Summer Vacaion

For the last 2 weeks, we have been enjoying our summer vacation.  Keith took the time off work.  Mike and Julie and their family came to visit.  In this post, I will try to sum up the entire 2 weeks of festivities.   First, and most important, cousins came to stay at our house.  This is probably one of our very favorite things.   Around here, the Hales family coming is better than Christmas.   The boys play lots of computer games.

The girls play lots of computer games.

There is the bounty harvest from our garden.

We must have fireworks with cousins on the 4th of July.  Surprisingly, we did not set anything on fire.  We did scare the Angus right out of the black Angus beef cow.

When Mike and Julie come, we try to have a terrible home remodel project that Mike can work on.  Im sure its exactly what he wanted to do on vacation.  This year, we had him install 2 ceiling fans and a new back door for us!

Here is the before picture of the back door.  Our back door has been a piece of garbage since the day we moved in.  It leaks like crazy.  I would have to put a towel on the floor when it rained or snowed.  It got to the point, that it wouldn't even shut any more.

Here is a picture of the door removal.

Hayden was trying to eat breakfast during construction.  It was loud and very cold.  The one day that it was cold and rainy is the day my construction crew decided to take the door out.

This is a picture of no door and a tarp.  The tarp and no door did much better at keeping the rain out of the house than the old door did.

Here is a picture of my finished door!  Good news is it actually shuts, has built in blinds, and it even keeps the rain out!!  I KNOW!!  What a concept.  Thanks Keith and Mike for fixing a door that has bothered me since the first 5 minutes I have lived in the house.

When Mike and Julie come, I try my best to be sick so that Julie has to do all of the cooking and cleaning.  I did not disappoint this time.  I had a baby 3 weeks ago and my c-section incision got infected. Nanny Julie to the rescue!   Because I was sick, and had a new baby, I was not able to do all of the fun vacation things every one else did.  Because I did not go, pictures did not get taken.  Just so I can prove to my kids that they did have a summer vacation, I will do my best to document all of the fun they had while I was home.

What they did:  Go to a Utah Symphony Concert in the park. Im imagining it looked something like this.  They also watched fireworks afterward.

What I did: Recover from something that looked like this:
Ok, I tried to find a really disgusting picture of an infected c-section. I couldn't find one.  Imagine it.

What the kids did: Go to Thanksgiving point to see the dinosaur museum.  I imagine it looked something like this: (notice all the kids are getting along)

What I did:  Hold Kate.

What the kids did:  Go to Seven Peaks Water Resort.
I would show you a picture, but what I imagined is lots of people not dressed modestly.  I also imagined my beloved children drowning.

What I did: Sleep.  Oh, and recover from an infection.  Im sure I mentioned it.  And, I hung out with baby Kate.

What the kids did: FISHING!  They all caught fish.  They have never done that before.  What I imagined:  what I remember from fishing as a kid.  My dad running from kid to kid adding worms to hooks and untangling fishing wire.  What happened: Keith said I was exactly right.

What I did: fold laundry.

All in all, we had a great vacation.  The kids had a great vacation.  I wish I could have had some pictures to share with you.  You get the idea... infection, newborn, sleeping, laundry.....

Real life starts again tomorrow so I will be back into the picture taking, errand running, cooking mode that I usually find myself.

Happy Summer Vacation!