A long update...

Warning: This may be a long and potentially boring post.

Paul had a great trip to Washington D.C. He was able to do a little bit of sightseeing. He saw the capital building, the white house, the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Memorial, the Korean War Memorial and stayed at a really awesome hotel (Gaylord) that has an entire village inside the atrium. He and his boss had some good leads from the trade show which was great.

The highlight of the trip for him was visiting the Lincoln Memorial. He's always had a great love and respect for Lincoln, but last year he read an awesome book, "Team of Rivals" which really solidified it. Anyway, it was a very moving experience for him to be there. I'm really glad he got to go!So, Paul came home, and then it was Father's Day. Paul got a much needed (and boringly asked for, I know) new white shirt for church, new dress socks, and Jack picked out (with the help of his aunt Jennie) a Christmas tie that plays music (Jennie thought it was fitting for Father’s Day to get him a tie, and come on, a Christmas one???) He TOTALLY loved it, was actually genuinely excited and had to be told that it was just a silly gift. He’s wanted a Christmas tie for a long time I guess. :)

Anyway, Kate put a lot of thought into her gift. Since she’d just started basketball, she really wanted Paul to wear the same color shirt as her jersey when they practiced out front. We found a plain orange shirt on clearance for $3 and took it to Becky’s to embroider. I found and digitized the Suns logo, and then on the back, the girls had the idea to put “Home Coach” and Becky and I “to Kaitlyn” – so it was really cute and he loved it.

We went to Paul's parents house, Bubby & Papa, and, for the first time in many many months, had the whole Bennion family together. It was very nice to be able to catch up with Reagan, Lisa, Alka, Phil, see their 2 kids Lars & baby Mia, Scott & Karen and Addie & Garret. The kids love being with their cousins and they spent most of the afternoon outback starting up a cheer group called "Go Bennions" and working on doing some human stacking. They wanted the 3 uncles to come out and be part of it, which as you can see, Paul being the shorter one in the middle got the brunt of knees in his back. They had a blast.

I thought it was fitting for Father's Day to get a picture with Papa and his 7 grandkids. Aren't they cute?? Last Thursday, my sister-in-law Becky and I decided to take a day trip to Sedona. She’d never been, and we thought it’d be fun to take the kids. We went to places I hadn’t been before, it was cool. (My family used to camp just north of Sedona all the time, that’s where Paul and I fell in love (ahhhhh…..how sweet) got engaged, and went on our honeymoon). We drove to the top of one of the mesa’s where the airport it, and it gives a good view of some of the cool red rocks. Honestly, it was hot though up there, and not all that exciting, so we moved on quickly.

We were driving around another place and found THE TOTALLY WICKEDEST AWESOME place EVER!! Like I said before, when we were growing up we went camping in Oak Creek Canyon all the time and there was a little river running not to far from there. We called it the watering hole because it was this perfect sandstone, flat creek bed, with water enough to play in and then it’d empty into this big pool that was deep enough to dive in. Many years ago we went back to visit and found it completely destroyed, either by people, an avalanche or something. Anyway, it was really sad. Well, we found this NEW place that’s even BETTER!!!!

I haven’t heard the kids have that much fun in a LONG TIME. The laughter and squeeling, and screaming and yelling (the good kind). It was great. The river was long, had the best view of Cathedral Rock in all of Sedona, all backed by gorgeous greenery and water that was just right. We had a picnic, the kids changed into their swimsuits and they proceeded to get into the river, and slip and slide from one end to the other, over and over and over. There were little gulleys through the redrocks too that were home to plenty of bugs (besides water, my kids OTHER favorite thing in the world).They found the coolest water bugs, tadpoles, and even a lobster. (Well, it was a crawdad, but Megan preferred to call it a lobster). Me, being the totally awesome-est mother ever even let the girls bring them home. They made it all the way on our treacherous hike back across the river (where we almost died, but luckily only lost Megan’s flip-flop in the swift current) to our van, and back home. Unfortunately, the crawdad died 2 days later. The tadpoles are all doing great though, and the biggest one that Megan caught started with little back nubs for legs, now has full grown legs, and front feet, and is starting to climb out of the water. He’s absolutely adorable, and has been named Frogwarts.We were going to try and take a little hike to Devil's Bridge but it was getting a little late, and was starting to look potentially stormy, so on our way out of Sedona we stopped by Tlaquepaque, a pretty and posh little group of stores and cafe's. There was a lot of "no, we can't go in there," "NO! Don't touch that!" but the kids loved the sculptures and the flowers and all the water fountains.

Here's our little tadpoles (we have 4 total). This was 3 days ago and they are much bigger now. The big one in this picture is almost completely a frog. His tail is almost gone and it's been totally awesome watching him transform from a polly-wog with a suckerfish mouth into a FROG!

The kids also started taking swim lessons at the Y. Those are on Tue/Thu in the morning, and they’ve been learning a lot of good stuff. Jack swam almost the entire short length of the pool at my friends’ house the other day. It was awesome!

The kids all started sports too. Kaitlyn wanted to try Basketball, so she’s on the Jr. Suns team with a cool coach and some good kids. First practice she cried and didn’t want to go out on the court because there were BOYS on the team, but she braved up, went out and now totally loves it. As she puts it, very matter-of-factly, “I just really try to guard my guy and make some baskets.” Megan’s been obsessed with volleyball since before the end of school, so she started last week too. Her coach is nice, and she’s on a good team. She had her first game on Saturday and they won 1 of 3 games, but they were just as good as the other team.

Jack started “Itty Bitty” sports – they do soccer, basketball & t-ball I think. He had a total blast at soccer on Saturday and feels very grown up about having a team and a coach and all that. Speaking of being a big boy – he’s been staying dry about 96% of the time… including overnight. He hasn’t pooped in his pull-up in weeks, and I think (knock on wood) that we’ve finally, FINALLY turned the corner (for the last time) with him and potty training. I haven’t been doing anything different, he’s just finally decided to start using the toilet ALL the time, instead of just when he doesn’t mind the interruption.

I'll post pics of Megan later. We didn't bring the camera to her game on Saturday. :(

Here's Jack practicing balancing his feet (left & right, back and forth) on the ball. He took it so seriously and had SUCH a blast.