Brief Re-cap

Rather than try to recapture each of the fun things we have done over the past few months post by post as I would typically do, I've decided to mash them all into one long post.  I know I may have deceptively entitled this post a "brief" recap, but believe me, compared to what it could be....this is VERY brief!

One of our favorite places to go in the summer is the Main Street water park.  The minute it got warm enough, we were over there jumping on the rocks and enjoying the cool water! It is such a ingenious water feature and I love the creativity is brings out in the kids.  I also love that whenever we are there, all boundaries are down and kids that don't even know each other become fast friends.  It is a neat thing to observe!

Kaitlin had her first piano recital just before school got out.  She was awesome.  She is the youngest pupil by about 3 years and she did such a beautiful job on her pieces.  They were sure hard; in fact, I thought they were way too hard for her since I could barely play them and she's only been playing for 1 year. Nonetheless, she played them beautifully with only a few little errors!  I was pretty impressed with the little cutie and we sure are proud of how she is developing her talent!

She sure loves her piano teacher! Sometimes I think that the price we pay for piano is such a small price for the love she feels from Shauna! We sure are grateful for her and are so grateful for the love of music that she is instilling in Kaitlin.

Grandma and Grandpa, Ladd and Krystal and our whole family were able to be there to support Kaitlin.  We feel so blessed.

Kaitlin and Brock both placed first in their grades at our school Science Fair, so they got to go to District.  It was held at Dixie College and was quite the event!  Even though neither of them won in their division (which was very disappointing for them), we had a great day eating in the cafeteria and touring the campus while the judges deliberated.  They had to remain seated in front of their project and be available to answer questions from the judges for 4 hours! No adults were allowed with the kids during that time!  That is a really long time for a 1st grader!  It was an even longer time for Allison and I to keep busy while we waited! Luckily we all survived and the kids had a lot of fun meeting some new friends.  It was an awesome opportunity for them and we were so proud of them!

Brandon and Brock had a 1st Grade Patriotic program just towards the end of school.  I loved it when Kaitlin did it, and I loved it just as much this time.  They do an amazing job.  It was so fun to see the kids, all dressed in their red, white and blue sing songs about our country.  I can never get through singing, "I'm Proud to be an American," with them without tearing up! I got a ton of pictures, but they are all pretty much like these - random moments during the songs or program.  We weren't really close enough to get any great pictures.

After the program, we headed back to their classroom to collect their school work and have a little celebration. They are so cute at this age and the boys were so excited to show us their portfolios! All of those little first graders were just beaming from ear to ear!

Seriously?! How cute is he?! 

And him, too?!

Mrs. Decker is one of our favorites!  She is just an absolutely incredible teacher and I could not have asked for a teacher who showed more love to and more personal interest in my boys and their education.  I love how individually she got to know my boys.  She knew their favorite colors, hobbies, how many teeth they had lost, who they had crushes on, etc.  Most people clump them together as twins and for her to make the effort not to do that, really meant a lot to us. She was also Kaitlin's 1st grade teacher, so she is definitely going to be a family favorite forever!:)

 I love this picture because this little grin is the grin I always see with Brock. He is such a sweet boy!

 Alli sure loves her Brock and she felt like a queen to be able to sit in Brock's desk, even if just for a little while!

After the last day of school, we headed over to some friends for an outdoor water party!  The weather was perfect and all in all, there were probably 40-50 kids and their moms!  It was crazy, but so much fun! Plus, I got my first sunburn of the year which was a very welcome thing after the crazy, teaser weeks of hot, then cold that we had previously had!  It was the perfect kick-off to an awesome summer!

They even played some water balloon volleyball! Man o' man was that fun to watch!  The squeals of delight when they got drenched were hilarious! Plus, it's harder than it looks!  Most of the kids actually got wet trying to throw the balloon back over the net.  Catching it in the towel was the easy part!

Cole coached the boys in our Washington City Rec Pee Wee league.  This was a pretty crazy commitment because the boys were already playing in a Little League as well, but Cole really wanted to coach them and since this team was made up of a lot of kids in our ward, it was a great opportunity!

The previous picture is of the rest of the team was watching the team before them play.  I looked around and couldn't find Brock.  Of course, he had wondered over to where the girls were playing and was watching them instead! Geesh! That kid!

It was sure fun to have Kris there to help wrangle Allison and to chatter away with!  I just can't say enough how grateful I am she agreed to marry that "big ol' kid" brother-in-law of mine!;)

I just had to take this picture to tease Ladd!  He was supposed to be out in the field helping the kids, but no...he was on the phone instead! Some people.....lol!

Oh, wait....there we go...off the phone and helping out! I am totally kidding of course!  Ladd was such a huge help!  Ladd helped Cole coach the whole time. It was so much fun to watch Cole and Ladd work together to teach these boys their favorite game.  It was also awesome to watch them because they were so solid in their skills and teaching techniques.  Baseball is such a huge part of who they are and it totally showed when it came to coaching.  I enjoyed every minute of watching them coach together!

 

 The "Snap-On" team, minus a few players.  I'll post more on this team later, but here's a little sneak peak!  I also have a lot to post on their Little League team!

One of the highlights of the last few months was Danny and Anna's wedding.  Danny has played softball with Cole and Ladd for the last 9 years.  Last year, Anna was Kaitlin's 2nd grade teacher.  It was pretty crazy when we put two and two together and realized that they were dating!  We enjoyed watching their relationship evolve and finally getting the text that they had just gotten engaged!  All during the months of April and May, I was always so excited to go to softball games because she and I would talk and talk about wedding plans, etc!  It was so much fun!  There is something so magical about watching two people get married!  It brings back so many fun memories...and doesn't she just look beautiful!

 We had planned to only stay at their reception for a little while, but once we got there, we had so much fun that we stayed and stayed! Brock was in heaven and was absolutely elated that he got to dance with Anna!

This picture will be special forever!  We just love this lady!  As I mentioned before, she was Kaitlin's teacher in 2nd grade and she is also going to be the boys' 2nd grade teacher.  We feel so blessed!  The only hard thing will be getting used to calling her Mrs. Shakespeare instead of Ms. Poulton!:)

 Don't just skip through these pictures...this is Roundy family history in the making!  Yes, we even got out on the dance floor! Gasp!  Ladd started it out by going out and dancing with Alli.  I'm sad that the picture I got of them was so blurry:(  Then Cole went out and danced with the girls.  I loved that Brock was dancing with the girls, too!  He is such a funny little guy!  Where was Brandon, you may ask?!  Oh, he was anchored to a bench, blissfully watching from the side lines!  Yep, he's totally Cole's kid! Haha!

  

 

Another thing we did was go to Zions.  I always love Zions, but this was an especially fun trip because it was Krystal's first time which made it exciting to go on all of the same old hikes. It was also fun because Ladd had the idea to bring his motorcycle and drive the kids through the tunnel.  We hooked up the trailer and towed it out with us and then, one by one, he and Cole took turns taking the kids through the tunnel.  I am sure that is an experience the kids will never forget!

Cole was able to play in a golf tournament at Entrada and his team took 1st place! Whohoo!  As part of his package for winning, he got Tuacahn tickets for the opening night of Little Mermaid!  It is AMAZING!  I always love Tuacahn's shows anyway, but THIS one has so many special effects - it is absolutely incredible! 

The boys Little League team had their Closing Ceremonies which took FOREVER!  Cole and I were sitting in the shade, so it wasn't quite as bad for us, but the poor teams were out there in the sun! They didn't seem to mind at all though; they were just so excited to get their stuff! In fact, when they actually came up to get their awards, they were all running too fast and I couldn't even get my camera to capture them without just showing a big blur!

 

 

The one thing we have done a lot of this summer so far is hike.  Mostly because I was making sure my shoes were nice and broken in for the trek and also because it is such a cheap and fun thing to do.

One of our new favorite hiking spots is the Red Cliffs trails. Hiking in the summer in St. George means that you have to hike near water or there is a good possibility that you will die!  This particular trail requires you to walk across the river and  to even use a rope to help you climb the side of a rock over a small waterfall.  It is absolutely beautiful.  We hiked it on a Saturday with Kaitlin's activity day group and then we had to show Krystal, so we went back on Tuesday to do it again!  We stayed for hours and enjoyed a little picnic and just splashed and played in the water!  It was a blast...and Krystal and I felt like rock stars for hiking that trail with a toddler.  Some of the hikers were too scared to do the rope climb at all and we rocked it while holding a BABY! Oh yeah...we're amazing!:)

 

 

 

Another thing Cole and I have been doing a lot of is golfing.  I know, ironic, huh?  Anyway, we have really enjoyed heading out early in the morning and we've even been able to take Allison.  She does pretty well and keeps quiet as long as we keep her busy! 

I have to say, I've even gotten pretty good!  For the most part, most of my shots go pretty much where I want them to.  And thankfully, I have Cole with me to tell me where on earth the other ones went! Right now, we are looking for some couples scrambles to go play in and I think that next year I may even compete in the Long Drive competition with Cole!

If you've never played Speed Stacks, you are missing out!  Cole and I gave this to the boys for their birthday and it is so much fun!  I can't believe how challenging it is and how much coordination and focus it takes.  Sure, you can just stack them any way you want...or you can do it the way the pro's do and it sure goes faster, but it is tough to get it down to an art.  Once you get it down, it's fun to keep trying to beat your best time.  After tons and tons of practice I finally got a time that I thought was awesome...until I read that the fastest kid in America does it 30 seconds faster! Haha! We'll have to keep working!

And the culminating, most incredible experience of the summer so far was definitely the experience that Cole and I had to go on Trek. I will post much more on this later, but all I can say is..."Wow!"

And this, in a very brief nutshell is what has been going on in our family since the beginning of May. Busy, busy!