random summer fun... since summer's over now...

We did a bunch of other fun things this summer I wanted to document before I forget.

1. entered paintings and random sewing items in the county fair for the first time- a favorite thing I did as a child. the girls LOVED it and won $2 each for their pictures! Next year we'll enter more.

2. Went hiking so many times and loved it!

3. Took swimming lessons and went swimming a few times- SO fun with old enough children!

4. we painted outside a couple of times. who knows how she gets all that paint on her face?
kate painting a masterpiece.
5. We had a little epidemic of too-many-little-girls-in-our-bed. After a couple of weeks we stopped being lazy and made them go back to bed, and now we're mostly cured.
6. I took the girls to Thanksgiving point on $2 Tuesday. Crazy but fun. I think they liked the ice cream afterward as much as the museum. This is a Supersaurus foot.

7. I painted our bathroom orange, sweet. And Eric bought and installed this new light fixture for me for my birthday. Much better then our old super-ugly one.

8. We enjoyed a couple of parades- our hometown one is the best! So much candy, and they even throw otter pops! This picture is when I was trying to get Whitney to put some of her candy in a bag- it was all in her pockets and they were STUFFED full! Every time she tried to put more in some would fall out! She was frustrated but she REFUSED to "give" me any of her candy to put in the bag. You can kind of see her bulging pocket!
The girls and their friend Kenli waiting for the next treat to come their way!
9. We dressed Kate and Whitney in many matching outfits. :) Just love this cute picture. Whitney did her own hair.

10. We went boating for Eric's birthday, with his parents, Kurtis, and Katrina and Phillip. Good times!

Eric and the girls on the tube- Kate likes it but would still probably rather be on the beach!

I fell off 3 times, Eric zero. He did get about 6 feet of air one time when he was by himself!
Phillip "enjoying" the rain, luckily it passed over and we had mostly sun!
Katrina wakeboarding! Eric and I both tried it for the first time, it was fun! I got up a few times, but could never stay up for long. I just have no boarding experience of any kind! Phillip was good though!
thanks to Kurtis for driving the boat!

Yay for summer. Bring on the fall.

Our second sibling wedding of the summer!

August 20th was Elizabeth's wedding! Sadly I realized I don't have a picture of just the bride and groom, but they were stunning! We love KJ and think he and Elizabeth are perfect for each other. Their wedding day was great fun! Here we are waiting for them to come out of the temple:

The girls were being so cute and pose-ey, I couldn't resist taking like 25 pictures of them! Here are 3 favorites.

Our family in the wind! It started pouring rain like 10 minutes later!
The girls with Uncle Ryan and Aunt Cortnee, we had so much fun hanging out with them that day, and searching the underground parking maze for their car. Right before they got a flat tire. :) SO glad they flew out from NY though!
The growing Murray fam! I REALLY need one of these from the photographer....

I love this picture. And the boys modeling their short, medium and long hair styles.

This is how Whitney felt about photo shoots by this point.
flower girls!
Kate and Whitney got to help decorate the newlyweds' car! They were THRILLED to be ALLOWED to draw on the windows with special markers and put oreos on the car!

And the girls danced the night away to the live band! So fun! While I chatted with all of Eric's awesome aunts and cousins, they are so fun, I just love them.

with their so cute second cousin Allie, partying it up!
And then we ate some cake and went home and went to bed. Good times!! Congrats KJ and Liz!

Love those red rocks

We camped in Goblin Valley last weekend! And drank LOTS of water. It was SO fun. The rocks were a perfect playground for the girls!

Here's Katelyn right after we got out of the car at our campsite.

We immediately went to hike/play in the "Valley of the Goblins".

Our cool shadow pics!

Whitney said this was her little "bed"

Eric was climbing and jumping all over the place! I wonder where Whitney gets it from??

family pic from the valley overlook
so cute chillin by the campfire eating watermelon
The girls played on the rocks by our campsite for a couple of hours the next morning.

Then we drove to Capitol Reef and went wading in the Fremont River
Eric climbed to the top of the waterfall of course, and took each of the girls up there too, they loved it!
We made the mistake of trying to go on too many short hikes. The girls almost didn't survive this one, to the natural arch behind my head. It was cool, but not worth the seven times Whitney sat down on the trail and refused to move another inch, even if carried. She was too hot and tired! Poor girl. Kate started running on the way down, just to get done faster. Definitely gets that from me. Walking is just too slow sometimes!
Overall, an awesome vacation!!