So fun.  Then we connected with Brad in order to take their dog, Aussie, to the dog park.  The girls actually loved the dog park- we stayed long enough that Grandma was in bed when we got home.

Our last day we cleaned up, packed up, then went to the splash pad park and the splash pad drink place.  Then a bit more swimming before we headed to Teresa's house.

The girls LOVED Teresa's house.  We had about 52 hours at their house and the girls never wanted to leave.  They played games, made waffle cookies, and the oldest three stayed up watching Hannah Montana till 1:00am.  But I can't be critical because I stayed up talking till 2.  

The next morning Violet and Addy skipped school.  The kids stayed busy playing video games, playing outside, enjoying Teresa's craft store basement, making snow cones, decorating shirts, and we enjoyed a stage production of Pirates of Penzance.  It was so fun.  

We all got our exercise with a late night Just Dance party.

The next day the girls went to school and we finished all of our crafts and maybe decorated more shirts.  Teresa's craft store selection and creative mind could solve any crafting delema.  

After school we met the girls and went to the park.  We waded in the little river, played badmitten and just enjoyed our last hours together.  We ended our time at an old fasioned soda fountain where we devoured our different treats.  Then we did a major clean up and said goodbye and drove to St. George where we checked into our hotel room.  I got the girls to bed then snuck away and picked up the boys - time fore phase two of this epic adventure.