California Vacation!

we had ONE last week of summer break to play, so my sister Jill and I loaded up the 

kids and went to go see Witney on SYTYCD and play in California!

{Cory and Boston had football and they didn't want to leave}

we had the BEST weather and had so much fun playing at the Beach & Univeral Studios! 

We LOVE the beach!

we brought our cute little McCall to help out with the kids too.

Our first day we went to Santa Monica Beach and enjoyed the whole day

basking in the sun and finding sand crabs!  Of course we hit up our beloved 

"Togo's" sandwich stop {a must eat while in cali}

then that night we headed over to Universal Studios!  our hotel was "lowe's" in Hollywood and 

was seriously 1 mile from the park, so we HAD to go that night and the next day!!

it was SO hot that day but it didn't stop us from having fun.  

my kids LOVED jurassic Park,  i even snuck ivy on and she loved it.  It is so animated 

with dinosaurs and sooo cool!  Luckily it was a water ride so we did that a few times.

we saw all sorts of awesome characters and even took the Hollywood Tours to 

show you how they make the movies!  we saw the set of Jaws, and plenty more.

it was actually very cool!

our view from our hotel room.

Universal Studios!

Hayes was pumped to get a picture with the real "bumble bee"  

also that was possibly our most favorite ride there.

Transformers!

she was SO excited to see Dora!

miss 3 was tall enough for Transformers, but not for Jurassic park!  she went anyway. haha!

the set of Jaws!

Desperate Housewives... Wysteria lane

cooling off while leaving Universal!

that next evening after our 2nd day of universal, we met up with the Kelley's and Witney for some shopping and dinner!  We were all so excited to see Witney and her apartment was a block away from our hotel.   we cruised the Hollywood stars and it was very interesting! haha!

Miss Olivia with her Namesake!  I have always loved Olivia Newton John

since i was little and always LOVED her name! 

everyone so excited to hang out and eat dinner with Witney!  The show was the next
 night so she got to spend the evening with us.  

Before we went to the Rehearsal show of SYTYCD at ABC studios, Jill and I along with London and Sheraka spent a lunch date at "the American Girl Doll" store and Cafe!  

This was a Bucket list item for me!  Lunch with my girls and their American girl dolls!

SO precious!

i love how excited they were to have their doll sit next to them in a booster.  It was 

seriously so cute.  Ivy loved every moment of that lunch!

the lunch was so cute and even the dessert was adorable.  This was magical and 

so worth it!

at the table they had cute little conversation questions that the girls would ask us.  

so darling.

liv with kanani

 Kit & Ivy

look how adorable the dessert is!

after lunch we met up with the boys and shopped around for a bit  until the rehearsal show started! 

 i love the Grove for shopping and they have the best farmers market! 

delicious!

here we are just finished watching the show then later went to the live show 

and it was INCREDIBLE!  It was such a great experience and night.... 

because lindsay and witney both made the Top Ten!

whoop whoop!!

while eating we were voting away!  ha

it was exhausting... we even wore out little ivy! 

Highland Fling...

this summer our little family made a summer bucket list! one of the things that

was on the bucket list was to run a race together! sadly, no one was excited to do this race

that day except ivy!  she is seriously my little runner in the family! haha!

we all woke up early and ran the races.  the kids ran the 1 mile race and they 

all did awesome!

i love that ivy ran the whole time.  she made me so proud!

after the race we met up with the skousens and watched the parade and then 

went and played on all the blow up bounce houses and ate bbq!

last days of summer...

I let the kids pick what they wanted to do before school started.  Boston got himself a one on 

one date with his mama.  We had fun, we went to chick fil A for lunch and finished up 

some school shopping.  then he requested some golfing.  

We played all summer at lots of pools but we loved alpine country clubs pool the best. 

 It's close and they hava a fun little kids pool along with a big pool with diving board 

and slide for the older kids.

olivia and hayes wanted to go to the "beach park"Ha!   It's a new park in Pleasant grove where

they have a little lake with lots of sand.  it's actually very cool and wasn't too crowded when we went.

they also picked snoasis for a snowie!

we love the Lindon pool.  This year was fun for us, because livi and hayes can actually do

 everything by themselves.  They have a lazy river, waterslides and it's all reachable! 

 loved it there!

boston was plenty entertained on the flowrider.  He loves that thing!

alpine country club with cousins is always the best!

the twins finished up a summer season of Crossfit kids! I absolutely loved watching 

them do what cory and I love!  They did hard stuff too!  

Boston continues enjoying crossfit during football season.  

It has definitely has helped them in all their skills!

Hayes did his first pull up!

final swim meet of the season.

It was such a fun swim season this year!  Boston took 1st or 2nd in most of the 

meets and Olivia and Hayes... well they placed up to 15th place.  

Since their were only 5 boys in hayes' division competing he got medals and trophies.  

Olivia had about 20 girls in her division so she got some ribbons. 

the last swim meet of the year was so awesome. they gave trophies to the top 12th places. 

 So all of my kids got trophies.  They felt so awesome!

it was the twins first year and they loved it.  Can't wait til next year to see how 

they progress.  Since Ivy is officially swimming on her own now,  

she may be the 

next one on the swim team.

getting brother ready to swim freestyle.

 the last meet actually went until 10pm!  Luckily Boston and Cameron got back in time

 from football practice to finish their last 2 events.  

They were busy this day! ha

Hayes excited to get his 5th place medals! 

the Taylor Farm...

This last spring the kids got some chickens for Easter!  we loved getting our baby chicks and 

couldn't wait to get some eggs!  these chickens are the easiest pets ever!

we planted a garden and painted our new chicken coop this spring too.

well 6 mo. later we finally got some EGGS!  You could imagine the excitement 

from these kiddos!  especially from mom and dad!  

so exciting.

now we get 5 eggs a day. It's wonderful.

we feel like farmers in highland. haha!

the lakehouse!

We love the Lakehouse! My sister has a house on lake Couer d' Alene.  It is so beautiful there! 

we go every year with all the Johnson cousins.  It was fun to have Dad & Madge show up too.

my kids look forward to this trip every summer.  Uncle Steve even set up the Trampoline 

which was a HUGE hit for the kids, especially the older ones. haha!

Rachel is the ultimate Hostess, she makes the BEST food and has plenty of crafts and treats

for everyone to stay busy and have so much fun!

on Sunday we had our first annual Cousins Church.  we did our own lesson and the kids all had to 

say a scripture or talk.  Ivy memorized the scripture from the Taylor family reunion 

and did such a good job.  It was adorable!

then we played family feud which ended up being quite competitive! ha!

i love these pictures. I take so many, but these are just a few of the fun times that we had!

 we went wakeboarding, skiing, jet skiing, tubing {crazy scary tubing} and had ping pong tournaments.

it was a blast!

i miss it already, can't wait to go back next summer!!

"So You Think You Can Dance"

My adorable and Talented niece witney made the top 20 for 

SYTYCD!!  whoop whoop!

It has been an absolute blast watching her perform her dances in front 

of millions of viewers.  The girl is AMAZing and it's so awesome to see her

succeed in what she loves.

follow her on fb and twitter so see more of Witney!

the girl can dance!!!

GO Wit!

BYU Lacrosse camp

After Boston's birthday that following monday was the BYU Lacrosse camp.  He was so excited to 

go and play for 4 days and stay in the dorms {budge hall} with a roommate and everything.

My friend susan had signed up her son Cason so he and Boston got to be roommates.

They had so much fun.  Boston's friends zack and jake were there too, across the hall.

Boston said it was the best week of his life.  

I still can't believe my boy is old enough to stay over night at BYU! 

 It was possibly the hottest week of 

the summer to, so i was so worried he was going to get dehydrated.

He got to eat at the cannon center all the time.  He took some pictures on his phone of all the 

food there and said he was in heaven! haha

love that he learned so much and had such a great time with his buddies.