June: George and Lily came to town!

Our summer tradition of having cousin George come visit took an even more exciting turn when Lily came too! These cute cousins had such a fun time together.

Melissa and Courtney made the drive up to bring the kids and stayed long enough on Sunday morning to come to church before they took off. Court borrowed my striped dress and made it look even cuter than ever! The rest of the day was spent working on a puzzle, watching church videos, and reading.

Monday morning, bright and early, these four headed for science camp! I pulled a few favors as a previous employee so my boys could sign up - Will was SO excited as a first time attendee, and especially to have Lily in his group.

Most of the week was spent at camp but we fit in lots once they got home everyday: George introduced Clyde to 'Dude Perfect' and the boys worked on trick shots all week, lots of reading, decent amount of video games, and lots of cousins double-teaming chores :).

George challenged us to some tennis, which was way fun. He and I ended up victorious over Chuck and Clyde; I think it was our bright color scheme.

 OH, and plenty of time was spent out on the trampoline. Here are Will and Lily and Jack playing the shoe game... which is how my shoes are always untied ;).

Six kids sounds crazy overwhelming in general, but honestly, Lily and George are dream guests. Super sweet and polite and helpful and just genuinely awesome kids. And very patient with their dorky aunt, ha!

Hahahahahahaha!

All too soon, it was Friday morning and time for the last day of camp:

Chuck and I dropped off the wee kids at my mama's and headed to the school for our grand tour that afternoon! The favorite 'class' is where the kids take apart an old/broken appliance and then put it back together as a new invention. 

George was a junior counselor and got recognized for his excellent work with the youngest group of campers.

 The kids took us around to all their classrooms and I made them each pose for a picture with their counselor. We got an excellent report that Clyde was an awesome camper and was always there when his counselor needed a helper ;).

And then it was time to blow that popsicle joint! A phrase that I don't really understand and rarely user but it seemed like a solid choice there. We picked up the other kids and headed to the library:

 The rest of the weekend passed quick and then Sunday brought Melissa and Mallory this time (who actually did a decent amount of the driving!!!) to retrieve George and Lily.

Quick niece/sister-in-law selfie. I loooove these two.

I gathered the six kids for a quick photo shoot that Carma was really not in the mood for:

 buuuut it makes me laugh! COME BACK LILY AND GEORGE! WE MIIIIISS YOU!! xoxoxoxox!

June: church stuff

The boys rode their bikes to and from church a few Sundays over the summer, which was clearly the Cutest Thing Ever. The shot where their ties are blowing in the wind? My only hope is that they learn how to tuck in their shirts before their mission calls come ;).

One day I left the kiddos with my mama and headed to the temple and then visited my handsome husband at work afterwards. Also I took him cookies.

More puzzles on Sundays! I thought the church one looked cute and fun... it was miserable. I took an up close shot of the sky so you can see how jigsaw-y the pieces were. I think I left that section for Chuck to do haha.

More temple trips! One with Maren and Maren, one with Rachel and Maren, and another solo. Have I mentioned how fun it is to grab a couple girls and head over there? Because it is; I love it!

Mid-June the executive secretary contacted me... honestly, I'm trying to remember, it might have been via text haha... to meet with the Bishop. I walked out of his office with a new calling: gospel doctrine instructor! Yiiiiiikes. Turns out if you continually fail at your resolutions to spend more time in the scriptures, Heavenly Father will give you a real compelling reason to succeed in that venture ;). I was grateful that the Sunday school general president Tad Callister chose that exact week to share some excellent insight about gospel doctrine learning in this article. 

Chuck and I were able to go to the temple one beautiful Friday morning when Gabe and Jacob Otto both attended for the first time prior to their missions! Such a neat experience. 

June also kicked off my crack addiction.. and by crack I mean family history. Family search emailed both Chuck and me names that we could take to the temple and I kind of fell in love. I actually talked about this last Sunday in church and shared the special skill set I have that makes family search so enjoyable: I love knowing stuff about people (Sam calls it being nosy hahaha), I love clicking around and doing research and finding answers, and I love connecting random family members who lived in the 1850s with characters in my cheesy clean romance novels set in the 1850s... but seriously. I do. So now on Sunday nights I stay up way too late exploring my family tree and cleaning up lines and matching records and it's basically the most fun thing ever!

June: hanging out with Queden

Quinn and Eden and Isaac and Leila came up for a visit, hooray! We met over at Grandma Pam's house with some Hunter second cousins for everyone's favorite afternoon activity: bunny chasin'. My dislike/fear of rabbits is well-documented, but there is something pretty hilarious about watching like ten different kids and adults sprint after one little bunny :).

Eventually the bunny (which probably has a name... which I probably haven't bothered to learn... I prefer to take the Harry Potter route and not say my enemies' names aloud...) was captured and given to a delighted Leila to snuggle with. SO cute!

Of course, while everyone else was high tailing it about to catch the bunny, Carma was... modeling stolen sunglasses and munching on Cheetos and ice cream. Atta girl!

And of course it was so much fun to see Amanda and Cecily and Kara and Rachel and Larry and Iris and Nathan and Aaron! The middle picture is a pretty accurate prediction of where Quinn and Eden will be in like ten years: surrounded by their eight children, probably harmonizing between gigs a la the von Trapps or the Partridge Family. 

I made Clyde and Cecily sit together for a picture because we all think they look so much alike! They're just under a year apart in age (Cecily is older) but in the same grade and some Hunter gene has manifested itself strongly in these cute second cousins.

Amanda not only earned a spot on Leila's faves list, she also was recruited as Will's partner in creating a new language. 

After the Hunters took off, we headed over to the park for some fun there. I totally staged this hand-holding and I have no regrets because it turned out even cuter than I imagined!!!

And this turned out even funnier than I imagined - we plopped Carma on the swing with Leila and one of them was thrilled and one of them was not a fan. 

More fun at Grandma's park.

We stuck Grandma Pam with all six kids one night(let's be honest: she was thrilled) and Chuck and I challenged Quinn and Eden to some tennis. 

To quote my instagram... since this was eight months ago and I have apparently a terrible memory... : 'We were pretty evenly matched, but Quinn and Eden sealed their win in the third tiebreaker set. Highlights were everyone getting a chance to whiff it, Eden and Chuck avoiding injury despite their frequent face-offs at the net, Eden yelling 'hi-ya' with every good shot, and apparently my facial expressions every time Quinn's pretty decent ball placement caught me off guard.' 

We gathered the whole gang one night and headed to a movie with Grandpa. Carma wasn't a fan of being quiet, staying in her seat, or not dancing up and down the aisles, so she and I hung out in the theater foyer - everyone else enjoyed Kung Fu Panda 3 immensely though! And everyone enjoyed fruit snacks and playing in the front yard well into dusk. I MISS SUMMER.

And some more Carma/Leila hilarity - Carma was soooo slooooow on the slide so Leila opted to help speed her up a bit ;).

Some random pictures of snuggling with Grandma and Isaac - including a selfie courtesy of Clyde :).

 Jack and Isaac were pretty cute - I feel like these blurry pictures are a pretty accurate representation of their shenanigans as they created a spaceship and also took fake naps haha.

 SO fun to see Quinn and Eden and their family (also I feel like this is the trip that they announced their pregnancy?) and we're so grateful that they came to town! One of these days Quinn will finally (never) convince us to move to Utah, but until then we love road trips to see each other!