Last Days of Summer

The last days of summer break were filled with doing those things on our summer to-do list that hadn't gotten done yet.  The girls went to Rexburg Rapids with friends, we de-cluttered a few more areas of the house, we made some apricot jam with apricots picked at Mrs. Myasaki's house (librarian friend at Kennedy), and did school clothes shopping.  This year 99% of Emma's school shopping was done online.  It was awesome!  She is tall enough now that she has to be really careful with the tops she buys, in addition to the jeans/pants.  She found shirts in long sizes at Old Navy online and JC Penney online.  She also bought her jeans via American Eagle online in their extra long sizes.  I'm happy she's not fat, otherwise she'd really be out of luck since it's even harder to find tall plus sizes.  Lauren has grown taller and started thinning out, but her clothes are still easy to find in stores.  Emma gave Lauren lots of hand-me-downs, so we could do all her shopping in Idaho Falls in one afternoon. 

Landon spent most of August working over at Burton.  He had a grand total of 2 weeks off this year for vacation.  We enjoyed it, but we're looking forward to the time when he gets the time off that he really needs to de-compress from the stress of his job/jobs!



Aunt Lorina gave Levi a basket full of books when she was visiting.  We found that the basket is the perfect size for him to sit on and watch TV.  Ironic.




Grammy gave this little lion push toy to Levi when we were in Washington.  He loves it!




Levi loves to be outside.  He's not crazy about grass, but we love to watch him deal with it when we sit him down on it.





Yum!  Apricot jam!  We were able to make 25 pints of jam!





Our neighbors moved and gave us an awesome bike seat and helmet just right for Levi.




He still only falls asleep with Mom.  Not sure how we're going to change that.


 

One more time at the carousel!




Forcing Levi to enjoy the splash park.



Visit from the LeFevres

We got home from our trip to Washington and Oregon on Thursday, then had visitors on Saturday.  Nana, Lorina, Christina and Lincoln came to visit for a few days.  We ate some good meals together, as always, and Lauren had a chance to go with Lincoln to do some things that he wanted to do while they were here.  Nana brought all three of the kids some Toms shoes, which were a big hit.

Getting Snocones from the Snoshack is always a fun treat for the kids.



Emma made a delicious German Chocolate cake! 

 

Aunt Lorina gave Levi a really cute little outfit with this hat. 



Dinner at Big Juds

Trip to Washington/Oregon Coast, Days 8-11

We drove to Boise Monday.  Landon had a 3-day conference for administrators in Boise, so we were able to stay at the hotel with him and play while he attended meetings and classes.  The kids and I slept in until 9 everyday, missing the hotel breakfast, but loving the sleep.  We went to the mall and shopped, discovered a fantastic new park in Meridian, and swam in the hotel pool.  We ate at Guido's pizza place, which we always do when we are in Boise.  One evening we drove downtown to the river and got our feet wet.  Next time we come to town, we're going to float the Boise river.  It goes right through downtown and everyone was doing it!  Looked like so much fun.  We picked Landon up from his last meeting Thursday around lunch time, got some delicious bagels downtown, then hit the road for Rexburg.  It felt like a long drive because we were so tired by that point, but we got home around 6 that evening, happy to finally be home. 

Trip to Washington/Oregon Coast, Day 7

Sunday was our last day at the beach house.  We cleaned up, said good-bye to David's family, then headed in to Tillamook for one last ice cream cone and cheese samples.  We ran into Heidi's family and John's family as they were leaving the cheese factory!  Funny.  Anyway, we hit the road and drove all the way to The Dalles for one last meal at Burgerville, then got to Pendleton to spend the night.  We were able to get a Priceline deal for $49 again at the same Red Lion (where Landon had forgotten his pillow and was able to get it back!).  We were texting back and forth with David's family, who had stopped in Vancouver for a meal at Burgerville with everyone there.  They had gotten back on the road, heading for Ashton, ID to spend a week or so with Sara's family.  They altered their plans to drive through to Boise and stopped in Pendleton for one last hurrah.  We got them the same $49 deal, let the cousins swim, played pinochle and stayed up until past 11 p.m. talking.  (Very late for the LeFevres!) 



Forgot to add this picture to the day before.  Cute!!



Trip to Washington/Oregon Coast, Day 6

Day 6 was the big Kimball Family Reunion Day.  We've never been to a family reunion before so a few months ago I decided to call this trip a family reunion.  Even though there are no extended family members besides for the original 8 Kimballs and their spouses and kids, I think it still counts.  I decided we should have t-shirts for everyone, so luckily everyone (except for Shannon) jumped on the bandwagon and we looked like a team that one day.  Heidi's idea was give everyone a number to have on their shirt, of the order he/she joined the Kimball family, with Dad being #1.  I thought the shirts turned out a little on the bright side, and maybe should have had some wording on the front and the back, but either way, we all matched.

That morning David's family, Jason, Katie, and Landon all went on a hike to the end of the cape at Cape Lookout.  It was a classic David Kimball family hike that was pretty much a race to the destination and back, so maybe not our kind of hike, but Landon still managed to take some beautiful pictures.  Is it significant that only in-laws wanted to go on this hike with David's family?  hmmm

Later, we shared a big, delicious meal cooked by Sara (poor Sara ended up having a tough job!) of Cafe Rio-style pork taco salads, with fruit salad and treats provided by Heidi and other additions provided by Katie and John.  David took some family pictures, which could have been better if we had a location that wasn't on a hill, but it was still nice to document the occasion with photos.  We played a game that I made up that was similar to the newlywed game with the Kimball kid answering questions and their families trying to match their answers.  It was fun to learn new information about each other that we hadn't known.  The kids played in the hot tub, watched Pitch Perfect again, and everyone just hung out and talked.  A very fun day!

 



Love this one of David and me.  He likes to touch me in inappropriate ways in order to make me laugh during pictures.  He's gross.