Freedom Has a Birthday and more of July

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We love staying in Laramie for the fourth of July.  It's one of our favorite family activities during the year.  We rode our bikes to the park as a family which was something we had been looking forward to for a long time.  I haven't been able to ride a bike with the family for a long time! 

We spent a little time at Wyotech's booth

I made a fun Red, White, and Blue Trifle for the patriotic occasion.  It was delicious!

 Laramie's Jubilee Days are usually in the first weeks of July.  

We got to go to the pre-rodeo barbecue (yum) and we always love watching the bull riders. 

With our free time, Kinlee and I had fun making silly faces 

We sat by some friends, the Taffs during the rodeo.  

I absolutely love the Star Spangled Banner during a rodeo.  It brings me to tears (no surprise haha!).

Gran and Grandpa came for a visit in July.  Of course we needed to go to Vedauwoo.  Can't have a visitor in the summer without taking them there!  My parents love it too.  Kempton is really into the fire, starting it and keeping it going.  

Such cute girls!

 And such cute boys!  

 Had to go on a family hike

We also went to the Rec Center outdoor pool.  So nice to have extra hands at the pool.  I can't take the kids on my own and feel safe.  

Kempton had a partner to go down the slide with.  We had so much fun with Gran and Grandpa!  

The end of July brings Cheyenne Frontier Days.  We parked and took a shuttle so we wouldn't have to park near the event.  Kinlee was really excited.  

We met our cousins for the carnival.  Cecilia, James, and Joey were so much fun to go on all of the rides with, the kids had a blast.  

Then our other cousins came from Ft. Collins.  We got to meet Sloane for the first time, she was super tiny and precious.  Kinlee had her buddy Porter to go on the rides.  I got some great shots on the rides of these two!  

 Brenna had a fun time doing a 3x3 soccer tournament with her friends.  They did great and came close to beating the boy team that they played! 

This was an epic day!  On this day, Kempton made the decision to sort his Legos by color, and we all were happy to help.  It's been years of having to sort by set, so this was a BIG DEAL.  We had to hurry before the crazy toddler woke up...

During Frontier Days, on a whim, Cale and I scouted tickets from a shady guy outside the gates to the Kenny Chesney concert.  Kenny Chesney was one of the first country music artists I actually liked.  And Cale is the reason I agreed to like country.  haha

More little snipets from July:

Summer California Vacation 2016

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For our summer vacation in 2016, I focused more of my camera time on creating a family video.  The video turned out great, we all love it, and it will be something we cherish forever.  I hope to make more videos of our vacations in the future.

We started our vacation in Palm Springs with a visit to Uncle Tom, Aunt Jeanne and Grandpa Passow.  We spent a few days with them, it was such valuable time.  They are gracious hosts and really were so kind and accommodating to us and our kids.  The kids lived in the pool and everyone fell in love with their family dog!  He would get worried when the kids would splash in the pool, he thought they were drowning.  Cale and Uncle Tom went to get grandpa from the care center and we were able to spend a few hours with him.  He is still so sharp as a whip, well spoken and great to converse with at 90+ years old.  Staying in Palm Springs was a wonderful start to our summer vacation!   

I finally caught Kinlees hilarious eyebrow face!

Our next stop was the main core of our vacation, Universal Studios with Harry Potter World.  At this point, of course I made everyone stand for a pictures (which they just LOVE! Including Daddy. Buddy showed in his face how everyone else was feeling. haha)  I just know that if I don't get these pictures at the beginning of our trips, then I'll never get them, so I do force the issue! 

I had planned the entire few days before arriving so that it would be a more enjoyable experience.  I planned detail by detail and everyone, for the the most part, went along with it.  Our first stop was Olivander's wand shop.  It was so neat, the book came to life for these kiddos.  So magical!  We picked out a wand for us each to share so that we could go throughout Harry Potter World and do our tricks with the wand.  

I think I was most looking forward to trying the Butterbeer.  For me, it was all that it was cracked up to be.  But for the rest, it was a $7 slurpy.  

In order to get to the second portion of the park, there is a set of 4-5 loooong escalators that take you there.  We tried to only do this one time each day.   

Kinlee is a big fan of Dora

Kinlee's souvenir choice was a huge Minyon cup 

One of our favorite rides was the Simpsons, of all things.  The kids didn't know anything about them, which I was kind of glad about, but I will admit this ride was a favorite of mine too!  

Universal Studios was so fun!  I have to say, it may be equal to Disney in my eyes.  We could be our chaotic (and sometimes a little dysfunctional) selves as we went through the park with just our little family.  It was also nice to not have to worry about pleasing anyone else but our family and do things the way we needed and wanted.  These are the experiences that will bond us for eternity.  

After Universal, we met Elizabeth and her girls at the Beach.  We spent a few hours (in the cold, because it's a California beach haha) with them, went to our favorite restaurant of Wahoos and made a connection with our dear friends.  

 He was obviously exhausted!

We made a stop to visit family on our way home from our wonderful vacation, which made it even more wonderful.  We spent a little time with all four of our siblings plus our Taggart cousins.  So many people we love live in Utah so it can be stressful trying to fit them all in, but we want to see them all so we make it happen.  

Brenna and Kempton spent a night with Layla and Liam in their camper.  Their smiles say it all.

All these cute girls and their sister pairs.  

Averie and Maci, two peas in a pod as per usual

I took Averie to be fitted for her first pair of pointe shoes.  It was a "coming of age" experience.  

We explored the children's museum at Thanksgiving Point.  

We tested out our sparkler pictures with aunt Chelsea.

And visited the Taggart clan and bonded with our second cousins.

I'd say our California vacation sure met expectations!  Now to the rest of the summer...