Our neighbor was selling pumpkins in front of their house. We thought it would be fun to take the boys over and take their picture. It sure is getting hard to get those little rugrats to look at the camera and smile at the same time. We took dozens of pictures, but these were the only decent ones.
The Gardner family has not had a family picture with everyone in it since I was in high school. There has always been a brother on a mission or someone off in college. We have had a few additions to the family since our last family picture. It is kind of crazy to get all of us together at the same time but it finally happened for Tyler’s homecoming.
It all started with these two…
and then grew into this…
these are my siblings…
this is one of the siblings and their spouses…
A pretty good looking bunch, I’d say!
I love this one of Kaleb…
So Vance had a work seminar in Boise a couple of weekends ago and I decided to go with him. We left the kids with Grandma King and hopped in the car and excitedly embarked on our weekend without the kidsI
During the trip I was feeling very nostalgic. I drove past my parents old house, and took Vance to one of my favorite places in Boise, Fancy Freeze! This was my families favorite place to get ice cream when we lived in Boise. We spent many summer nights at this little dive down town eating Boston shakes. A Boston shake is a shake with a sundae in it. I’m pretty sure it is the reason God created cows.
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One of our favorite things to do in the summer is go to the splash park in Porter Park. It’s fun, free, and perfect on a hot summer day. We go to the splash park at least once a week.
Today, our trip to the splash park didn’t end so well. Kaleb and Austin were off playing when suddenly I heard Kaleb scream. A sweet lady had picked him up and said he bonked his head. She brought him over to me and I saw that he had a huge gash in his head. I kind of freaked out. Another lady came over and said she was a nurse and asked if we needed help. I asked if she thought we should take him to the emergency room. She said yes because he will probably need stitches. She was so calm and helpful, while I was not so calm. She held Kaleb while I frantically picked up our stuff and got Austin in the car. On our ride over to the hospital Austin kept saying, “It’s ok Kaleb, we’ll get a bandaid and it will feel better”.
When we got to the emergency room the doctor said the cut was pretty deep and would need about 4 stiches. Vance came and got Austin so he didn’t have to be traumatized by the whole event. The hardest part of it all was holding him down while he got the stiches. He is a strong boy! The nurse kept saying, “I can’t believe how strong he is!”
After it was all said and done Kaleb walked away with 4 stiches right above his eyebrow.
He was pretty much all smiles once we left the hospital. He is one tough little boy!
It’s just not summer without at least one trip to Rigby Lake. The kids had so much fun splashing around in the cool water.
Kaleb loved digging in the sand.
It’s been several years since we have been to a Hillman Family Reunion. This year we decided to go to Moab, Utah. My brother Andrew and his wife, Becky, spend their summers in Moab as river guides so we thought it would be fun to go down and see them. It was perfect because they knew all the cool places to show us. The first day we were there we floated down the river. We didn’t get any pictures but we all had a lot of fun, Austin included. It was his first float trip.
The next day we went to Arches National Park. It was quite a spectacular site. Nature can be so amazing!
We left Kaleb behind with my sister. It was his nap time and she didn’t want to go. It was really great not to have to carry him around on the hikes.
Austin had a blast climbing around on all the rocks.
The next day hiked into a little swimming hole that only the locals know about. It was great because we were the only ones there. Vance stayed back with our boys because the only wanted to swim in the pool at the hotel. Austin had lots of fun swimming with Maggie. They swam for over three hours and still cried when they had to leave.
Austin and Maggie had so much fun playing together, or in this case, watching movies on an I-phone together.
The best thing about living in the country is all the fun outdoor activities there are to do. We took the kids on a little hike so we could enjoy the great outdoors. The kids did pretty good. Austin complained that he was hot most of the time and Kaleb wouldn’t stay in his backpack, he just wanted to run on his own. I guess it was the best that could be expected.
Tonight, after getting Austin and Kaleb out of the bathtub, Austin disappeared. We figured he had gone outside, and this is what we found…
In case you can’t see his get up…here are some close ups. I love the outfits kids come up with sometimes. The best part is they have no shame. To him, this looks good!
