Chloe is very excited that she and Doug have the same number in their ages! Yay for 7 and 37! Doug is 37 years old and is still so good looking! Man oh man! I am one lucky woman. I love that he still rides bikes, takes the kids on fun hikes and all things active, and still enjoys hanging out with his wife! We ate some delicious homemade red velvet cake and had a fun family get together. 
Doug wanted a new riding outfit for his birthday. Even though I am not a fan of the spandex, Douglas has upgraded to be a spandex wearing rider now. I must say he looks good in them too. 
Happy Birthday Douglas! We all love you!
Back to school and a regular schedule! YAY!!! This is cause to celebrate! This year I am working at their school as a Preschool Aide part time. I am super excited. 
Derek is in 1st grade now and has Mrs. Coyle. He is excited to be in the same class as Noah, Jenna, and Cameron. He is a little sad that Jessie isn't going to Sierra Vista this year and that Anna is not in his same class. He is really excited about having Mrs. Coyle for his teacher. I am too!
Chloe is in 2nd grade this year and is in Ms. Potter's class. Wahoo! I was hoping Chloe would get Ms. Potter. Chloe could learn a lot from her classroom management plan. Ms. Potter uses money. They get 2 cents for showing up to school and pay fines when they are bad. They can earn money by doing all sorts of things as well. Then they get to go shopping with their money a couple times a month. I love it! And Chloe does like to shop. This will help her with her math and her money skills. I am looking forward to it. The best part according to Chloe is being allowed to sit next to Alyssa! They got to pick their own seats!
Preston is in 4th grade and is in Mr. Corbett's class. Preston could never make up his mind who he wanted for a teacher since both Mrs. Reust and Mr. Corbett are equally awesome. He is so excited about all the historical items in his classroom. He loves the taxidermy animals and artifacts all over the place. Bored is something Preston will never be in this class. Preston is already looking forward to Gold Rush Day! 
Despite being a little nervous about starting school without their glasses (all of theirs were broken and new ones were on their way) they all did amazing. They all three still love school, have lots of friends, and cannot seem to stop talking about it all. We couldn't be more grateful and happy!
Ahh! Derek is 6 years old! Holy SMOKES!!! We've been busy getting ready for school and such that it was nice to have a kick back birthday for Derek. He was able to get exactly what he wanted for his birthday. He wanted his skateboard to work.
We got him some new heavy duty trucks for his board and a cool new Paper Jams guitar. Derek can totally rock out for hours now!! 
Happy Birthday Derek!!
Doug took Preston on his Wednesday Night Bike Ride. Doug goes with a group of about 15-20 people. They break off into two groups usually- the "born to be mild" group and the FAST group. Preston and Doug went with the mild group. Doug couldn't believe it (and I still can't) that Preston not only kept up with the group he was beating most of them on the crazy downhill stuff. Way to go Preston! 
Now Preston wants to go every Wednesday night. Too bad school starts soon. We'll see how many more of these cool night rides he'll get to go on.
Our Fisher Family Reunion is so fun because us 6 Fisher girls get to visit and play with all our Fisher cousins. And boy do we have cousins. Here are the ones that came (with their own children too):
Now doesn't that look like fun? We love it! Yay for the Fisher Family!
**Side note: I was not pictured here because I had broken my tooth and was asleep with a toothache. Yikes!
The family decided to all go to Zions National Park and hike some of the trails. This turned out to be a STRESSFUL day to me. We got into the park and were waiting for the bus to come and take us to the trail we were going to hike. Which trail you ask? I had no idea. All I know is the bus came, people loaded, I couldn't find Doug and Derek but Preston and Chloe and gotten on the bus. The bus started leaving, I panicked and hopped on. When we got to the right stop we decided to wait for Doug, Derek, and Uncle Jeff. Doug and Derek had gone to the bathroom and Jeff had run to the car. After 20 minutes of waiting Jeff came but still no Doug and Derek. Tired of waiting, everyone wanted to move on and Jeff convinced me that Doug would probably be at the trail. So off we went. We ended up having a FUN time hiking. Zions is beautiful!! The squirrels were so friendly. 
And so plentiful. We found a place to cool down and play. We stayed here for awhile enjoying the cool pools. 
Preston, Johnny, and Lincoln really enjoyed sliding along the rapids. 
After playing for awhile we went back to the Emerald Pools and found Max and Lynne (my Aunt and Uncle). They let us know that Doug and Derek had found them and left with some of my cousins about 10 minutes earlier to go do the same hike we just came back from. Aunt Stephie, Aunt Kirstin, Uncle Jeff and I took all the kids to the Emerald pools. I snapped a couple group shots near a super cool waterfall. 
Check out all our kids! So cool! 
I love that my kids have so many FUN cousins!
I want to know what Preston was looking at in that last shot. Crazy kid! Douglas and Derek had a good time as well. My cousin jessica snapped a few pictures of the two of them at Zions.
I love this one: 
Derek was lucky and got a "ride" for part of the hike. Nice! Such service. 
I think Doug and Derek's favorite part was hiking through the water too. 
We all ended up having a great time despite being separated.
Elder Hendershot (who is serving in our ward) is awesome! We love him. He has been teaching our friends, The Jones' (Kathy, Anthony, JohnPaul, Brandy, and Andrew). He helped baptize JohnPaul, Brandy, and Andrew. Yay! While we were in Utah we promised Elder Hendershot that we would meet his family and bring him back some goodies (his Dad sells Little Debbie snacks). Yum. Well, the Hendershots are about the cutest most fun family ever! We met up with them at their hotel in Smithfield (yeah, I'd never heard of it either). They took us over to Wingers for dinner and treated our whole family to some delicious dinner! Wingers is Elder Hendershot's favorite place ever. While at dinner Douglas and I let Brother and Sister Hendershot know that even though they cannot call Elder Hendershot, we had 3 phones with local numbers (909 numbers) and we could call him. See, when Jared was in Italy serving on his mission we had the opportunity to meet an Italian who came to Orange County for Thanksgiving. Since he had a cell phone with an Italian number he was able to call Jared and let us talk to him for some time. We were happy to be able to do the same for the Hendershots. They were so excited to be able to talk to their son and give him words of encouragement. Elder Hendershot had been having a hard time with his new companion. After dinner, Brother Hendershot surprised the kids by spoiling them rotten. Literally. He hooked them up with BOXES of Litttle Debbie snacks. Preston, Chloe, and Derek got to climb in his truck, open boxes and take packages after packages of treats. No kidding. It was a DREAM come TRUE for them. So FUN. The cutest thing in his truck though was not the snacks. Or the kids. It was this: 
How sweet is that? And this: 
Elder Hendershot and his Dad are best friends. Elder hendershot is a total mini me of his father and so this two year separation has been hard for the both of them. I think Doug will be the same way with Derek since Derek is his mini me. So sweet though. After the truck raid we went to their hotel suite to chat. We talked for so long and could have stayed a lot longer even. We just love this family! 
But after snapping some pictures and promising to keep in touch we had to get going to be at our Fisher Family reunion in Cedar City. 
Thank you Hendershot Family!! We look forward to seeing you again! your son is great!!
Doug and I both adore Park City! Doug worked at both Deer Valley and Park City Mountain Resort. I even worked as a cashier at Park City Mountain resort for a summer. LOL. Anyway, Park City is beautiful and we would LIVE there if we could. Douglas and I have been wanting to take our kids there for quite some time. Doug cannot wait until they can ski well enough to ski in Park City. That'll be soon I think. So, we took a day to go up to Park City and show the kids why we love it even in the summer months. First up was visiting our long time friend Joe Saladaga. It's been way too long since we've seen him. He had a booth set up advertising his mad catering skills at the Park City Farmer's Market. The kids liked tasting Joe's scrumptious appetizers and kept Joe talking by asking two million questions. Despite it raining off and on we still chatted for quite awhile. Next we headed over to Joe's kitchen., Here the kids were spoiled with Sweet Potato Fries and some fresh bread. Yum! Again, we were so busy trying to catch up with Joe that I neglected to get any pictures. I should be so fired I know.
After visiting with Joe we headed over to Park City Mountain resort to SKI---nah, we went for the BEST SUMMER ACTIVITY EVER-----the ALPINE SLIDE!!! 
So. Much. Fun. The kids were excited when we told them that to get to the top of the slide we had to go on the chair lift. Yay! 
The funniest though was that on the chair lift they started to get nervous. Finally Preston asked "But Mom, how are we supposed to get off this thing? We don't even have skiis on!" Ha ha. I let him know that we just walk off and that he'd be fine. It's much easier than skiing off. Chloe and Derek were not tall enough to ride alone so Chloe opted to go with me (thinking I'd be slower and less scary than Daddy) and Derek went with Doug. In line we got more rain and had to wait for it to clear so we could ride the slide. They do not let you ride in the rain because then the brakes won't work and you will probably die. I remember racing on the Alpine Slide after work with Doug and Aaron Waldrip everyday and those boys came close to dying more than once. They had to "gear up" for their rides. They put on long sleeves and long pants so they wouldn't get burns form the fiberglass. Well, we did not go that crazy I'll tell you that. Chloe was getting nervous though since the guy kept making a big deal about the rain. He made us promise that if it started to rain we would stop and get off immediately and proceed to walk down the mountain. We promised and were granted a ride!
Preston wasn't quite big enough to push his lever all the way down so he could go super fast so he went a lil slower than others. At the end of the slide a few people had caught up to him. Oops. Preston had a blast though! 
Doug took a video of his and Derek's ride. My favorite part of the video? Derek shouting "Don't stop believing" all the way down the mountain.
Before we headed back to Aunt Kimmy's house we decided to meet Joe and his kids at an outdoor concert at Deer Valley. We walked around Park City Mountain resort though first and Preston just HAD to take a picture next to some miners. Can you tell he is looking forward to 4th grade history? Gold Rush anyone? 
We also took a picture of our kids being goofy.
When we got to Deer Valley it started to thunder. "No problem", said Doug. Well, the rain down poured and the band had to stop playing. Joe and his kids didn't make it to the concert so we left after just a little while. Our kids were soaked and freezing. 
It was important to us that Doug would have time to go Mountain biking in Utah. The amount of trails and level of difficulty are much higher in Utah than in California. Uncle Ben Humpherys told Doug about a sweet riding spot in the mountains by Bountiful!
Look how amazingly green and beautiful it is! 
While Doug biked the rest of us had no problem hanging out with Aunt Kimmy and our cute cousins! Douglas came back from biking letting me know that he got two pictures of by FAR the coolest place his mountain bike has ever been. Here they are:
Insane right? Well this one is even crazier!! 
Doug had a blast and I am glad I was not there with him (I would've had a heart attack I believe)!
For our Utah trip this summer we wanted to spend some time with Doug's grandparents and some friends that we haven't seen in years. So we drove straight to Pleasant Grove without stopping in Vegas. Long drive with 3 kids doesn't sound like much to you? To us, it's like a date because this is our kids in the car: 
Ha ha! The car always magically does that to them!
As soon as we got into town we headed over to a nice park and had a Family Picnic with Doug's cousins, Aunts, Uncles, and grandparents. This was such a treat for us. We were able to visit and really get to know Doug's extended family. I was so excited. What neat people the Farnsworths are. I was so busy visiting and getting to know people thought that I didn't remember to take pictures! What a nut case!
Doug's Uncle invited us to spend the night at his house. As soon as my kiddos heard he had bulldogs, it was on like Donkey Kong. 
Our kids were in heaven!! Preston found bookshelves full of books to read (Uncle is a teacher) and Chloe and Derek found mounds of toys (they are grandparents too). Lol. Thank you so much for letting us invade our home!!
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