London 2012

The olympics were here in England this year! We had so much fun watching different events at night with the kids and after they were in bed. We mostly watched beach volleyball and a little women's soccer. The USA women's soccer team is amazing. So were the women's beach volleyball teams. It was cute watching with Remi. If the game was intense she would close her eyes and say, "Oh, I just can't watch. It's too much!" and things like this. 

Blake and I had the opportunity to go to Cardiff, Wales to the men's bronze metal soccer match with another couple in the ward. We had the kids stay with different ward friends on Friday the 10th of August and we headed to Cardiff. It was about 4 hours away. Traffic wasn't too bad except for one spot. This van was the holdup. It was on fire! I couldn't believe it. So sad.

When we go to Cardiff we drove around to find parking. Then we walked around, bought shirts, enjoyed the atmosphere, ate dinner then headed to the game. The whole olympic atmosphere was awesome. They had some bleachers set up with a bunch of pillows on the ground in front so people could just sit and watch the olympics on a huge screen tv! Everyone had their faces painted and were dressed to represent their team.

When we walked into the stadium it was amazing. The "pitch" was perfect! We watched the teams warm up for a little bit, then they headed to their dressing rooms. They then brought out a flag for each country, Japan and Korea. Then the teams came out and they played each of their national anthems. Then the game began! I was originally going for Japan, but after the game started I decided I didn't like how they played. The did too much flopping and not enough hustling, so I cheered for Korea instead. They won 3-0. The game was fun, but not what I thought it would be. The atmosphere was awesome though, both inside the stadium and outside.

After the game we drove home and got home about 2 in the morning. We went to bed and picked up our kiddos in the morning. We are so lucky we have so many great friends who are willing to help out with our kiddos when we are away from family!

They had these flags all over Cardiff

Thought this was a cool statue. To me it says
Hold to the Rod!

More cool stuff in Cardiff

The pitch

Japan

Korea

Korea during their National Anthem

Castle in Cardiff

Camping and swinging

A few fridays ago Blake set up the tent in our backyard and someone told him you can start a fire in an old metal wheelbarrow, so we gave it a try. It was a smoky fire, but we all enjoyed it. The wood on the bottom of the wheelbarrow and the rubber tire didn't like the heat too much, but with a couple buckets of water they were fine. We roasted marshmallows, starbursts and enjoyed s'mores. Parker was already asleep, so it was kinda relaxing since the other 3 understand to stay away from the fire. Then Blake, Remi, Broden and Alissa slept in the tent. They had so much fun with their daddy!

Remi roasting her marshmallows
She had her face painted that day at Blake's work party.

Blake eating his s'more

Broden eating his s'more
He also had his face painted.

Remi and Alissa posing

Jenny and Broden roasting marshmallows

 The next morning Parker enjoyed playing on the tarp after we took the tent down.

 A family in our ward gave us their swing set before they moved and the kids LOVE it! They all wanted us to push them all the time when we first got it, but now they all do it themselves, except Parker. He would always say to me, "Wing, bush"(swing, push) while pulling me outside. So I would give him little pushes on the swing and he would just cry and say, "bush, bush." I eventually just left him crying because I didn't understand what he wanted me to do. I was pushing him. Then one day he pulled on Blake to go push him. I watched Blake sit him in the swing and push him just as high as the other kids. Parker laughed and laughed. No wonder he didn't like how I was pushing him. He was barely moving when I did it. He wanted to go higher. It scared me at first, but he holds on pretty good and loves it!

enjoying his swing

He is getting too big, too fast! All of them are. We have so much fun together though.

Spain

Remi and Broden had their last day of school on Friday, July 20th. That Sunday we met up with our friends, the Ingersoll's, and flew to Spain! 

The airport was interesting, as always, with 4 kids. Ryan Air makes it even more interesting. We are too cheap to check bags, so we each had a carry on. So we had 4 backpacks and a duffle bag. Alissa and Parker had both woken up with fevers Sunday morning and weren't feeling well. When we finally got on the plane it actually was a very easy plane ride. Alissa and Parker both fell asleep and Remi and Broden were more than happy to play with their friends and play games on Dad's IPAD.

When we got to the air port in Spain we headed to the rental car place. I think it took almost 2 hours to get a rental car, then another 30 minutes for Blake to learn how to drive it. Apparently it was a really touchy clutch. Eventually we left the airport and found some food on the way to our vacation home that was a couple hours north of the airport. 

We got to the vacation home at about 1 in the morning, got kinda settled in and fell asleep. The next 4 days were spent having fun in the sun. We would wake up whenever the kids did, eat breakfast, swim in the pool that came with the house, eat lunch, or pack a lunch and head to a beach for a couple hours, then head home, eat dinner, swim for a few more hours and go to bed. It was a perfect relaxing vacation. The home was set up for kids, which was great since we had 7 of them. The pool was fully fenced with a gate and there was a swing set with lots of kids toys. It was so fun to just lay in the sun and watch the kids play, or swim with them.

I loved the beaches. Some of them had little pebbles, which isn't so good for sand castles, but awesome for clean up. They just brush right off and don't get in food, or eyes, or everywhere else. The sandy beaches were great too. We buried the kids, built sand castles and Blake even went snorkeling at a few of the beaches. I tried once, but the waves were a little big for me and I panicked. I'm out of practice:(

Parker and Blake burying Livi, Drew and Broden 

Broden, Drew, Livi, Avery and Remi after Blake and Parker buried them in the rocks

Broden enjoying the sunshine and waves

Avery and Remi jumping off the rocks at the beach

Remi and Avery waiting for a wave to come through the rocks

Amazing view of the beach

Remi and Avery posing with a beautiful background

Blake and Alissa

Avery and Remi

Alissa showing us her muscles with Blake
Remi and Avery playing in the waves in the background

Drew Avery and Broden

Alissa catching some sun

One beach we went to was kind of a hike to get to. We hiked down this huge hill to a nice sandy beach. There was a restaurant down there we decided to try out. We tried Spain's famous dish Paella. It is a rice dish with different things on top. We got a sea food paella. It was a little more than we were prepared for. Squid, and I don't even know what the rest of the shell fish were. Muscles maybe? and some other varieties. We told the kids if they swallowed one of the shell fish we would pay them some money. So Remi, Avery and Drew each tried them. Their faces were so funny. Not big fans of shellfish. Fun to experience the culture though.

Remi's face and Avery trying it

Remi with tears in her eyes trying to swallow her bite.

Parker playing in his hole

Parker sitting in his hole.

Parker laying in his hole.

The castle at one of the beaches

View of the beach from the castle

Broden and Remi on our hike to the castle

Beautiful view from the castle down to a little cove.

Parker and Alissa performing on a little stage at the castle.

Remi dancing

Alissa dancing while Drew, Avery and Livi pose for a picture

Parker quenching his thirst

I loved these cool trees. They were neon green!

Parker playing with locks on the castle fence.

Parker playing in the waves

Broden with the castle in the backgound

Broden with the beach in the background

She is making our crepe with Chocolate!

Alissa and Blake watching. She had a huge smile when she saw the chocolate

Parker, Broden, Blake, Alissa and Jenny enjoying our crepe.
Remi enjoyed it too, but was the photographer for us!

After enjoying a beach about 30 minutes away we headed home, changed our clothes and went back to the local beach for some fireworks. Nothing like fireworks on the beach at night!

Alissa, Blake, Drew, Remi and Avery eating some candy getting ready for fireworks

fun fireworks

After the fireworks we decided to enjoy the night life with the kiddos a little while. We let them ride the carousel, then we watched one of the spray paint artists. This is one of my favorite things to watch. It amazes me the pictures they make with layers of spray paint. It was after midnight when we left to go home. The kids all fell asleep as soon as we were in the car.

Broden on the bull on the Carousel

Alissa on the carousel

Remi

Parker

Blake, Alissa, Broden and Remi standing on bleachers watching the spray painter.

Enjoying some marshmallows in the sun

Parker helping clean up

Blake with our rental car in front of the vacation home! Fun memories.

Saturday we left the house and weren't scheduled to fly out until that night. So we went to a little park before heading towards the airport. The kids had fun playing on all the toys.

Alissa

Parker

Broden and Drew

Avery and Remi

Blake, Drew, Andy, Alissa, Remi, Avery, Livi, Lauren and Broden getting full at McDonalds before our plane ride home.

It was so nice being in the sun for a week straight! I love Spain, and the beach, and the sun. I don't even feel sad that we didn't go "see" things. This is just the kind of vacation we needed. Pure relaxation and fun!