Oscar Stew

Hup two three four! Keep it up two three four! The end is in sight for our review of all our summer adventures. We honestly don’t have that much left! It won’t all be done after this post, but soon after that! Or after that…

Aunt Kristy is a certified official professional guaranteed swim instructor. So OF COURSE the kids got swimming lessons while we were in St. Geezer…But they weren’t free!

Swimming lessons for babies includes blowing bubbles in the water. Show Emily how it’s done Eleanor!

Bin-shark took the bubble blowing to an all new level when she started stalking her prey…  Or maybe she needs a few more swimming lessons under her belt.

Nice to see ya Drew! We were wondering when you were going to come up from the bottom of the pool. Diving sticks are fun!

The Bin-shark must’ve found the chum she was looking for. Look at those teeth! And two dorsal fins!

Do you remember your first time in water that was deeper than you were tall? I wonder if Rowan will?

Eventually (it took quite a while) all the kids were waterlogged and it was time to move on to another fun activity. My Mom had her birthday while we were in town, so I turned the kids loose in the dollar store. They even picked out their own cards!  Rowan chose her Mexican twin Dora, of course. At first my mom just thought it was cute…

But as she opened each card she found out it was a lot funnier than she thought! This was Drew’s card! HA! 

We had her rolling pretty good…and we hadn’t even gotten to the “presents” yet!

That’s the whole “Happy Birthday” song written out on Brinley’s belated b-day card:

(I’m not too sure where Brinley’s cell phone and car keys are either. Hopefully they are lost for at least 10 more years…)

Yeesh, a Grandmas’ birthday presents wrapped in the obituary section? Kinda dark, don’t you think? 

Rowan was pretty excited about the “pink duck” she got for Grandma. At this point Kristy couldn’t hold it in any longer…

Those are the longest legs I’ve ever seen on a duck.

Down at the Crooked Crockpot they have plenty more to do than just eat. For example: Grandpa taught Brinley how to beat him at checkers!

Here’s the frosting on the cake of funny…The kids each picked out a balloon for Grandma and we delivered them to her work.  What a variety: Princess, Happy B-day, Get Well, and (my favorite) It’s a boy! Bwaahahahaha! Congratulations or condolences!?

‘Nother day, ‘nother trip to go hang with friends. We headed up to my friend Maegan’s place to enjoy the evening together. I don’t think Rowan is enjoying Brinley crowding in on her ride, however.

Drew was a bit jealous of Maegan’s boys’ summer-hawks. But Eleanor was furious!

Maegan fed us well, and we were off to another adventure. We can’t go anywhere without finding some letterboxes. Turns out St. Gramps has a nice collection and we were able to make a few finds. I’m not really sure what’s going on in this photo, but I know Rowan is happy! Check out those full bellies!

I’m really glad you’re excited too, Ellie. I’m just not excited that you are holding broken glass…

Uh-oh. This is a common side effect of letterboxing. Road rash is inevitable.

This is a rare pic here. You might wanna right click and save this, it could be worth millions at an antique art auction someday. Why? Because nobody is looking at the camera EXCEPT for Brinley!

Ouch. Poor Roastie. You shouldn’t pick fights with rocks. I bet Dora-themed band-aids will make it all better, right?!

On to the next adventure! Or soon after that!

We always make a visit to “Dinosaur” Grandpa’s house during our sunny sabbatical in St. George. Why do the kids call him that? You’ll find out just as soon as Grandma LaVerna gets Ellie’s fingers untangled from the string puppet collection…

Back before Ryan & I were married (slightly after dinosaurs roamed the earth) my Grandpa was grading some land he owned in order to sell it. While he was digging he came across an incredible find: Dinosaur footprints!

Once upon a time St. George was covered in water. The dinosaurs walked through the shallow parts and left their footprints in the mud. The footprints filled with silt, millions of years passed, and ding! This is what the bottom of a dilophosaurus foot looks like…in 3D!

At this point he thought, “Why stop digging?” He got some extra help and revealed hundreds of tracks from many different kinds of dinosaurs.

The kids were more & more impressed with each footprint. Hey Ro-saurus, how do you measure up?

If it hadn’t sunk deep into their cortex yet that it was their great-grandfather who made this awesome discovery, the cartoon was sure to do the trick:

“Hey Grandpa, that’s you!”

Needless to say the kids were pretty excited that Grandpa has his “very own” museum. But they were also kinda jealous. “How come Grandpa gets to find all the dinosaur tracks?”

Have no fear kids, you can be a prehistoric paw prospector too! Fire up the back hoe and the grader. Wait Ellie, not at the same time!

The master digger gave Drew some tips on where he might find some T-rex treads.

Brinley decided role-playing was a worthwhile technique. If I was a scaly, 200-ton lizard, where would I roam?

Looks like drew may be brushing off a great specimen! On the other hand, Eleanor is trying to use the brush as a shovel…

The unveiling continues, with Brinley controlling the bristles. Hey Rowan, this may go quicker if we could use your hair. Whaddya say to that!?

I think Ellie overheard us and bugged out before she got “delegated”.

Sorry Ellie, just like inside the museum, you can’t take that footprint home either. Nice try!

This Tour de Utah review is going on and on like we were on vacay for months! I told you it was a busy-cation! Its okay, we only have like…well a lot of stops left on this tour, but many life-changing events needed to be documented! For example: 

It was only a matter of time for Kristy to submit to peer pressure and become a woman of the cloth just like her mom and sisters:

She may have thought quilting was just this cutesy boring thing that old hens did while playing canasta. Truth be told, it’s quite a dirty sport!

So Kristy, have you enjoyed cutting large pieces of fabric into small pieces and sewing them back together?

I couldn’t quite hear you over the roar of the quilting machines…could you say that again?

There’s no need to make an excuse for being vain while on vacation, right Brinley?!  

Color selected, feet soaked, ready for pedi, paint, & polish. Can the nail guy make your legs longer?

Probably not, but he can swindle you into getting logo-toes!

Don’t mind the man in the mask, he’s just gonna file off your claws while you deliberate…

What’s it like not to have toe-jam anymore?

Apparently it’s an uplifting experience! The nail guy made Kristy’s feet float!

I thought the nail guy was supposed to get rid of the toe-jam?

We received specific instructions not to wiggle our toes or let anything touch our new shiny nails for awhile. So we were real careful while we worked on another hobby of ours…

So Brinley, how was your day? Was it great? Was it awesome? Don’t be a flip-flopper!