Here we go again!

It's the first day of school. James and Ben posed for their obligatory "first-day-picture on the front porch." Summer was great! I'm sad to see these guys go. Not just because my free babysitting just flew out the window, but I love hanging out with my big boys. Andrew and Joey were pretty lonely without them, too. Can you believe James is going to Jr. High? He's in 7th Grade now, and Ben started 4th Grade. Neither of them wanted me to take them to school for their first day, so I just waved good-bye. Aren't they the handsomest?

The Gathering Place

It's strange where people gather. This summer, the whole neighborhood has been hanging out in the Fluhrer's driveway. Carson likes to sit out there in the front yard and the driveway is where the shade is. So, in the late afternoon, that's where you'll find us--chatting, eating otter pops and waiting for dads to get home from work. As a matter-of-fact, I think my kids are probably out there right now!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Cherry Hill!

Ok, so this is sort of a Blogumentary. It will be boring for everyone except for my kids who will hopefully read it one day and remember how much fun we had this summer at the pool! I also noticed throughout the summer that we developed a routine that we adhered to almost religiously. So, a typical Cherry Hill day starts off like this: We make a bunch of peanut butter sandwiches.Then we pack the big red cooler with capri suns, grapes, chips, yogurt and sometimes licorice (which may come as a shock to those who know how I feel about candy) and once in awhile watermelon.When we get there, we set up our chairs in a circle and put our towels on our chair and then it's time for sunscreen.And more sunscreen...And more sunscreen.Then the big boys took off for "Cardiac Canyon" or as Andrew calls it, "Party-ac Canyon". They like to get there as soon as it opens because it gets crowded later in the day. Moms take the little kids to the Pirate Ship. That is the kiddie pool. We bring toys and buckets and sit and chat with our feet in the pool while the kids play.
Joey loves his orange bucket. He fills it up and dumps it out over and over again.
When we are hungry, it's back to base camp for lunch.
Mmmm... Peanut butter!
Watermelon!

We all love to ride around in the lazy river. Andrew wears a life jacket and just floats along.
Joey likes to play in this cannon that we usually sit by.
It's great to spend a day at the pool and especially since most of the kids' friends and cousins have passes, so we always spend the day with someone. That is great for the kids and also for the moms to visit.
Good-bye, Cherry Hill! We had a great summer. Hope to see everyone there next year!

Well, Blow Me Down!

Last night, we had a killer windstorm! At about 11:30, Frank got a call from our next-door neighbors whose tree had blown over. They needed help getting some of the branches off before it crashed through their window. Here's what it looked like this morning... Can you believe how it just ripped out of the grass like that?
We found our neighbor's trampoline leaning over our fence where it had been blown.
And we also had a casualty. One of our trees didn't make it.
Whew! What a wind!

It's Cousin-Time!

It's been a fun few weeks with Liz and her kids in town! Of course about every time we got together, I forgot my camera, but what can you do? Here are a couple of highlights:
We went downtown to see some of the church historical sites. This is a picture of Ben and Andrew and some of their cousins at the Church History Museum kids' section where they have just built a sweet temple. We took this cute picture of all the kids. Seriously, are cousins the greatest or what?

After we went to Temple Square and some of that stuff, we headed to Great-Grandmother Todd's for lunch and popsicles. And since I am a moron, I didn't even get a picture of her. Hopefully I do better next time. The kids love going to her house. She has a dog and some chickens that they love to chase.

This picture is of Frank's mom handing out popsicles.
Well, since we all have Olympic fever, we headed back down to Salt Lake a few days later to play in the Olympic Fountains. If you've never been there, you should check it out. It is one of those fountains where they play different songs and water pops up and down. But every hour or so, they play the Olympic Theme and the water blasts like crazy to the music. It is hilarious to watch. Especially on a hot day like today when kids and adults alike joined in the fray.
This was another great gathering of cousins. The big kids like James didn't get in the water. They went and hung out at the sporting goods store because they are basically too cool to run screaming through the fountains. The little kids loved it, though.

Andrew and Porter are chillin' on their towels.
Here are James and Andrew right before we left just walking and talking. The cute girls behind them are my nieces, Joy and Allie.
Here's Ben who at first refused to get wet, but finally swallowed his pride when he noticed all the fun he was missing.
Joey couldn't get enough of Zachary. Here he is climbing into the stroller to give Zack a kiss...Zachary's face here is priceless.Pretty sweet. But I bet they will be completely humiliated in about 5 years when they see these pictures. Well, what are moms for?
Whata super fun few weeks! Thanks, Liz for getting us all together.

Upright and Mobile

Well, it happened. My little Joey is walking. It was slow-going at first, but walking is now his preferred method of transportation.

I have been noticing so much about him--I guess it's because he's my last baby--just trying to treasure every little milestone because I know how fast it goes. I want to figure out a way to keep him this age forever. But it feels like the baby time is just slipping through my fingers.

I love seeing him happy every morning waiting for me when I go in to get him out of his crib.I love that little tummy. Blowing raspberries on it, tickling it, watching him show everyone his belly-button.
I love those little piggies. How can baby boy feet turn so quickly into the most grody, smelly things on the planet?
I love his little smiling eyes and freckles.
And of course his red curly hair. I may never cut it.
I'm going to miss rocking him to sleep, playing peek-a-boo, pretending to "sleep" and then "wake up," bath time, holding him while he's sleeping, snuggling and playing in my bed at night. seeing those sticky hands and dirty face with a huge smile when he has a popsicle, hearing ma-ma-ma-ma-ma as he crawls around on the floor, finding him eating the dog's food, running in at night to check on him when I hear him wimper, sitting outside watching birds, cries that only I can soothe, and millions of other things that make having a baby the greatest thing in the world.

So, here's my advice to new moms: Please don't get too excited for them to grow up fast. Don't push them to be big and wish that all the baby stuff would end. Enjoy every step of the way, because before you turn around, it's over and all you have are the sweet memories.

School Shoes

School is just around the corner, so for Family Night, we went and got all the boys new shoes.
That's one time when I realize how much these boys have GROWN!

California Dreamin'

That was a pretty cliche' title, but I'm not really feeling the creative vibe right now... We got back from California about a week ago. It was great. We were so sad to miss our Newport vacation last year since Mimi and Ed were on their mission. But we totally made up for it this year!So, here is the view of the backseat--on the way to the kennel to drop off Daisy! And then we were off...

On the way down, we stopped in Parowan to see the "Petroglyphs" which is really cool Native American grafitti drawn on a rock in the middle of nowhere. I don't know how old it is. If someone really wants to know, I'll do the research. Or ask Dave.

Then we were back in the car and headed for Primm, Nevada. For those of you who are un-acquained with this little town, it is about an hour past Vegas and has casinos, shopping, etc. But the very awesomest thing it has is Buffalo Bills where we stayed. Here is a picture I got off of the internet. I couldn't get a very good one without standing on the freeway.

The rollercoaster is called the "Desperado" and here's a little quote from Wiki-pedia:

"According to the roller coaster database, Desperado is one of the tallest roller coasters in the world with a 70-degree, 225 foot drop; a 209 foot lift hill; and top speeds around 80 mph. On the 2 minute, 43 second ride, riders will experience almost 4 Gs.[1] A portion of the ride runs through the interior of the casino. The coaster was listed by the Guinness Book of Records as the world's tallest roller coaster in 1996."

So, who would be crazy enough to ride such a death-trap? Why, Ben, Allison and Me, of course!We got up the next day and finished our drive. We were so excited to see Dave, Jana and Zola (from Pennsylvania) and Marshal (from Chicago). It was a bummer that Lindsey couldn't come. She just started a new job and couldn't get time off for sheer awesomeness, yet. These are pics of my 2 brothers at the beach. Oh and Jana and Zola are the beach babes.

We tried something new this year and visited the "Wild Animal Park" which isn't actually in San Diego like I had thought. Thanks to Dave's friend, Jeff for telling us how to get there. Oh, my gosh, some monkeys escaped! The guy with the map is my dad. Or in this case, our fearless leader directing the safari.We had an actual "wild animal encounter" when James got pooped on by a bird at lunch. Do you know what that white stuff is in bird poo? More bird poo.

We had a super-fun time at Disneyland. It wasn't too hot or too crowded. Everything was perfect.We ate fried chicken at Ed's favorite Disney Restaurant-- The Plaza.

While James and Ben went to ride some rollercoasters with Frank, Joey and Andrew played in the Bugs' Life fountains. This picture of Joey cracks me up. You just know it ended badly. I don't know if you can tell or not from these pictures, but everything in this part of the park is HUGE, so you are the bugs when you play there. That thing leaking water on Andrew is like a huge hose with a leak in it. I love that about Disneyland. It is so much fun even for grown-ups to look around at all the details they put into everything.

Andrew became Indiana Jones at Disneyland. I hope he never gets too big to pretend to be living some kind of adventure all the time. It is so funny. The most awesome thing that happened for him, was when we were in the store buying all that gear, "Indiana Jones" came running in the store chased by a guy in a turban. He waved at Andrew and told the cashier that he'd be back later for provisions. Andrew was so excited. He kept saying, "I saw the real Inny-anna Jones, and he's really real!" Thank-you, Disneyland!

Joey was a big fan of the carousel.

Until it was time to get off!

By the end of the day, the 2 little boys were wasted!

But that's not all, don't forget the beach!!

The Guys all worked really hard on this enormous sandcastle that they named "The Shire." They dug moats and fortified the walls around it,

But, it wasn't enough.

Here are just some random pictures:

We ate at Ruby's Diner--Mmmmm...

On the last night there, Dave made his world-famous crepes! For those of you who don't know, Dave served a mission for our church in Southern France and this is just one of the many blessings he brought home! Crepe-expertise. Seriously, I know lots of people think that they make good crepes. They are probably fine, but I'll tell you right now that nothing compares to these babies. If you don't believe me, next time you're in Pennsylvania, look up Dave and he'll school you in what crepes should taste like.

This is just one of those pictures that doesn't need an explanation.

On the way home, we stopped in Cedar City to see the new statue of Henry Lunt (my great-great-Grandpa). Ok, so I'd been in the car for something like 10 hours by this time.

I was going to put a cute picture of the backseat when we got home to wrap up this post, but to tell the truth, we were pretty tired, a little sick of eachother, and the back of the van looked like a bomb went off. Thanks Mimi and Ed and my brothers and sisters and their families (we missed Richard and Lindsey) for making this trip one for the record books. We loved it!