Tolman Family: August 2015 - A Lot of Family Time

Monday was a calm day, Pat went to work, and the kids and I just chilled at home. Melody is really

loving bubbles lately, so Mara took her and Jaina outside to blow bubbles in their pj's.

Xander has been playing on a server of Minecraft called Mineplex. While there he can play games

against other players and even meet up with friends on it, so they can play together. He has been

able to play it with his friend Trey and even Max! He and Max will facetime each other on their

iPods while they play so they can talk to each other. It's really cute and I love that they are

finding things that they have in common and building a stronger bond.

Melody has figured out how to make us take her outside. She begins by trying to put her shoes on, which

gets me involved by helping her. She will then find my shoes and bring them to me, and she'll find the

shoes of anyone else that's home and take them to the person. Once we have our shoes on, she'll say

"hold you" so I will pick her up. Then she will point to the back door and say "outside" with a big grin on

her face. And who can say no to a sneaky little one. She loves to play on the little slide that came from

Grandma & Grandpa's house. Here she was peeking out the little window and saying "peek a boo".

She will sit at the top of a slide and say "three, two, one, go!" or "ready, set, go!"

After the slide it done, she usually goes into the garage and tries to pull the water table out,

so we end up putting it on the grass, filling it up and letting her play.

Pat thought it was funny to see her hair go crazy from the wind from the AC.

We had planned an evening to go to the pool, but we didn't want to go to Seven Peaks, so the kids decided

on the Payson Pool. Whenever we make plans we will invite Morri, Lana & Gwen's families to join us. With

life the way it is, it's usually Morri's family that comes with us. On this day, the sky was starting to get

really grey but we went swimming anyway. We headed into the lazy river which is a really nice one,

because the bottom is lined with rubber, so your feet don't get all scrapped up. It's always nice to go

places with other people because they love to hold and play with Melody, and she loves them too!

These girls were so excited to swim together.

Karri had let me borrow her camera, so I took advantage of that everywhere we went.

Oh how Jaina loves the water slides!!

On top of the play area, there's a bucket that fills up with water. After a few minutes,

a bell rings and then it tips over. It's hard to tell, but in this picture Pat was sitting in

the water with Melody and Xander, while Morri was standing with Mara.

After being in the splash area Melody was really nervous every time

the bucket emptied, and this is what she looked like while watching it go.

This time Pat, Melody and Xander were standing in the big part.

The weather was starting to get windy and cold, so we stayed in the water as much as possible.

Here's Xander in the wake of the water.

Xander's first underwater selfie!

They had to clear the pool because they saw lightning, so we decided to be done and go get some dinner.

We tried One Man Band Cafe. We had never been before, so it was an interesting experience.

It's just one person that prepares all the food, so it takes FOREVER, but it was really yummy!

I don't think we'll be back, unless we don't have the kids with us.

August 14th

Pat's cousin, Cody Ridley, got married so we went to Brigham City for the reception. We caravaned

with Morri & Liza which was really nice. But it took us forever to get there because of all the traffic

and construction at the point of the mountain. We had put the DVD player in the car since we knew

it was going to be a longer drive, to keep the kids happy. Sadly it didn't work too well for Melody.

Right as we were coming into Salt Lake, Melody threw up all over herself and her blanket. So we

got off and went to a Wendy's to get dinner and get her cleaned up. I had only brought pj's with me, which were long sleeved, so I put her in them temporarily. It ended up that the Wendy's was gross and

full of people, so I got her cleaned up and we were back on the road. It was 101 degrees outside and

I knew Melody would be miserable in her warm pj's, so we stopped off at Walmart so I could buy her a new

dress. I was in luck to find a dress for $5, another one for $3 on clearance and some summer pj's for

$3 on clearance. We then found a McDonald's to eat at, and had met up with Gwen & Doug also. So I got

her changed and we ate dinner. It was a crazy start to the evening, but the rest of the night wasn't too bad.

The reception was up at a house on the hill overlooking Brigham City and it was a really beautiful view.

Melody didn't want to stay in place very much, so I ended up following her around most of the night.

There was a pond in the front of the house that Jaina wondered over to. We couldn't find her

for a few minutes and got worried, but Pat found her here, throwing rocks into the pond.

Here's a view of the Brigham City Temple.

Kinda tricky, but you can see the temple between mine and Pat's heads.

We did a lot of wandering around with these two girls all night, even with

cousins to play with, they were still 'bored' and wanted to explore.

It was nice to spend the evening with family and to help celebrate Cody and Kapri's wedding.

I didn't take any pictures of the newlyweds, but I did get one of us with the temple in the background. Luckily, the drive home wasn't as bad but we got home after 11 pm. So we were exhausted.