July part 1 :)

It seems like this summer has just been going nonstop, but we are definitely having a lot of fun! It starts off with my birthday and for a combo Mother's Day and birthday present Ryan got bikes and a bike trailer.  We have loved going for rides! It has been so long since I have ridden a bike! He was a champ and took the girls for a ride all the way to my mom's for dinner the day after we got them in some crazy hot weather!

 I love the 4th of July.  I think all growing up that it is one of my favorite things about summer.  Call me crazy, but I love going to the parade (Ryan does not), I love the red white and blue outfits, the flags and patriotism everywhere etc etc! This year Ryan's brother Colin had come to Utah for some work stuff and he had brought his family with him! They came down to Ryan's championship game  for the rec league post season tournament on Monday night .  They won the regular league only losing twice and ended up winning the whole post tournament as well :).

 Alli and Alexa doing hand clapping songs (or Makayla as Alli was constantly calling her.  We have no clue where it came from, but it was hilarious to hear her calling her Makayla!)

 After the game and some "batting practice" at the field, we went for some ice cream!

 And a little side note our downstairs kitchen cabinets were delivered on my birthday! They still have one foot of the molding to put up, but other than that everything is complete! I had a great time shoe shopping with my mom (and Ilene since she didn't want to stay home), lunch with Ryan (and Ilene), and Cafe Rio and a yummy ice cream cake courtesy of my madre! Then we went up to show my mom the lot we have "reserved" and are now in the process of buying after a year of waiting (and we will continue to wait, no plans to build or anything for at least a few years!).  We love the location and are excited for the bigger yard we have wanted for a while!

 Then Alli and Ilene played with Dottie, the Bennett's grand daughter who was down visiting from Twin Falls.  Whenever she is down it is so much fun for the girls to play together!

 Also during this week Alli started swimming lessons.  Here we are entertaining ourselves while we watched.  She did such a great job!

 Alli swam the entire length of the pool everyday and had to all by herself on her stomach and on her back to pass the level and she totally did it! She is also really good and comfortable floating on her back now too which makes me soo happy for safety reasons!

 Later that afternoon we met up with Cori and her kids in Orem for a Colonial celebration in conjuction with the Freedom Festival.  They had so many fun exhibits and displays for the kids to learn from! They had a tent with different displays/game for each part of the preamble of the Constitution.  It was a pretty good refresher of what each part is about.  I am so grateful to those founders for all of their sacrifices and their foresight.  I really hope I can teach my kids the principles our country was founded upon and also give them the courage and knowledge to defend them!

 There was a "colonial village".  Here a girl was spinning wool into thread.

 Ilene wasn't particularly fond of the stocks once she was in-I think she was worried I would leave her in there?.  Jakob, Conner, Alexa, and Tyler thought they were great and Alli opted not to try them.

 Here are some of the kids in their colonial clothing.  Jakob mentioned that he looked like George Washington :).

 Alli, Ilene, and Alexa in the school room.  It was pretty interesting to hear/see what the kids would have been taught and how they would have taught the subjects.  They used a little man to make all of the alphabet letters and truly as a teacher watching it is impressive thinking about those teachers differentiating for all the different skill levels in a one room schoolroom!

 Then we made a stop at the reservoir and this is the only pic I got because Ryan and Colin were fishing with the older kids while all the littler kids were right by the water and playing in.  Ilene only slipped and fell in once which resulted in me going in fully clothed up to my upper thighs after her.  And then when she and Alli were on the whale it tipped so once again I righted them and then decided that we were ready to leave-never had so many falling ins before ever with every single water experience combined! Ryan and Jakob both slipped and fell in too!

All these Bowler kids in the morning before the parade!

 Here are the cute kids out ready for the parade! Thanks to Cori for the girls' darling dresses!!! And doing a little line dancing waiting for the parade to get to us.

A definite highlight of the parade were any groups associate with BYU-cheerleaders, Cosmo etc!
 That morning Alli and Alexa were so cute and set out breakfast for every single one of us complete with a name card, cup of juice, and a bowl of cereal with milk-too bad it went soggy! Some of the signs were my favorite-their spelling, the titles they used for mom and dad were so cute!

 In the afternoon after the yummy bbq at my mom's we did some patriotic marshmallows dipped in chocolate with sprinkles and Alli was sampling them :).

 And Cam was super excited for fireworks-or maybe just the yummy snacks grandma was feeding him :).  No really he is just wiggly and clenches his fists and squeals to show it!

Cute girls ready for the fireworks.  While we were waiting for it to get dark enough we did some relays/races with water balloons and walking around the house.  Alli and Alexa were the champions making it around the house with their balloons intact.  

It was a lot of fun, we had our neighbors Doug and the Bennetts over to join us.

Ryan and Colin reverted back to 12 year old boys lighting the fireworks!

 Colin and Cori headed back up that evening with many tears from Alli and Alexa :(.  We had a great time with them! The next day we headed to St. George to stay with our friends/coworker of Ryan's because Ryan (and Brent went too) needed to make a quick trip to Vegas to meet a few customers at an expo.  While the guys drove to Vegas Saturday morning we hung out and went to lunch at Chick-fil-a which was the MOST crowded I have ever seen a fast food restaurant! It was seriously nuts, no tables available anywhere! After that super cool trip Diana and I took the 6 combined kids to Jumpin Jacks.

 It was a great time! I loved seeing my kids' happy faces and going on the slides with them!!That night we went to a Japanese steakhouse for dinner and then for frozen yogurt.

 

These girls seriously had soo much fun together!!!
 Dee giving Cam his first wiggle car ride!

 So the place Alli took swimming lessons is a house and it is quite the amazing house/yard/pool area/pool house! This is the awesome play area in the yard by the beautiful house! The kids had fun playing while we waiting for our friend's lesson to be done and theirs to start.

 My cute Alli girl on her last day of swimming lessons! She passed her level and is quite a good little swimmer! She was a little nervous the second day of lessons thinking her teacher would make her do everything on her own already, but she was relieved to know that her teacher would be there to help her as much as she needed.  I was surprised each day by just how much she could do on her own!