Robin had her fourth baby in late May and wasn't sure what she would be able to get out and do this summer. Levi's 20-year high school reunion was this summer in Utah (and many of you know, I am just one year behind him) and so I mentioned she should leave her two oldest in Utah for a month after their visit. She wasn't sure Logan was quite old enough, but to Mason there wasn't any music sweeter than those words. The entire Levi Heath family arrived in Utah on July 3 and Mason stayed until August 2.
Just quickly, before I get into the details, there is already talk and some initial planning for Mason to come again this next summer. So yes, in summary, a very fun and successful summer month.
Now, the details.
Kevin always has the week of the Fourth of July off. His company shuts down and the company enjoys a week off. I worked Monday, Ellie went to Thanksgiving Point day camp but then we all took the rest of the week off to enjoy Mason and her family.
Tuesday morning (July 3) Kevin and I wanted to take Ellie fishing again. The last time Kevin and Ellie went they saw people having more success with real worms so that was the plan of attack this time. I am not sure what was going on with Ellie, but she wanted nothing to do with fishing, nothing to do with the worms, and was pretty much grumpy. We switched out her worms from fake to real back to fake and yet still, grumpy.
Here is her grumpy face when we arrived.
Here is her grumpy attitude while fishing.
And finally....after several mom nudges - and a reminder that we would be spending the afternoon with Mason, a smile.
There were a million fish on the surface, but I think they are likely overfed. We had a couple on our lines, but nothing successfully out of the water. We got a call from Mason while we were there saying she had arrived in Utah. Her parents were busy unloading so they couldn't bring her by. We tortured Ellie by making her fish with us a bit more. Kevin was determined to get a fish, but we eventually had to surrender.
We tortured Ellie even more with a visit to the store (I really wanted a little swimming pool), and then to lunch, and then finally - we went to Mason. The reunion was as glorious as it always is (their excitement really is contagious) and the rest of the day was spent with nothing but smiles.
The Fourth of July was, as far as I can remember, my favorite Fourth of July ever. I wish I could load every video I have because in Heath terminology - it was a banner day - and every video is so worth watching. My mom rented a huge, inflatable water-slide for her back yard. The kids played outside from the time it arrived until the time it left. They had a sleepover at Grams the night before so when Kevin and I got there they were already in suits and were on a mini-break from their first couple rounds. Our arrival prompted the next round. It was so fun to see the kids play on the slide, but honestly, watching the bigger kids play was hilarious. We went one by one, head first, feet first, and two by two.
This was the slide.
This is Titus, lives up to his name in his brute force and yet totally afraid of the slide when the water was on. He was all over it if the water was off though.
The kids love their Uncle Jed and had fun going on the slide with him.
The girls in their new cover-ups.
It was so much fun my mom decided to give it a try.
First of all you should know my mom is slightly afraid of the water. She loves to water-ski but she claims she can't really swim. She also hates to get her face wet, and does NOT like to get her hair wet. She hates the song "You're so vain" by Carly Simon. She thinks it is stupid because of the line "you probably think this song is about you" - I mean why say that when it IS about the vain person? But anyway, I take you on this side path because my mom, Grams, Emalynn is pretty vain (I mean, she WAS the Queen of Holladay) and does not like the hair ruined by the water. So I've always found it funny she hates that song. But this slide and all of the giggles were too tempting, even for her vanity. Her first attempt she ran and then stopped right before the slide. Her second attempt she gently landed and went about three feet. Her third attempt she got a bit more courage from the crowd and made it about half way down the slide. By then she was determined to make it the full length of the slide and went several times. You should know that we have a lot of respect for our mom, she is pretty much amazing. But we also have a lot of fun giving her a hard time and we are totally entertained by her. I don't think I can publicly share the videos, but I assure you the laughter in the background is priceless just like this day was.
In 2009 my mom put together a Fourth of July program that she sat us out back for and made us listen to. The next year in 2010 she did it again, but this time at Lake Powell and she presented it for the Nisson family as most of the Heath family sat on the beach and cracked up. In 2011 we had given her such a hard time that she took a brief pause, but 2012 she was back in true form and we all gathered to listen to her story, take the history quiz and do the word search. I don't know if it was because the day was so awesome or we were on full stomachs from the perfect BBQ or if it was just a better program, but it was actually really good and fun to talk about the reason for the Fourth of July and to appreciate our country.
Ellie and Mason then decided they should put on their own programs and came up with some pretty impressive shows.
Later that night Ellie went to see the Fireworks at Sugarhouse park with her dad and they rest of us stayed behind for another impressive firework show. Kevin, Levi and Jed went to buy fireworks together. They were picking some out, Kevin bought around $100 worth and then Levi, in true Levi form bought several hundred dollars worth. When we were growing up there was a man that always had illegal fireworks in our neighborhood and put on a great show. I think Levi secretly wants to be the "Lee Bulloch" of the neighborhood and put on the best show. He totally succeeded this year as all the neighbors were out and gathered around watching the show!
Finally, Utah legalized Ariel fireworks!
Mad Dog even had her own brand!
One firework would drop these streamers and Logan loved to chase them down.
On the 5th of July we were supposed to all go to Yuba Lake together but the weather did not cooperate. We were super bummed because we had considered buying some little water skis and we were hoping to get Mason up and skiing. She was so excited and anxious to try. The entire conversation around skiing went exactly how you would expect. Mason anxious to try and not at all afraid. Ellie completely turned off by the idea and not at all willing to even consider it. Mason was bummed when the weather didn't turn out and Ellie was relieved.
So instead I put up a tent for the kids on the back deck and they played and had lunch. And we settled on a movie and enjoyed some afro circus, afro circus, polka dot, polka dot, polka dot, afro! After the movie Mason and family had to leave for Cedar City. The girls had a hard time with the separation. They just didn't really see why after only two days Mason had to already leave. It took several discussions and reminders that she would be back for the girls to finally settle.
To ease the pain, Kevin and I took Ellie to Build-A-Bear so she could finally spend her birthday giftcards.
Kevin's car had been making this crazy noise that came from the tires so he took his car to get the tires rotated. When he came home nothing was fixed so with a bit of an argument, I made him take it to the service department to figure out what was really going on. In the morning he got a call saying that he needed an entirely new something AND his something something was leaking and needed to be replaced. Now keep in mind we just spent several hundred dollars a few weeks back with the whole tow experience, his car had over 100,000 miles on it and I was not real keen on spending another $2,000 on it to likely have to do it again in a few weeks. We went back and forth on what to do. Fix it and see how much longer it will go or just get rid of it. Kevin is a Ford man. His dad worked there Kevin's entire life and he doesn't even consider other cars. I don't really care for Ford and don't really like the way most of them look. The only one we agree upon is the Ford truck. So we looked at a few and even took a test drive home to see if it worked in our garage. We decided to not get it, to fix his car and came home. But when we came home Kevin did some more research and we went back out again to a different dealership. It was a back and forth day and a day a kid could really hate. Most adults hate how long it takes and the hassle of car shopping and the final agreements always take forever. Ellie was amazing. She took the entire day in stride. We were so caught up in what to do we didn't even feed her dinner. We ended up buying a truck (that we all love) at 9:40 PM - and then we finally had a full ice-cream dinner at Baskin Robin's at 10:40 PM. Solid parenting on my part. There are days, and they seem to be more and more frequent, that Ellie is just amazing. She doesn't complain, she is funny, she is in the best mood, she is fun to be with and I just can't get enough of her. A day I would have expected to be horrible for her was one of my favorite days together.
Two days later Mason was back and the rest of the month pretty much went like this: day camps, sprinklers on the trampoline, the alpine slide, bull riding, trampoline bungee jumping, parade, games, play-dates, golf camp, golf trophies, craft projects, sleepovers, dates with grandma, sewing lessons with grandma, make-overs at Grandma's, family reunion camping, and finally a trip to Yuba. Oh, and one last outing with grandma to the zoo and a very sad goodbye on August 1st. There really wasn't a single day we didn't have some sort of activity or event going on. I had a closet full of prizes they could pick from as incentive to get along for the long month. Sure, there were a few times they didn't get along, but for the majority of the time they were amazing. The split up a few nights so Ellie could spend time with her dad, and Mason got some extra grandma time. Warning - lots of pictures ahead of all of the fun!
Mason and Ellie came home from this camp speaking Swahili. They had so much fun and made a friend. They had a list of translated words and were surprised when I could understand them. Of course I could guess from the context what they were saying, but they thought I was so smart to figure it out!
One of the rules the girls received is that they would include the boys while they were still in Utah. They did a pretty decent job.
Titus was again not a huge fan of the water.
Before Levi and Robin left with the boys, they took the kids to Snowbird to ride the Alpine Slide. I was worried Ellie would be scared, but they had a great time. They rode the slides, did some bungee trampoline jumping and Mason even rode the bull! I was sad I had to work, but they had a great day!
Ellie was in the kids parade on July 14. Salt Lake City does this parade a week or so in advance of the larger 24th of July parade. It was fun to watch for Ellie. I remember being in this parade when I was a kid - all dressed up as a bumble bee.
Mason hadn't heard of the 24th of July holiday in Utah, so we taught her about it and then did a craft. Ellie painted a Utah block and Mason did a beehive.
The girls had one week of golf camp. I did this exact golf camp when I was about this age, maybe just a year or two older. I have a terrible long-term memory and don't remember a lot of things, but I remember golf-camp. I loved it. I remember when we went out to play the course. I remember ordering from the snack bar and I remember the trophy ceremony. Ellie was mostly a fan of the snack bar, but she was a trooper and went every day. Mason of course loved it. She and Mason went an extra day a week later to play with their favorite instructor, Farrell, who has been there since I went!
Ellie's team took second place and Mason's took first. This is a picture of the girls with Farrell.
The family reunion was fun, but there was a lot of rain and not as many people as we normally get. This is Ellie directing traffic.
Mason cleaning the mud off Ellie's shoes.
And the girls chilling after camp was set up.
At night the girls had fun in the tent and doing their workbooks. Grandma bought them each workbook and told them they had to do five pages every day. I am not sure they did THAT many, but they were pretty good at doing them.
The next morning when we were getting the girls lathered in sun screen and bug spray Ellie coordinated her lathering to the intro of the Ozzy Osbourne song Crazy Train and did her cheeks and face during the "da da's" and then replaced the "aye aye aye" with eye eye eye and did her eyes then. I realize that is probably one of those had to be there to get it moments, but it was totally awesome and funny and clever and classic, and we sang it all weekend long.
During one of the rain storms we all hung out in the tent. This is Kevin rocking out. Kevin bought a huge tent that had two rooms so we had plenty of space. As far as tents go - it was great. (Ever since, and honestly for some time before I have been pushing for us to get a trailer.)
We had so much mud on our shoes we decided to make swamp creatures out of them. This is mine.
Grandma took the girls for a day and taught them to sew. They each made their own skirt.
We had a few of Ellie's friends over for a play party. The party kept growing and I think we ended up with six or eight kids in the end.
It was super busy, it felt like we were always running. I never planned dinner because I was more worried about the girls having fun. Mason asked me if I ever cooked. Ellie told her we are a fast food family. I was a bit taken back by that, and she said, well, we don't ever go to restaurants! I was going out with my girlfriends one night and Mason asked me, "Is that what you are wearing?" quite disappointed in my outfit. She told me she would expect for a girl's night I would be in a dress or at least some jeans!
One day towards the end of the month I got a call from the day camp saying the girls weren't feeling well. I went down and picked them up. I think they were mostly exhausted from a busy month and probably just needed some down time. I think Mason's stomach hurt a little and Ellie decided hers did too. But I wasn't too convinced because when she came home she was eating some candy and I told her that was not good for sick stomachs and she said, "This is making me feel better." Cracked me up. I assume it was making her feel better and her stomach wasn't that sick.
At the end of the month we planned another trip to Yuba, this time with the Vanderlinden family. We found some little skiis to buy and got Mason all pumped up again about trying it. Ellie was still not about to try it but we bought them anyway and hoped for the best. We drove down together with the Vanderlinden's, stopping at Lisa's in Nephi for dinner.
I bought the girls two new movies and this is pretty much how the entire ride down went.
The trip actually happened which was improvement over the first trip we planned, but the weather was not great. We tried to put up our previously mentioned tent and the wind took it down, ripped it and bent several of the poles! Thankfully the Vanderlinden's had plenty of room for us in their fifth wheel. Zack reminded Kevin that this was another good reason to get a trailer. The girls didn't care about the wind though. They had fun being together and playing games outside and then more games inside followed by a movie and a sleepover.
The next morning we had glimpses of good weather so after breakfast we suited up and went down to the beach. The weather was never good enough to try skiing. Mason again was bummed, Ellie again relieved. But it was good enough to play around on the beach and in the water and take a few spins around the lake.
Ellie collected some rocks and had rock people, a rock camp, and a rock camp fire.
All the girls on the boat.
The girls trying to pull the boat in.
Ellie and Reagan are so much alike. They both preferred to stay back on the beach instead of going out on the boat. Reagan is a year behind Ellie and she reminds me of Ellie a year ago. Ellie has gotten a bit braver and she was trying to convince Reagan to get in the water with her. This was about as far as Reagan got before she turned around and said no.
Instead they beached it and had a perfectly grand time.
In the afternoon a little storm came in so the girls learned to boondoggle.
That night we made personal pizzas:
Enjoyed an amazing sunset:
Played some hand games (reminiscent of Disneyland) and then went for a walk.
It was a great trip. We love the Vanderlinden girls. Ellie had a bit of a hard time sharing them at first, but it all worked out and the girls had a great time even without the waterskis. Mason and Paige rode the tube instead. In fact, I think Mason was on it the entire time it was in the water!
On the 30th, the girls when with grandma again and gave themselves a make-over. My mom sent me this picture and I about died. First of all, I thought they went for a professional make-over. Secondly, they look WAY TOO OLD. I was freaking out. Such pretty girls.
Speaking of....a few months after golf camp, Ellie and I were riding in the car and she told me that one time at golf camp, she took her hat off and her hair looked crazy. But one of the boys on her team told her he thought she was cute. I told her that was nice of him to say and she informed me that he was not just talking about her hair, that he was telling her she was cute. Oh....and so it begins.....this one time at band camp...
On the 31st we went with grandma for one last outing to the zoo. We started with the bird show. It had been a few years since my mom or I had seen it and we were so impressed. After the show the girls held out a dollar for the bird and he took it from them and put it in the donation box.
We did the full zoo complete with ice cream, the carousel, learned to use chopsticks and rode the train.
August 1st the girls had to say good-bye. We took Mason shopping first for her upcoming birthday. She picked these two pair of shoes. The flip-flops had a little bit of a heel to them and she was soooo excited.
Then grandma came to get Mason. Several times in the month Mason called home. She was glad to call, but she was never home sick. I was so happy she had such a great time and we honestly can't wait until she comes back!
In the days and months since July, the girls have spent several hours using Facetime on their iPods to talk and be together. They are currently counting down hours until they will be together again at Christmas! Thanks Mason for giving us the month of Mason!!
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