Lake Tahoe 2016

For our Boyce Family vacation we went up to the cabin in Tahoe. I don't even know where to begin with all of these pics.  So I'll just break the week down into some highlights. It was such a beautiful week full of laughs and lots of love.  I love my family and I'm so grateful for my parents who do this for us each year.  It is such a gift.  Our family keeps growing and growing and I love seeing all of the cousins together.  I remember making sweet memories with my own cousins when I was little and those were such fun times in our family.  I just wanted to group some of these cute cousins pictures together.  We eat at Lake Tahoe Pizza Co every time we go to the cabin.  When our whole group is there we always fill up two very large tables in the back room and then we snap photos in this old back end of a VW Bug.

My little violinist

Sammie started taking violin lessons from a cute girl named Ashley in January.  She had her last recital with Ashley in July because Ashley is off to be married and then moving to Idaho.  She had a great start and hopefully we'll be able to continue.  Her recital was so cute.  Sammie played "Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo" and another song that I can't remember the name of.  Learning to play the violin can be very hard, but she has done so well, and I'm so proud of her for trying something new.

My Poor Puppy

My little Calvin is always around my feet.  He follows me all over the house all day long and he loves to be close by.  One evening I turned and stepped on his foot and injured my poor little guy.  He hated having this bandage on his foot but his toe needed to heal.  It was a bit of a bother and he is sort of a baby when it comes to things like this,  but he is all healed up now though and doing fine.  I just felt so bad that I had hurt him.  And I still have almost stepped on his many times since then.  He hasn't learned anything from this.

July 4th

We decided to go up to Folsom for a week and spend the holiday with my family.  It was nice to get out of town and the girls of course loved swimming at grandma and grandpa's.  We mostly did just that.  The girls loved seeing their cousins and being with them every day.  We walked across the historic Folsom walking bridge that goes over the American River, and spent a little time in Old Sacramento.  We of course had to buy a bunch of saltwater taffy.  The girls tie-dyed t-shirts with the cousins, ate popsicles, swam a lot, and enjoyed a great 4th of July holiday.

My dad always buys so many fireworks that we are almost sick of them by the end. 

We surprised Luke and Noah when we showed up at their ward for church instead of going to my parent's.  11am was much more do-able for us than 9am.  Dianna snapped this cute photo of our kids together.  I love it!  I hope these cousins always love each other this much.

Summer Time 2016

I was reading through old blog posts and realized I have not written a thing since school got out.  It seemed overwhelming to catch up with everything that we've been doing but I thought I would highlight a few things together.  Sammie and Abby participated on a rec league swim team this summer.  It was such a fun a fulfilling experience for them.  Swimming is amazing!  They got so strong and improved on their swimming incredibly.  At the first swim meet they didn't really try that hard.  They didn't know what to expect.  Then they found out that there were ribbons awarded to those who placed in their heats at the meet.  This motivated them to swim harder at the next meet and they did so much better.  It was crazy how their times improved and they got lots of ribbons throughout the whole season.  Sammie's favorite stroke was the butterfly and Abby's was the freestyle.  I loved watching them swim.  I hope that we have time to do it again next year.

We had a fun movie night outside on the trampoline and we projected the movie onto the house.  On a cool night of course.  I can't even imagine attempting this now in the heat wave we are having.

Mostly I just loved the simple moments of June.  Since Joey was teaching 3 weeks of summer school, we didn't have any plans to leave town in June.  We spent lots of time playing and being home, swimming with friends, and helping Joey out.  

Olivia spent a few afternoons working for Joey by grading binders for his summer school class.  It's nice that he is so close to home that we can drop in on him.  Last summer we were helping him set all of this up.  I'm glad that we are not doing THAT again this summer.

June ended with a family trip to the Los Angeles Temple.  I was thinking about what a fun memory for my girls to have.  "Remember when we would go to the temple and stay in the apartments for the night?"  Sometimes it really does feel like a trek to the temple for us, but it makes it feel extra special.

We stayed Friday night and Olivia had baptisms with out ward on Saturday morning at 8am and then our ward had a family day at the temple and session times for the adults with baby sitters for the kids.

Afterwards, we headed to the beach for a couple of hours in Santa Monica and our good friends the Brown's joined us, even though they weren't beach ready.  They went home in a very wet and sandy car.

Last Day and Awards!

The last day of school came so quickly and so slowly at the same time.  We are enjoying summer so far, except for Joey who is teaching summer school for the first time ever.  He has 3 weeks and then his break will start.  But his Master's degree is all done and he won't be going away or working on his thesis this year.  It's the first time in 5 years, so it feels a little strange but also a huge relief.

Sammie and Abby had such great teachers this year and they had made some great friends too.  I think Olivia is happy to see 7th grade come to an end.  She did well and got wonderful grades, but the junior high atmosphere isn't her thing.

I'm looking forward to a sort of quiet June mostly here in town at home.  Sammie and Abby started swim team and are getting lots of exhausting exercise.  They've been writing lots of stories, reading, and playing together, and not to mention some summer boredom as well.

The last week of school meant two long awards assemblies for me.  Olivia received an award for having a 4.0 every quarter and a special award from her History teacher for "Student of the Year."  Olivia loves history and she loved her history teacher, so it was a very fitting award for her.

Sammie first received a sportsmanship award from the PE teacher for the last quarter of school.  We laughed about that because Sammie is not a good sport at home.  She can be, but not usually.

Then for the final awards assembly, she received her school letter for participating in school sports, having good grades, and getting good citizenship.  It was a lot of hard work, but she did it!  She also received a medal for being on the Principal's list all 4 quarters.

Abby got her 50 point AR tag which she was so thrilled about and from her teacher received the"Writing Wizard" award.  

I'm so glad that my girls do well in school.  It makes my life easier. 

Sammie's 4th Grade Performance

Sammie's 4th Grade performance was all about the "Wonders of the Earth."  The songs were so cute and we always are entertained watching Sammie sing her heart out.  She did great.  I love these performances that our school puts on.  They are simple, but all of the kids try their very best in them and they sing out so well.  The last day of school is tomorrow and it feels like so many things are going on right now.  My brain has been churning and thinking and thinking about how we are going to spend our time this summer.  I'm looking forward to a slower schedule.

American Girls Store: A 7 Year Old Tradition

 I remember taking Olivia to the American Girl Store for her 7th birthday and it seemed like such a big deal.  It was new and different.  I thought how fun it would be to do this for each of the girls when they turned 7.  And now here we are already with the last.  We took the girls out of school early on Friday to head down.  This was a real treat for them since we never get out of school to do something fun.  It was nice and quiet at The Grove for a change.  We were there before the evening crowd and not there for the Saturday crowd.  We didn't have any plans except for shopping at the American Girl store so we were able to relax and take our time.
Abby felt like a queen.  She had already decided that she wanted the doll, MaryEllen.  Now that we are reading the books, she is actually a lot like Abby.  Abby also had money from her Grandparents to spend at the store, so this really was an American Girls birthday.  She loves her new doll and really loves that she has matching pjs to wear with her.  It's been fun to see all of the girls excited about their dolls again.  Playing with their dolls is one of my favorite things to see and hear my girls doing.  After we meandered around the store for awhile, we wandered the book store and then ate at the Cheesecake Factory.  We enjoyed the fountain and live music before we hit the road to head back home.  It was a sweet afternoon with the family and I think Abby was pretty excited about the whole day.