the murrays: Summer at Home- Utah County Good Times

Here are our adventures close to home. And at home. We had fun with Murray cousins using Maris' new slip and slide!

Got to have snowcones with Uncle Derek when he was in town for a wedding,

Watched Team USA in the Women's World Cup with Whitney's soccer team....which dissolved into hilarious superhero dress-up

Megan and Camille

Ruby and Brooklyn

We took swimming lessons of course. The first year without Katelyn though; she had already done level 6 twice.

This year Whitney rocked level 6, she can even do the butterfly! She is thinking about doing swim team next year.

Owen trying to float with 0% body fat, poor boy! He improved his swimming a lot, doing level 3 again.

Maris skipped level 1 and went right to level 2. She did awesome and is almost ready to retire her floaties.

A random Come Follow Me lesson where we dressed up.... the Resurrection one? I think so. Owen loved being a soldier at the tomb.

One more of Owen's games apparently! running to first after a hit.

On the 4th of July weekend Connor and Jenae were in Utah and we got to hang out at Salem Pond.

It was really fun!

Their first sandcastle together. :)

Here's Whitney on the new paddleboard Eric gave me that day for an early birthday present! I had been wanting one, it was a great surprise!

Then for Eric's birthday I got him pickleball paddles. We have had fun playing as a family a couple of times, and Eric and I went at 6am once a week in the summer to play together. It was awesome, I can't wait to do it again.

Maris the cutie graduated from Upstart Preschool. She worked hard and I am so proud of her! She made SO much progress, learning most of the letters and their sounds and a few sight words.

Also we enjoyed our Springville Rec Center passes a couple of times. Here's Whit and the little girls getting warm.

Eric started working at the temple! So I go and do a session while he's working. It has been a blessing for our family.

Playing motorboat together at the Provo pool! I love when they all play something together.

For years I have been trying to win tickets to a taping of Studio C, and I finally did!! Right when they got an all-new cast :( But it was still really cool to see it in production. You were supposed to be 12 but we snuck Whitney in!

And Eric and I went to our first rodeo, after living in South County for 12 years!! Haha he got the tickets for free from work. It was pretty entertaining.

Cute Emma.

Lots of playdough time.

We went to Thanksgiving Point one time with Grandma...and decided to pay the extra and get a membership for the year! It has been really fun!

This section is called "things I saw while running". This summer, like at the end of June, on a whim I decided to run a marathon in August. Luckily I was already up to 10 miles, so I was able to pull it off. It was a lot of fun because I was able to get up super early several times a week and run before the kids were up, in the perfect temperature and beautiful sunrise times!
Here you can see the crescent moon up on the right.

Also I saw Mater lol

Sunrise by our pond

This was awesome. Whitney played in a tournament in Orem and Jonathan came to watch and made this sign!! It made her smile during the game, which is hard to do! And she took and made 2 penalty kicks for her only goals of the season, so that was pretty sweet.

Owen looking adorable in a new suit.

Maris and Emma looking adorable in matching hairstyles and dresses! Emma's hair is finally growing a little!

And again matching, at Thanksgiving Point in a cool choose-your-own adventure maze thing.

Donny and Christine finally came home from 2 years in Japan!! It was so fun to see them on their way up to Idaho for Donny to become a professor!

Cute cousins Evelyn, Maris, Emma, Claire and Olivia.

Katelyn sang in a choir this summer and started learning to sing in parts, so exciting!

Silly Emma climbing on the trash can.

My race was amazing, and I already wrote all about it in my journal so I'm not going to repeat. Suffice it to say, I totally shocked myself and beat my old PR from when I was 21 years old and hadn't had 5 kids! And I qualified for Boston....and we are going!!! yay!!!

Me after running a 3:27:07 Marathon! 3rd in my age group, 9th woman overall.

Me and my cute friend Reese that I met around mile 7 and we paced each other the rest of the way almost. It was AWESOME having her there to keep me fast!

Loving life at mile 21! Mile 15-20 were the funnest ever as we sprinted down the steepest part of the course.

Ready to be done at the finish line! The last 3 miles were the hardest thing I have ever physically done.

About to cry because I did it!! I guess motherhood has taught me a little about endurance and strength! And the 10+ half marathons I have done in the last 14 years were good training for the full marathon.