I LOVE Summer! I love the lazy days, the warm sun, the vacations and the visitors! I love having no schedule, I love that my kids like to be together and I love that they are not demanding of what we do each day! I love planning fun outings to the beach or water parks and I love listening to them swim in the backyard splashing around, giggling and screaming in delight!
This summer I was faced with the reality that the “Summer” I love so much has changed and that our definition of “Summer” from here on out will be different!! Although it was fabulous, our Summer was FULL of activities, vacations, camps and more camps!
At the beginning of June Adam and I headed to Utah for a quick weekend so Adam could join my sister, Julie in running the Utah Valley Marathon! This was the first Marathon either of them had ever run in and it was AWESOME!!! Adam finished in 4 hours and 1 minute while Julie came in an hour later! They both did so great and completely inspired me to get going and sign up for a Marathon myself! November 12th I’ll be running my FIRST Marathon! I can’t wait!
Spencer’s summer schedule alone stressed me (and him) out, and I’m the one who planned it! I didn’t realize how booked he was until it was too late! Poor kid was exhausted by the end of July even though he loved every second of it once it was all said and done. Here was his summer: First week school was out he helped me around the house, ran errands with me, watched Avery, hung out with friends and worked on Scouting Merit Badges. The other kids were still in school so sadly, he was a bit bored! The next week the others got out of school and we headed out to the Beach to go camping for our first time (more to come on that soon)! We arrived home on Thursday late afternoon, unpacked, cleaned up and then our friends from Colorado, the Parkers and the Armstrongs, arrived for a quick 2 night stop! They didn’t plan to be here at the same time but we were all in HEAVEN having them all here together! Memory Lane at its best, let me tell ya! Sunday Spencer flew to Utah for his BYU Football camp, came home Friday and then left again the following Monday for Scout Camp. Scout Camp ended that Friday and as soon as he got home we had to do laundry and repack him in less than 24 hours because we had to be in Irvine on Saturday for cousin Ben’s baptism. Spence stayed Saturday night with Nana and Granddad at their townhome down in Orange County and then was back on a plane on Sunday heading to Canada to go to Scout Camp with his cousin, Harris! The week after camp he got to stay in Calgary and be with his aunts, cousins, and people he didn’t even know who ended up being relatives as well! The following Saturday the kids and I arrived at the cabin along with the rest of the Miller Clan for a fun family reunion and Spencer drove out with Granddad from Calgary! We were soooooo excited to see him! It was the longest any of us had ever been away from him. 2 weeks felt like such a long time but I think it felt longer because he was only home for quick snippets of time before the few weeks before that!
The other kids were super busy too! The week Spencer headed off to BYU for Football Camp Annie, Garett and Logan started Basketball Camp at the local college! The week after that Papa and Gramma came to visit for a few days. Unfortunately Annie ended up getting really sick with a high fever and spent most of the week trying to figure out what was wrong and get better before her BYU Basketball Camp started the following week! Thankfully by the 4th of July she was doing much better and after some antibiotics, Granddad intervention and a trip to the ER she was ready to show the Cougars her stuff! I flew up to Utah with her and her teammate, Julia, to drop them off at camp while Adam stayed home with the two little boys and Avery for the 4th of July! After dropping Annie of at camp I headed back home and had a fun week with ONLY THREE KIDS at home! It was so fun to bond with my littler kids, swimming, going to the Water Park, swimming at home and playing with friends! The following week we headed for Canada to reunite with Annie, on our way through Utah, and Spencer waiting for us at the Cabin!
As soon as we arrived home from our fun filled week with the family, Football Practice started for Spencer and a week after that school for the kids! Sadly Summer was over! It came and went so quickly and as much fun as we had, I realized it was a different kind of fun! With sports camps, scout camps, young women camps, efy’s and family vacations I may need to be more organized for summer than I do for the rest of the year when kids are in school!!!
Here are some pics of our adventures!
UTAH VALLEY MARATHON
Adam only a few more yards to finish! My husband is a Gazelle! His longest run through training was 12 miles! And then he finished a Marathon in 4:01! WHAT??? He’s AWESOME!!!
Julie’s kids ran the last few yards with her! I am SOOOO proud of my baby sister!
The Racer’s: Phil, Adam, John, Julie and Lindsay
I couldn’t be more proud of these two! They are both so inspiring! It was so much fun to be there and watch them!
This picture cracks me up! First it was so fun to be at the finish line with my parents! My dad, who ran the St George Marathon when I was a teenager now says people are crazy to run marathons and yet he was probably more excited about it than anyone else. After Adam finished we were all waiting around for Julie and all of a sudden see my dad walking down the race course AWAY from the finish line! He was off to look for her! When he found her about 30 minutes later he ran with her for about a mile, which Julie said was just what she needed to get her through! So now for the reason this picture cracks me up! We were heading back to the hotel to get our stuff, our cars and head home but had to stop and grab our chairs and stuff that we’d left along the race course! We’d already been at the finish line snapping photos as if we were at a wedding but as we collected our chairs and stuff I realized I hadn’t gotten a picture of Julie with Mom and Dad! Dad was not amused when I called him over and he actually said something like “enough with the pictures” so when I saw the picture later that day dad’s face said it all! “Enough with the dang pictures, Marilee! We’ve got a tee time to get to!”. Of course they did and off TJ, and Dad went, with Adam hobbling behind because, if I might remind you, he had just run 26.2 miles! HA!!! Crazy men!
CAMPING in CARP- with our GREAT friends!!
Our friends here in California have been beach camping for years and invited us to come with them the first week after the kids were out of school! Since we have only been camping as a family one time in the past 5 years I was a little nervous about how things would go, especially with Avery. Adam and the other husbands weren’t able to come so me, my 3 girlfriends and our 16 children packed our cars FULL and headed off to the beach! It ended up being a FABULOUS few days! My kids were in heaven, including Avery, as they spent 4 days riding bikes, eating smores, playing at the beach and sitting around the campfire!
The Campsite was pretty big and we were able to set up 5 tents. One for the boys 10 and older, one for the boys 6 to 9, one for all the girls, one for Kerri and Frannie and one for Kristi and Caleb (3) and me and Avery to share! We kept our food in coolers and since there are NO bears when you beach camp which, by the way, I LOVE we were able to keep it out as long as we stacked them and at night piled our beach chairs on top! There were some pretty gutsy raccoons around and they were able to get into the coolers! I can definitely handle the “coons” much better than I can handle bears so I’ll take it!
A few of the boys sitting around the picnic table scavenging for snacks!
Roommates! Avery and Caleb were little pals the whole time we were there! Caleb’s nick name is “Cabes” and Avery called him “Babes”. Kristi and I LOVED it! From sun up (literally) since we were all in the same tent, to sun down, they played together! Other than waking up early in the morning, Avery slept like an angel! I brilliantly brought a battery operated sound machine and it did a perfect job drowning out all the sounds outside the tent. All 4 of us slept like Angels!
The Bike Posse- we brought bikes for all the kids and they spent HOURS exploring and riding around together!
My Cute Campers
Beach day:- the weather wasn’t great but we did have one beautiful afternoon that we all headed out to the sand for a few hours of fun in the sun! Spencer, Annie, and Garett spent most of their time in the water on their boogie boards while Logan hung out digging in the sand, being buried or burying others, building sandcastles and hunting for sand crabs! Avery, decided that she HATES sand and ended up sitting on my lawn chair the majority of the day. If I even put her on the towel she screamed! Made for an easy day for me since I didn’t have to chase her around everywhere and could just sit with her and watch all the kids out in the water!
Spencer and Annie got pretty good on their boogie boards!
Garett coming in from the Ocean and Avery perfectly content sitting on my chair with her snacks!
The rest of the crew: Top left to right: Kate and Caleb (G and Logan’s head in the background), Luke trying to dump sand back into the big hole we made for the little kids to play in, Noah, Drew, and Spencer having a sand fight while Caleb watched, Camille, Dylan and Emily hanging out on the warm sand and Nikolas just relaxing as the waves brought him to shore!
The Moms! Me, Kristi and Kerri. Frannie ended up getting really sick with a HORRIBLE sinus infection and other bronchial stuff so she headed for home to get better. She came back for the last night but my kids and I had to head for home to get ready for some CO visitors to arrive! I have to toot my own horn here and say that we are pretty awesome Moms! Only a handful of the moms that I know would take on a week of camping with tons of kids and no husbands! We loved every minute though and can’t wait to do it again next year!
SPENCER GETS BRACES
Spencer was welcomed to the world of braces the day we got home from Carp and 2 days before football camp at BYU! I was a little nervous for him but he adjusted to them quickly! Thank goodness!
Walking into the Orthodontist Office Walking out of the Orthodontist Office- He looks so grown up!
A BEAUTIFUL SUMMER EVENING
We opted for the beautiful outdoors one night and snapped a few pictures! It was fun to eat outside but we definitely missed Spence!
