Final Swim Meet

The 8 weeks of daily swim practice has come to an end.  The final meet had arrived and Allie was so excited to finally sleep in once swim team was over.  I really enjoyed swim team because it kept us on somewhat of a schedule for the summer and it pushed Allie into doing something active every day.  I'm all about enjoying summer and being lazy but I don't think 1 hour of each day was to much of a sacrifice for anyone to make.  It was amazing to see Allie swimming in the end; she had really improved a lot throughout the summer.



The last time viewing our swim meet sign for the summer.  I think I'd heard so many people talk up how bad the meets were, they ended up not being so bad in my mind.  We camped out with friends, had food, games and seemed to get a thunderstorm that would blow through every meet which made for some exciting times



My little fish

Relay teams ready to race

The 3 Y city relay teams ready to compete in the Medley relay

Allie cheering on her team mate...just finished her back stroke in the Medley relay

Allie's medley team placed 1st....a blue ribbon

Allie getting ready to swim her breaststroke.  Allie did amazing at her final meet. There were 10 teams throughout the valley competing together.  Allie placed 3rd in the freestyle, 2nd in backstroke, 5th in the breaststroke and 1st in both of her relays.  Because there are so many kids competing they just place in there heats.  During the final swim party they got additional ribbons if they placed in the top 8 overall .  Allie was 6th overall in the backstroke out of 30+ kids her age. Hope all your hard work feels good Allie; you have worked hard and it shows!!!

Cabin with Littles

The Little's arrived for their summer vacation and we were so excited to welcome them into our home.  Sunday we had everyone over to our house for a big get together

Blake cooked up some delicious ribs on the grill 

The girls were given tattoos from Aunt Evelyn and had a fun time using them to decorate themselves

Adam instantly loved having Will as his little buddy

Papa and the grandkids

Piggy back rides 

Uncle Jeremy took his turn entertaining the kids.  

Monday morning we packed up and headed to the cabin to relax and play in the water for a few days.  

The kids immediately got to work building sand castles

Everyone enjoyed paddleboarding

The girls took off across the lake on the paddleboard.  Before we knew it they had docked and gotten off shore across the lake; Blake had to go across and bring them back

Will enjoyed his view from the swing

Will was watching all the action from the door while being strapped into his high chair

The kids enjoyed getting pulled behind the jet ski on the paddleboard

Papa Jim got up for his 1st time on a wakeboard

Loved this picture of the kids under the water tramp....I stuck my camera in a hole and grabbed this crazy shot of them

I brought up stuff to tie-dye shirts at the cabin.  We had this on our summer bucket list and decided to haul the messy project to the cabin

The kids love tie-dying and I think we are learning something new every summer; one of these days we will have some amazing shirts.  This year we learned about pre-soaking with Soda Ash which I definitely think helped the shirts hold their color

Redneck Water Slide

The Hansen Family has continued to have a reunion every summer around Grandma Vella's birthday, July 3rd.   For this summer's reunion we headed down to Wellsville, Utah for a one day trip to the redneck water slide.  

We pulled off onto a dirt road by the highway

We followed the road to a grass parking lot and in front of us was a giant piece of plastic secured to the hillside...the White Trash Waterslide as some people call it

The kids ran right up the hill and began sliding down in every way possible; holding legs, making trains, etc. 

It couldn't have been a complete experience at the water park without wild goats running around; the kids thought this was great!  I was a little nervous the goats were going to charge at someone

Sophie and her 2nd cousin Brooklyn; they are good little buddies

Even though Will couldn't go down the slide and was beyond exhausted,  he enjoyed gnawing on his watermelon rind all afternoon 

Papa Von joined in on the fun, broke the rule for making only a 4 person train, and hauled down the slide with a large group of kids.  We had a blast at the White Trash Water Park!  Until next year!!!

Off To The Races

It seems another summer has crept upon us and with summer comes the races....

Capital Classic seems to be our 1st one every summer

Allie did great and crossed the finish line with a 10:30 mile.  Out of 198 6-7 year old girls Allie was 17th.  She made her dad proud this year!

Way to go Allie!



Next race for the summer was the Main Street Mile

Some of our good friends who moved to Twin came over for the day to run the race....that was dedication

Our favorite part of this race is the Mascot Race.  The mascots run a stretch of the race course in their outfits

Allie finishing the 1/2 mile at 4:21...way to go girl!

Ultimate Urban Challenge

The racing season has begun....I am not pregnant and I can finally leave my babe for extended periods of time without feeling like he is going to starve if he doesn't take his bottle.  The Ultimate Urban Challenge is one of my absolute favorite races. We get to race around downtown Boise on bikes and get to work as a team to accomplish challenges at each pit stop.  It is all for the benefit of Make A Wish which I have a soft spot in my heart for; knowing all the good wishes they grant for the cancer kids.



 Our good friends the Coltrins joined us this year.  We were the Flying Pigs...I'm not so good with team names and costumes

Trying to play pool....an easy challenge we weren't so good at

The non-detailed members of the team, Emily and I, had to examine a cup of icecream with toppings and all.  We had to then tell the boys how to replicate it, getting the candy in the right spot and placing the right number and color of candies back on.  We were horrible at this station

The judge for this event was Dante, a kiddo I took care of  years ago when he was 3...so glad to see him healthy.  I thought he would have given me a break but he was so hard on us

The funnest challenge we had was doing a news report in the Channel 2 studio.  We were new's anchors for a brief moment in time; Emily thought about going into the business she loved it so much!

Blake about vomited when I rolled the dice and he found out he had to eat Kim Chi.  Blake did great and held it down



Our fierce competition throughout the race were the BSU football players.  Thankfully they experienced not 1, but 2 flat tires along the race which set them back.  They were literally on our tails for a good chunk of the race

Flying through the finish line....2nd place out of 50+ teams

Flying Pigs seemed to be a fitting name for us...we had a great race!