New grand baby and a couple graduates

    We had a lot happen this week! First, Brock had his 9th grade dance and got real dressed up and snazzzy!

 

Photo shoot!

Impromptu corsage and photo opt with cute Ada.

    Then the grand-babies came up for Saturday pancakes with the neighborhood friends.

Yum!

    I went on a tour of our upcoming girl's camp site with a few of the other leaders and the water is really rip-roaring through the camp.

 

 

    Then the grand-babies had a photo shoot while the cute neighbor girls were babysitting them. 

Harley's such a cheeser.

Cute girls!

    Carter played assistant mechanic to his girlfriends dad and Greg as they started the process of changing the clutch on his Mazda pickup. Talk about a big project!

 

 
    

A quick photo of cute Harley Sunday night on a friends motorbike.

    

    Then Tuesday, Kayli finally was induced to have baby #3. It was scheduled for Monday the 22nd but she got bumped until the next day. Cute Elliot was here quick and 'easy' by 2 p.m. on the 23rd, weighing in at 7 lbs. 10 oz. and 20 inches long. She's a keeper!

Breathtaking!

 Elliot Renn Wendel, welcome to the world!

 

We brought our good friend, Gina, to the hospital to meet Elliot and she was in newborn heaven.

 Greg met her later that day and she filled her diaper, which explains the grimace in the bottom left photo.

 

    Then Brock got to do a little fishing with his Teachers quorum and he caught a real 'monster'.

 

    Wednesday McClane graduated from 6th grade & elementary school! We only have two more years at the elementary school and I can't wait!

Doing the gritty while he heads down the aisle.

Good Job, Mick!

 

    Then a few more people got to meet Elliot for the first time, including her big sisters.

She's not going to be smothered, not one little bit.

    Then the big day for Carter! High school graduation! Finally! Happy day!! Four out of seven with high school diplomas, what a feat! And 'only' 3 more to go!

Carter with neighborhood buddies, Julien and Jacob.

Good Job, Carter!

Wait, Greg graduated too?!

Some of Carter's biggest fans and supporters.

    Wow, if you made it this far, good job! That was a lot in one short week! I promise next week won't be quite as full and 'photo-slammed' as this week. 

    Now on to summer break, Young Men camp, and a three day weekend to start it all off!

Some Hamlet, rainbows, friends, etc.

    We stopped by an older friends home over the weekend so Greg could do a little sprinkler project for her and she had this gem (below) hanging up in her shop. Rotary phones, what a throwback!

Talk about going 'way-back'! Sadly it's no longer hooked up but still fun to see.

    Then there was a puzzle project Sunday that took over the lives of a few of the kids and neighbors. I wanted nothing to do with it, but they had fun and managed to piece it together. Pretty cool puzzle but definitely non-traditional!

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

    McClane played Laertes in his 6th grade class play this past week. He did a great job and seemed to enjoy himself.

 

 

    We had several thunderstorms and rain-showers this week and were rewarded with an amazing double rainbow.

 

    And in case you don't know, Charlie is nearly always with her second family and best friends. Thankfully they send photos regularly so we know she's alive and well.

 

    Another week of fun! Only 4 more full days left of the school year, seven days until Carter's graduation ceremony and three days (or less) until baby Elliot joins the ranks. Lots of fun to look forward to!

Early celebrations!

    Last Saturday we celebrated Harley's 2nd birthday a little early. She doesn't know it's not her birthday and Kayli would rather have the party done before baby #3 arrives and I don't blame her. It was a fun party and Harley was spoiled. Happy unofficial birthday to the cutest, nearly 2 year old, Harley!

 

  

    And our ward youth leaders celebrated all the graduating seniors in the ward this week with a really nice dinner and fun slide show honoring all the seniors. We can't believe we're going to have a 4th child graduated from high school in just a couple weeks!

Carter is graduating!! Doesn't he look excited!?

    There's been other fun things this week, like a lovely facial that Kayli treated me to. (She actually won a giveaway that included facials for two and she kindly invited me to join her.) I got to attend a bonus "Hope of America" production with my neighbor and her kids. I really love that program, so much so that I was willing to head into busy traffic and crowds. It was awesome as always. And of course we've had lots of time on the porch with friends and ice cream gatherings.

    Also, I'm not going to put the link here, but if you have a minute and are at all interested in hearing a couple of our neighbors go on and on about how much they love our family you can search on YouTube or podcast app for Unfiltered Summit Sisters, titled, Grug and Shirley. It was a little awkward for me to listen to but also really sweet and kind of them and we are happy to support them with their podcast and just in their lives in general.
    So there you have it!

Prom and more birthday fun.

    Lots of fun things! As always, a fun start to a Saturday begins with Fiiz! And bonus, we had Beau, Harley and Kayli join us.

Beau, Harley, Charlie and Kat.

    Carter attended his last prom with his cute girlfriend and several other good friends.

 

 There are no words!

Cute group!

Carter and Rachel!

 

 

      Random selfie of Charlie.

 

    Sunday we celebrated Mark's 23rd birthday.

 

He was really diggin' the Pink Floyd hat.

Another yummy chocolate Costco cake! 

Harley is a true character!

Cute girls!

And this is just a few of the kids that like to play in the backyard after eating their fill of homemade ice cream.

    It was a lot of fun for the weekend. We've also spent some time on the porch hanging out with neighbors/friends throughout the week but I never think to take photos. We sure are blessed to live amongst some of the best people and surrounded by the most gorgeous mountains!

Birthday and Pope's

    We're back to making ice cream on Sunday nights and the people are showing up in droves. We love it!

 Second Sunday night of the year with 6 different ice cream flavors.

    Carter's 18!! It's hard to believe it was 18 years ago when I was forced to have a C-section to get this 'chubby' kid out into the world. I slept through the whole delivery and have a pretty great scar I've been sporting all these years. Totally worth it! He's fun!

Drinks and balloons to start the day.

He was surprised to get a gift since the big gift was a month off from paying his car insurance. Not photographed are the cool shoes Rachel got him and a few other fun things.

Best decision he made for his birthday, Costco's delicious chocolate cake!

    Greg and I attended the temple and did an endowment session for the first time in, literally, years. It was great and horrible all at the same time so I had to treat myself to one of my favorite things, white spinach queso from Chili's.

Man I love this stuff!

    And McClane did some research on the Pope for school and presented his work for his fellow classmates and parents today. His 'outfit' may have been thrown together 20 minutes before school, what are you going to do?!

I guess the Pope throws gang signs.

    Not photographed was the visit from my cousin Andrew who stopped by for a couple nights while making his way to Indiana. We enjoyed his visit and hope he does great things in his future endeavors. We also spent many hours on the porch visiting with friends nearly every evening and indulged in a few treats along the way.
    It's been a week with some serious downs and ups. Life is always waiting to throw you a curve ball or two. We feel blessed to have such great people in our lives who we can confide in and who in turn pray for us and bless us beyond what words can express. Life can't always be what you want but we're willing to take what comes our way and learn and grow from it. Let God prevail!

Shattered and groomed

    Some day, maybe, the real story will be revealed, but for now Brock is sticking to the B.B. gun ricochet to explain the shattered sliding glass door in my bedroom. We weren't home when it happened so, for now, we only have his word to go on. Thankfully it's only one layer of the glass so for now we'll just clean up the broken glass and see about fixing it sometime this summer.

 

    On the same Saturday Brock shot B.B. guns, the priests and older young women got to go shotgun shooting west of Utah lake and it was a fun morning. Carter brought his girl, Rachel, and shot plenty of 12 gauge, a little 20 gauge, 410 and then the last big gun, our neighbors assault rifle. It was a fun time with only one minor mishap. Lets just say, we're glad one young girl came home with both feet intact. (Yikes!) And then our Bishop treated us all to pizza.

 

    Then Thursday evening our neighbor/friend, Scott and his wife, Eliza, took us to this cool place so Greg could get his beard groomed and haircut and there was even a little waxing involved. And, bonus, I got a nice massage while I was waiting for Greg. It was such a fun night and this place was so cool. It's in downtown Salt Lake and very incognito. You go through a delivery door and down some very sketchy hallways and then you're in this really cool basement 'clubhouse'. It's hard to explain, but our friend Scott is a member and can bring friends to enjoy the services and we're just thankful he so generously brought us and Greg is looking pretty sharp and was feeling pretty pampered.

Thai for dinner that we got to eat at the bar in the clubhouse.

Cool barber spot and Mel was amazing.

We talked him into the waxing and I don't think he regretted it.

Check out these crazy hallways we had to go down.

Pretty cool!

    And Charlie got to participate in the 4th grade County Fair. She was responsible for researching Grand County. Fun stuff!

 

    So there's a few highlights from this week. There were other fun things, like our first ice cream social of the year. We didn't have a lot of ice cream but we're just getting started. We did have plenty of friends and neighbors show up so I'm glad I had brownies and cookies to offer in addition to the couple of buckets of ice cream. We just need the weather to be a little more Spring like!

    Now on to another weekend and hopefully some decent weather.