week in review

ast week desiree was able to attend girls' camp with our ward. as always she had a blast! she made lots of new friends and spent hours making silly faces at her camera, here are just a few of them :)

it has been tradition in my family for years to spend the 24th at grandma and grandpa petersen's in hinkley. this year we spent the 24th in style hangin at the beach! if only it were an actual ocean beach but the little watering hole we found in hinkley made due this year. the kids had fun playing in the sun, building some "mud" castles and swimming, swimming, swimming. they are little water babies just like their mom.

and of course, the weekend would not have been complete without the hinkley rodeo. grandpa dean and grandma dawn even made the trek down with us this year making it all the more fun. the kids were in heaven surrounded with so many people to spoil them rotten.

(this is no one in particular but i just had to get in at least one picture of a horse)

poor little graylee was wiped out after a day of so much fun. i decided to take advantage of the sleeping baby and get in some auntie time cuz that's the only time anyone besides her parent's gets to hold her.

these are just some leftover pics from the last post. this is the ride carter was kicked off and then snuck on with daddy. he was in heaven and rode it several more times.

and these are our "wheat" babies, as isabel called them. she was in awe of all the nature surrounding her in idaho. they turned out so cute i had to throw them in.

fourth of july/hardy family reunion/steel days fun

the fourth of july is a big holiday at our house. this year we got everyone up and out of the house by 6am to go see the balloons. unfortunately the balloons decided they weren't going to get up for us. it was pretty disappointing but there's always next year :/

getting up so early for the balloons made for quite a long day but that didn't keep us away from "stadium of fire".

we set up camp across from the field where they set off the fireworks and kept ourselves busy til it was showtime. the kids got some glowsticks that they used for decorating...

me...

themselves...

and even a tree that was near by.

the fireworks were awesome as always and we were so happy we made it through the day!

this year we all got to go to the big hardy reunion. we made the trek up to idaho for a few days of fun and family.

(showing off my awesome new "edward" bracelet from bk)

the boys finally got to try out their new fishing poles gramps gave them for christmas. they didn't catch anything but they got really good at casting their poles. (i know nothing about fishing so hopefully i'm saying that right)

isabel borrowed a pole and got in on the action. she didn't catch anything but she did save a baby trout that was caught in some netting on the edge of the water. she was so worried about the poor little thing, kind of funny when you think about it, lol

i just kept watch, i'm not much for getting my hands dirty

all in all we had a good time!

steel days was a blast this year, but as usual there were a few tears shed when a kid was rejected from a ride because of their height. i make them small, what can i say?! carter shed most of the tears so the older kids endured the smaller rides to keep him happy. day two of the carnival daddy came and snuck carter on the ride he was kicked off the day before, you would have thought it was christmas. (the day before he snuck on a ride with isabel and chandler but the ride operator kicked him off. he walked over to the the gate, threw his ticket at me and put his head down, no tears, he was mad!)

my brave little isabel went on the zipper with me, that was the highlight of my day. she was an inch too short but we begged the ride operator so he told me if i promised to hold onto her he would let her go. she had fun but i couldn't get her to go a second time with me. chandler and isabel fell in love with the gravitron and went on it over and over. i went on it once and realized it was a huge mistake, getting old really sucks!

going down the big slide, weee

we ended the celebrations with the big fireworks at the high school. i swear they get better and better every year! it makes me happy to be able to share traditions of my youth with my kids :)