Daisy turned 16! Hooray! Junie and Goldie decorated their room for her: balloons, a banner, flowers, and party hats for the animals.
Notice the gnomes and bunnies Clementine contributed to the banner. And look at the lonnnnnnnng arm of that bunny holding the purple balloon. I love it.
Gus drew this cute penguin for Daisy
We went and got Daisy's driver's license (easy as pie; she had already passed the road test the week before) and celebrated with lunch after. The man at the DMV was really nice (bless him!) and almost fatherly, lecturing Daisy with just enough seriousness about what a big responsibility a license was, and reminding her of all the rules she was agreeing to. It was super cute because the man said, "Now remember, for the first six months, no driving with friends!" and Daisy said, "…Unless your friends are your sisters!"
She wasn't wrong. And lucky for her, her friends are her sisters, and the first thing she wanted to do when we got home was take them on a drive around the neighborhood—all by themselves! Do their faces reassure you that they will be calm, responsible, non-silly individuals during this outing?
It was a happy day for Daisy and all of us!
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A few other things:
Gnomes and bunnies drawn by Clementine
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Every year we have a contest within our family where we each guess when the snow on Timpanogos will be completely melted. We make our guesses around Memorial Day and then keep a close eye on it all summer. Sometimes the snow melts early in August (possibly even July some years) and sometimes it never melts at all before the next snow falls! As the summer goes on, it gets harder and harder to see the tiny little spots, and sometimes there is a bit of disagreement over whether something is a patch of snow…or just a shiny rock. This picture was to prove that the snow was not quite gone yet!
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For Activity Days, Teddy got to visit a nearby construction site where a new church is being built. All the boys got to drive the backhoe and front-end loader and even make them scoop up some dirt! Can you imagine a better little-boy activity?
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Some pretty skies
Junie and Daisy and Amelia collapsing with laughter (their default state, honestly) over something or other.
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It's hard to believe this was Goldie's first year at girls' camp! She seems so much the same age as Daisy and Junie. She was so glad not to have to stay home without them like she did last year!
Sam went to camp too! We thought it would just be for a couple of the days, but no other dads volunteered, so he ended up staying the whole time. He and the bishop stayed in a tent outside and all the girls got to stay in this great house. They had horseback riding and even their own swimming pool! It was fun that Sam got to be there with all three of our girls.
The leaders said the girls could choose if they wanted to do the hike or not, and Daisy was the only girl that chose to go. Ha! She was happy enough, since she usually finds herself talking to mostly the leaders anyway.
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Sadly, we aren't going to be able to do the children's choir this year, but Daisy and Junie and Teddy and Ziggy got to go to the summer choir camp anyway. (Goldie was at Oakcrest camp, the camp our stake does for 7th graders.) It was Ziggy's first time doing anything like that, and he loved it! He had told me he was absolutely NOT going to like the singing, and we'd soothed him with promises of pizza and games and swimming, but when he got home what do you suppose he said he'd liked best? The singing!
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Clementine holding up the tag that came on her dress, which shows a little girl wearing the dress. "MATCH!"
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While all the other children were gone at camps, we had a funeral to go to and no one to tend the little ones! It's a rare day that happens anymore. We ended up just taking Gus and Clementine to the funeral with us, and they were so good!
Clementine drew gnomes. This one gets more disturbing the more you look at it.
And then we went to Costco.
We also went out to eat one of the nights, since we only had three kids at home! Practically empty nesters!
Reacting nervously to the onion-volcano
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Here's Goldie at Oakcrest
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If you meet or talk to Clementine these days, there is a 98% chance she will tell you, a.) that she used to be three but now she's four, and b.) that she knows how to "pump" on the swings. She is SO proud of herself, and rightly so—pumping is a great skill! Now she tells me, whenever she's running to a swingset, "Don't push me! I can pump myself!"
These two are so cute together. Here they are off on an adventure, with backpacks!
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I was helping in primary one day and couldn't resist taking a picture of Zig's enthusiasm after being picked to pull the string "noodles" through the picture's mouth. The primary children LOVE this activity. Their song leader has so many fun ideas.
I love Gus's picture of Jesus by the temple
Ward potluck at the hill—Ziggy and his friend Henry
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Not sure why I took this picture, but these were some super good hamburgers.
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Sushi with Junie for her book lunch
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Rice crispie volcano models for our Volcanoes unit study
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Puzzle for Family Home Evening
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Three-eared bunny?
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Watching a whole line of utility trucks
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The last few missionaries from this big group of Seb's peers have been coming home this summer! It was fun to see all these cross-country friends back together again at their homecoming sacrament meetings.
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