Ah, July. Sweet, wonderful, perfect July. This year Stephen had saved up some PTO and so he took the entire month of July off from work. I repeat, THE ENTIRE MONTH OF JULY WE GOT TO HANG OUT WITH STEPHEN. We headed to St George to "spend time with the Marshes" which could also be read "for Stephen to golf every single day for free".
We got there just in time for the Fourth of July and I'm sure I've said this before, Marshes know how to Fourth. We woke up early for a mini parade and pancake breakfast with Nate and Linne's ward. Rory was a little too tired to truly appreciate, or even acknowledge, the parade aspect. But she perked right up as soon as breakfast showed up and even more so once chocolate milk got involved. In an effort to learn new skills I had made a goal to make a dress for Rory this year and so I decided to do a Fourth of July dress. It turned out better than I had hoped and I had so much fun watching her run around in it. Now maybe my next sewing project will be a little less revealing...
After a nap and recovery from the morning we got to go swimming and play with cousins. John and Ashleigh were able to come down to celebrate so we had everyone but Preston and Steve altogether. Stephen grilled an awesome tri-tip dinner and we went to Nate and Linne's for dessert and fireworks.
While we were in St George, Rory had a lot of time to play with cousins and even showed some improvement in the biting, pinching, and grabbing arena. She wasn't nice, per say, but she was a little less mean so we will take it. She did have some really fun moments playing with Siena and it was cute to watch the girls together. Poppop introduced us to frozen hot chocolate from Dairy Queen and all I can say is that Rory is not the only one who wanted to swim in the delicious, chocolaty goodness. Rory was also able to try on Uncle Nate's motorcycle helmet, though thankfully she steered clear of the bike itself.
Clayton and Alicia were in town visiting his brother and so we were able to catch up with them. We hadn't seen them since their wedding in December so it was great to see them again. They came over with their family and visited at the Marsh's house for a while and then the four of us went at got dinner at the Inn on the Cliff before they went out of town. Once again it was a beautiful view and delicious food. Clayt and Alicia are adventurous and driven and visiting with them always helps Stephen and I to be more active and to get out of our comfort zones more often. We are lucky to have friends like them.
We got to go on a lot of fun cousin adventures and one of them was a trip to the Children's Museum. Rory loved going shopping in the little store and looking at the dinosaurs, but most of all she loved singing and dancing (or watching others sing and dance) on the stage. My little performer heart was so pleased.
One day, the girls left all the kids with the men and we went and did initiatories at the temple together. I'm so lucky to have such strong women to help me raise my family and to support me as a wife and mother. At the temple Lucina asked one of the workers to guess which one of the three of us was her and daughter and she said, "Hmmm, not you..." pointing to Rebekah. In all fairness, Linne certainly fits right in with the Smith side of the family. Afterwards we went out to eat and yummy healthy pasta place. I was sitting there eating zoodles thinking, "See? I do like healthy food! I just need to get this chef lady to live at my house!" Later on when Lucina made Spaghetti and homemade bread all thoughts of zoodles and calories were pushed aside, though none of us enjoyed it quite as much as Samara and Rory. The best was watching Rory steal noodles off of Samara's plate every time she ran out.
In general, Rory stayed very well fed the entire time we were there and she picked up some new tricks along the way. She could walk up to their fridge, yank it open, and announce, "I so hungry." I would also consistently find her in the pantry, crawled up on the ladder and reaching for whatever she could find to snack on. This girl.
One of the best parts of every St George trip is the time we are able to spend at Rockville, and this trip was no exception. We were able to hang out for a few days just the three of us, but before that the whole crew went up to help with cleaning and irrigation. The kids LOVED splashing in the puddles, throwing rocks into the water, and eating tons of apples right off the tree. Well, starting to eat tons of apples. They would take several bites of one before the urge to toss it into the water became too strong, at which point they would do so, squeal with delight, and then come find me to pick them another apple. We also built a fire to make s'mores together. I made Rory the perfect s'more only to have her take one bite and then leave it on a rock for later so that she could go play in the water more.
One of our other cousin adventures was to the dinosaur park. I'm not sure what the real name of it is, but this place is insane. They have a huge rock formation splash pad and tons of cool toys. If it had been even a little bit cooler we could have stayed a lot longer but as it was Rory mostly wanted to drink the yucky water so we did not last long. It was so fun going to parks and things like we normally do, but getting to have Stephen there to experience it with us. Rory is at such a fun stage and she cracks us up all the time.
Linne put on a cousin camp while (almost) everyone was there and it turned out adorable. The first activity was coloring with race cars and it was a huge hit, even with the older kids. After that we went outside to make some colorful chalk bombs. The kids were enthralled with watching the bags inflate until they burst, each a different vivid color. We rounded out the day with some Oreo dirt cups for dessert and as you can tell by the messy faces we were left with some pretty satisfied kiddos. I had to include the one picture I got of Samara hitting Rory because Rory was a total beast to Samara the whole time and the ONE time Samara did anything back to her I managed to get it on camera. After camp, we stayed and chatted for a while the kids played. Rory discovered Madi's guinea pig, Snowflake and became totally obsessed.
Also, here are some obligatory pictures of Rory and Samara in the bathtub. I can't wait for the day when these two will actually be friends instead of frenemies.
We took a few days to go to Rockville with just our little crew in the middle of our trip and it was so much fun it deserves its own post, so I will jump to after our time in Rockville. Our last day there, John, Lucina, and Kenzie came up to help with the cleaning and do irrigation. Rory and Kenzie played in the car while we all worked and I kept coming out to find the two of them jamming out to a song or doing something mischievous together. Kenzie and Rory are so funny to watch together because they somehow treat each other as equals. You can often hear them arguing, which cracks me up all the time, but they also totally love to play together. They got a lot of good quality time together while I was at girls camp and I'm glad for the bond they now share. We all went out to lunch at Oscar's (and any week that includes eating at Oscar's twice is a great week by my standards). We went out on a limb and ordered the brownie dessert, since we already had a carrot cake in the fridge from the night before, and it turns out it is HUGE. When they brought it out to me, John laughed so hard at the absurdity of such a large dessert. Luckily for me, most of the group was more than happy to help me demolish it, and now we can definitively say that the carrot cake is the best dessert at Oscar's. Knowledge is power.
Here are Kenzie and Rory walking to church together. The Marsh's ward started late in the afternoon, not an ideal time for a toddler, and so Rory was NOT having anything to do with nursery. She did love playing with Kenzie and her cousins during Sacrament meeting though.
Rory also loves eating anything that Grandma makes and her happiest times seem to be sitting in her high chair in Lucina's kitchen. One of the best parts was that every time she sat down to eat, Jackson the dog would make his way over to her chair knowing that Rory would be more than happy to share her meal with him. Besides eating grandma's delicious food, Rory loved picking tomatoes out of Poppop's garden and eating them on the spot. Sometimes she would just inform me that she was going to find "matoes" and then would try with all her might to open the back door leading out into the backyard garden.
We made a plan while we were going to have extended time in St George to celebrate our nieces birthdays with them. We always try to send a card, but we thought it would be nice to make some personal memories with them and get to be the fun aunt and uncle for once (take that John and Ashleigh! :) ) We let each girl pick whatever activity she wanted to do and we had the best time with each of them.
Madi went first and for her special birthday treat she wanted to go shopping- a girl after my own heart! When I asked Linne if it was ok that we take her, she kindly warned me to prepare myself because Madi's shopping stamina was the stuff of legends. Little does she know, I was raised by a shopping master! We went to the mall and let Madison browse whatever store looked interest to her. We started in Crazy 8 and watched her oooh and aaaaah over every clothing item they had. When she saw their shoe section she about lost her mind and immediately began trying on everything in her size. I gave her a $20 limit on spending and we spent a lot of time doing shoe math. She found a pair she LOVED and was about to blow her whole budget in the first store, but she decided that it might be a good idea to just keep them in mind and look around at some other stores. As soon as we saw the Claire's in the mall, Madi's eyes went big and she said, "Never mind about the shoes!" as she ran inside. I think we scored every inch of that store to make sure she found just the right thing and we had the best time. Madison chose some beautiful accessories and even picked out a pack of earrings to share with Sydney and Kenz. Afterwards we stopped at Cold Stone where I was able to talk Madison into getting a Cotton Candy ice cream/ gummy bear combo as opposed to her original mint ice cream/ bubblegum. We had the best time together. When we got home we piled all the girls into our car to take Madison and Sydney home and of course we just HAD to stop at the puppy store on the way. The girls loved playing with Kenzie's favorite husky and Rory spent the entire time finding stools to drag to the displays so that she could play like her older cousins and say, "Hi puppy!" to every single dog.
For Kenzie's birthday treat she chose to go to Fiesta Fun, an arcade with bowling, bumper boats, and lazer tag. She and Stephen kicked off the birthday adventure with a round of lazer tag, in which Kenzie outscored Stephen. Thankfully, they made it out alive and their team even won! After that, we charged up our Fiesta Fun cards and played as many games as we could. Kenzie couldn't steer herself away from the 'big winner' games and kept feeling like she was, "thiiis close" to winning 1,000 tickers. Stephen set a record on the basketball game and earned her a pretty respectable amount of tickets. As he played the game, he was so on fire that he drew a crowd of impressed teenagers, and I stood there with a smug look on my face and was like, "Yeah, that's my man." Leave it to an arcade to make you feel like a high schooler again. We played tons of games and when it was time to turn in our tickets Kenzie had racked up quite a bit. She was able to get some fun things for herself and extra rings to share with Sydney and Madi. Right as we left there was an insane downpour outside. Stephen offered to pull the car up to the curb for us, but running through storm added to our fun adventure with Kenz.
Last, but never least, Sydney chose to go see a movie for her birthday treat. Hotel Transylvania 3 had just came out, so I left Rory with Lucina and Sydney and I got an afternoon at the movies. Sydney got a snack pack with popcorn and treats and was the best movie date ever. We both really enjoyed the movie. Afterwards we stopped by the puppy store where we agreed that if we could by any puppy, we would have bought this little guy right here. Sydney was the sweetest and kept holding my hand and telling me how much fun she was having. My favorite part was hearing her talk about her friends and how she hopes when she is a teenager she won't act mean.
On one of our last nights we got to sneak away for a date night with Linnate and check out one of St George's escape rooms. It was a Harry Potter theme and while the company was fantastic the room itself was a STRUGGLE. They had some really cool elements, like a wand that would open certain doors and things when you "cast a spell" by moving it in a certain way, but for the most part it was pretty poorly organized. There was some girl speaking in a bad fake British accent over an intercom giving us answers and clues the entire time, because the clues didn't make enough sense to be figured out on there own. At one point there were buttons on the wall that each played a different musical note when you pushed them. We had to figure out how to play "The Entertainer" by pushing those buttons in a correct order in the right amount of time which pushed my frustration levels to an all time high. In the end we should have made it out of the room with time to spare, but the last spell mechanism was broken and a worker had to come get us out.
Right before we returned home we were able to watch Kenzie in her musical theater camp performance. She is such a good little performer and did a great job on her solos in "I Won't Grow Up" from Peter Pan. Rory was enthralled, but also pretty upset that she couldn't get up and dance with the kids. Afterwards we all enjoyed one last meal at Red Robins all together.
We love escaping from the heat and spending time together as a family, but most of all we love spending every day in Grandma's pool. It was a great July.
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