Finally an update! This summer has been somewhat of a blur, sometimes moving at an exhaustingly slow pace and other times an exhaustingly fast pace. Here is a brief recap of some of the highlights of our summer.....


Taivan got out of school the end of June. It's a tradition in my family to have a treasure hunt on the first and last day of school. This year the first day of school is September 8th because...I'm homeschooling Taivan this year! Let me guess, the first word that came to mind was crazy? I've been called that a lot. But I'm excited and I think we'll have a great time.


The Boise Farmer's Market! We love downtown Boise (or BODO). The parks, the zoo, the discovery center, dad's work, and the farmer's market. The boys got to do the Art for Kids. Kids can sign up to do free art projects. We decided to make tie-dye shirts. They turned out great and the boys where them all the time!


We took a nice little vacation up to La Grande the first of July for the Orton Family Reunion. While visiting our hometown, Dylan and his dad and a couple cousins got to float the river at Hillgard State Park. They wouldn't let me join them, though I don't know if I would've even floated anyway, so a bunch of us played in the water at the park and waited for the floaters. Noah layed in his little tube for most of the time...it was so cute.


We love the Orton Family Reunion. It's so fun to meet up with all of Dylan's family again and get to know more people. It's so beautiful up at the 4-H center up in the mountains. Though it was very hot, we passed the time by playing long games of Phase 10, talking with cousins, aunts and uncles, and watching all the kids play for hours and hours with swimming noodles (mostly used as swords and light sabers). Wish we would've taken more pictures though. We had to steal some of these ones from Uncle Mark's collection.


For some reason, a lot of the clothes I had for my boys didn't seem to make it through the two of them in good enough shape to pass onto baby boy number 3. Pants inevitably get holes in the knees and shirts inevitable get stains. So, I hit the best yard sale and replenished my 6 months-2T supply. I was very proud of my haul and especially the price I paid for everything. Proud enough, obviously, to make a collage of it and post it on here. I'm funny that way.


Yep, it's true! We bought a house! YAY! We're very very excited. Our first home! It's made our summer a little crazy. We finally closed after waiting 4 months since we put the offer in on it. But it was worth the wait and we get to move in on the 22nd of August. Now we're busy packing and cleaning and getting ready for the move.

Other than all of that, I've spent most of my summer counting down the weeks of pregnancy. Almost 7 weeks to go! This little baby is a little too excited to get out and that causes a fair amount of pain and discomfort. But the last few weeks have probably been the best of my pregnancy and for that I am very grateful. We've been swimming at our community pool in the evenings which has been the highlight of my summer. It's so nice to swim a little then sit and read in the evening sun.

Life is going to be pretty crazy for us the next few weeks...or months...but, for now, all is well. We are healthy and excited for the changes that are happening in our family.